Historical Battles in Ancient & Medieval Bharat

dipak · Post by **dipak** » 06 Jan 2010 15:50

Thanks Narayana Rao ji, nice and inspiring post.

We need more of such posts. May be of Vijaynagar empire.

Please extend my thanks to Kedar also.

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 06 Jan 2010 20:56

ramana wrote:Thanks a lot am printing it a reading it.

Can you ask Mr Kedar, if this was the case why did Deogiri lose to Khiljis and the Tughlaks? What was different then and during Shivaji's time for the people and terrain are same.

My other comment is Marathi becoming a Deonagari script based language during the two invasions- made Shivaji's victories into restoring the pride of North India.

Ramanaji,

I think the different between the Deogiri and Shivaji empire may be manner in which the war was fought. Shivaji and his people always fought and ran to live another day. So unlike others they can continue the war. One more thing I feel is typical to Hindu Kingdoms is they almost never survived a defeat. The Maratas are an exception to this rule. They also played politial games better than say Rajputs. I think that may be the difference.

These are of course my thoughts. Any gurus can add to this or correct me if am wrong.

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 06 Jan 2010 20:59

dipak wrote:Thanks Narayana Rao ji, nice and inspiring post.

We need more of such posts. May be of Vijaynagar empire.

Please extend my thanks to Kedar also.

Will try to find some good items on Vijayanagara also.

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 07 Jan 2010 05:50

Narayana Rao wrote:I think the different between the Deogiri and Shivaji empire may be manner in which the war was fought.

The difference between Devagiri and Shivaji is a period of more than three centuries, in which the structure of society had completely changed and a "Maratha identity" emerged. Loss of independence in the 14th century and confinement to a small region (Ghats and Desh) had ensured that identities of clan and caste had watered down and the descendants of ancient Mauryas (More) and Yadus (Jadav) or the children of Rajput migrants like Solankis (Sulke), Chauhans (Chavan), and Parmars (Panwar) all mingled together without distinction.

In North India the Rajput kingdoms turned back the tide of Turk invasions in the 14th century and retained their state structure down to the 20th century. Hence, here the clan identity remained strong, and each state was dominated by one clan, which created limitations in raising large armies or military coalitions. Because clan-identity had watered down among the Marathas, they were free from these limitations and a chieftain could command an army formed of many different clans.

Narayana Rao wrote:Shivaji and his people always fought and ran to live another day. So unlike others they can continue the war.

It was as mercenaries of the Deccan Sultanates, through these three centuries, that the Marathas developed these tactics. While their Deccani masters faced the enemy with the regular army, the Maratha cavaliers would hover around the invaders and cut down stragglers or make a wide detour to attack their camp and baggage. They also became experts in making quick raids into enemy lands and plundering their villages and towns. Small but swift horses of the Deccani breed (now extinct) also served them well in these tactics.

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 07 Jan 2010 19:35

I agree. We can also atribute the political aspects also to Marata sucess. I think they understood Muslims better than say Rajputs and could play with them better. For example I don't think Marata's never really trusted Muslim kings around them. You can correct me if I am wrong.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 07 Jan 2010 21:21

Narayana Rao wrote:I agree. We can also atribute the political aspects also to Marata sucess. I think they understood Muslims better than say Rajputs and could play with them better. For example I don't think Marata's never really trusted Muslim kings around them. You can correct me if I am wrong.

Thats a generalization and needs to be backed up.

BajKhedawal · Post by **BajKhedawal** » 08 Jan 2010 00:06

Narayana Rao wrote:I agree. We can also atribute the political aspects also to Marata sucess. I think they understood Muslims better than say Rajputs and could play with them better. For example I don't think Marata's never really trusted Muslim kings around them. You can correct me if I am wrong.

Keep in mind that the Marathas along with other Indians were insulated from the muslims by border Rajput kingdoms for the longest time until the Rajputs could no longer hold the invaders off. If anything, the Marathas probably reaped the benefit of the knowledgebase acquired by the Rajputs on Muslim warfare style.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » 08 Jan 2010 00:13

ramana wrote:
Narayana Rao wrote:I agree. We can also atribute the political aspects also to Marata sucess. I think they understood Muslims better than say Rajputs and could play with them better. For example I don't think Marata's never really trusted Muslim kings around them. You can correct me if I am wrong.
Thats a generalization and needs to be backed up.

The first generation of maratha leaderhip worked closely with the Bahmani successors. Shivaji's father was working with the Bijapur sultan if I remember correctly and had the benefit of understanding their warfare tactics.

The Rajputana kingdoms did not have this benefit and got worn down.....A similar analogy would be the Indian Army coming to grips with the PLA by the 1962 end..but by then the war had ended.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 08 Jan 2010 00:19

Paul wrote:
The first generation of maratha leaderhip worked closely with the Bahmani successors. Shivaji's father was working with the Bijapur sultan if I remember correctly and had the benefit of understanding their warfare tactics.

