READING HALL DOORS OF WISDOM
"THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY"
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READING HALL DOORS OF WISDOM"THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY" |
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BABAR
CHAPTER XIIIHINDUSTAN1520-1528 A.D.
Babar was now king of Delhi, but not yet king of Hindustan,
much less of India. Even of the dominion of Delhi, which then stretched from
the Indus to Bihar, and from Gwáliar to the Himalayas, he was only nominally
master. The Lodi dynasty, indeed, was dethroned, and its last king slain, but
that king left a brother to claim the crown, and the land remained unsubdued
east and south of Agra. The people were hostile to the strangers of uncouth
tongue, and each town and petty ruler prepared for obstinate resistance. The
country round Agra was in open revolt. Biána, Mewát, Dholpúr, Gwáliar, Ráberi,
Etáwa, Kálpi, were all fortifying against attack, unanimous in rejecting the
newcomers. In spite of the surfeit of treasure, Babar’s troops were like to
starve. “When I came to Agra” he says, “it was the hot season. All the inhabitants
fled from terror, so that we could find neither grain for ourselves nor fodder
for our beasts. The villages, out of mere hatred and spite to us, had taken to
anarchy, thieving, and marauding. The roads became impassable. I had not had
time, after the division of the treasure, to send fit persons to occupy and
protect the different pargánas and stations. The heats this year chanced to be
unusually oppressive, and many men dropped at about the same time, as though
struck by the samúm, and died on the
spot”.
The troops began to murmur. They longed for the cool
air of Kabul, and even made ready for return. They looked upon India “as a
buccaneer looked on a galleon”; the prize-money distributed, they wished to
make sail. Babar was exceedingly angry, especially when the grumbling of the
rank and file reached his ears. He could take advice, on occasion, from his
Begs, tried warriors, and politic men of affairs :—but this rabble! “Where was
the sense of decency of eternally dinning the same tale in the ears of one who
saw the facts with his own eyes, and had formed a calm and fixed resolve in
regard to the business in hand? What use was there in the whole army, down to
the very dregs, giving their stupid uninformed opinions?”. He was bitterly disappointed
at their want of loyal confidence. Even Khwája Kalán, his best general, whose
six brothers had followed him to their deaths, was eager to return home.
They had to deal with an obstinate man, however, and Babar
soon showed them his mettle. He summoned the Begs to a council, and spoke his
mind. He recalled the toils and labors of the past years, the weary marches and
grievous hardships, and reminded them that all these had been endured for the
sake of the great reward which was now theirs. “A mighty enemy had been
overcome, and a rich and powerful kingdom was at their feet. And now, having
attained our goal and won our game, are we to turn back from all we have
accomplished and fly to Kabul like men who have lost and are discomfited? Let
no man who calls himself my friend ever again moot such a thing. But if there
be any one of you who cannot bring himself to stay, then let him go”.
Thoroughly shamed, the murmurers dared not say a
word: the whole army returned to its senses. So the plague of disaffection was
stayed among the people. Only Khwája Kalán was sent as governor to Ghazni,
because a man of his influence and ability was needed to protect the country. Babar,
however, was deeply offended with his veteran officer, and the offence was
doubled when the Khwája, who was a cultivated man, wrote these lines on a wall
at Delhi:—
If safe and sound I pass the Sind,
Damned if I ever wish for Hind.
Babar in reply sent him the verse :—
Babar! give all thanks that the favor of God Most High
Hath given thee Sind and Hind and widespread royalty:
If the heats of
India make thee long for the mountain cold
Remember the frost and ice that numbed thee in Ghazni
of old!
There are few acts more splendidly heroic in Babar’s
career than this bold resolution to stay where he was, in the middle of India,
among hostile nations and a discontented soldiery. And the reward of firmness
soon appeared. He had not only won over his own army but many of his enemies.
