The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate

by Abraham Eraly

  A curious constituent of the medieval Indian armies was its contingent of martial ‘ascetics’, about whom there are several vivid accounts in the chronicles of the Mughal period, and they were no doubt a notable presence in the Indian armies of the early medieval period as well. These ‘ascetics’ entered into battle stark naked, but with their bodies daubed all over with paint and ash. Elsewhere in Asia too, as well as in Europe, there were bands of warrior monks in medieval times, but the Indian warrior monks were entirely different from them, and were rather like bands of primitive predators. ‘Never have I seen yogis like this,’ comments Kabir, a fifteenth-century mystic poet of North India. ‘Shall I call such men ascetics or bandits?’

  MOST MEDIEVAL INDIAN armies were not integrated units, but amalgams of disparate and incongruent elements. The clothes and weapons of their soldiers varied from group to group, even from person to person. There were no uniforms for soldiers, so each dressed as he liked. Often the dress of soldiers, particularly of the infantry, was minimal, as of the common people. South Indian soldiers at this time were ‘all naked and bare-footed,’ reports Nikitin, apparently ignoring the loincloth that they no doubt wore.

  In contrast to this, soldiers in Afghanistan were well-dressed and well-armoured. ‘It is the practice in the armies of Ghur for the infantry to protect themselves in battle with a covering made of a raw hide covered thickly on both sides with wool or cotton,’ writes Siraj. ‘This defensive covering is like a board, and is called karoh. When men put it on they are covered from head to foot, and their ranks look like walls. The wool is so thick that no weapon can pierce it.’ Similarly, Yadgar found that some soldiers in North India, presumably migrants from Central Asia, were ‘clothed in chain armour, which was concealed by white clothing.’

  Most Indian kings and chieftains, as well as their senior officers, unlike the common soldiers, dressed in their best for battle, and wore their finest jewellery, presumably to impress and inspire their soldiers, and to awe the enemy. Thus when King Jayapala of Punjab was captured by Mahmud Ghazni in a battle, he, according to Al-Utbi, was found to be wearing several opulent jewels, such as a necklace ‘composed of large pearls and shining gems and rubies set in gold.’ Similarly, Ibrahim Lodi was heavily bejewelled when he fought against Babur in the battle of Panipat.

  As in dress and ornaments, so also there were wide variations in the weapons carried by Indian soldiers, for these were not supplied by the state, but procured by each soldier, according to what he preferred or could afford. According to Chach-nama, an eighth century Arabic chronicle, the common weapons of the Indian soldiers in early medieval India were ‘swords, shields, javelins, spears, and daggers.’ Other sources indicate that they also carried lances, maces and lassos. Battuta found that in North India mounted soldiers usually carried two swords: one, called the stirrup-sword, was attached to the saddle, while the other was kept in his quiver. In South India, according to Nikitin, foot-soldiers carried ‘a shield in one hand and a sword in the other.’ And Nuniz reports that the soldiers of Vijayanagar ‘were all well armed, each after his own fashion, the archers and musketeers with their quilted tunics, and shield-men with swords and poignards in their girdles. Their shields are so large that there is no need for armour to protect the body, which is completely covered. Their horses were in full clothing. The men wore doublets, and had weapons in their hands. And on their heads were headpieces after the manner of their doublets, quilted with cotton.’ Says Razzak about Kerala soldiers: ‘In one hand they bear a … dagger … and in the other a shield made of cowhide.’

  Mangonels and other naphtha and missile-throwing devices were in general use in the army of the Delhi Sultanate right from the beginning, and it was common for Indian armies to hurl incendiary arrows and javelins, as well as pots filled with combustible materials, into enemy forts and against enemy soldiers. But it was only in the mid-fourteenth century that gunpowder, invented in China in the ninth century, was introduced into India, presumably by Mongols or Turks. This was then used in various explosive devices by the army. But it took another century before Indian armies began to use firearms regularly in battle. And it was still later that cannons came to be used in India—the first recorded instance of the use of cannons in India was by Babur in the battle of Panipat in 1526. But thereafter the use of cannons became fairly widespread in field battles in India, and they played a decisive role in the battle of Talikota in 1565.