What period is this. Marathas continuously updated themselves in warfare technic learning from all others to build their war machine. This is the important difference between them and the rest of the Kingdom during the medieval period.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 08 Jan 2010 03:16

the rulers of vijayanagar were careful to learn the mounted archery tactics of the turks and emulated them well and to great effect. sometimes employing turk mercenaries in their ranks... sadly that was also to be their downfall when they switched sides to bijapur

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 08 Jan 2010 22:15

Battle of Rasil

Chach of Alor, the king of Sindh concentrated huge armies from Sindh and Balochistan to halt the advance of Muslims. Suhail was reinforced by Usman ibn Abi Al Aas from Persepolis, and Hakam ibn Amr from Busra, the combined forces defeated Chach of Alor at a pitch Battle of Rasil, who retreated to the eastern bank of River Indus. Further east from Indus River laid Sindh, which was domain of Rai kingdom. Umar, after knowing that sindh was a poor and relatively barran land, disapproved Suhail’s proposal to cross Indus River.For the time being, Umar declared the Indus River, a natural barrier, to be the eastern most frontier of his domain. This campaign came to an end in mid 644.

The defeated Chach was pushed back to the Indus river. When the Caliph was asked for permission to go furthur to Sindh, he refused permission. He asked the soldiers to sell the elephants they had captured and take the money. The next caliph, Uthman, also denied permission to conquer Sindh, which eventually happened during the caliphate of Muawiya.

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 11 Jan 2010 11:22

I feel more than one factor is reason for the success of Marata’s. Let us not forget that Rajputs in Maha Rana Kumbha did reduced Lodi’s kingdom into a small force and only the Babar’s appearance did helped to continue Muslim’s rule in Delhi area. Otherwise Rajputs themselves might have eliminated Muslim rule in Delhi area in due course.

We never attacked Muslim invaders at their in Arab, Persian and Central Asean regions. What ever may be the reason for our inaction it resulted in a situation wherein they are free at their home and are free to invade us. They cloud attack us much of time and have to win only once. They were never in the danger of getting attacked at their home. We lost once in most of cases and almost never recovered. I think in the long run strategically this was the advantage they had.

Any gurus can add or correct me.

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 11 Jan 2010 13:09

Narayana Rao wrote:We never attacked Muslim invaders at their in Arab, Persian and Central Asean regions. What ever may be the reason for our inaction it resulted in a situation wherein they are free at their home and are free to invade us.

But once these Muslim invaders (Turks) had established themselves in India (Delhi Sultanate), shouldn't they have been free to mount campaigns against enemies in Central Asia?

And yet, while the Mongols carried out repeated raids into this Delhi Sultanate, all the way through Punjab into Delhi and beyond, the Muslims failed to mount retaliatory raids. The Chagtai Khanate was free to invade them without any fear throughout the 13th and 14th centuries.

The reason for their "inaction": The independent Hindu states still existing in North India. Without subduing these Hindu kingdoms, it was impossible for the Delhi Sultanate to send a large army too far away from its base. The same problem held back most other kingdoms from attempting such an adventure, except those that had first consolidated their hold on a large part of India. And these were the Maurya, Gupta, Mughal, and British empires.

Murugan · Post by **Murugan** » 11 Jan 2010 15:34

Kathiawari Horse

Marwari Horse

Zanskari Horse

Manipuri Horse

All of above together

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 16 Jan 2010 02:20

culturally we had no interest in lands beyond the seas or beyond the borders of bharat, so the concept of invading other peoples was not known or thought about actively

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Jan 2010 02:40

Actually Muhammad bin Tughlaq raised a very large army ( ~100k soldiers) to fight in Central Asia and sent them through Kashmir. They suffered a lot of casualties and when the returned they were about a 10,000 left.

Akbar also raised a force to fight in Balkh and Badakshan and suffered a lot of casualties. The terrain is bad and logistics trail very long and local area has nothing of value to sustain an invading force.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 16 Jan 2010 03:04

Lalmohan wrote:culturally we had no interest in lands beyond the seas or beyond the borders of bharat, so the concept of invading other peoples was not known or thought about actively

At least in the case of the Cholas it is wrong. They did go beyond the shores of the sub-continent.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 16 Jan 2010 04:11

^^^ swamiji, my mistake, i had a northern filter on

Neela · Post by **Neela** » 16 Jan 2010 14:25

Narayana Rao,
Wonderful read Sir!
Is this available in a book? Online link?

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 16 Jan 2010 15:12

It is eastern horizons blog by Mr Kedar.

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 16 Jan 2010 15:14

ramana wrote:Actually Muhammad bin Tughlaq raised a very large army ( ~100k soldiers) to fight in Central Asia and sent them through Kashmir. They suffered a lot of casualties and when the returned they were about a 10,000 left.