The people had imagined that his invasion was no more than a temporary raid, like his ancestor Timur’s, and
thought that he would depart as soon as he was gorged with treasure. To such a
robber they would otter strenuous resistance. But when they found that he had
come to live amongst them, they began to examine him more curiously, and to
consider what policy was likely to pay. All they could learn about the new
conqueror was in his favor. His severities were as nothing compared with his
generous magnanimity. His courage and generalship were proved, and if he meant
to stay and rule the land, who was there fit to be weighed in the balance
against him? Tired of the barbarities and uneasiness of civil war, recognizing
no chief of Babar’s level, the fighting men who had long trampled on Hindustan
began to see the merits of a master. The tide of public opinion turned and set
steadily towards Babar’s side.
First an Afghan officer came over with a valuable
contingent of two or three thousand retainers from the Doab. Then a powerful
chief was won by the Emperor’s clemency to his captured sons. Still more
wonderful was the submission of the whole Afghan army, which the late king of
Delhi had dispatched to subdue the revolted province of Bihar. They one and all
acclaimed the new order, and Babar, by a stroke of genius, rewarded them with the
gift of valuable fiefs in the parts of Jaunpur and Oudh which were still in
revolt. Naturally the prospect of handsome revenues spurred on their energies.
Meanwhile Sambhal was taken by guile; and Humayun led an army against the
insurgent Afghans in the east, who were advancing into the Doab, but
immediately broke up on his approach and fled over the Ganges. The young prince
pursued, took Jaunpur and Gházipúr, and leaving strong divisions in Jaunpur and
Oudh, marched back by way of Kálpi to support his father against a pressing
danger. For Babar was now coming to the grip with the only formidable rival
left in Hindustan, the great Ráná Sanga of Chitor.
Ráná Sanga was the head of the Rajput principality of
Chitor, now known as Udaipur, and the representative of a family which, by the
universal consent of the Rajputs, is allowed the pre-eminence among all the
Rajput tribes as the most ancient and the noblest. Like Babar, he had been
educated in the school of adversity. After overcoming the many difficulties and
dangers of his early life, when he at length mounted the throne he carried on
successful wars with his neighbours on every side, and added largely to his
hereditary dominions. From Sultan Mahmud Khilji, the king of Malwa—whom he
defeated in battle, took prisoner, and honorably entertained in a spirit worthy
of the best days of chivalry—he had wrested the wide and valuable provinces of
Bhílsa, Sarangpúr, Chanderi and Rantbor. He had engaged in hostilities with
Sultan Ibrahim of Delhi, and twice had met the sultan himself in pitched
battles. “Eighty thousand horse, seven Rajas of the highest rank, nine Raos,
and one hundred and four chieftains bearing the titles of Ráwul and Ráwut, with
five hundred war elephants, followed him into the field. The princes of Márwár
and Ambér did him homage, and the Raos of Gwáliar, Ajmír, Síkri, Raesen, Kalpek,
Chánderi, Bundi, Gágraon, Rampúra, and Abú, served him as tributaries or held
of him in chief”. His personal figure corresponded with his deeds. “He
exhibited at his death but the fragment of a warrior; one eye was lost in the
broil with his brother, an arm in an action with the Lodi King of Delhi, and he
was a cripple owing to a limb being broken with a cannon-ball in another, while
he counted eighty wounds from the sword or the lance on various parts of his
body”. And his rival, Babar, who loved in an enemy the qualities he himself possessed,
pays him only a just tribute of respect when he says that the high eminence he
then held he had attained but recently by his valor and his sword.
The two men belonged to widely different races—Babar,
the Turco-Mongolian of Western Tartary, Sanga, the
pure Aryan of the East: but each recognized his rival s greatness, for—
There is neither East nor
West,
Border nor Breed nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
Tho’ they come
from the ends of the earth.
