Historical Battles in Ancient & Medieval Bharat

[svinayak]

British had achieved a military perimeter around the majority of Hindus in India. In subcontinental terms, these later wars were comparatively localized conflicts, which would have had limited interethnic political appeal for Hindus beyond the regional strongholds of the Sikhs and Afghans.”


Very interesting words.
This same strategy which was used after 1947 to partition India and bring PRC and Pak against India to keep a perimeter around Hindu India.
This strategy to isolate India and Indians and make them regional has been the British observation and practice for 200 years.
They have the experience with them for so long

[ramana]

Its an outgrowth of the Sultanate strategy of isolating Hindu kingdoms by using their differences on minor things land take them over later on.

[Lalmohan]

if they could have used hindus to do the same to muslims they would have - they are not all that choosy about that

[Virendra]

Its an outgrowth of the Sultanate strategy of isolating Hindu kingdoms by using their differences on minor things land take them over later on.

Yes but I think we are/were to be blamed for that. If we justify isolation then it means we were not a nation then. If we don't justify, then we should introspect ourselves .. or perhaps the times that prevailed then; for why it happened.

Regards,
Virendra

[svinayak]

Its an outgrowth of the Sultanate strategy of isolating Hindu kingdoms by using their differences on minor things land take them over later on.

Yes but I think we are/were to be blamed for that. If we justify isolation then it means we were not a nation then. If we don't justify, then we should introspect ourselves .. or perhaps the times that prevailed then; for why it happened.

You got it right. At the time of Partition - India had the Kashmir, NWFP and others. we could have isolated pockets of muslim population.

[member_19686]

yuddha-vyUha-s, mlechCha-s and vaNija-nIti in the last Hindu empire

The narrative of the final stages of premodern bhAratavarSha remains in a rather misleading state, despite these times being much closer to our own. In the modern phase (post-independence) tacit encouragement from the occidentally oriented chAchAjI resulted in historical narratives being dominated by Marxists. This trend was also covertly supported by several external forces as a part of their program to keep the Hindu-s ill-informed regarding their past. The main thrust of the Marxist historians was to emphasize or even glorify Mohammedan, Christian and heterodox Indic Weltanschauungen (e.g. bauddha) at the expense of the voices of the majority who comprise rAShTra of bhArata. These Marxist historians were in large part “anti-colonial”, in so far as they condemned the English misrule of bhArata. However, in presenting a history of the conflict with the mlechCha-s they adopted a very selective view – for them MK Gandhi was a “useful idiot” in whom they saw what ever they wanted. They also emphasized the confused and highly misguided players in the freedom movement, like Bhagat Singh and Subhashchandra Bose, due to their leftist tendencies matching those of the Marxist historians (For example, see shrI sarvesha tivArI’s dissection of Bose http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2011/04 ... ra-bose-5/). At the same time they played down or even outright ignored the Lal-Bal-Pal trio, Aurobindo’s bomb in Bengal movement, and many others who represented the upwelling of the revived Hindu spirit. The counter-currents to those of the Marxists have been varied in their impact. The most coherent of these has been that spearheaded by RC Majumdar who, with his able team, has in large part articulated a palliative response to the narratives being forced down the Hindus by the Marxists. For the Marxist historians the period just prior to the British conquest of India was not a happy one – they saw it as a period of decadence not only because the Hindus were resurgent vis-a-vis the Mohammedan ruffians occupying the land, but also because they imposed the western idea of feudalism on it – feudalism after all is Marxism’s favorite whipping boy. Thus, they chose to largely ignore or mis-characterize this period in their analysis. On the other hand, the Majumdar team, Sardesai and some others composed better descriptive histories of this period. However, there were certain lacunae in their interpretation of the military angles bhArata-mlechCha conflict – these lacunae we realized were a serious short-coming in: 1) properly understanding the events that lead to the subjugation of India and 2) the consciousness of Hindu identity that was and is under attack from the very same hostile forces which subjugated it in the earlier conflict. Among Hindu historians these lacunae in understanding arose in no small part from the failings of the few pre-independence pro-Hindu historians whom they followed to create the narratives of the military encounters of this period. English historians naturally had a need to enforce their triumphalist narrative of history on the Hindus. Thus, even otherwise sympathetic, pro-Hindu English historians like Denis Kincaid cannot be relied upon when it comes to the bhArata-mlechCha saMgrAma. Hindu historians like Sir Jadunath Sarkar, while under English rule, faithfully followed the line of their overlords in order to retain their paychecks. Thus, Sarkar’s military history of India is one of the most atrocious pieces of work that paints the Hindu as a true imbecile. Unfortunately, post-independence, there was hardly any effort to correct these gross misapprehensions, though Sir Jadunath himself completed this U-turn on other issues. Ironically, one of the major corrective works in recent times has emerged from the hand of the Canadian historian Randolf Cooper (http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... -marathas/), who must be commended for striking a fresh path [This note is an expansion of the previous one linked above, which collates the points we wished to detail but did not have the opportunity in the earlier version]. While examining some of the sources of Cooper, we realized that there was rich story of the military systems of the pre-modern Hindu military organization that was either untold or poorly told. It ran contrary to the common narratives regarding the history of the Hindu encounter with the mlechCha-s and even threw light on the earlier encounters of the Hindus with the Moslems.

