The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c6.31

c6.31

Towards the end of the eighteenth century the household troops, we are told, *Seir*, i, 94, note 90, amounted to 40,000 men, all cavalry, but usually serving on foot in the citadel and in the palace. They consisted then of several corps besides the *Aḥadīs*, such as the *Surkh-posh* (wearers of red), the *Sulṭānī* (Royal), the *Wālā Shāhī* (High Imperial), the *Kamal-posh* (Blanket Wearers). Haji Mustapha is not, however, quite consistent with himself, for elsewhere (*Seir*, i, 262, note 201), when naming still another corps, the *A‘lā Shāhī* (Exalted Imperial), he asserts that the *Surkh-posh* were all infantry, eight thousand in number. The curious title used above, *Kamal-posh*, comes from the Hindī word *kammal*, a coarse blanket, having also the secondary meaning of a kind of cuirass (*Seir*, i, 143, note 105). The latter is no doubt the signification here.