Mughal weapons

Mughal weapons greatly evolved during the ruling periods of Babur, Akbar, Aurangzeb and lastly Tipu Sultan. The military of the Mughal Empire used a variety of weapons in its conquests throughout the centuries, including various types of: swords, bows and arrows, horses, camels, elephants, cannons (some of them the world's largest), muskets and flintlock blunderbusses.

Defensive armour
The generic name for arms and armour was silah, plural adah. 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.

Armour was worn by all horsemen who could afford it. Officers of a certain rank were required to produce it at the time of inspection, subject to a fine if it were not forthcoming. The use of armour was never discontinued. It was even worn by men of European descent when they entered the native service.

Armour worn by soldiers
Hanging from the cuirass was generally a skirt, which was at times of velvet embroidered with gold. A qabchal or jacket, quilted and slightly ornamented, was worn underneath the body armour. Silken trousers and a pair of kashmir shawls round the waist completed the costume of a nobleman of high rank. 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. The irregular cavalry throughout India were mostly dressed in quilted cotton jackets. The best of these habiliments were not stuffed with cotton, but made of a number of cotton cloths quilted together. This served as a defensive armour. Heads were swathed round, and under the chin, with linen to the thickness of several folds. It is difficult to do any damage to thick cotton armour with a sword blow, except by cutting. At times soldiers stuffed their jackets with the refuse silk of cocoons, which they believed would even turn a bullet.

Description of each part of body armour

Animal armour
This mainly applied to horses.

Short arms
The cavalry carried a great variety of arms. Most relied on were those styled the kotah-yaraq, or short arms, i.e., those used at close quarters. These short arms may be ranged into five classes: swords and shields, maces, battle-axes, spears, and daggers. Weapons for more distant attack were the bow (kaman) and arrow (tir), the matchlock (banduq or tufanq), and the pistol. Rockets were also used, but by the artillery (topkhanah).

All were not carried by any man at one time, but many were so carried, and, in a large army, all of them were to be found in use by someone or other. The great number of weapons that a man carried is graphically depicted by Fitzclarence, in the case of a petty officer of the Nizam's service, who commanded his escort: "Two very handsome horses with superb caparisons belong to this jamadar, who is himself dressed in a vest of green English broad cloth laced with gold, and very rich embroidered belts. A shield of buffalo hide with gilt bosses is hung over his back. His arms are two swords and a dagger, a brace of English pistols, and he has his matchlock carried before him by a servant."

Swords
They have a sort of foppery with respect to their sword-belts, which are in general very broad and handsomely embroidered. On horseback, they are worn over the shoulder, but the sword was not always carried in a belt hung from the shoulder. Sometimes the man carried his sword by three straps hanging from a waist-belt. The generic name of a sword was tegh (Arabic), shamsher (Persian), or talwar (Hindi). The Arabic word saif was also used occasionally. One kind of short sword was called the nimchah-shamsher.

The names of the various parts are, teghah (blade), nabah (furrows on blade), qabzah (hilt), jaenarela, sarnal or muhnal, and tahnal (metal mountings of scabbard), kamrsal (the belt?) bandtar. The quality or temper of a blade was its ab (water) or jauhar (lustre). The name of the belt was hamalat.

Types of blades

Shields
A shield was inseparable from the sword as part of the swordsman's equipment. It was carried on the left arm, or when out of use, slung over the shoulder. They were of steel or hide, generally from 17 to 24 inches in diameter. If of steel, they were often highly ornamented with patterns in gold damascening. If of hide, they bore silver or gold bosses, crescents, or stars. Shields were of sambar deer, buffalo, nilgau, elephant, or rhinoceros hide, the last being the most highly prized. Brahmans, who objected to leather, had shields made of forty or fifty folds of silk painted red and ornamented. The curious snakeskin (nagphanl) shield is not a Mughul weapon.