Akbar also raised a force to fight in Balkh and Badakshan and suffered a lot of casualties. The terrain is bad and logistics trail very long and local area has nothing of value to sustain an invading force.

It is because they are mainly dependent on their Horses also. In many other places like Assam the Muslim forces did faced lot of revereses.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » 17 Jan 2010 03:53

shahjahan's armies were based along the amu darya and at one timecontemplated crossing the river to claim their anexstral property.

Basically kandahar, ghazni, kabul formed the outer boundary of the indian empires. it was not profitable for indian sultanat to go beyond this line.

kedar_s · Post by **kedar_s** » 17 Jan 2010 09:58

Hello All,

Thanks for the comments related to my blog posts related to 27 year war. The discussion on this forum is very interesting.

The links to the original blog posts are as follows.

Any and all comments / feedback is welcome.

http://kedarsoman.wordpress.com/2009/12 ... history-i/

http://kedarsoman.wordpress.com/2009/12 ... istory-ii/

http://kedarsoman.wordpress.com/2009/12 ... story-iii/

http://kedarsoman.wordpress.com/2009/12 ... istory-iv/

http://kedarsoman.wordpress.com/2009/12 ... history-v/

http://kedarsoman.wordpress.com/2009/12 ... istory-vi/

http://kedarsoman.wordpress.com/2009/12 ... story-vii/

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 17 Jan 2010 11:32

Welcome to this forum Kedar. We all hope you actively participate here.

dipak · Post by **dipak** » 17 Jan 2010 14:21

Welcome Kedar! And thanks for the excellent material on Maratha war.

Expecting more in future.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 17 Jan 2010 21:40

kedar_s wrote:Hello All,

Thanks for the comments related to my blog posts related to 27 year war. The discussion on this forum is very interesting.

The links to the original blog posts are as follows.

Any and all comments / feedback is welcome.

Can you post it in another forum on Indian History -
http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index ... b9&act=idx

ashish raval · Post by **ashish raval** » 18 Jan 2010 18:26

Could not find the distorted history topic so posting it here.
A tiny compilation of India's Temple-Masjids..

http://www.scribd.com/doc/16639906/Hindu-Masjids-

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 02 Feb 2010 11:21

Following in Alexander's Afghan footsteps

Writer Iain Hunter shows an astonishing ignorance of Afghanistan's history:

Alexander's order, of course, didn't survive long after his death. His empire was broken up; Greek-style democracy where it existed was stamped out eventually by Roman conquerors.

The Helmand Valley, the mountains of the Hindu Kush and Kandahar were among vast territories surrendered, it's said, for the price of 500 elephants.

Please educate this gentleman on Chandragupta Maurya and the Maurya Empire at: cruachan(AT)shaw.ca

ParGha · Post by **ParGha** » 02 Feb 2010 16:45

Airavat wrote:Following in Alexander's Afghan footsteps
Writer Iain Hunter shows an astonishing ignorance of Afghanistan's history:
Alexander's order, of course, didn't survive long after his death. His empire was broken up; Greek-style democracy where it existed was stamped out eventually by Roman conquerors.
The Helmand Valley, the mountains of the Hindu Kush and Kandahar were among vast territories surrendered, it's said, for the price of 500 elephants.
Please educate this gentleman on Chandragupta Maurya and the Maurya Empire at: cruachan(AT)shaw.ca

I think he means Greek-style democracy was wiped out in a few small Hellenic city-states in Greece that had somehow regained a bit of autonomy after Alexander's death.

Alexander's empire was pretty much ruled like a Persian satrapy. It was anything but democratic. Under traditional Macedonian structure the nobles had some say in the matters, but by the Afghan campaign the power had gradually become consolidated in Alexander's person and his chosen military commanders - quite Persian style. Even before Alexander entered India numerous Greeks/Macedonians in his own army were complaining that they had essentially become "Persian". The inclusion of collaborating Persian noblemen and half-Persian sons of Greek soldiers in Alexander's private campaign school/staff had nearly sparked a mutiny to dethrone him (far more serious than the "lets go back home" mutiny on the Indus). I would suspect that the army that invaded India was majority Persian/Central Asian, with only the core units still Macedonian.

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 02 Feb 2010 19:39

I very much doubt Mecedon is the democracy at the time of Philip or our Alex 3. The article Airavat mentioned is almost the same story narated in oliver stone movie where the same kind of stupidity is told to the people.

There are two serious issues with alex3's so called invasion into india. 1. He did lost war with Purus. 2. The Chandra Gupta who fought with Selucus is not of Mourya but of Gupta line. I am doing some study on the second point. But on the first point i belive there areearlier posts here also.