Military manpower management and military entrepreneurship
One of the major shortcomings of the earlier military narratives has emerged from the false and even paradoxical characterization of the Hindu military character by the English. At the heart of this contradictory characterization lies the assertion that the Hindus by themselves were rather incapable of military organization or management. On one hand they were described as being innately soft or weak. Thus, we hear from English apologists such as Charles Hamilton describing Hindus as a “gentle, peaceable people, cultivating fine arts, who were powerless against the martial vigor of the Mogol invaders”. He goes on to describe the Hindu as “soft and effeminate” with an “abasement of mind which is the necessary consequence of a long state of slavish subjugation” that he attributes to “their constitutional apathy”, “ their mode of living” and “the delicate texture of their bodies”. Indeed, to a degree such images have on occasions been internalized by Hindus themselves as is amply clear from Jadunath Sarkar’s Military history of India and more recently encouraged by the Anglosphere [Footnote 1]. On the other hand, the English made it appear that the manly culture of European military and discipline and hard training could make a warrior out of even these soft Hindus. Thus, we have Major Munro state: “but the Europeans have since shown that rigid discipline will make a soldier of a Pariar, the lowest of all casts.” In yet another contradictory twist, the English went on to propose the theory of martial races. In this they characterized certain sections of ethnic spectrum of India, namely the sikh-s and gorkha-s, along with Moslems as martial races, who unlike the rest of the Indians were imbued with innate military predilections. However, completely dismissing the endogenous role of the guru-s and subsequent leaders like baNDa in the case of the sikh-s and pR^ithivi-nArAyaNa-shAha-deva in the case of the gorkha-s, the English claimed credit for identifying these martial tribes and developing them into a proper military force – in a sense a dehumanized asset for European use. Thus, the essential anecdote created by the English was that the Indians were incapable of endogenous military manpower management. They did not even have the concept due to their Hindu ways in which a small kShatriya varNa alone had military capability. It ultimately took the English to recognize the military manpower potential both in the “martial races” and the apparently non-military jAti-s and develop them for war. On a related issue they also presented the Hindus as entirely lacking a culture of military entrepreneurship – i.e., utilizing military manpower as an asset that was available as a commodity that could be leveraged for business. Thus, it is portrayed almost as though Hindus had no serious business model for military organization before the coming of the English.