 * Chirwah and Tilwah — These were the shields carried by the Shamsherbaz, or gladiators, groups of whom always surrounded Akbar on the march.
 * Fencing Shields — These were small circular shields of cane or bamboo. With allusion to their form they were called dahl because their shape was similar to that of a lentil. The quaint implement, maru or singauta, was made from a pair of antelope horns tipped with steel and united at the butt-ends. Sainti may be classed as parrying shields.

Mace
The mace (gurz) usually formed part of the panoply of a Mughul warrior if he were of any considerable rank. The gurz is a short-handled club with three large round balls at the end. Another kind, the shashbur, or "lung-tearer", has a single round-shaped head. Other similar weapons were the dhara, the garguz and the khandli phansi. The dhara has a six-bladed head and octagonal steel shaft. It is 2 feet long, and came from Kolhapur. The garguz had eight-bladed heads and basket hilts or is seven-bladed with a basket hilt. Its length varied from 2 feet, 4 inches to 2 feet, 10 inches. The khundli phansi is 19 inches long and has a head of open scroll work.

The flail is a weapon that may be classed with the mace, along with the pusht-khar, or "back-scratcher", made of steel in the shape of a hand. The khar-i-mahi, or "fish backbone", has steel spikes projecting from each side of a straight head. The weapon called the gujbag is the common elephant goad or ankus.

Battle-axe
The battle-axe (tahar) was a triangular blade with one broad cutting edge. When the head was pointed and provided with two cutting edges, the axe was called a zaghnol, or "crow's beak". A double headed axe with a broad blade on one side and a pointed one on the other side of the handle was styled a tabar zaghnol. An axe with a longer handle, called tarangalah, was also in use. The shafts of the tabar range from 17 inches to 23 inches in length; the heads measure from 5 to 6 inches one way and 3 to 5 inches the other way. Some of the heads are crescent shaped, and one of the shafts is hollowed and contains daggers. A 'Basolah' looks most like a chisel. Highly ornamented silver axes were carried for display by the attendants in the hall of audience.

Spears
The usual generic name used for spears of all kinds was sinan. The head or point was called sunain and the butt was the hunain. There were several varieties of this class of weapon. The cavalry, however, seem to have confined itself to the use of the lance (nezah), and the other kinds were used by foot soldiers and the guards surrounding the emperor's audience hall. There is also some evidence, at any rate among the Marathas, for the use of a javelin or short spear, which was thrown.

Daggers and knives
These were of various shapes and kinds, each with a separate name.

Missiles
The three kinds of missile weapons were bows and arrows, matchlocks, pistols. The cavalry were known to be mainly equipped with the bow and the Mughal horsemen were famed for their archery. It was feigned that the bow and arrow were brought down straight from Heaven and given to Adam by the archangel Gabriel. Weapons were ranked in the following order: the dagger, the sword, the spear and the highest was the bow and arrow.

The use of the bow persisted throughout the 18th century, despite fire-arms having become more common, better made, and their handling better understood. They were also widely used by the rebels in the Indian rebellion of 1857.

The matchlock, a cumbrous and probably ineffective weapon, was left mainly to the infantry. Pistols seem to have been rareties.

Bows
Moghul bowmen were considered to be especially expert in the use of their weapons. A horseman could shoot six times before a musketeer could fire twice. Archers were called Tir-andaz (literally, arrow-throwers).

The normal mughal bow was called a kaman. It was about 4 feet long, and generally shaped in a double curve. The bow was of horn, wood, bambu, ivory, and sometimes of steel. Two of these steel bows, in the Emperor of Russia's collection at Zarkoe Selo, belonged to the emperor Bahadur Shah I (1708—1712). They bear verses in his honour and are covered with rich gold damascened work. The grip was generally covered with velvet. there can be little doubt about the design of the bows used in India, for they copied Persian models, and in fact many of the principal officers were themselves Persians.

