The Mughal Empire was one of the largest centralized states in premodern world history. By the late 1600s, it covered most of the Indian subcontinent. The empire was founded by Babur (reigned 1526-1530 CE), who had invaded northern India from central Asia. He defeated the Delhi sultan at Panipat and occupied Delhi and Agra before moving on to Bengal. His grandson, Abu Akbar (’the Great’) consolidated Mughal rule in the north through a series of military campaigns, notable for their use of field artillery. Akbar was also a great administrator, establishing a system of salaried civil and military office holding, combined with efficient taxation. Revenue was collected on the basis of land assessments, administered by local tax farmers, and the system served to integrate both Hindu and Muslim elites into the state. This period saw a flourishing of Indo-Muslim culture, particularly in the fields of painting and architecture. Economically, India was the centre of mercantile activity within the Indian Ocean; its manufactured goods, especially cotton textiles, were in huge demand. The reign of Shah Jahan (1628-1658 CE) is seen as the high point of Mughal culture, represented above all by the construction of the Taj Mahal. His son Aurangzeb (reigned 1658-1707) was more aggressive military and eventually incorporated most of India into the empire, at least formally. The state was run on increasingly military lines and was more assertively Muslim. After Aurangzeb’s death the empire began to disintegrate, encouraged by infighting and corruption among elites. The Mughals had lost much of their territory and power by the mid-18th century. The Marathas, a dynasty of Hindu warriors, became the dominant force in India during the 1700s, followed by the British in the early 19th century. Delhi was taken by the armies of the East India Company in 1803, but the Mughals carried on as rulers of Delhi until 1857. Following the Indian Rebellion, the British exiled the last king, Bahadur Shah II, who had given the rebels his support.
[1]
Population and political organization
The two main branches of the Mughal empire were dedicated to revenue and military affairs. The emperor, seen as a divinely inspired patriarch, supervised his revenue and military officials through frequent travelling, and curbed their political ambitions by transferring them frequently, requiring them to attend court regularly, and assigning them responsibilities that cross-cut those of other officials.
[2]
At its peak, in the late 1600s, the Mughal Empire comprised between 100 and 150 million inhabitants.
[3]
[1]: (Richards 1995, 1-5) John F. Richards. 1995. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[2]: (Blake 1979) Stephen Blake. 1979. ’The Patrimonial-Bureaucratic Empire of the Mughals’. The Journal of Asian Studies 39 (1): 77-94.
[3]: (Richards 1995, 1, 190) John F. Richards. 1995. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
| none |
| Durrani Empire |
| continuity |
| Succeeding: Carnatic Sultanate (in_carnatic_sul) [None] | |
| Preceding: Timurid Empire (uz_timurid_emp) [continuity] |
| unitary state |
| present |
| unknown |
| present |
| inferred present |
| unknown |
| present |
| present |
| present |
| inferred present |
| inferred present |
| Year Range | Mughal Empire (in_mughal_emp) was in: |
|---|---|
| (1526 CE 1687 CE) | Kachi Plain Middle Ganga |
| (1687 CE 1720 CE) | Kachi Plain Middle Ganga Deccan |
| (1720 CE 1740 CE) | Kachi Plain Middle Ganga |
| (1740 CE 1803 CE) | Middle Ganga |
Agra: 1526-1571 CE; Fatehpur Sikri: 1571-1585 CE; Lahore: 1585 CE-1598 CE; Agra: 1598-1648 CE; [Shahjahanabad; Delhi]: 1648-1857 CE dates cannot yet be machine read.
Akbar changed the royal capital of his empire four times during his rule (Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lahore, Agra) reflecting his "changing strategic foci."
[1]
[2]
Shah Jahan built a new capital in Delhi "Shahjahanabad". This remained the Mughals’ capital for the rest of the dynasty.
[3]
[1]: Richards, John F. (March 18, 1993). Johnson, Gordon
[2]: Bayly, C. A., eds. The Mughal Empire. The New Cambridge history of India: 1.5. I. The Mughals and their Contemporaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1995), p.12.