Nothing can be farther from the truth with regards to the inability of the Hindu to mobilize across varNa or jAti lines. Hindu society was structured in way that followed natural human tendencies and favored compartmentalization of duties and division of labor. This provided an intrinsic robustness to the system and avoided uni-dimensional development. But this did not mean that traditionally the different sections of society were not armed or were incapable of mobilizing when a need arose. From the history of shivAjI, the founder of the mahArATTa empire, it is clear that the he mobilized all the major social sections for his army. Indeed, he recruited tribal pastoralists like dhangAr-s, avarNa-s such as mahAr-s and mAh~Ng (traditionally lowest ranked jAti-s), shUdra agriculturalists like kuNbI-s, in addition to kohli-s, kAyastha-s, mahArATTa-s and brAhmaNa-s. Nor was this practice an innovation of shivAjI. Indeed, as we have seen (http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... haldighat/), before him mahArANa pratApa siMha of mevAD also recruited widely across jAti-varNa lines to form a national army to counter the Jihad of tyrant Akbar – every one from brAhmaNa-s and mehtA businessmen to bhilla tribesmen were organized into regiments by pratApa for this war. Importantly, after his elite troops and officer ranks were seriously depleted in the encounter at Haldighati, pratApa and his son amara siMha were able to continuing fighting and win major victories by training and fielding several new bhilla contingents, who proved to be an effective fighting force. Nearly contemporaneous with pratApa was mahArANI durgAvatI, the last of the chandrAtreya-s who was able to build and field an effective fighting force comprised of the goND tribesmen against Akbar’s Ghazi-s. Thus, the training of tribesmen or avarNa-s to make effective soldiers was something which had already been pioneered by Hindu rulers long before the Europeans.

Further, the ability to mobilize effectively across jAti-varNa lines was not necessarily imposed by kShatriya rulers top-down. It happened in a somewhat scale free-fashion over the country. The best example for this comes from the mobilization effected by the agriculturalist shUdra chiefs of kamma, reDDi and kApu jAti-s. They were able to create effective armies from agrarian shUdra-s and kohli-s, pastoralists (golla-s), forest tribes (kATTureDDi-s) and various broken up kShatriya groups and tribesmen. This army was raised and trained with a matter of 5 years and was able to effectively turn back the tide of the Jihad in parts of south India. This scale-free mobilization by the shUdra agriculturalists was not a new response to the Moslem presence. A closer analysis can trace its origins back to the system of the sAmanta-maNDala that emerged in the period of mAhAsAManta dominance (http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... %E2%80%9D/) prior to the Islamic onslaught. Thus, the sAmanta-maNDala system, far from being a form of feudalism that undid the Indians, provided them with an intrinsic robustness that allowed them to counter the Moslems once the top layers of the scale-free structure had been knocked out. The reason this worked was because the sAmanta-maNDala system encouraged scale-free development of armies at every level of state organization, thus creating a mechanism that selected for effective military talent long before a European had set foot on the subcontinent.

The way the sAmanta-maNDala system worked it fostered the development and management of military talent ground up from the local level all the way to the empire. The basic unit of Indian political organization, since at least the time of the Indo-Aryan unification of Indian polity, was the village with its agrarian-pastoralist economy and pa~nchAyata system of local self-government. This system was prone to attack by parasitic entities (described right from the days of the veda as taskara, kulu~ncha, va~nchaka etc). The defense against such parasites was organized at the village level and helped the emergence of militarily proficient agrarian-pastoralist groups (the kApu jAti in south India is an example of such). The nagara or the urban center on the contrary had a different economy that was supported by the channelizing of the produce from numerous grAma-s and also foreign trade. Controlling the channeling was the domain of the sAmanta; his success depended on the ability to keep the communication between grAma-s and between grAma-s and the nagara safe. Another key function for him was to provide backup for the grAma-s in the the defense against parasites. This process fostered the development of military management both at the rural and the urban level. A part of the process was the ability to safeguard the pa~nchAyata system from the stronger parasitic entities such as the AkrAnta-s or the AtatAyin-s who may prey upon villages that are in the domain of a given sAmanta. Hence, the sAmanta had to develop both political skills of negotiating with village strongmen (in south India represented by jAti-s like vELALar-s, gauNDar-s, reDDi and kamma) and military organization skills that allowed him to develop larger armies from that of villages. Thus, what we saw with the development of the sAmanta-maNDala was the emergence of niches for military manpower developers who could now decide various power equations. This went beyond the system of mercenary soldiers of the nanda period (an ancient feature of both Indian and Greek societies; both Indian and Greek mercenary soldiers were a big force in the Achaemenid armies), in that it was organized in a ground-up fashion and comprised of extended networks of local soldiers, who also had pastoralist/agriculturist secular functions. Thus, rather than inventing military manpower management, the English were merely drawing upon a much older system that had already been in place for more than millennium when they first started utilizing it. In fact this local management of military manpower did not escape the attention of the Mohammedans. The Deccani sultanates and the post-Akbar Mogols made heavy use of the traditional Hindu systems developed within the sAmanta-maNDala framework, and the rise of shivAjI himself can be traced back to such systems. After all, shivAjI’s ancestors were pastoralist pATil-s who organized military man power on a local scale to safe guard grAma-s and nagara-s (irrespective of their ultimate origin from hoysAla-s or others).