The concave side of the bow (the convex when strung) was lined with several strings of thick catgut to give it elasticity and force. The belly was made of buffalo or wild goats' horn, jet black and of a fine polish. Glued to this was a thin slip of hard, tough wood. The ends were fashioned to represent snakes' heads. The horn was left plain, while the wooden back was decorated with rich arabesques of birds, flowers or fruit intermingled with gilding. Indian bows were also kept for show or amusement, and were also carried by travellers. They were of buffalo horn in two pieces curved exactly alike, each having a wooden tip for receipt of the string. Their other ends were brought together and fastened to a strong piece of wood that served as a centre and was gripped by the left hand. After being neatly fitted, they were covered with a size made of animal fibres, after which very fine tow was wrapped around them, laid on thin and smooth. They were then painted and varnished.
 * The notch - The end notches into which the string was fixed were called goshah, literally "corner,".
 * The string - This was called either zih or chillah. A sinew was used as a bow-string, panach or panchak. Bow strings were made of strong threads of white silk laid together until of the thickness of a goose quill. Whipping of the same material was then bound firmly round for a length of three or four inches at the centre, and to this middle piece large loops of scarlet or other colour material were attached by a curious knot. These gaudy loops formed a striking contrast to the white silk.
 * The finger stall - This was called zihgir, bow-string holder. The bowman drew with his thumb only, the bent forefinger being merely pressed on one side of the arrow nock to secure it from falling. The forefinger was pressed on the nail of the thumb to strengthen the pull without increasing the exertion. The zihgir had been invented to prevent the flesh being torn by the bow string . It was a broad ring, and according to a man's rank and means was of precious stone, crystal, jade, ivory, horn, fishbone, gold or iron. A very valuable zihgir was part of the Labor booty. Sometimes two thimbles were worn instead of a zihgir on the first and second fingers of the right hand. Upon the inside of this ring (the zihgir), which projected half an inch, the string rested when the bow was drawn. On the outside the ring was only half the breadth, and in loosing the arrow the archer straightened his thumb, which set the arrow free. Using the ring the distance to which an arrow could be shot was increased. But its use required skill and practice. The Hindus used instead a thumbstall of leather. These rings with a spare string were usually carried in a small box suspended at the man's side.

Special bows


 * Arrows - The arrow is called a tir. There were two kinds of arrow shafts, the common kind was made of reeds, and those used against tigers were made of wood. To the first kind the heads were attached by resin. In the second kind, a hole was bored and a red-hot head was forced into it. Some arrows in the India Museum are 2 feet 4 inches long. One, obtained at Luknow in 1857, was long as 6 feet and must have been used with a large bow. The names of the parts of an arrow were for the shaft, kilk (lit. reed) - for the head, sari, - for the feathers paikan. The feathers were frequently black and white mixed (ablaq). Ordinarily, the head was of steel, but the Bhils used arrowheads of bone.


 * The name for an arrow without a head was takah or tukkah. This is an arrow without a point, but with a knot at the end. Different kinds of arrows were found in India. They may be broad-headed or headless. Their heads were sometimes bent, shaped like a saddle-maker's needle. Very broad arrow heads were in use in the west of Bengal, towards Bihar. There was one of crescent shape more than four inches across at the barbs. Though they did not penetrate easily, yet when they happened to graze a limb, they cut desperately. When discharged among bodies of troops they were found to do amazing mischief. They may be broad-headed, two pointed or barbed, with a full moon or circular head, a crescent shaped head, or an almond-shaped, trident-shaped or  thorn-shaped head. The practicing arrows for this exercise have a round iron part, about four fingers long, of the size of the reed until near the point, where they are somewhat thicker, from which part they taper gradually to a sharp point. The length from the thickest part to the point is from a quarter to one inch.


