The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c9: Chapter VII

The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c9

Language: English

Chapter VII

c9.1

The generic name for arms and armour was *silaḥ*, plural *aslaḥ* (Steingass, 693). Weapons and armour of all kinds were much prized in India, much taste and ingenuity being expended on their adornment. Every great man possessed a choice collection. The following extract describes that of the Nawāb Wazīr at Lakhnau, in 1785: — "But beyond everything curious and excellent in the Nawāb's possession are his arms and armour. The former consist of matchlocks, fuzees, rifles, fowling-pieces, sabres, pistols, scymitars, spears, syefs (long straight swords), daggers, poniards, battle-axes, and clubs, most of them fabricated in Indostan, of the purest steel, damasked or highly polished, and ornamented in relief or intaglio with a variety of figures or foliage of the most delicate pattern. Many of the figures are wrought in gold and silver, or in marquetry, with small gems. The hilts of the swords, etc., are agate, chrysolite, lapus-lazuli, chalcedony, blood-stone, and enamel, or steel inlaid with gold, called *tynashee*¹ or *koft* work. The armour is of two kinds, either of helmets and plates of steel to secure the head, back, breast, and arms, or of steel network, put on like a shirt, to which is attached a netted hood of the same metal to protect the head, neck, and face. Under the network are worn linen garments quilted thick enough to resist a sword. On the crown of the helmet are stars or other small device, with a sheath to receive a plume of feathers. The steel plates are handsomely decorated with gold wreaths and borders, and the network fancifully braided." ("Asiatic Miscellany," i, 393. Calcutta, 1795. 4to.)

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¹ Probably for *taḥ-nishānī*, inlaid with gold or studded with jems. *Koft* (beating) is gold or silver wire beaten into iron or steel.

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The fines for not producing at inspection a man’s own armour and that of his elephant (*pākhar*) were as follows (B.M. 6,599, fol. 162*a*): —

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| RANK OF OFFICER. | AMOUNT OF FINE FOR NON-PRODUCTION OF | | | | |
| | Headpiece (*Khūd*). | Body Armour (*Baktar*). | Elephant Armour (*Pākhar*). | Greaves (*Rānak*). | Harhai(?). ¹ |
| 400 | Rs. a. p. 2 0 0 | Rs. a. p. 5 0 0 | Rs. a. p. 4 0 0 | Rs. a. p. 2 0 0 | Rs. a. p. 1 0 0 |
| 350 | 2 0 0 | 4 0 0 | 3 12 0 | 1 12 0 | 0 15 0 |
| 300 | 1 12 0 | 4 0 0 | 3 8 0 | 1 8 0 | 0 14 0 |
| 250 | 1 8 0 | 3 8 0 | 3 4 0 | 1 4 0 | 0 13 0 |
| 200 | 1 0 0 | 3 0 0 | 3 0 0 | 1 0 0 | 0 12 0 |

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¹ Read *sari-asp* in B.M. 1641, fol. 37*a*, but to neither reading can I assign a meaning.

c9.6

Armour was worn by all horsemen who could afford it; nay, officers of a certain rank were required to produce it at the time of inspection, subject to a fine if it were not forthcoming. Its use was never discontinued; it was even worn by men of European descent when they entered the native service. For instance, James Skinner, writing of the year 1797, says, “as I was exercising my horse in full armour” (Fraser, “Memoirs,” i, 125); and again, “I was only saved by my armour” (*id.* 127). George Thomas, the Irish adventurer, also wore armour (*id.* 229). Nor is the use of armour entirely discontinued even to this day, as those can testify who saw the troops of the Bundelkhand States paraded before the then Prince of Wales at Agrah in January, 1876.

