The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c9.18

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.