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 03 Feb 2010 05:40

ParGha wrote:I think he means Greek-style democracy was wiped out in a few small Hellenic city-states in Greece that had somehow regained a bit of autonomy after Alexander's death.

The article was written in the context of Afghanistan. He mentions the surrender of Helmand, Kandahar, etc for 500 elephants.....this was not to Romans but to Chandragupta Maurya. The person who surrendered these territories was Seleucus Nikator, successor of Alexander in West Asia.

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 03 Feb 2010 19:37

Naturally he also forgot to mentioned that by that time there were republics in India (of which the Gadhara was part) and also Selucus lost the war with Chandra Gupta and the 500 Ele are given at his request and he used them later in the war.

Adrija · Post by **Adrija** » 03 Mar 2010 14:28

Apologies for the OT post , but couldn't find the Distorted Histories thread:

Exactly how credible is this hypothesis of the Chandragupta who was coincident with Alexander's invasion (326 BC) being Chandragupta Vikramaditya (of the Gupta dynasty?) and not Chandragupta Maurya?

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 03 Mar 2010 14:34

Adrija wrote:Apologies for the OT post , but couldn't find the Distorted Histories thread:

Exactly how credible is this hypothesis of the Chandragupta who was coincident with Alexander's invasion (326 BC) being Chandragupta Vikramaditya (of the Gupta dynasty?) and not Chandragupta Maurya?

Being discssed in the GDF (general discussion forum) the thread has moved there.

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 07 Mar 2010 13:22

how to go to this GDF am not finding it anywhere can any one hlep

shravan · Post by **shravan** » 07 Mar 2010 13:25

^ http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewforum.php?f=24

dipak · Post by **dipak** » 07 Mar 2010 15:13

Narayana Rao wrote:how to go to this GDF am not finding it anywhere can any one hlep

You have to be logged in if you want to view the GDF. It will not be displayed in general lurking mode (when you browse without login)

csharma · Post by **csharma** » 10 Mar 2010 12:17

Question for Airavat and other experts. Thanks in advance.

After the third battle of Panipat, it seems that the Afghans did not attack Hindustan again. Mahadji Shinde was able to re-establish Maratha Supremacy in North India after the Panipat debacle.

I was wondering why did Abdali not attack the Marathas after they started dominating North India again.

What happened to Punjab after the third battle of Panipat? Did it fall into the hands of Marathas again? Or the Sikhs started dominating Punjab between 1760 to 1800.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 10 Mar 2010 14:42

csharma wrote:Question for Airavat and other experts. Thanks in advance.

After the third battle of Panipat, it seems that the Afghans did not attack Hindustan again. Mahadji Shinde was able to re-establish Maratha Supremacy in North India after the Panipat debacle.

I was wondering why did Abdali not attack the Marathas after they started dominating North India again.

What happened to Punjab after the third battle of Panipat? Did it fall into the hands of Marathas again? Or the Sikhs started dominating Punjab between 1760 to 1800.

Short answer; though Abdali's won, they were badly maulled too and had to return back to base from which they could not venture forth again

The Sikhs basically rose from the space that the Maratha's created by defeating the Mughals and checking the Abdali's

The Maratha's were able to themselves regain the strength lost in Panipat III in short course of time.

Details on Airavat's blog.

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 10 Mar 2010 15:24

csharma wrote:Mahadji Shinde was able to re-establish Maratha Supremacy in North India after the Panipat debacle.

This only happened more than 20 years after Panipat, in 1784 when Mahadji was appointed Wakil-e-Mutulaq by the nominal Mughal emperor Shah Alam. And it actually represented the slow but steady fragmentation of the Maratha power among it's chieftains.

The real victors of Panipat were the British who spread their rule from Bengal and Bihar spanning Awadh and Rohilkhand to the borders of Delhi by 1774. In the first Anglo-Maratha War Mahadji Sindhia brokered peace with the British in 1782, by which Gwalior fort was restored to him. And after this he used modern military units under French generals to establish his rule over Delhi-Aligarh-Agra.

But the maximum territorial gains were made by the British.

csharma wrote:What happened to Punjab after the third battle of Panipat?

During the years leading up to that battle all the Afghan forces were concentrated in Rohilkhand, living on supplies from Najib Khan. The Sikh misls took advantage of the power vacuum to capture most places in Punjab. But after his victory Ahmad Shah Abdali began fighting the Sikh misls, and demolished the Golden Temple (1762).

Abdali led repeated invasions into Punjab, either fighting the misls or vainly chasing after them into the neighboring hills of Jammu and Himachal. He could not stay permanently in Punjab because of rebellions in Iran and other places in his empire. His last invasion was in 1767, after which he abandoned central Punjab to the misls, recognized other chiefs (Patiala, Kangra, Jammu) as rulers, and retained only Peshawar, Multan, and Kashmir under his direct rule.