One might argue that the English introduced training while these armies of the sAmanta maNDala were irregulars. In our opinion even this is not entirely right. As Cooper observed the vIrakal-s which document the military actions of such local warriors already indicate the presence of a disciplined army. Now, another much neglected source can be brought to bear upon such this matter: in south India certain pastoralist/agriculturalist epics have been preserved in the Tamil and the Telugu languages that give insights into the military organization centered on the grAma in general. These epics include the tambikal kathai in Tamil (vELALar-s and gauNDar-s), the kATaMrAju kathalu (golla-s and mAdiga-s) and palanADu kathalu (kamma, reDDi etc), both in Telugu. These show that both the pastoralist and agriculturalist groups spent considerable time in raising and training armies for military expedition alongside their subsistence duties of farming and animal husbandry. These groups were not surprisingly the source of man power of several southern armies.The military training of local pastoralist armies, which was raw material for military power brokers, might go back a long way in Indian history: the mahAbhArata and the harivaMsha inform us that kR^iShNa devakIputra with the help of his foster father nanda raised an army of gopAla-s that he was able to use early in his career to subdue the hostile nAga chief kAliya on the banks of the yamuna. Later, he was able to bring this gopAla army to decide inter-yAdava conflicts by defeating the partisans of kaMsa, after kR^iShNa assassinated him. Finally, the gopAla army was lent to the kaurava-s as part of striking an even agreement in the military showdown at kurukShetra. We later see (http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... -shudraka/) a similar gopAla army of the AbhIra-s (a pastoralist tribe in central India related to the golla-s of Andhra) playing a major role in the overthrow of the kShatrapa-s in western India.


A vIrakal of a kApu warrior who fell fighting the turuShka-s

Uniform, formation, holding line and firing in rank
A plethora of western authors have sought to create the fable that certain military concepts such as uniform, fighting in formations or holding line and firing in rank are innovations of western infantry that the Indians were entirely unaware of until they received western training. Cooper brings home this misconception in his work by pointing to some of the ideas held by Wellesley. He had famously declared that the “Marathas were a nation of freebooters” based on their use of piNDArI-s (mahArATTI: peNDhARI). He also stated: “I think it is much to be doubted whether his [Sindhia's] power, or that of the Maratha nation, would not have been more formidable, at least to the British Government, if they had never had a European, as an infantry soldier in their service; and had carried on their operations, in the manner of the original Marathas, only by means of cavalry.” In essence he was articulating his view (internalized by most subsequent historians) that the native Indian armies were incapable of fighting infantry encounters in the manner in which the Europeans did, and if they did adopt such techniques they were rather useless at putting it to action. What we are not often told are Wellesley’s own actions, such as his purchasing up to 10,000 pINDari-s to work on his behalf and his letting them loose in karNATa and on the mahArATTa-s themselves. By the same token the English also characterized the native Indian armies as being undisciplined on grounds such as lack of uniform, ability to hold the line in the infantry when under fire or even having the concept of firing in rank. As an extension to their piNDarI style of warfare, even their ability to deploy in formations during military encounters was doubted! Indeed, influenced by such ideas, Sir Jadunath Sarkar in his military history that bAjIrao-I’s defeat of the Nizam at Palkhed was largely a consequence of his piNDArI tactics.

Cooper correctly realized that the mahArATTa were not entirely a cavalry force, nor was their dependence on piNDari-s a matter of pure choice, and that much of the above mis-characterization of the Hindu armies does not hold up when more carefully examined:
1) First, military uniform was not a unique premise of the Europeans. The evidence from the dattAjI mAlkare bakhar shows that shivAjI was already issuing standardized turbans and clothing to his enlisted troops and this seems to have continued at least till bAjIrao. One can ultimately trace the presence of military uniform in the subcontinent back to the arthashAstra from the mauryan period. Thus, it cannot be considered as being inspired by Europeans.

