Medieval Indian wars were often unspeakably savage orgies of violence. In the case of Turco-Afghans, a relatively small troop of men in military occupation of a vast country teeming with alien people, ferocity was an essential survival requirement, to instil terror in their adversaries and thus gain a critical psychological advantage over them.
This, however, was only a contributing factor in the savagery of medieval wars. Wars, at all times and among all people everywhere in the world were savage. And Hindu kings were not far behind Turks in bestial ferocity in wars. Thus Bukka, the mid-fourteenth century king of Vijayanagar, during his campaign in the Raichur Doab, ordered all the inhabitants of a town there—men and women and even children—to be slaughtered. And when Bahmani sultan Muhammad Shah heard of this outrage, he, according to Ferishta, took a solemn oath ‘that till he had put to death one hundred thousand infidels, as an expiation for the massacre of the faithful, he would never sheathe the sword of holy war nor refrain from slaughter.’
In the ensuing battle the sultan routed the Vijayanagar army, and then set about slaughtering Hindus en-masse, ‘putting all to death without any distinction,’ reports Ferishta. ‘It is said that the slaughter amounted to 70,000 men, women and children … Not even pregnant women, or even children at the breast, escaped the sword … The slaughter was terrible … The inhabitants of every place around Vijayanagar … [were] massacred without mercy.’ Similarly, sultan Jalal-ud-din Khalji of Delhi during one of his campaigns ‘made the blood of the infidels flow in streams, and formed bridges with their heads,’ writes medieval poet Amir Khusrav.
SO IT WENT on and on. Thus when Devaraya of Vijayanagar fought against the Bahmani sultan Firuz Shah, ‘Hindus made a general massacre of Muslims, and erected a platform with their heads on the field of battle,’ recounts Ferishta. ‘And they wasted [the land] with fire and sword … demolished many mosques and holy places, slaughtered people without mercy … seeming to discharge their treasured malice and resentment of ages.’ Even Krishnadeva, one of the most cultured rulers of the age, burnt down villages and pillaged the countryside during his campaigns in Orissa and Bijapur.
European armies in India also indulged in the barbaric slaughter of innocent civilians at this time. Thus Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer, during his 1504 second Indian campaign, wantonly butchered several hundred people in a vessel he captured along the Kerala coast, and soon after, on reaching Kozhikode, immediately bombarded the city, and set about slaying in cold blood some 800 harmless fishermen at the port. Similarly, Albuquerque, the early sixteenth-century Portuguese governor of Goa, on being attacked by the Bahmani army once, decapitated 150 principal Muslims in the town, and also slaughtered their wives and children, before evacuating the port. And a few months later, when he recaptured the port, he had some 6000 Muslim men, women and children there mercilessly slain. On the whole the behaviour of Christian soldiers was no different from the behaviour of Hindu and Muslim soldiers. All were equally savage. As Sewell comments, ‘Europeans seemed to think that they had a divine right to pillage, rob, and massacre the natives of India … Their whole record is one of a series of atrocities.’
In Kerala the chieftains there had the odd custom of turning battles into duels, which, though a savage sport, had the advantage of minimising bloodshed. ‘When they are in battle, and one army is distant from the other two ranges of a crossbow, the king says to the Brahmins, “Go to the camp of the enemy, and tell the king to let one hundred of his Naeri come, and I will go with a hundred of mine.” And thus they both go to the middle of the space, and begin to fight in this manner,’ reports Varthema. ‘And when four or six on either side are killed, the Brahmins enter into the midst of them, and make both parties return to their camp. And the said Brahmins immediately go to the armies on both sides, and say, “Nur manezar hanno?” The king answers, “Matile?” That is, the Brahmins ask, “Do you wish for any more fight?” And the king answers, “Enough, no?” And the rival king does the same. In this manner they fight, one hundred against one hundred. This is their mode of fighting.’
THIS MODE OF battle was evidently feasible only in small kingdoms with small armies. Major Indian kingdoms, of Hindus as well as of Muslims, but particularly Hindu kingdoms, deployed immense armies in battle, sometimes as many as several hundred thousand soldiers.