The Ráná had even sent a complimentary embassy to Babar
at Kabul, offering to join in the attack on the Delhi kingdom. When the time
came, however, he thought better of it, and Babar resented the defection. On
his side the Rajput claimed territory on the western bank of the Ganges, which Babar
had occupied. One of these places was Biána, which was too near Agra to be left
unsubdued. Tardi Beg, whom we have met before in different circumstances, was
sent to seize the fort, and though the first attempt was an egregious failure,
the Muhammadan commander of Biána, hearing that Ráná Sanga was coming to the
rescue, preferred surrendering to his fellow Muslims to yielding the fortress
to a Hindu pagan. In the same way, and for the same cause, Dholpúr opened its
gates to the Emperor’s troops, and finally Gwáliar, the famous fortress on its
impregnable crag, was taken by stratagem.
This was coming to close quarters; and soon after Humayun
had brought back his army to Agra, Babar learnt without surprise that the Ráná
was marching on Biána, and had been joined by Hasan Khan of Mewát. It was war
to the knife. The Emperor lost no time, but sending on a light detachment
towards the threatened fortress, with orders to hang on the enemy and harass
him, he set out himself with his main body in battle array on February 11,
1527. All his campaigns hitherto had been against fellow Muslims; now, for the
first time, no was marching against “heathens”; it was the Jihad, the holy war.
Moreover, these “heathens” were fighting-men of the first class. Babar had some
experiences of the warlike capacities of various races. He knew the Mongol wheeling
swoop, the Uzbeg charge, the Afghan skit-mish, and the steady fighting of his
own Turks; but he was now to meet warriors of a higher type than any he had
encountered. “The Rajputs, energetic, chivalrous, fond of battle and bloodshed,
animated by a strong national spirit, were ready to meet face to face the
boldest veterans of the camp, and were at all times prepared to lay down their
life for their honor”. Their chivalry and lofty sense of honor inspired nobler
feats and sacrifices than any that were conceived by Babar’s less highly
wrought soldiers.
The Emperor camped at Síkri—afterwards Akbar’s
exquisite palace-city of Fathpúr—where he was joined by the garrison from Biána.
These men had already received a lesson from the Rajputs, of whose bravery and
daring they all spoke in unmeasured praise. The enemy was evidently not one
that could be trifled with. An outpost affair soon confirmed this impression :
an incautious advance by one of the Amirs was at once detected by the Rajputs,
who sent the Turks flying back to camp with some loss, including a standard.
The pursuers only pulled up when they came in sight of a strong detachment
which Babar had quickly sent out to cover the retreat. Being now in touch with
the enemy, the Emperor put his army in battle array. As before at Pánipat, he
ranged the gun-carriages, and probably the baggage wagons, so as to cover his
front, and chained them together at a distance of five paces. Mustafa, from
Turkey, ordered his artillery admirably in the Ottoman manner on the left wing,
but Ustád Ali had a different method. Where there were no guns or wagons, a
ditch was dug, backed by portable wooden tripods on wheels, lashed together at
a few paces apart. These preparations took twenty-five days, and were designed
to restore the confidence of the troops. The army, in fact, was almost in a
panic at the reports of the numbers and courage of the Rajputs, and an
astrologer —an “evil-minded rascally fellow”—added to the general uneasiness by
his foolish predictions, of which, to his credit, Babar took no heed. His every
energy was bent upon getting the army into a fit state to meet the enemy—“stiffen
their sinews, summon up the blood”.
It was at this anxious moment, when his men were
quaking in anticipation of the struggle with their unknown foes, that Babar
made his memorable renunciation of wine, broke his drinking cups, poured out
the stores of liquor on the ground, and promulgated his total-abstinence
manifesto to the army. It was a time for solemn vows of reformation, and in
common with many of his followers the Emperor adopted the usual token of a
pledge, by letting his beard grow. Then he called his dispirited officers together,
and addressed them :—
“GENTLEMEN AND SOLDIERS—Every man that comes into the
world must pass away: God alone is immortal, unchangeable. Whoso sits down to
the feast of life must end by drinking the cup of death. All visitors of the
inn of immortality must one day leave this house of sorrow. Rather let us die
with honor than live disgraced!
With fame, though I die, I am content,
Let fame be mine, though life he spent.