c9.7

The armour was worn as follows (W. Egerton, 112, note to N°. 440): — Depending from the cuirass was generally a skirt, which was at times of velvet embroidered with gold. Underneath the body armour was worn a *qabchah*,² or jacket quilted and slightly ornamented. Silken trousers and a pair of kashmīr shawls round the waist completed the costume of a nobleman of high rank. As to these quilted coats, we are told elsewhere (*Seir*, i, 624, note) that "common soldiers wore an ample upper garment, quilted thick with cotton, coming down as far as the knee. These coats would deaden the stroke of a sabre, stop the point of an arrow, and above all kept the body cool by intercepting the rays of the sun." Or as a still later writer tells us (Fitzclarence, "Journal," 143)¹: — "The irregular cavalry throughout India are mostly dressed in quilted cotton jackets; though the best of these habiliments are not, as I supposed, stuffed with cotton, but are a number of cotton cloths quilted together. This serves as a defensive armour, and when their heads are swathed round, and under the chin, with linen to the thickness of several folds, it is almost hopeless with the sword to make an impression upon them. They also at times stuff their jackets with the refuse silk of the cocoons, which they say will even turn a ball." This habit of swathing the body in protective armour till little beyond a man's eyes could be seen, gives the point to the scoffing remark of Dāūd Khān, Pannī, at the battle against Ḥusain ʿAlī Khān, fought on the 8th Shaʿbān, 1127 H. (6th Sept., 1715), that his assailant, one Mīr Mushrif, "came out to meet him like a bride or a woman, with his face hidden" (Ghūlām ʿAlī Khān, *Muqaddamah-i-Shāh ʿAlam-nāmah*, fol. 22*b*).

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² Apparently the diminutive of *qabā*, a close long gown or shirt (Steingass, 950).

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¹ Lieut.-Col. Fitzclarence was created Earl of Munster in 1831, and he is the Lord Munster referred to by Dr. Horn on p. 8 as the author of a series of questions on Mahomedan military usages. His "Journal," the work of a close observer and graphic writer, proves that he was quite competent to write for himself, and not merely "schreiben zu lassen," the history that he had planned.

c9.10

I now proceed to describe each part of the armour, *seriatim*, beginning with the helmet.

c9.11

*Khūd*, *Dabalqhah*, or *Ṭop*. — This was a steel headpiece with a vizor or nose-guard. There are several specimens in the Indian Museum; and in W. Egerton, "Handbook,"

c9.12

several of these are figured, Nos 703 and 704 on plate xiii, No. 703 on p. 134, and another, No. 591, on p. 125. *Khūd* is the more usual name, but *dabalghah* is the word used in the *Āīn* (Blochmann, I, iii, No. 52, and plate xiii, No. 43). The latter is Chaghatāe for a helmet; and Pavet de Courteille gives four forms, دبولغه, داوولغا, داوولغان (p. 317), and دولوغه (p. 322). I have only met with it once in an eighteenth-century writer (*Aḥwāl-ul-Khawāqīn*, c. 1147 H., fol. 161*b*), and then under the form of دوبلغه, *dobalghah*.

c9.13

*Ṭop*, for a helmet, appears several times in Egerton; for instance, on p. 119 and p. 125. This is apparently an Indian word (Shakes., 73), توپ, which must be distinguished from the word *ṭop*, توپ, a cannon, to which a Turkish origin is assigned. A helmet seems to have been called a *ṭop* by the Mahrattas and in Maisūr; but the word is not used by writers in Northern India. If we disregard the difference between ٹ and ت, then we can derive *ṭop*, ‘a helmet,’ and *ṭopī*, ‘a hat,’ as does the compiler of the “Madras Manual of Administration,” iii, 915, from the ordinary Hindī word *ṭopnā*, ‘to cover up.’ But I hardly think this is legitimate.

