The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c7.4

c7.4

It was to put down these evil practices that the emperor Akbar revived and enforced more strictly than before a system of descriptive rolls of men and horses, the latter being branded with a hot iron before they were passed for service. This branding, with the consequent periodical musters for the purpose of comparison and verification, formed a separate department under the *Bakhshī* with its own superintendent (*dāroghah*), and this was known as the *dāgh-o-taṣḥīḥah*, from *dāgh*, a brand, a mark, and *taṣḥīḥah*, verification. The usual phrase for enlisting was *asp ba dāgh rasānīdan*, “bringing a horse to be branded.” Branding was first introduced by ‘Alā-ud-dīn Khiljī in 712 H. = May, 1312—April, 1313, but on his death it was dropped (*Dastūr-ul-Inshā*, 233). The emperor Sher Shāh, Afghān, started it again in 948 H. = April, 1541—April, 1542. Akbar (*Āīn*, i, 233) re-established the practice in the eighteenth year of his reign (about 981 H., 1573—4), and it was continued until the time when the whole system of government finally broke down in the middle of the eighteenth century. At first many difficulties were made (*Dastūr-ul-Inshā*, 234), and evasions were attempted, but at length the system was made effective. The great nobles, holding the rank of 5000 and upwards, were exempt from the operation of these rules; but when ordered, they were expected to parade their horsemen for inspection (*Dastūr-ul-‘Aml*, B.M., Nº. 6599, fol. 144b). The technical name for these parades was محله *maḥallah* (Steingass, 1190), a word evidently connected with that used in Akbar’s time for branding, viz. *dāgh-o-maḥallī* (*Āīn*, i, 242; Budāonī, ii, 190). The germ of the *dāgh* system may perhaps be found in the practice in Transoxiana of annually branding the colts. This was done so far back as the twelfth century; see E. G. Browne on the *Chahār Maqālah* of ʿArūḍī (composed about 1161 A.D.), Journal R. Asiatic Soc. (1899), pp. 771 and 776.