 * Symbolic use of arrows - Pagan Arabs used arrows in a game of chance. Divining by arrows was forbidden by Muhammad. They may have been unfeathered, unpointed arrows. The practice, however, survived in spite of the prohibition and in 1544 we find Humayun getting into trouble with Shah Tahmasp on this account. He marked twelve of his best arrows with his own, and eleven inferior ones with Tahmasp's name, Erskine. Shooting an arrow into the air is said by Portuguese writers to have been a recognized mode of declaring war in the Vijyanagar state and Malabar. The particular instance is of 1537 at Diu, where Bahadur of Gujarat ordered an arrow to be shot into the air as a declaration of war. The gift of an arrow from the king's quiver was a security for peace. The king's quiver was also used as a symbol of authority. The Humayun in 1537 released Bahadur Shah's minstrel, and bound his own quiver round the man's loins. Clothed with this authority, every prisoner that the minstrel claimed as his relation was released.
 * Quiver - The Persian name is tarkash. It was generally a flat case, broad at the mouth, one side straight and the other sloping to a point, provided with a strap for carrying over the shoulder. This broad shape is apparently due to the fact that the quiver was used to hold the bow as well as the arrows. There must have been, however, a separate bow-cases, the qirhan, for these are named as well as the tarkash, or quiver. Of these one is of an unusual shape, namely, cylindrical. Common quivers were covered with leather, more costly ones with blue or red velvet, and these were often embroidered on one side in gold or silver. These covers sometimes were applied to strange uses. One of a slightly different quiver shape is the same width all the way down, having one side straight and the other shaped in two crescent-like curves.
 * Godhu - This leather guard was worn on the left arm, i.e., if the shooter were not in armour, and thus already provided with a mailed glove and steel arm-piece. It was a quilted half sleeve of common velvet or fine cloth that protected the arm from being bruised by the chord during its return.
 * Paikan-kash - The implement was shaped like a pair of pliers and, as its name implies, was used to extract arrow heads from the body. The tirbardar was another instrument for the same purpose.
 * Target - To secure a more perfect use of the bow and arrow it was usual to erect near an officer's tents a mound of earth into which he or his men shot a certain number of arrows every day. It was a practice of the Rajputs, but its use was general and not by any means confined to them. In a general sense the word for a butt or target, or the object aimed at, was hadaf.
 * Modes of shooting - There were twelve maxims to be obeyed. Of these three required firmness: (1) the grip of the bow held tight, (2) the forefinger kept firm, (3) the advanced foot kept firm when the arrow is let fly. Three things required easiness: (1) the left side should be kept easy (2) the left foot the same, and (3) also the other fingers. Three things required straightness: (1) the body should be erect (2) the forehead held up (3) the elbow straight. Three other things had to be observed: (1) use of one side, (2) use of one eye, (3) both hands kept in one direction. An arrow could have seven faults: (1) too wide a notch, (2) the shaft to be karm, (3) the head imperfect, (4) the head too heavy, (5) the top end and butt of the shaft hollow, (6) the shaft not straight, (7) the bow too stiff. In shooting at a horseman 200 yards off, the aim should be at his cap, if 100 paces off, at his mouth, if 50 paces, at his saddle. By so doing he would be hit in the chest. A good archer needs to practise constantly with the lezam, a bow with an iron chain instead of a string. There are three ways of gripping the bow, Changal-i-baz (literally, "Hawk's claw"), muharraf (diagonally, on the slant), marabba (square), according to the length of the shooter's fingers. The arrow should be held without moving, and the advanced foot kept flat on the ground.


 * The bow was strung by placing one end under the thigh, and with both hands bringing the other end into due position, when the string was easily slipped into the groove made for it. Thirty inches of string was a common length, though some were longer. With a new bow it required a strong hand to bring the arrow up to its head. The left hand was placed opposite the right breast, just far enough from the body to allow clear action. The butt of the arrow was pressed to the string, the fore and middle fingers of the right hand were then drawn steadily until the head was near the forefinger of the left hand. The bow was always held perpendicularly. Native archers rarely missed an object the size of a teacup at sixty or seventy yards. The hill people of Bengal were also very expert with the bow. They would lie on their back, steadying the bow with their feet horizontally, and at a distance of two or three hundred yards send the arrow through a common water pot not more than a foot in diameter. They could shoot kites flying, And indeed rarely missed their object.

Matchlock
This was the tufang. Akbar introduced many improvements in the manufacture of the matchlock. Nevertheless, up to the middle of the 18th century the weapon was looked on with less favour than the bow and arrow. The matchlock was left chiefly to the infantry, who occupied a much inferior position to that of the cavalry in the opinion of Moghul commanders. It was not until the middle of the 18th century, when the way had been shown by the French and the English, that efforts were made to improve the arms and discipline of the foot soldier.