These armies consisted of a number of permanent divisions, as well as a large number of temporary recruits. In the case of the permanent Delhi Sultanate army, its core was made up of a central elite corps, a major division of which was stationed in the royal capital and it always accompanied the sultan on his campaigns, and served as his bodyguards. The other divisions of this elite army were stationed in various provincial forts and along the frontiers of the empire. Apart from this central army, the Sultanate army had several other contingents, recruited and maintained in the provinces by the fief (iqta) holders of the empire, and these contingents made up the bulk of the Sultanate army. The overall command of the entire army of the Sultanate was with an officer titled Ariz-i-mumalik, who functioned directly under the sultan.
The soldiers of the central elite corps were recruited with great care, their strength and skill tested in various ways, and their salaries adjusted according to their merit. ‘When anyone comes desiring to be enrolled in the army as an archer, he is given one of the bows to draw,’ reports Battuta. ‘They differ in stiffness, and his pay is graduated according to the strength he shows in drawing them. Anyone desiring to be enrolled as a trooper sets off his horse at a canter or gallop, and tries to hit a target set up there with his lance. There is also a ring there, suspended from a low wall; the candidate sets off his horse at a canter until he comes level to the ring, and if he lifts it off with his lance he is considered a good horseman. For those wishing to be enrolled as mounted archers there is a ball placed on the ground, and their pay is proportioned to their accuracy in hitting it with an arrow while going at a canter or gallop.’ There were presumably similar procedures for the recruitment of soldiers in the provincial armies of the Sultanate as well.
All soldiers were required to keep themselves fighting fit always, but the rigour of the royal control of the army varied from sultan to sultan, Balban and Ala-ud-din being particularly strict about it. On the whole, the Indian armies of the age were usually in fine fettle, as they were almost continuously engaged in wars.
THE MAIN WEAKNESS of the Indian armies was that none of them were cohesive forces, but were made up of different groups of soldiers based on their race, language and religion. In addition to these, Hindu soldiers were further divided by inviolable sect and caste taboos. These Hindu social divisions affected the armies of Muslim kings also, for they all had a large number of Hindus in them, particularly in the infantry.
The custom of recruiting Hindus into Muslim armies began right from the very first Muslim military penetration into India, the Arab conquest of Sind in the early eighth century. The practice continued under the Ghazni and Ghuri sultans, and it became quite pronounced under the Delhi sultans. The provincial armies of the Delhi Sultanate in particular had a large proportion of Hindus. The dependence of the sultans on Hindu recruits became even more pronounced when the migration of Turks into India dwindled soon after the founding of the Delhi Sultanate, because of the interposition of Mongols between India and Central Asia. Later a small number of Europeans, mainly the Portuguese, joined the Indian armies, particularly in the Bahmani and Vijayanagar kingdoms.
And just as a large number of Hindu soldiers served under sultans, so also a fair number of Muslim soldiers served under rajas. Both these practices began from the very beginning of the history of the Hindu-Muslim military engagements—while Muhammad Qasim, the commander of the very first Muslim army invading India, had a number of Hindus in his army, his adversary, Dahar, the raja of Sind, had some 500 Arabs in his army. Similarly, in the mid-twelfth century, half a century before the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate, a number of Muslim soldiers are known to have serv
ed in the army of the Hoysalas in peninsular India. Later, the rajas of Vijayanagar also recruited a good number of Muslims for their armies.
There was a general preference in India at this time, in Muslim as well as Hindu kingdoms, to recruit foreigners for the army, particularly as cavalrymen, cannoneers and musketeers. According to Ferishta, the sultan of Bijapur employed in his army a large number of foreign soldiers, such as Afghans, Abyssinians, Arabs, Persians, Turks, Uzbeks, and so on. And both Bahmani and Vijayanagar kingdoms had several European soldiers in their armies, serving as cannoneers and musketeers. A number of Portuguese marksmen are recorded to have served in the army of Krishnadeva of Vijayanagar during his campaign against Adil Shah of Bijapur, and were particularly effective in shooting down the defenders on the fort walls of Raichur.