  Indian kings generally preferred to recruit foreign soldiers to serve as musketeers and to man their artillery, because of their greater experience and superior skills in the use of these weapons. The artillery of the Deccan sultans in the battle of Talikota was, for instance, commanded by a Turk. There were also a number of Portuguese gunners in the armies of South Indian kingdoms.

  THE PACE OF advance of an Indian army into battle was slow, because of the slow pace of its infantry, which was normally its largest division. ‘In ordinary cases eight kos (about 26 kilometres) would be one day’s march,’ states Siraj. But in an emergency the army could cover double that distance or even more. Timur in his autobiography states that he once covered twenty kos in one day, though usually he covered only six kos in a day. Laden with plunder his army marched even more slowly, covering only four or five kos a day on the average.

  The armies on the march were often ruthlessly predatory. They advanced trampling down everything on their way, and devastating the country—pillaging, slaughtering people, and spreading terror—even in their own kingdom. According to Amir Khusrav, wherever the army marched, every inhabited spot was desolated. And since the army was constantly on the march, the devastation it caused was also ceaseless. The only way people could save themselves was by fleeing from the path of the army. And this they invariably did.

  If this was the manner in which the army advanced into battle, its retreat from the battlefield was often even more chaotic, especially after a defeat or some other calamity. Thus when the Delhi Sultanate army retreated from Sind following the death of Muhammad Tughluq, ‘every division of the army marched without leader, rule, or route, in the greatest disorder,’ states Barani. ‘No one heeded or listened to … anyone.’

  In sharp contrast to the chaos in the army on the march, military camps were usually well laid out and well organised in medieval India. Though there is hardly any information on the military camps of the Delhi Sultans, there is a fair amount of information on the practices in peninsular India, in Hindu as well as Muslim camps. Presumably the camp scene in North India was not much different from this. In all cases particular care was taken to protect the army camp against surprise attacks. According to Ferishta, the Bahmani sultan while on a campaign ‘surrounded his camp with carriages after the usage of Turkey, to prevent the enemy’s foot from making night-attacks.’

  The most detailed account we have of a medieval military camp is about the camp of the Vijayanagar army. ‘The camp was divided into regular streets,’ reports Nuniz. ‘Each captain’s division had its own market,’ which was well-stocked with all kinds of provisions and other supplies, as in a city market; and there were there a number of craftsmen of all sorts, even jewellers. Such was the appearance of the Vijayanagar army camp that in it one ‘would think that he was in a prosperous city,’ and it was hard to believe that a war was going on.

  Apart from stocking all that was required for the soldiers, the army camp also stocked immense quantities of grass and straw, needed to feed the vast number of animals in the army. ‘Anyone can imagine what amount of grass and straw would be required each day for the consumption of 32,400 horses and 551 elephants, to say nothing of the sumpter-mules and asses, and the great number of oxen which carry all the supplies and many other burdens, such as tents and other things,’ writes Nuniz.

  AS IN THE case of military encampment, so also there were detailed and well-established conventions about the array of the army for battle, in the Hindu as well as the Sultanate armies. In the Delhi Sultanate, the battle array consisted
of the centre, two wings, two flanking contingents, a vanguard and a rearguard. Armour-clad elephants carrying soldiers in the howdah mounted on them were usually deployed in front of this array, with a protective contingent of infantry and archers in front of them. Wide gaps were left in this frontal formation, for the cavalry, stationed at the back, to charge through the gaps and attack the enemy.

  Military campaigns were normally launched, by rajas as well as by sultans, on days chosen by astrologers as lucky. This was a major factor in infusing confidence in soldiers. The king also usually went around the camp on the eve of the battle, to rouse the spirit of his soldiers. And the army stormed into battle to the sound of martial music, with the soldiers themselves yelling war cries and flinging challenges at the enemy, to psyche themselves up and to scare the enemy. Rajputs customarily entered the battle blowing conch-shells, as in a religious ritual, while Muslims struck kettledrums and blew trumpets.