c9.14

*Khoghī*. — The next name to the *dabalghah* on the *Āīn* list, the *khoghī*, No. 53, must be something worn on the head; but there is no figure of it, and I fail to identify the word in that form. From the spelling it is evidently of Hindī origin; and a note in the Persian text has *ghokhī* as an alternative reading. Has it anything to do with *ghoghī*, a pocket, a pouch, a wallet (Shakespear, 1756), or *ghūnghī*, cloths folded and put on the head as a defence against the rain (Shakes., 1758)? The latter may point to a solution: the *khoghī*, or, better, the *ghūghī*, may have been folds of cloth adjusted on the head to protect it from a sword blow.

c9.15

*Mighfar* is defined (Steingass, 1281) as mail, or a network of steel worn under the cap or hat, or worn in battle as a protection for the face, also a helmet. It is evidently the long piece of mail hanging down from the helmet over the neck and back, as shown in N°. 45, plate xii, of the *Āīn*, vol. i, and called there and on p. 111, N°. 54, the *zīrhkulāh* (cap of mail). It was through the *mighfār* that, according to Ghulām ʿAlī Khān’s history, the arrow passed which wounded ʿAbdullah Khān, Qutb-ul-Mulk, just before he was taken a prisoner at the battle of Ḥasanpur (13th Nov., 1720), and the following verse brings in the word, as also the *joshan*: —

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*Chah yāre kunad mighfar o joshan-am,*
*Chūn Bārī na kard akhtar roshan-am.*

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“What aid to me is vizor and coat of mail,
“When God has not made my star to shine.” 1

c9.18

*Baktar* or *Bagtar*. — This is the name for body armour in general, whether it were of the cuirass (*chahār-āīnah*) or chain-mail (*zirih*) description. Steingass, 195, defines it as a cuirass, a coat of mail. See also the *Dastūr-ul-Inshā*, 228. The *bagtar* is N°. 58 in the *Āīn* list (i, 112), and is shown as N°. 47 on plate xii. From the figure it may be inferred that, in a more specific sense, *baktar* was the name for fish-scale armour. *Bargustuwān*, as Mr. H. Beveridge has pointed out to me, is a general name for armour used in the *Tabaqāt-i-Nāṣirī*, text 119 (Raverty, 466 and note); but that work belongs to a period long before the accession of the Moghuls. Steingass, 178, restricts *bargustuwān* to horse armour worn in battle: the *Aḥwāl-ul-Khawāqīn*, fol. 218*b*, applies it to the armour worn in elephants, and I have found it in no other late writer.

c9.19

*Chahār-āīnah*. — This is literally ‘four mirrors’: it consisted of four pieces, a breast plate and a back plate, with two smaller pieces for the sides. All four were connected together with leather straps. Steingass, 403, has ‘a kind of armour.’ It is N°. 50 in the Āīn, i, 112, and figure N°. 49 on plate xiii. It is also shown in Egerton, plate ix, and again on p. 144. The specimens in the Indian Museum are N°. 364 (p. 103), 450, 452 (p. 112), 569, 570 (p. 119), 587 (p. 124), 707 (p. 135), 764 (p. 144).

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¹ Muqaddamah-i-Shāh ʿĀlam-nāmah by Ghulām ʿAlī Khān, B.M. Add. 24,028, fol. 40*a*. The last line probably contains an allusion to Roshan Akhtar, the original name of Muḥammad Shāh, to whom ʿAbdullah Khān succumbed.

c9.21

Zirih. — This was a coat of mail with mail sleeves, composed of steel links (Dastūr-ul-Inshā, 228). The coat reached to the knees (W. Egerton, 125, note to N°. 591). It is N°. 57 in the Āīn, i, 112, and N°. 46 on plate xiii of that volume. There are six examples in the Indian Museum—W.E. 361, 362 (p. 103), 453 (p. 112), 591, 591 T (p. 125), 706 (p. 135). Apparently, judging from the plate in the Āīn, the baktar (fish scales) or the chahār āīnah (cuirass) was worn over the zirih. W. H. Tone, “Maratta People,” 61, note, gives a word beuta as the Mahratta name for the chain-mail shirt that they wore. I cannot identify or trace this word.