[3]: Stein, Burton, A History of India (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), p.176.
Agra: 1526-1571 CE; Fatehpur Sikri: 1571-1585 CE; Lahore: 1585 CE-1598 CE; Agra: 1598-1648 CE; [Shahjahanabad; Delhi]: 1648-1857 CE dates cannot yet be machine read.
Akbar changed the royal capital of his empire four times during his rule (Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lahore, Agra) reflecting his "changing strategic foci."
[1]
[2]
Shah Jahan built a new capital in Delhi "Shahjahanabad". This remained the Mughals’ capital for the rest of the dynasty.
[3]
[1]: Richards, John F. (March 18, 1993). Johnson, Gordon
[2]: Bayly, C. A., eds. The Mughal Empire. The New Cambridge history of India: 1.5. I. The Mughals and their Contemporaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1995), p.12.
[3]: Stein, Burton, A History of India (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), p.176.
Agra: 1526-1571 CE; Fatehpur Sikri: 1571-1585 CE; Lahore: 1585 CE-1598 CE; Agra: 1598-1648 CE; [Shahjahanabad; Delhi]: 1648-1857 CE dates cannot yet be machine read.
Akbar changed the royal capital of his empire four times during his rule (Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lahore, Agra) reflecting his "changing strategic foci."
[1]
[2]
Shah Jahan built a new capital in Delhi "Shahjahanabad". This remained the Mughals’ capital for the rest of the dynasty.
[3]
[1]: Richards, John F. (March 18, 1993). Johnson, Gordon
[2]: Bayly, C. A., eds. The Mughal Empire. The New Cambridge history of India: 1.5. I. The Mughals and their Contemporaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1995), p.12.
[3]: Stein, Burton, A History of India (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), p.176.
Agra: 1526-1571 CE; Fatehpur Sikri: 1571-1585 CE; Lahore: 1585 CE-1598 CE; Agra: 1598-1648 CE; [Shahjahanabad; Delhi]: 1648-1857 CE dates cannot yet be machine read.
Akbar changed the royal capital of his empire four times during his rule (Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lahore, Agra) reflecting his "changing strategic foci."
[1]
[2]
Shah Jahan built a new capital in Delhi "Shahjahanabad". This remained the Mughals’ capital for the rest of the dynasty.
[3]
[1]: Richards, John F. (March 18, 1993). Johnson, Gordon
[2]: Bayly, C. A., eds. The Mughal Empire. The New Cambridge history of India: 1.5. I. The Mughals and their Contemporaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1995), p.12.
[3]: Stein, Burton, A History of India (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), p.176.
Agra: 1526-1571 CE; Fatehpur Sikri: 1571-1585 CE; Lahore: 1585 CE-1598 CE; Agra: 1598-1648 CE; [Shahjahanabad; Delhi]: 1648-1857 CE dates cannot yet be machine read.
Akbar changed the royal capital of his empire four times during his rule (Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lahore, Agra) reflecting his "changing strategic foci."
[1]
[2]
Shah Jahan built a new capital in Delhi "Shahjahanabad". This remained the Mughals’ capital for the rest of the dynasty.
[3]
[1]: Richards, John F. (March 18, 1993). Johnson, Gordon
[2]: Bayly, C. A., eds. The Mughal Empire. The New Cambridge history of India: 1.5. I. The Mughals and their Contemporaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1995), p.12.
[3]: Stein, Burton, A History of India (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), p.176.
Agra: 1526-1571 CE; Fatehpur Sikri: 1571-1585 CE; Lahore: 1585 CE-1598 CE; Agra: 1598-1648 CE; [Shahjahanabad; Delhi]: 1648-1857 CE dates cannot yet be machine read.
Akbar changed the royal capital of his empire four times during his rule (Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lahore, Agra) reflecting his "changing strategic foci."
[1]
[2]
Shah Jahan built a new capital in Delhi "Shahjahanabad". This remained the Mughals’ capital for the rest of the dynasty.