THE OFFICERS OF the Delhi Sultanate were paid their salaries either in cash or by assigning to them the revenues of particular tracts of land. Of these two modes of payment, the land revenue assignment, iqta, was generally preferred by the Delhi sultans—as well as by most Hindu kings—as it substantially reduced the administrative burden of the state. The officers who were thus allotted lands were required to meet, from the revenue of the lands given to them, the administrative expenses of their fiefs, maintain the military contingent assigned to them, and take their own salary.
The revenue from iqta lands was however only a part of the income of army officers. A major part of their income, as well as of the income of common soldiers, came from their share of war booty. Even though they were in medieval Indian sultanates generally allowed to keep only one-fifth of the booty they collected—instead of the four-fifth they were originally allowed to keep under the Sharia prescription—this restriction was probably more than compensated by the abundance of booty they could collect during the innumerable wars waged by their kings. Cavalrymen, who played the most decisive role in medieval wars, were usually paid double the salary of infantrymen, and those who showed high valour in battle received special bonuses from the king.
Most Indian kingdoms maintained incredibly large armies, but it is hard to believe some of the figures given in medieval chronicles. Muhammad Tughluq’s army, according to Barani, was ‘as numerous as a swarm of ants or locusts.’ Arabic sources claim that the sultan’s army, central and provincial forces together, had a total strength of 900,000 soldiers! And Afif states that when Firuz Tughluq campaigned in Bengal he led an army that ‘consisted of 70,000 cavalry, innumerable infantry, 470 warlike elephants, and many barrier-breaking boats,’ and that the army that he led into Sind ‘consisted of 90,000 cavalry and 480 elephants.’
According to Barbosa, the king of Vijayanagar had ‘more than a hundred thousand men of war continually in his pay.’ And Krishnadeva in his battle against Adil Shah of Bijapur is said to have led an army ‘of about a million men, if camp-followers are included,’ according to the report of Nuniz. And Ramaraya in the battle of Talikota is said to have deployed, according to one estimate given by Ferishta, 900,000 infantry, 45,000 cavalry, and 2000 elephants, besides a large number of auxiliaries.
Most of these figures are quite probably hyperbolic. But whatever be the factuality of these figures, Indian armies were usually of mammoth size. Large size however did not necessarily mean great strength. In fact, the huge size of Indian armies often turned them into unwieldy, uncontrollable rabbles, which could be easily routed by a small, tightly organised army, as Mahmud Ghazni proved again and again during his Indian campaigns, and as Babur would later prove in his battle against Ibrahim Lodi. Similarly, in the peninsula, the Bahmani sultans usually won their battles against the much larger forces deployed by the rajas of Vijayanagar.
Adding to the unwieldiness and bedlam of Indian armies were the hordes of non-combatants that accompanied the army, such as various vendors and service providers, as well a large number of prostitutes. In the train of the Vijayanagar army there were, according to Barbosa, five or six thousand women, paid for by the raja, evidently to provide the soldiers with essential sexual services. The army on the march was also invariably followed by hordes of irregulars, adding to the chaos in the army and the devastation it caused all along the route of its march.
INDIAN ARMIES IN the early medieval period consisted of four main divisions: elephants, cavalry, archers, and infantry. The army usually also had a few non-combatant wings in it, such as engineers—to serve as sappers and miners, and to man siege engines—surgeons, physicians, and scouts.
In time two new corps—cannoneers and musketeers—were added to the Indian army, and they would play an increasingly prominent role in battles. But chariots, which had a crucial role in battles in ancient India, had virtually disappeared from the scene by the late classical period; they are not even mentioned in Harsha’s army. As for the navy, some South Indian kingdoms, the Cholas for instance, had a strong naval presence in the Indian Ocean in the classical period, but their role sharply declined by the early medieval period, and the control of the seas around India passed on to Arabs and Chinese, and eventually to Europeans. Some Indian kingdoms probably still maintained small naval fleets at this time, but there is hardly any information on this. There was however a strong presence of pirates on the western peninsular coast of India, with some of the pirate chieftains commanding as many as thirty warships.