2) The terrain of bhArata and its general unsuitability for breeding high quality horses resulted in an emphasis on infantry since the earliest times. However, given their Aryan heritage, the Hindu rAjan-s greatly regarded the horse and always maintained a reasonable body of cavalry. The Hindu infantry placed considerable emphasis on the long-bow which proved rather effective against the Macedonian sarissa-armed infantry that has been often cited as a predecessor of the “Western” infantry style of warfare. In fact, Alexander and Ptolemaios had personally tasted the cloth yard shaft fired from the Hindu longbow, which essentially ended the former’s ambitions for the world empire. This culture of using the long-bow had already inculcated in the Hindus the precursor to the principle of fire by ranks – indeed Indian texts have long described the constant showers of arrows maintained by different kinds of archers in large scale combats. This mode of attack had been rather effective through the middle ages even against the Mohammedan marauders. We know from the depictions in Vijayanagara that this technique was transferred to matchlocks [Footnote 2]. By the time of last Hindu empire, that of the marATha-s, this infantry tactic was already in place. From the marAtha sources and reconstructing the events from the account of the French spy Francois Martin we see that a preliminary form of firing by rank was probably used by the marATha-s during shivAjI’s massive attack on Gingee. The Frenchman’s account indicates that the marATha-s maintained a continuous small arms fire along with heavy artillery fire which was heard as far as Pondicherry. There after we again see evidence for firing by rank in shaMbhAjI’s attack on the Portuguese army. Cooper points out that firing by rank had independently been deployed in the 1500s by the Japanese samurai tyrant Oda Nobunaga, so there is no reason to believe it originated with the Europeans. Non-holding of line and fire from behind the tree line was another Hindu tactic that was transferred from archers to the musketeers. The marATha-s used this effectively against the British in the battle of Aligarh, where they killed several English officers by shooting them from behind the treeline with some of the best long barreled flintlocks of the age. Another point which Cooper notes is that the Maratha-s used the column formation before any possible European inspiration. Indeed, the example cited by Cooper is that of bAjirao-I deploying the column against tryaMbakrao dAbhADe – as a result tryaMbak was shot and killed as he did not expect a heavy thrust right into his ranks. This tactic of bAjIrao points to his military versatility – he verily appears to have deployed a range of tactics that are previously encountered widely dispersed in space and time. The column itself had a long history in India and it is not impossible that bAjirao was well aware of this: In the great bhArata war the bharadvAja hero droNa deploys the kuru forces led by karNa, ashvatthAman and shalya in a column (the sUchImukha-vyUha) to attack the pANDu-s on the 14th day. The Indo-Aryan military manuals mention the sUchImukha turning into a sarvatobhadra-vyUha when under attack by the ratha-s and ashva-s – thus, the column becoming a square to face cavalry is an old concept that can hardly be considered to be of French origin.

3) Right from shivAjI’s time, the marATha-s always used an elaborate combination of tactics involving both cavalry and infantry divisions. The cavalry aspect of their warfare was a direct descendent of the Hindu response to the large mobile Turkic cavalries that became a part of Indian warfare with the Mohammedan invasions. The marATha-s began their own program of horse breeding in the bhIma and godAvarI valleys (bhiMthaDi and ga~NgthaDi breeds) to make up for the shortfalls with respect to the Mohammedans. But the marATha army, like other Hindu armies before them, was never entirely cavalry. Often the tactic was to launch an initial cavalry attack to force the enemy to retreat. If the enemy was in the retreat mode, only then they deployed their infantry in full force along and with their artillery, which Wellesley himself admitted as being powerful. This mode we know was used effectively by shivAjI’s commanders, his half-brother Anandrao and senApati haMbirrao mohite. Alternatively, they used infantry in rough terrain – e.g., as in the battle of Wai (http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... hambirrao/).The turning point in the history of India was the battle of Panipat where the marATha-s lost some of their best commanding officers along with a significant part of their army: “Two pearls have been dissolved, 27 gold coins have been lost and of the silver and copper the total cannot be counted”. Despite having some of the best guns in the world, which were indeed inspired by French artillery designs acquired via Monsieur de Bussy, the tactical errors cost the marATha-s dearly in this battle along with some overall strategic failures in course of the North India campaign. This loss, coupled with the serious monetary setback stemming from it prevented the marATha-s from ever fielding a full-fledged divisions on a large scale thereafter. As result, most marATha generals fell back on the tactic that could bring a degree of success without too much effort, namely the irregular cavalry. Only mahADjI shinde raised a formidable rounded force again, the effects of which were widely felt by his many adversaries, and the inspiration it provided continued to hold good till the terminal rounds of the Anglo-mArATha wars and even the war of independence of 1857 CE. Nevertheless, the loss at Panipat on the whole seriously affected the marATha military system especially when coupled with the early deaths of competent leaders like the two mAdhavarao-s. What field marshal Wellesley faced was not the marATha army in its best possible shape and yet the reality was that the battle for India was decided by a whisker in the Anglo-Maratha wars of 1803. The English characterization of the marATha-s as undisciplined warriors emerges from several distinct causes, chief of which are:
i) The marATha regular infantry units of several houses were greatly depleted when they went into the second Anglo-Maratha war, so they had to make most of their light cavalry and speed to counter the English.