[3]
[1]: Richards, John F. (March 18, 1993). Johnson, Gordon
[2]: Bayly, C. A., eds. The Mughal Empire. The New Cambridge history of India: 1.5. I. The Mughals and their Contemporaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1995), p.12.
[3]: Stein, Burton, A History of India (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), p.176.
Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal in Agra between 1632 CE-1648 CE and his reign saw the golden age of Mughal architecture. Aurangzeb reigned from 1658 CE to 1707 CE, during which time the territory, wealth and population of the empire grew. His reign also saw the zenith of Mughal cannon production.
[1]
[1]: Fergus Nicoll, Shah Jahan: The Rise and Fall of the Mughal Emperor (2009)
The Mughal Empire began with Babur’s victory over Ibrahim Lodi in the first Battle of Panipat, and ended when it was supplanted by the British Raj. [1] [2]
[1]: Richards, John F. (March 18, 1993). Johnson, Gordon
[2]: Bayly, C. A., eds. The Mughal Empire. The New Cambridge history of India: 1.5. I. The Mughals and their Contemporaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1995), pp. 1-4
Core region was lost to Durrani? Empire but Mughal state still existed in the upper Ganges valley.
“It seems that some measure of stability was achieved with the establishment of Mughal rule. After a few years the rulers of Gingee took the title of nawabs of the Carnatic, and in the first years of the 18th century they left Gingee to take up residence in Arcot. [1]
[1]: (Bugge, 2020) Bugge, Henriette. 2020. Mission and Tamil Society: Social and Religious Change in South India (1840-1900). London: Routledge Curzon. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/9SKWNUF4/collection
Core region was Afghanistan
The Mughal empire had a centralized and imperialistic government; the emperor had unlimited freedom in making laws. Although he had a council of ministers he was not bound to consult them. The third Emperor, Abu Akbar, established a form of delegated government in which the provincial governors were personally responsible to him for the quality of government in their territory. Taxes were imposed by, and transmitted to, the center (the emperor). [1]
[1]: C. Srinivasa Reddy, Mughal Historiography; review of Panjab in the Seventeenth Century by Chetan Singh, Social Scientist, Vol. 21, No. 1/2 (1993), pp. 105
Persian was the official language of the empire, but Urdu became the language of the elite. Urdu uses an Arabic script derived from Persian. [1] [2]
[1]: A. Schimmel, The Empire of the Great Mughals: History, Art and Culture, (2004) p. 259
[2]: Matthews, P. H. "Hindi-Urdu." In The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. : Oxford University Press, 2007.
Persian was the official language of the empire, but Urdu became the language of the elite. Urdu uses an Arabic script derived from Persian. [1] [2]
[1]: A. Schimmel, The Empire of the Great Mughals: History, Art and Culture, (2004) p. 259
[2]: Matthews, P. H. "Hindi-Urdu." In The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. : Oxford University Press, 2007.
Dehli. The Mughal rulers of India constantly toured the realm and maintained no fixed capital. Mid-seventeenth century Delhi is reputed to have had a population of about 400,000 but one European observer claimed most of it moved with the royal court, reducing its population to as little as 65,000. Another compared Mughal Delhi to a ‘camp’ rather than a city like Paris, and apparently there were so many trees that from a distance it looked like a wood.
[1]
[2]
[3]
-- we have a reference but no number.
[1]: Ramesh Kumar Arora. Rajni Goyal. 1996. Indian Public Administration: Institutions and Issues. Wishwa Prakashan. New Delhi. p.23
[2]: Abraham Eraly. 2007. The Mughal World: Life in India’s Last Golden Age. Penguin Books. New Delhi. p. 8
[3]: Hambly, G. (1982) Towns and Cities: The Mughal Empire in The Cambridge economic history of India Vol.1, c1200-c.1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p.436.