The major reliance of Indian armies in the early medieval period was on their war elephants, and kings and generals usually rode into battle on elephants, for safety as well as to have a commanding view of the battle. War elephants have been in use in India from ancient times. King Porus of northwestern India is recorded to have deployed 200 elephants in his battle against the invading army of Macedonian king Alexander in the fourth century BCE. Alexander however did not think much of the value of elephants in battle, and he devised a tactic to turn them against their own side, and thus rout the raja. Similarly, Timur in his battle against sultan Mahmud of Delhi in the late fourteenth century1 also devised a tactic to counter the threat of elephants, and win the battle.
But these were rare incidents. Elephants normally played a decisive role in Indian battles. And the size of the elephant corps in Indian armies grew greatly over the centuries, and in time their use in war spread from India to Central Asia, and even to Europe. Ghaznavids were the first Muslim kings to use elephants in large numbers in battle—Mahmud Ghazni is said to have maintained a stable of 1000 elephants, tended by Hindu mahouts. Balban valued elephants very highly, and held that ‘one elephant was worth 500 horsemen.’ The ‘elephant possesses more intelligence than any other animal in the world,’ states Varthema. ‘I have seen some elephants which have more understanding, and more discretion and intelligence, than many kind of people I have met with.’
Confronting elephants in the battlefield was a horrifying experience for most invading armies. Elephants, notes Razzak, ‘in their size resemble mountains and in their form resemble devils.’ In battle they were usually made even more terrifying by being armoured and armed. ‘Large scythes are attached to the trunks and tusks of the elephants, and the animals are clad in ornamental plates of steel. They carry a howdah, and in it are twelve men in armour with guns and arrows,’ reports Nikitin. These soldiers, according to Timur, also threw grenades and fireworks, and shot rockets at the enemy.
The very sight and smell of elephants, as well as their trumpeting, threw the horses of invaders into panic. And the terrifying charge of elephants, which could reach speeds of up to thirty kilometres an hour, usually disarrayed the enemy infantry and cavalry, and made them flee pell-mell. All this made elephants an object of absolute terror for invading armies, more so as the all too real terrors of these beasts were magnified fantastically in the legends about them. Even as late as the close of the fourteenth century, when Timur invaded India, these legends persisted, and they dispirited the Mongol soldiers.
A major problem with elephants in battle was that they often ran amuck, throwing their own army into disarray. Still, elephants continued to play a
crucial role in Indian battles till the late medieval period. But their role gradually declined thereafter, for the use of firearms made them obsolete. Moreover they were easy targets for cannons. The role of elephants in the army then became limited to hauling heavy military equipments.
NEXT IN IMPORTANCE to elephants in the early medieval Indian armies were mounted archers, who usually carried spears, swords and battle-axes, apart from bows. Their arrow heads were sometimes poisoned. Several thousands of these cavalrymen simultaneously charging at full tilt and shooting arrows was an onslaught which few infantry formations could withstand. Balban, according to Barani, held that a cavalry force of six or seven thousand could easily rout a hundred thousand strong infantry force.
India did not breed good quality horses at this time, so they had to be imported in large numbers from the Middle East and Central Asia. This was done by rajas as well as sultans. ‘The king,’ says Nuniz about the raja of Vijayanagar, ‘every year buys thirteen thousand horses of Ormuz, and country-breds, of which he chooses the best for his stable, and gives the rest to his captains.’ This had to be done every year, for, as Barbosa states, ‘horses do not thrive well in their country and live therein but a short time,’ because of the hot and humid climate of India.
Indian kings also regularly recruited a good number of foreign cavalrymen—Turks and other steppe people—as they were far superior to local cavalrymen. But they too, like imported horses, had to be recruited afresh periodically, as the spirit and energy of foreign soldiers tended to decline in the enervating climate of India.
Elephant and cavalry divisions were the most powerful units of the early medieval Indian armies, to which artillery and musketry divisions were later added. But the largest numerical constituent of Indian armies has always been the infantry. This however was also its weakest wing, being an ill-disciplined horde with hardly any military training, many of them just temporary recruits from among peasants.
The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate Page 41