c9.22

Jaibah. — Blochmann, Āīn, i, 111, N°. 56, and his note 4, says it was a general name for armour. He gives no figure of it. Erskine, “History,” ii, 187, has jaba. Steingass, 356, says it is from the Arabic jubbat, and spells it jubah, a coat of mail, a cuirass, any kind of iron armour. The word is used in the ʿĀlamgīrnāmah, 245, l. 7: — “Tan ba zeb-i-jabah o joshan pairāstah” — “body adorned with the decoration of jabah and joshan.” It is also used in Aḥwāl-ul-Khawāqīn (c. 1147 H.), fol. 164a, in the form jaibah. Some variety of the jaibah is spoken of in the Akbarnāmah, Daftar II, p. 249, line 4 (Lucknow edition), where we are told that a Rajput of distinction in the garrison of Chitor wore a jaibah-i-hazār-mīkhī. Apparently it was covered with small studs or knobs (mīkh).

c9.23

Other items of body armour (Dastūr-ul-Inshā, 228) were the joshan, the jihlam, the angarkhah, the daghlah. In other authorities we also meet with the *jāmah-i-fatāḥī*, the *chihilqad*, *ṣādiqī*, the *koṭhī*, the *bhanjū*, and the *salhqaba*. Of the last, the *salhqaba*, *Āīn*, N°. 66, we have no figure, and I am unable to identify it, as I have never seen the word elsewhere. Other words which have defied identification are *harhai*, as I read it (B.M. 6599, fol. 162*a*; B.M. 1641, fol. 37*a*), and three articles in the *Dastūr-ul-Inshā*, p. 228, which I read *sūbī*, *malk*, and *masarī*. We have also the *kamal*, the *ghughwah*, the *kanthā-sobhā*. Finally, there were the *dast-wānah* or arm-pieces, the *rānak* or greaves, and the *mozah-i-āhanī*, a smaller pattern of leg-piece.

c9.24

*Joshan*. — This is N°. 59 of the *Āīn*, list, p. 112, and is figured as N°. 48 on plate xiii. It appears to be a steel breastplate extending to the region of the stomach and bowels. Blochmann, p. xi, calls it an armour for chest and body; Steingass translates more vaguely ‘a coat of mail.’

c9.25

*Jihlam*. — According to the dictionary (Shakes., 825), this is the Hindī for armour, coat of mail, vizor of helmet; but I do not know what was its special nature or form. Steingass, 405, has *chahlam*, a sort of armour; also *chihaltah*, a coat of mail. Kām Rāj, 58*b*, has a passage — “Mīr Mushrif came quickly and lifted his *jihlam* from his face.” This makes the word equivalent to vizor. It is not in the *Āīn*.

c9.26

*Angarkhah*. — Hindī for a coat, possibly identical with that sometimes called an *alkhāliq* (a tight-fitting coat). Probably this coat was wadded so as to turn a sword-cut. It is N°. 63 of the *Āīn*, i, 112, and figure N°. 52 of plate xiv, where we see it a long, loose, wide coat worn over the armour.

c9.27

*Daghlah* or *Daglā*. — The second of these is the Hindī form of the word. It was a coat of quilted cloth.

c9.28

*Jāmah-i-fatāḥī*. — This word is employed in the *Akbarnāmah* (Lucknow edition), ii, 89, line 3. According to the editor's note it is “a robe which on the day of battle is put on beneath the coat of mail, and on it extracts from the Qurān, such as *Annā fataḥnā*, are inscribed.” Steingass, 351, defines it as “a fine silken robe.” The coats worn by the Khalīfah’s men in the Sūdān, and now at the United Service Institution, must be specimens, as they have words embroidered or sewn on to them.

c9.29

*Chihilqad*. — This is N°. 67 of the *Āīn*, 112, and is shown as figure N°. 54 on plate xiv. Muḥammed Qāsim, *Aḥwāl-ul-Khawāqin*, 161*b*, spells it چلقت, *chalqat*. It was a doublet worn over the armour, and possibly identical with the *chiltā* or *chihal-tah*, literally forty-folds (Shakespear, 884; Steingass, 398).