Administration of parganas adjacent to cities inhabited by peasants lacking strong lineage organizations could be managed on a village by village basis.(81) Villagers carried agricultural products to sell at the nearest market or pargana town. (91) By the 1680s hundreds of prosperous market towns (qasbas) had proliferated in northern India. In each pargana the central town served as a principal market. Gradually, the networks of these trading towns and larger villages grew more dense. (194) Each provincial capital had a governor, responsible directly to the emperor. (59, 67)
[1]
1. The capital
2. Provincial capitals3. Towns4. Villages
[1]: Richards, J. F. 1995. The Mughal Empire, Part 1. Volume 5. Cambridge University Press.
Would be at least one level.
Din-e Ilahi, religion of the empire from 1582 CE to 1605 CE, had no priestly hierarchy or sacred scriptures.
[1]
Islam (which both proceeded and succeeded Din-e Ilahi) similarly has no hierarchy, although there are Shaikh, Olama or Imam’s who are seen as spiritual teachers and leaders.
[2]
[1]: Dr.Sunita Gupta, Children’s Knowledge Bank, Pustak Mahal.
"Noteworthy was the decimal chain of command, the grouping of soldiers in tens, hundreds, and thousands, up to an army division of 10,000 men (Mongolian tümän, Pers. tūmān), which was to have an enduring impact on the military organization of succeeding eastern Islamic powers, being adopted by, e.g., the Mughals in India."
[1]
Decimal: 1, 10s, 100s, 1000s, 10000s, Emperor = 6
1. Emperor
2. Bakhshi (Adjutant-General). Bakhshi-titles were given to those with administrative duties, the Adjutant-General commanded the army in the Emperor’s absence.3. Mir Bakhshi4. Other Bakhshi (such as Bakhshi-i-tan)5. Officer.Mansabdars were also chiefs and leaders, ranked based on the number of men they recruited, the mansab rank was further divided into zat and suwar, where zat referred to foot-soldiers and suwar to horsemen.
[2]
6. Soldier.
[1]: (Bosworth 2011) Bosworth, C E. 2011. ARMY ii. Islamic, to the Mongol period. www.iranicaonline.org/articles/army-ii
[2]: Shreya Acharya, Short Essay on the Mansabdari System of Akbar, Link
Delhi Sultanate which "had a powerful impact on small states and principalities that were formed after its disintegration as well as on the Mughal administration that would come into existence in the sixteenth century."
[1]
needs more work on central government
1. Emperor
Furthermore, the Zamindars belonged to the nobility and formed the ruling class.
[2]
_Central government_
2. WakilHighest administrative officer
3. Departments? inferred4.5.
_Provincial government_
3. Subahdar of several SarkarsA group of one or more villages constitutes a paragana, a few paragana a sarkar, and several sarkar’s (or ’shiqqs’) a subahdar. A wakil was the highest administrative officer.
[3]
4. Sarkar of a few Paragana
5. Paragana of one or more villages
6. Muqqaddam (Village headman)Also of note are the Muqaddam and Patwari. The village head was a muqaddam - the sole link between government and village. Although not a government servant, he was responsible for maintaining law and order. Similarly a patwari, a record keeper, was not employed by the state but by the village community.
[4]
-- not a paid official but still took orders i.e. maintain law and order
7. Patwari (record keeper)
7. Employed by muqaddam to help maintain law and order inferred
[1]: (Ahmed 2011, 96) Ahmed, Farooqui Salma. 2011. A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century. Pearson Education India.