ii) The mArATha tactics were interpreted in a prejudicial manner by the English writers because it showed the English performance in very poor light. One case is the battle of Aligarh where the marATha-s did not hold the line to fire by rank on purpose because they realized that a much better strategy, given the undermining of their position by the subversive action of their European officers, was to shoot from behind the treeline. This way they took a heavier toll on the English ranks, even as the Americans had done in their revolutionary war. As Cooper points out, the use of this tactic by the Americans is praised largely because they emerged ultimately victorious, whereas the mArATha-s were branded as being undisciplined and not capable of fighting openly.

iii) In several cases, the Indian forces found it prudent to take cover when under fire rather than hold line for no apparent gain – they also often lay on the ground and used their backpack to deflect fire from hand-held guns. This way they preserved their men to fight another day. The sheer frustration caused by this to the English led them to denigrate the marATha-s. However, it should be noted that Wellesley himself copied this strategy when faced with the heavy fire from the marATha-s in the battle of Argaum. The English now spun this around and interpreted it as the military genius of their field marshal. In the battle of Kharda, where savAi mAdhavarao’s united marATha army fought the Nizam, the English realized that they stood no chance in saving the Nizam against the superior marATha artillery and infantry. So John Shore hastily retreated to save as many English assets as he could even as the Nizam was being thrashed. This was not described as an ignominious retreat of the English troops and inability to hold line, but as a stroke of strategic genius. Indeed, the battle Kharda is a good case to show what the united marATha army was just 8 years before the second Anglo-Maratha war and how the English really would have not stood a chance had they faced such an army.

Leukospheric identity, vaNijanIti and the perimeter strategy
If the marATha-s were really not inferior in military technique and technology then why did India get ultimately colonized by the leukosphere? We believe the answer lies much more in the realm of the grand geopolitical strategy than anything else:

1)The marATha-s were in a sense meritocratic employers who employed Hindus, Moslems and Europeans largely based on performance and ability. In this sense they are similar to many Indian corporate employers and Indian academics with their own groups in Euro-American academia. The truth is the Indians were not ethnocentric enough, whereas the Europeans were just beginning to evolve a sense of white identity. The Indians did not realize this point when they employed European officers. In a sense, the Hindus were acting similar to the Iranians who employed a large number of Greeks even as they fought the Greeks themselves in the Greco-Persian wars. Similarly, Hindu leaders were by nature genuinely secular when it came to secular issues. As the army was being seen as a secular affair, it did not preclude them from employing Moslems and Christians – they simply did not give much thought to the ultimate consequences of such actions. Hence, the Indian armies were exposed to the grave danger of subversion from within. While a few white soldiers, like the American colonel Boyd, were faithful to their Hindu employers, most others were untrustworthy – both French and English soldiers in the marATha easily either went over to the English ranks or simply failed to perform. This subversion seriously compromised the marATha-s as seen in the battles of Aligarh and Assaye. So the marATha “equal opportunity” military hiring, in particular the inability to understand the leukospheric identity, completely backfired on them. This was entirely unlike the Greco-Persian wars were the Greek soldiers on the Iranian side remained largely faithful to their employers. This point it is important because, unlike the heathen Greeks or Iranians with an innate meritocratic outlook, similar to that of the marATha-s, the leukosphere was developing its identity under the framework of Christianity. So the white soldiers saw themselves as fellow European Christians who could cooperate against the dark skinned heathens. It needs to be emphasized again it that the Hindu shortfall in this regard was not due to the lack of Hindu identity as the leukosphere would like to claim, but simply due to the Hindu failure to properly read the developing identity of the “other” in their payroll.