  At daybreak on the day of the battle ‘they strike up their music as sign that they are about to give battle,’ writes Nuniz about the practice in the Vijayanagar army, which he had probably observed personally, as he had spent about three years in the kingdom, during the reign of Achyutadeva. ‘The drums and trumpets and other music in the king’s camp then began to sound and the men to shout, so that it seemed as if the sky would fall to the earth; then [there was] the neighing and excitement of the horses, and the trumpeting of the elephants … [So fearsome was the din of all this] that even the very men that caused the noise were frightened by it. And the enemy on its part made no less noise, so that if you asked anything you could not hear yourself speak, and you had to ask by signs, since in no other manner could you make yourself understood.’ Timur in his autobiography records that the soldiers of the raja of Jammu ‘howled like so many jackals’ while confronting Mongols

  Nearly everywhere in medieval India, the battle began with the rival armies shooting arrows at each other. Then, ‘when the time for shooting arrows was past, they used their spears and swords,’ writes Afif. ‘And when the conflict became even yet closer, the brave warriors seized each other by the waistbands, and grappled in deadly strife.’ It was a savage scene, an animal fight, except that the combatants used sword and spear and axe, instead of tooth and claw. The battlefield after a clash was usually slush with blood, and strewn with the bodies and limbs of the fallen soldiers.

  Fortunately, medieval Indian battles were usually, again like animal fights, very short affairs, lasting just a few hours, seldom more than a day. Sometimes however, though rarely, a battle lasted several days. Thus Mahmud Ghazni in one of his campaigns in Punjab fought a battle ‘for three days and nights,’ according to medieval Arabic chronicler Al-Utbi. ‘On the fourth morning [Mahmud] made a most furious onslaught with swords and arrows, which lasted till noon,’ and that carried the day for him.

  Desertions were fairly common in Indian armies, and were generally not taken as a serious matter by kings, though we do sometimes hear of severe action being taken against runaways. Thus, according to Nuniz, Krishnadeva during one of his campaigns commanded his loyal soldiers ‘to slay without mercy every one of those who had fled.’ But if deserters were common in Indian armies, so were warrior heroes, who preferred to fight to death rather than to flee and save their lives, thinking that it was ‘worse to be conquered than to die,’ as Nuniz puts it.

  One of the most difficult tasks in medieval wars was to capture forts, because armies those days did not have the heavy weapons needed to breach fort walls, which were usually several feet thick. Even after field artillery came into use in India, these crude weapons were of little use in breaking through fort walls. To get around this difficulty, the attackers tried to mine the fort walls, or to ram down the fort gates. They also cannonaded the fort by hurling stones and fireballs into it with catapults, and they shot at targets inside the fort by raising earthen mounds as tall as the fort wall and mounting cannons on them. Mahmud Ghazni is said to have hurled sacks of live serpents into an enemy fort by using catapults. The besiegers also used zigzag trenches or covered trenches to approach the fort walls without exposing themselves to enemy missiles.

  Typical of the attack on a fort was Ibrahim Lodi’s siege of Gwalior. According to Yadgar, the sultan had ‘trenches dug [alongside the fort] in which he sheltered his men whilst he made his approaches, and distributed several batteries amongst his officers. He then projected fiery missiles, or shells, into the fort.’ But none of these measures was particularly effective, as the defenders on the fort walls countered them by throwing down heavy stones or ignited bundles of cloth on the attackers. ‘Hindus filled bags with cotton steeped in oil, which they ignited and threw down upon the enemy,’ states Yadgar. Similarly, during the eighth century Arab conquest of Sind, according to Chach-nama, ‘the garrison [in the local raja’s fort] began to beat drums and sound clarions, and they threw down from the ramparts and bastions stones from mangonels and ballistas, [shot] arrows, and [hurled] javelins’ at the assailants.

  Quite often the only means of reducing a fort was to starve its defenders to submission, but that took a long time, for forts were usually well-stocked with provisions. So it often took several weeks or even several months, to capture a fort. Sometimes the only means of capturing a fort was by bribing some of its defenders.

  ONE OF THE puzzles of the history of early medieval India is why the Hindu kings of the age were invariably routed in battle by Muslim armies, first by the Arabs, then by the Turko-Afghans in North India, and in the peninsula by the Deccan sultans, even though the rajas usually had more extensive territories, greater population and resources and much larger armies than the sultans. Devaraya II, the mid-fifteenth century king of Vijayanagar, once posed this puzzle to his courtiers. The courtiers then discussed the issue in detail among themselves, and came to the conclusion that the sultans invariably won their battles because of the superiority of their cavalry and archers.