[2]: Barbara Daly Metcalf, Joint Committee on South Asia Moral conduct and authority: the place of adab in South Asian Islam, pp 269
[3]: Farīd Bhakkari, Shaikh Farid Bhakkari, Ziyaud-Din A. Desai, A Biographical Dictionary of Mughal Noblemen, (1993) p 107
[4]: Mughal Administration: Central, Provincial, and Local, p.22 Link
The Mughal Empire relied largely on the military force employed from the ’Indian military labor market’, which included the ’highly talented, movable warlords and their mounted following’ in India. [1] The skills of these soldiers ranged from the part-time peasant to the professional warlord or jamadar. [2]
[1]: J.J.L. Gommans, Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire 1500-1700 (2004), p.67
[2]: J.J.L. Gommans, Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire 1500-1700 (2004), p.68
"These men, who sometimes acted as lawyers, were known as wakils, but the term did not have the precise legal definition that it acquired during the British period. H. H. Wilson defined a wakil as, "A person invested with authority to act for another, an ambassador, a representative, an agent, an attorney." It is in this very general sense that the word was current in pre-British times; only on rare occasions do we find the term wakil used to describe someone who pleaded a case in a court of law.
"A wakil was, then, a representative, although not necessarily a legal representative. In general, his job was to negotiate with equals or superiors of his employer, in order to obtain a desired goal, such as trading privileges, a reduction of the revenue demand, a military alliance, or a favorable decision in a civil or criminal court of law. In many cases a wakil was also a gatherer of information. Thus, most important nobles, landholders, and foreign trading companies employed wakils whose job was to attend the court of the governor of the province in which they were situated (or perhaps even the emperor’s court) in order to collect information that might be useful, as well as to represent the interests of their employers when disputes between nobles arose, or when a favor from the governor was needed. [...] Most of the wakils described in historical accounts, then, were specialists in the arts of bargaining, negotiation, and pleading cases; but usually they did not work in law courts, and often they were not even concerned with legal matters. However, there were some wakils who were courtroom lawyers, although not as many as there were in contemporary Europe."
[1]
[1]: (Calkins 1968, pp. 404-405)
In 1605 CE Jahangir issued 12 ordinances. It was not a comprehensive legal code but a well-meaning if also somewhat idiosyncratic set of rulings. These included the setting up of hospitals, a ban on the sale of alcohol, the release of prisoners, and a proclamation that Sunday was an auspicious day. Sharia law codes and the rulings of the ulemas were of fundamental importance to the Islamic dynasty but most of the native Indian customary law was respected. [1] [2]
[1]: N. Jayapalan. 2001. History of India. From 1206 to 1773. Volume II. Atlantic Publishers and Distributors. New Delhi. p. 158-159
[2]: Ramesh Kumar Arora. Rajni Goyal. 1996. Indian Public Administration: Institutions and Issues. Wishwa Prakashan. New Delhi. p.22
[1] Canals, dighi (cisterns), nahar (small channels), qanat (underground channels), dams, ponds, neighbourhood wells, and impressive baoli were built to capture and transport river and monsoon rains. Drinking water within a princely household was managed by the darogha-i abdar, the superintendent of drinking water. Aristocrats often took water from the Ganges river, which was thought to be especially pure and also ice. [2] [3] [4] [5]
[1]: M.Conan,D.Oaks,The Middle East Garden Traditions, Unity, and Diversity: Questions, Methods and Resources in a Multicultural Perspective (2007)
[2]: Mark Harvey. 2015. Drinking Water: A Socio-economic Analysis of Historical and Societal Variation. Routledge. Abingdon.
[3]: Munis D. Faruqui. 2012. The Princes of the Mughal Empire, 1504–1719. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. p.278
[4]: Daljit Singh. 2004. Punjab Socio-Economic Condition (1501-1700 A.D.). Commonwealth Publishers.
[5]: James L Wescoat, Jr. Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn. 1996. Mughal Gardens: Sources, Places, Representations, and Prospects. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. Washington, D.C. pp. 73-74
present: 1526-1582 CE; absent: 1582-1605 CE; present: 1605-1857 CE Quran for Islam, Din-e Ilahi has no sacred scriptures.
Philosophical thought at this time was based on the deep philosophical tradition in India, [1] which was discussed and written down by the mentor of Mughal emperor Prince Dara Shikoh, Kavindracarya. [2]
[1]: Kulke, H. Rothermund, D. 2010. A History of India (5th ed.). London: Routledge, pp102-3.