God most high has been gracious in giving us this
destiny, that if we fall we die martyrs, if we conquer we triumph in His holy
cause. Let us swear with one accord by the great name of God that we will never
turn back from such a death, or shrink from the stress of battle, till our
souls are parted from our bodies”.
Master and servant, great and small, every man seized
the Koran and took the oath. After that, the army began to pluck up. They
needed it, for every day brought bad news : a fort had surrendered, a chief had
turned traitor, a detachment had been forced to retire, the Indians who had
joined the army began to desert. Waiting only made the situation worse, and Babar
resolved to advance upon the enemy. On New Year’s Day, March 12, he writes :—
“I advanced my wagons [and guns] and tripods with all
the apparatus and machines that I had prepared, and marched forward with my
army in order of battle—right wing, left wing, and center in their places. In
front were the wagons, gun-carriages, and tripods on wheels, and behind came Ustád
Ali Kuli, with a body of his matchlock men, to prevent the communication being
cut off between the artillery and the infantry behind, and to enable them to
advance and form into line. When the ranks were formed and every man in his
place, I galloped along the line, encouraging the Begs and men of the center,
right, and left, giving special directions to each division how to act, and to
each man orders how to proceed and engage. Then, when all was arranged, I moved
the army on in order of battle for a couple of miles, when we camped. The
pagans, getting notice of our movements, were on the alert, and several bodies
drew out to face us and came close up to our wagons and ditch ... I did not
intend fighting that day, but sent out a few skirmishers by way of taking an
omen. They took a number of pagans and cut off their heads, which they brought
in... This raised the spirits of the army wonderfully, and gave them confidence”.
It was not till Saturday, March 16, 1527, that the two
armies met at Kanawha in pitched battle. Babar had pushed on another mile or
two, and was busy setting the camp, when the news came that the enemy were
advancing. Instantly every man was sent to his post, the line of chained guns
and wagons was strengthened, and the army drawn up for the fight. A special
feature in the disposition was the great strength of the reserves. Babar
himself commanded the center, assisted by his cousin, Chin Timur, a son of Ahmad,
the late Khan of Mongolistán. Humayun led the right, and the Emperor’s
son-in-law, Mahdi Khwája, the left. Among the minor commanders was a grandson
of Sultán Husain of Herat; and the Lodi Alá-ad-din, the claimant to the crown
of Delhi, whom Babar still used as a figure-head, had his post. Of the number
of the imperial troops there is no estimate, but the Rajputs were credited with
over 200,000—probably a rough guess, based upon the known maximum of Rajput
levies; but Ráná Sanga evidently had a very powerful following. The chiefs of
Bhílsa, rated at 30.000 horse, of Mewát, Dongarpur,
and Chanderi, with about 12,000 each, brought the flower of Rajput chivalry at
their backs; and Mahmud Lodi, brother of the late Sultán Ibrahim, another
claimant to the throne, had collected a body of 10,000 mercenaries to support
his pretensions. Whatever the exact numbers, “a more gallant army could not be
brought into the field”.
“The battle began, about half-past nine in the
morning, by a desperate charge made by the Rajputs on Babar’s right. Bodies of
the reserve were pushed on to its assistance; and Mustafa Rumi, who commanded
one portion of the artillery [and matchlocks] on the right of the center,
opened a fire upon the assailants. Still, new bodies of the enemy poured on
undauntedly, and new detachments from the reserve were sent to resist them. The
battle was no less desperate on the left, to which also it was found necessary
to dispatch repeated parties from the reserve. When the battle had lasted
several hours, and still continued to rage, Babar sent orders to the flanking
columns to wheel round and charge; and he soon after ordered the guns to
advance, and, by a simultaneous movement, the household troops and cavalry
stationed behind the cannon were ordered to gallop out on right and left of the
matchlock men in the center, who also moved forward and continued their fire,
hastening to fling themselves with all their fury on the enemy’s center. When
this was observed in the wings they also advanced. These unexpected movements,
made at the same moment, threw the enemy into confusion. Their center was
shaken; the men who were displaced by the attack made in flank on the wings and
rear were forced upon the center and crowded together. Still the gallant Rajputs
were not appalled. They made repeated desperate attacks on the Emperor’s center,
in hopes of recovering the day; but were bravely and steadily received, and
swept away in great numbers. [Ustád Ali’s “huge balls” did fearful execution among
the “heathen”]. Towards evening the confusion was complete, and the slaughter
was consequently dreadful. The fate of the battle was decided. Nothing remained
for the Rajputs but to force their way through the bodies of the enemy that
were now in their rear, and to effect a retreat. The Emperor pursued them as
far as their camp, and ... detached a strong body of horse with orders to
pursue the broken troops of the confederates without halting; to cut up all
they met, and to prevent them from reassembling”
The victory was final, complete. The enemy fled in all
directions, leaving multitudes of slain upon the fields and roads around. Many
chiefs had fallen, and the heads of gallant Rajputs rose in the ghastly tower
erected by their conqueror, who now took the title he had earned of Gházi, or Victor in the Holy War.