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*Ṣādiqī*. — *Āīn*, 112, N°. 62, and N°. 51 on plate xiv, a coat of mail something like the *joshan* in shape, but with epaulettes.

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*Koṭhī*. — We have this in the *Āīn*, 112, N°. 61, and it appears on plate xiv, N°. 50, as a long coat of mail worn under the breastplate and opening down the front.

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*Bhanjū*. — This is N°. 64 of the *Āīn* list, i, 112, but I have never seen the word anywhere else; it must be a Hindī word, but it is not in Shakespear’s Dictionary. The only figure is the one reproduced from Langlès by Egerton, N°. 9 on plate i, opposite p. 23. This might be almost anything; the nearest resemblance I can suggest is that of a sleeveless jacket.

c9.33

*Kamal*. — This word is literally ‘a blanket,’ and from it the corps known as the *kamal-posh* (blanket-wearers) derived its name. The word seems to have had the secondary meaning of a cuirass or wadded coat, possibly made of blanketing on the outside. There were wadded coats of quilted cotton, as well as of wool, which would stand the stroke of a sabre. Some stuffed with silk refuse were considered capable of withstanding a bullet (*Seir*, i, 143, note 105). This sort of protection was very common. “Almost every soldier in the service of a native power has his head secured by many folds of cotton cloth, which not only pass round but likewise over it and under the chin;

c9.34

and a protection for the back of the neck is provided of similar materials. The jacket is composed of cotton thickly quilted between cloths, and so substantial as almost to retain the shape of the body like stiff armour. To penetrate this covering with the edge of the sword was to be done only by the practice of cutting.” (Valentine Blacker, “War,” 302).

c9.35

*Ghughwah.* — This must, from its position in the *Āīn* list, Nº. 55, be some kind of armour, but I cannot identify the word, which is of Hindī form. In plate xiii, Nº. 44, the thing is shown as a long coat and cowl of mail, all in one piece. In Egerton’s plate (Nº. i, figure 4) it is something quite different, of a shape which it is difficult to describe, and for which it is still more difficult to suggest a use. The word seems to have some affinity to *khoghī* or *ghūghī* (see *ante*). It represents the Eastern Hindī form of *ghoghā*, following the usual rule of vowel modification, thus: H. H., *ghoṛā*; E. H., *ghuṛwā*, ‘a horse.’ There being also a slight indication of the diminutive in this form, *ghughwā* would be a small *ghoghā*. There is a chain epaulette shown in one of the plates in Röckstuhl and Gille, which suggests the shape of the *ghughwā* figured by Egerton, and possibly that was its purpose.

c9.36

*Kanthā-sobhā.* — This is Nº. 70 in the list in the *Āīn*, 112, and, as we can see from figure 7 on plate i of W. Egerton’s catalogue, it was a neck-piece or gorget. Nº. 69 (*rānak*) and Nº. 71 (*mozah-i-āhanī*) are both worn by the man and not the horse; then why does Blochmann, in his note, suggest that Nº. 70 (*kanthā-sobhā*) was attached to the horse’s neck? The derivation is from *kanthā* (Shakes., 1616) a necklace, and *sobhā*, id. 1338, ornament, dress, decoration.

c9.37

*Dastwānah.* — This was a gauntlet, or mailed glove, with steel arm-piece. It is Nº. 68 of the *Āīn*, 112, and is shown as Nº. 55 on plate xiv. The specimens in the Indian Museum are Nos. 452, 453, 454, 455 (Egerton, p. 112), 568, 570 (id. 119), 587, 590 (id. 124), 745 (id. 139). Three of these are shown, two on plate xii, opposite p. 122, and one on plate xiv, opposite p. 136.