[2]: Busch, A. 2010. Hidden in Plain View: Brajbhasha Poets at the Mughal Court. Modern Asian Studies, 44, pp 267-309. p292.
Silver based money, the rupiya introduced by Sher Shah.
[1]
Sher Shah (c.1540) issued a pure silver coin called a rupya (rupee) with a weight of 178.25 grains. He issued gold coins, which were rare, as well as a copper coin called paisa and extended the issuing of this coinage on a uniform basis from all his 15 mints. This trimetallic system became permanent when it was adopted by Akbar with minor modifications. The Mughal rupee soon became the standard for which commodity prices, rates for exchange and for loans were quoted in.
[2]
Akbar sanctioned the following daily rates of wages: ordinary labourers 2 dams, superior labourers 2-4 dams, carpenters 3-7 dams and builders 5-7 dams. The dam was a copper coin a litter over 1 tola and 8 Masas in weight and 1/40 of the value of the silver rupiya in value. The purchasing power of an Akbari Rupiya was nearly 6 Indian Rupees in 1912. (82) The lowest servants were entitled to less than two rupees monthly (e.g. 65 dams for a sweeper, 60 for a camel-driver, etc.) while the bulk of the menials and the ordinary foot-soldiers began at less than three Rupees. Even slaves were entitled to one dam daily, equivalent to three-quarters of a rupee monthly in the currency of the time. (82)
[3]
Cost of wheat equals 0.30 rupees per maund of 25.11kgs c.1595 CE in Lahore. (21, Table 3) In 1611, price of wheat in Surat (Gujarat) was 1.03 rupees per maund, rising to 6.37 in 1630 during famine. In 1631 at Broach (Gujarat) the price rose to 6.66 rupees per maund (25, Table 4). The prices of wheat in Agra were higher than Lahore by almost 20 percent. (31) Ordinary Labourer receives 1.50 rupees per month c.1595 (64) Lowest wage of a worker in the Imperial Establishment (domestic servant, peon, porter, etc) c.1613-89 in Agra was 3.00 rupee per month on average. The daily wages of an unskilled labourer more than doubled between c.1595 and 1637 from 2 dams to 6.5 paisas. In 1637 the monthly wages of unskilled labourers was 3.5 rupees. (69-70, Table 24)
[4]
[1]: Catherine B. Asher and Cynthia Talbot, India before Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p.121.
[2]: (455-57) Dani, A. S. and Masson, V. 2003. History of Civilizations of Central Asia: Development in contrast : from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. UNESCO
[3]: Sircar, D. C. 2008. Studies in Indian Coins. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
[4]: Haider, N. 2004. “Prices and Wages in India (1200-1800): Source Material, Historiography and New Directions.” Towards a Global History of Prices and Wages, Utrecht: 19-21 Aug. 2004.
The postal system was used mainly for military and economic purposes, but was expanded towards the end of the empire through British colonial influences. [1]
[1]: Chitra, Joshi. 2012. Dak Roads, Dak Runners, and the Reordering of Communication Networks.Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis. 57, pp. 169-189.
The postal system was used mainly for military and economic purposes, but was expanded towards the end of the empire through British colonial influences. [1]
[1]: Chitra, Joshi. 2012. Dak Roads, Dak Runners, and the Reordering of Communication Networks.Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis. 57, pp. 169-189.
Ed: seems to be references to something called a khandaq - which could be either moat or a ditch or both.
Forts were present throughout the Mughal Empire, but mainly in new territories as ’safe points’ to extend from. An example of a complex fort is at the port of Surat. Here, Aurangezeb ordered for strong bulwarks to protect the outer part of the city, while the inner citadel was protected by a moat and 30-40 pieces of heavy artillery. [1]
[1]: Gommans, J. J. L. 2002. Mughal Warfare: Indian frontiers and high roads to Empire, 1500-1700. London: Routledge, p139.