Indeed, had Babar pressed the pursuit he would have almost exterminated the
Rajput power, and ultimus ille dies bello gentique fuisset. As it was,
the noble Sanga himself escaped, though severely wounded, but from that day
forth no Ráná of his line ever took the field in person against an Emperor of
Babar’s house. Within a year the invader had struck two decisive blows, which
shattered the power of two great organized forces. The battle of Pánipat had
utterly broken the power of the Muhammadan Afghans in India; the battle of Kanwáha
crushed the great confederacy of the Hindus.
But Babar had not done with the Rajputs yet. He had
beaten them, but he meant also to punish them. When his troops mustered again
in winter after the rainy season, he resolved to lead them into the enemy’s
country and attack one of their chief strongholds. He marched against Chanderi,
on the south-east of Malwa, the fastness of Medini Rao, one of the Ráná’s
distinguished lieutenants, king-maker in Malwa, and head of the Rajputs of that
part. His way took him down the Jamna, which he crossed below the confluence of
the Chambal, to Kálpi, whence he diverged towards his goal, cutting a path
through the jungle for his guns and wagons. He reached Chanderi on January 20,
1528. Medini Rao was in his fortress with some five thousand of his gallant
followers, and proudly rejected Babar’s offer of terms. Just as the besiegers
were closing round the place, the prime minister, Nizam-ad-din Khalifa, brought the Emperor the disturbing news that
the army he had sent against the Afghans of Bihar had been defeated, and
abandoning Lucknow was falling back on Kanauj. Seeing Khalifa’s perturbation, Babar remarked reassuringly that all things were in God’s hands,
and there was no use in anxiety; he bade his minister conceal the bad news, and
strain every nerve to carry Chanderi by assault in the morning. The outer fort
was taken in the night. In the morning a general assault was ordered, and in
spite of the stones and fire which the Rajputs threw down on their heads, the
storming parties gained the walls in several places and seized a covered way
that led to the citadel. The upper fort was quickly forced, and the desperate
Rajputs, seeing that all was lost, killed all their women and children, and
rushing out naked, fell furiously upon the Muslims, slaughtered as many as they
could, and then threw themselves over the ramparts. A remnant had gathered in Medini Rao’s house, where they slew each other with
enthusiasm: “one man took his stand with a sword, and others came pressing on,
one by one, and stretched out their necks, eager to die; in this way many went
to hell”. To Babar this desperate sacrifice appeared only an exhibition of
pagan infatuation, and he piled up the heads of these heroic suicides in a
tower on a hill-top without a word of admiration for their gallant end. He was
only surprised at the ease with which in the space of an hour, and without his
full strength, he had stormed so redoubtable a fortress.
Soon after this second blow, the great Ráná Sanga,
Babar’s only comparable rival, died, and a contest over the succession deprived
the Rajput confederacy of any leader. There was no more trouble with the Hindus
in his time, but that time was short. The mighty Mongol was soon to join the gallant
Rajput among the shades.
CHAPTER XIVEMPIRE.1520-30 A.D.
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