The barrels of Akbar's matchlocks were of two lengths, 66 inches and 41 inches. They were made of rolled strips of steel with the two edges welded together. In the Deccan the introduction of the flint-lock weapon, owing to intercourse with the French and English, may have been somewhat earlier. At any rate, it is said that the 12 battalions of Gardi or infantry drilled and armed in imitation of the French sepoys, and commanded by Ibrahim Khan, Gardi, at the battle of Panipat in January 1761, carried flint-lock muskets.

The matchlock barrels were covered with elaborate damascened work, and the stocks were adorned with embossed metal work or with various designs either in lacquer, or painting, or inlays of different materials. The stocks were at times adorned with embossed and engraved mounts in gold, or the butt had an ivory or ebony cap. The barrel was generally attached to the stock by broad bands of metal or by wire of steel, brass, silver or gold. The broad bands were sometimes of perforated design and chased. The stocks were of two designs, 1) narrow, slightly sloped, of the same width throughout, or 2) strongly curved and very narrow at the grip, expanding to some breadth at the butt. When not in use, matchlocks were kept and carried about in covers made of scarlet or green broadcloth.
 * Parah - The hammer of the matchlock.
 * The match- The name in Persian was either jamagi or fahtah. The match was ready and lighted.
 * Powder horn et cetera - These accoutrements were collectively called kamr. The set consisted of a powder flask, bullet pouches, priming horn (singra), matchcord, flint and steel, the whole attached to a belt. This belt was often of velvet embroidered in gold. The receptacles which contained their powder and ball were unwieldy, and as they never made use of cartridges for their pieces, they were a long time in loading. Some of them have at least twenty yards of match about their person, similar in appearance to a large ball of pack-thread.
 * Blank cartridge - khali-goli used for blank cartridge.
 * Cailletoque - A strange very long and heavy matchlock. This musket is often carried under the arm!
 * Jazail or Jazair - A wall-piece or swivel gun and it is doubtful whether it should come here, under firearms carried by combatants, or rather under artillery. In some respects it partook of the character of both. The usual length of jazails was 7 to 8 feet. This was a long matchlock, of various calibres, used as wall-pieces by the natives of India, commonly fixed like swivels, and carry iron balls not exceeding a pound in weight. In the field, they were sometimes carried on the backs of camels. The ball of the Indian jazail weighed two or more ounces. Jinjalls, or heavy matchlocks were commonly used for the defence of forts. They carried a ball from one to three ounces in weight. They had very substantial barrels, were too heavy to use without a break. Many had an iron prong of about a foot in length, fixed on a pivot not far from the nozzle. Placed on a wall, a bush, or the ground, this served as a support. In the defence of mud forts, especially in Bundelkhand, the besieged exhibited extraordinary dexterity, rarely failing to hit their object either in the head or near the heart, even at great distances. All firearms used by Indians had small cylindrical chambers, and being mostly of a small bore, considerable impetus was imparted to the ball.
 * Ghor-dahan was a kind of jazail. The allusion in the name seems to be to the everted or widened mouth of the barrel.
 * Qidr - This may be a cauldron, pot, kettle.

Pistols
This weapon was the tamanchah. The pistol was in use in India, to some extent at any rate, early in the 18th century. For instance, it was with a shot from a pistol that in October 1720 a young Sayyad, related to Husain Ali Khan, killed that nobleman's assassin. The pistol was confined to the higher ranks of the nobles, very few soldiers having European pistols and tabanchah.
 * Sherbachah - This musketoon or blunderbuss seems to have been of a still later introduction than the pistol. Probably the weapon came into India with Nadir Shah's army (1738) or that of Ahmad Shah, Abdali, (1748—1761). In the last quarter of the 18th century there was a regiment of Persian horse in the Luknow service known as the Sher-bachah. Possibly they took their name from this weapon, with which they may have been armed. Or the name may have been due to their supposed ferocity and thirst for their enemies' blood.