Armor included iron and copper mail (mighfar), and elephant armor could be made of high iron or brass plates. In addition, guns were made of bronze and brass. [1] [2]
[1]: Gommans, J. J. L. 2002. Mughal Warfare: Indian frontiers and high roads to Empire, 1500-1700. London: Routledge, p199, 125, 133.
[2]: William Irvine, The army of the Indian Moghuls: its organization and administration (1903),pp. 90-102
Armor included iron and copper mail (mighfar), and elephant armor could be made of high iron or brass plates. In addition, guns were made of bronze and brass. [1] [2]
[1]: Gommans, J. J. L. 2002. Mughal Warfare: Indian frontiers and high roads to Empire, 1500-1700. London: Routledge, p199, 125, 133.
[2]: William Irvine, The army of the Indian Moghuls: its organization and administration (1903),pp. 90-102
"Aside from the massive cannon and mortars, a number of more old-fashioned weapons were also present at sieges. Catapults and trebuchets remained in Indian siege trains for decades after Babur’s invasion. A few distinct advantages saved them from immediate obsolescence. They were inexpensive and could be easily broken down for transport and assembled in the field. Like mortars they sent missiles on a high trajectory, ideal for indirect fire. They could also be loaded with ammunition too fragile to be fired from a cannon—gunpowder bombs and canisters of incendiary or caustic chemicals." [1]
[1]: (De la Garza 2010, p. 123)
"Aside from the massive cannon and mortars, a number of more old-fashioned weapons were also present at sieges. Catapults and trebuchets remained in Indian siege trains for decades after Babur’s invasion. A few distinct advantages saved them from immediate obsolescence. They were inexpensive and could be easily broken down for transport and assembled in the field. Like mortars they sent missiles on a high trajectory, ideal for indirect fire. They could also be loaded with ammunition too fragile to be fired from a cannon—gunpowder bombs and canisters of incendiary or caustic chemicals." [1] (KB: Added present code as trebuchet is sling siege engine according to codebook)
[1]: (De la Garza 2010, p. 123)
"Babur makes many references to individual foot soldiers armed with bows. He also discusses a weapon particularly suited to the infantryman—the crossbow. Crossbows were especially valuable during sieges because they were ideal for sniping. Unlike a conventional archer, a crossbowman could fire his weapon while lying prone and behind cover. He could also keep it cocked and at full draw while carefully lining up a shot or waiting for a target to emerge. Babur describes his own experience as a sniper, firing a crossbow from the ramparts of Samarqand while that city was under siege. Before muskets became commonplace, the Ottomans used janissary infantrymen as missile troops, arming them with crossbows or heavier, more powerful versions of the cavalry bow. Babur may have employed similar large formations of foot archers. Once firearms were adopted they became the ranged weapon of choice for his infantry, but the musketeers were still supported by large numbers of foot archers." [1]
[1]: (De la Garza 2010, p. 58)
Composite Bows and Crossbows. [1] [2] [3]
[1]: J.J.L. Gommans, Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire 1500 1700. London: Routledge, 2002
[2]: William Irvine, The army of the Indian Moghuls: its organization and administration (1903),pp. 90-102
[3]: De la Garza, A. 2010. Mughals at War: Babur, Akbar and the Indian Military Revolution, 1500 - 1605. The Ohio State University. Unpublished PhD dissertation.
As well as horse-cavalry, elephants also used. [1] "But there can be little doubt that war-elephants were not used in the same numbers under the Islamic dynasties of India as they were in the early medieval period and before. We have seen that the Arabic sources described the most important ninth- and tenth-century Hindu dynasties as equipped with tens of thousands or more elephants of various kinds. Although it is unlikely that these numbers indicated war-elephants in a state of readiness - they probably included the guessed number of untamed and half-tamed ones -, and although some of the figures are contradictory, they are larger than those of later times." [2]
[1]: J.J.L. Gommans, Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire 1500 1700. London: Routledge, 2002, p.158.
[2]: (Wink 1997, 102-103) Andre Wink. 1997. Al-Hind. The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Volume II. The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest 11th-13th Centuries. BRILL. Leiden.