  This was not quite true. There was no difference at all in the quality of the horses used by Bahmani sultans and Vijayanagar rajas, for in both cases the horses were imported from the Middle East and Central Asia. As for cavalrymen and archers, their quality difference in the two armies could not have been the crucial factor in their military fortunes, as is evident from the fact that the induction of a large number of Muslim cavalrymen and archers into the Vijayanagar army did not make any significant difference in the outcome of its battles with Bahmani. Except Krishnadeva and Ramaraya, hardly any of the other Vijayanagar kings was ever victorious in his battles against the sultans. Equally puzzling is why the Delhi sultans in turn were defeated by the smaller invading forces of Timur and of Babur.

  Apparently the size of the army and the quality of its mounts and equipments were not the decisive factors in the outcome of battles. What was decisive was the army’s spirit. And discipline. ‘The princes of the house of Bahmani maintained themselves by superior valour only, for in power, wealth and extent of country the rajas of Vijayanagar were greatly their superiors,’ observes Ferishta. Hindu armies—particularly their vast infantry contingents—were just mobs, with hardly any military training. The immense size of the Hindu armies was often more a disadvantage than an advantage.

  Occasionally there were some efforts to tighten the discipline of the Hindu soldiers, and to rouse their martial spirit by instilling in them religious fervour, as in the Muslim armies. But these do not seem to have yielded any significant change in the fortunes of Hindu armies. Thus, according to Ferishta, Bukka I in his battle against Bahmani sultan Muhammad Shah ‘commanded the Brahmins to deliver every day to the troops discourses on the meritoriousness of slaughtering the Mohammedans, in order to excite [their zeal] … He ordered them to describe the butchery of cows, the insults to sacred images, and the destruction of temples [committed by Muslims].’ Despite this harangue by Brahmins, Bukka lost the battle.

  This was the usual outcome of the battles between rajas and sultans. And the frequent defeats that rajas suf
fered at the hands of sultans dispirited and demoralised Hindu armies. They often engaged in battle expecting defeat, and they were therefore often more ready to flee than to fight. In contrast, the confidence of victory and the prospect of plunder galvanised the Muslim armies.

  Yet another reason for the defeat of the Hindu armies was that they were not cohesive or well-disciplined forces. Even though the armies of the sultans were also not cohesive forces—their soldiers were racially diverse, and they had a good number of Hindus of different castes and sects in them—they were far more tightly organised and disciplined than the armies of the rajas. There was no integrating spirit at all in the Hindu armies, no unifying emotional bond between the soldiers and their raja. Besides the caste divisions of the Hindu society also divided the Hindu army. Soldiers of different castes would not even sit together for a meal. In personal valour Hindu soldiers were quite probably in no way inferior to Muslim soldiers, but Hindu soldiers were not trained to fight as integrated units, so they lacked group discipline, and were consequently weak as an army. Even in the case of the renowned martial valour of the Rajput soldier, what mattered to him was not so much the victory of the army as the demonstration of his personal heroism. His view, as al-Biruni puts it, was that ‘if he conquers, he obtains power and good fortune. If he perishes, he obtains paradise and bliss.’ The outcome of the battle therefore did not matter much to him.

  THERE WAS NO spirit of unity at all among the people of any state in early medieval India, to bind together the king and the people and the army. This was how it was in Hindu as well as Muslim kingdoms. But the armies of the sultanates—their dominant Muslim soldiers anyway—were united in their religious fervour and in their aggressive spirit as conquerors ruling over an alien subject people. There was no such galvanising spirit in the armies of most Hindu kingdoms. Their soldiers were fighting for pay and plunder, not for their king or for any large cause. The soldiers belonged to their caste, not to their kingdom, especially as the kingdoms, unlike the castes, were ephemeral entities. What happened to their king—whether he won or lost the battle—made hardly any difference in the lives of the common people, for the state played only a peripheral role in their lives.