Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c9.s2.20

c9.s2.20

The army of the Sultanate comprised both cavalry and infantry. It had an elephant corps also. Elephants were not generally purchased. They were captured from jungles or taken as tribute from defeated rulers. Camels and ponies and other animals were also used for commissariat service. The most important wing of the army was the cavalry. And horses were costly. In India, good horses were found only in some regions like the eastern Punjab and the Salt Range, but they were inferior to the horses of the West Asian breed. This made the importation of war horses from abroad a matter of necessity for the sultans of Delhi. Medieval chronicles speak of Yamani, Shami, Bahri and Qipchaqi horses as being in use by soldiers in India, and there was large-scale importation of horses into India from Arabia, Afghanistan and even the steppe lands of southern Russia known as Tatars. According to Ibn Battutah and Wassaf their cost was high. "The good horses are worth 500 (silver) *dinars* or more." Besides making direct purchases from abroad, the sultans of Delhi replenished their *paigahs* with horses of foreign breed obtained from defeated Indian princes, particularly those with access to the sea as they imported such horses in large numbers. Gujarat and the South provided war horses in particular when, for example, the rulers of Warangal, Dwarsamudra and the Pandya kingdoms surrendered thousands of horses to Malik Kafur in the fourteenth century. The Hindu rulers of the South had imported foreign breed horses through the sea route. Wassaf says that 10,000 horses were imported annually into Mabar, Kambayat and other western Indian ports at the cost of 220 gold *dinars* each. But many times horses obtained in tribute had to be given to Muslim soldiers when their mounts got disabled in battle. Al-Umri mentions that Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq distributed to his army 10,000 Arab horses and countless others. The two great kings of the Sultanate period, Alauddin Khalji and Muhammad Tughlaq, had under their command 475,000 and 900,000 horsemen. Even Firoz Tughlaq who is said to have neglected his army, maintained extensive *paigahs*.58 The size of the cavalry varied from time to time. The Saiyyads were weak, the Lodis not so strong, but even in the provincial kingdoms of Gujarat, Malwa and Jaunpur the cavalry wing was maintained at high cost. The expenditure on Sher Shah's army too was large. He had 150,000 cavalry and the same numbers were maintained in cantonments. The infantry was 25,000 and 50,000 in garrisoning the forts. He had 5,000 elephants. "It was known that a suitable garrison was maintained in every fort in the country."59