c9.38

Rānak. — In the Āīn list, 112, Nº. 69, appears the word rāk or rāg, which is quite unmeaning. When we turn to Nº. 56 on Blochmann’s plate xiv, we see that the thing itself is an iron leg-piece or greave. Now, wherever there are lists of armour in the MS. Dastūr-ul-ʿAml, I find a word راک, which is invariably shown with a fourth letter of some sort; it might be read rātak, rālak, rānak, but never rāk. As rān means in Persian the ‘thigh,’ I propose to substitute for Blochmann’s rāk the reading rānak, the diminutive ending being used to denote relation or connection, a formation like dastak (little hand), a short written order, fit to be (as it were) carried in the hand. The word rānak is not in Steingass.

c9.39

Mozah-i-āhanī. — This “iron-stocking” is Nº. 71 on page 112 of the Āīn, and Nº. 56 on plate xiv. It is a smaller form of the rānak.

c9.40

Patkah. — I find in Ghulām ʿAlī Khān, Muqaddamah, fol. 38b, an epithet پتکه پوشان, patkah-poshān, applied to both Sayyads and horse-breakers (chābuk-suwārān). It appears to refer to some part of military equipment, but what it is I do not know. It is evidently used in a depreciatory sense.

c9.41

Having enumerated the man’s defensive armour, we go on to that of the horse. The elephant armour I will leave till we come to the special heading devoted to those animals.

c9.42

Kajīm. — This is in Āīn, 112, Nº. 72 (kajem), and is shown as figure Nº. 57 on plate xiv. Erskine. “History,” ii, 187, has the form kīchīm. It was a piece of armour for the hind-quarters of a horse, and was put on over a quilted cloth called artak-i-kajīm (Āīn, 112, Nº. 73).

c9.43

The other pieces of armour for the horse were the frontlet (qashqah: Āīn, 112, Nº. 74, and plate xiv, Nº. 60) and the neck-piece (gardani: Āīn, 112, Nº. 75). Blochmann’s description of the latter (p. 112, note 3) does not seem very appropriate, as he makes it a thing which hangs down in front of the horse's chest. *Gardani*, however, is the name still applied to the head and neck-piece, the hood, of a set of horse-clothing. It is the neck-shaped piece in figure No. 58 of Blochmann's plate xiv, and is separately shown in Egerton's plate i, figure No. 3. *Qashqah* is the word used in Persian for the Hindu sect-mark or *tilak*, applied on the centre of the forehead. R. B. Shaw, J. A. S. Bengal for 1878, p. 144, gives *qashqah* as the Eastern Turkī for an animal's forehead.

c9.44

Horse trappings were often most richly adorned with silver or gold, embroidery or jewels. When so enriched they were styled *sāz-i-tilāe*, or *sāz-i-maraṣṣaʿ*. The names of the various articles are as follows (W. Egerton, 155): *paltah* (headstall) and *ʿinān* (reins), *zerband* (martingale), *dumchī* (crupper), *khogir* (saddle), *ūstak* (shabracque), *bālā-tang* (surcingle), *rikāb* (stirrups), *shikārband* (ornamental tassels at corners of saddle). The bow or pommel of a saddle was either *qarbūs* (Steingass, 963) or *qāsh* (id. 947). The former word is used by Shekh Ghulām Ḥasan, (Samīn) Bilgrāmī, in his *Tazkirah* written in 1198 H. (1783); the second, by Rustam ʿAlī, Bijnorī, in his Urdū "History of the Rohelas," written about 1803, fol. 28*a*. Niẓām-ud-dīn (ʿIshrat, Siyālkūtī) in his *Nādir-nāmah*, fol. 50*a*, speaks of *yaltang-posh* as some sort of horse equipment. I have not been able to find out what this was. The list of stable requisites can be seen in *Āīn*, i, 136.

Linked texts (1)

Ṭabaqāt-i Nāṣirī — Minhāj al-Dīn Jūzjānī