2) The English are a nation of traders! Indeed, a key ability of the English was to purchase loyalties for money. When armies get professional they lack a sense of identity – verily the English realized this well and exploited it to their advantage by buying off soldiers, often on the eve of major conflicts. Central to the English ability to purchase was their controlling the sea lanes and thus the global trade system. At the same time they worked to systematically undermine Indian manufacturing. Thus, they could mobilize the profits from their colonial ventures elsewhere to support the Indian project that was being sold as a very rewarding investment.

3) The above point leads naturally to the most important issue – by controlling the trade routes by sea the English could develop a perimeter strategy in which they could hem the Hindus on all sides using their control of key coastal centers – Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. Thus, the marATha-s came to be naturally surrounded by the English, who could indefinitely keep themselves supplied by sea, even as they cut off the Hindu communication lines inside the country. They completed the perimeter strategy by the third Anglo-Maratha war and this more or less doomed the first war of independence in 1857.

In reality few Hindus realize that all these issues continue to be central to the geopolitical strategy pursued by the leukosphere vis-a-vis the Hindus. They have pursued the perimeter strategy in long distance to create inimical states around modern India – Taliban, TSP, TSB, communist Nepal, a subverted shrIlankA, chIna occupied Tibet, Islamist Maldives and Christianized Northeastern states. Importantly, even today most Hindus simply do not realize the way the white boys club operates and they foolishly keep buying all the nonsense they dish out in the name of professionalism, liberalism, democracy and modernism. Finally, with the iron grip on the world trade and monetary systems they continue to mobilize resources for projects in the subcontinent. However, we live in interesting times and might have opportunities if only we knew how to see them.

~*~*~*~*~
Footnote 1: The west calls upon India not to retaliate against insults to its sovereignty or national security, but rather show restrain when assaulted by Mohammedan terrorists. Recently, US senator Mark Warner, commended Manmohan Singh and India’s “restraint in the face of continuing terrorist attacks as nothing short of remarkable and keeping with the best traditions of India.” Thus, softness is still encouraged by the West and foisted upon Indians as a part of its continuing colonial venture in the subcontinent. We may also speculate that this softness cultivated MK Gandhi’s world view. Perhaps, its most bizarre manifestation was in connection to the peculiar sexuality MK Gandhi is noted to have exhibited later in his life – he wanted to appear as a female mother figure – a state of non-threatening effeminacy. We may infer from his writings that this directly stemmed from his misguided understanding of the Hindu tradition of ahimsa, which in turn was perhaps an internalization of the soft image imposed on the Hindus by the English conquerors.

Footnote 2: A version of such an archaic Vijayanagaran infantry gun was present in the collection of arms of our coethnic AdinArAyaNa who was the commander of the thoNDaimAn of the drAviDa country in the 1700s.

http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... du-empire/

[member_19686]

Anandrao Bhosle

This remarkable issue was brought to my attention by a person who specifically wishes to remain un-named on these pages on account of certain private reasons related to this narrative. It is clear that Shahji was a rather distinguished military leader and he had transmitted this genetically influenced trait to not only his famous son Shivaji, but also the forgotten elder son Sambhaji. In reality he also passed these genes on to another son who has been largely forgotten in modern Maharatta histories. When Shahji was was in Bijapur having left his wife in the environs of Pune, he secretly took up a woman of unknown provenance as a sexual partner. This fact would have been quite improper for a well-bred Maratha of the era, and was accordingly hushed up, except for the Shedgaonkar bakhar that explicitly mentions it. As a result of this union was born a son called Anandrao Bhosle. He was placed in the custody of the young deshastha brAhmaNa Venkoji Datto and subsequently served in the Shahji’s command at Bijapur in his early youth. He and Venkoji Datto then left Shahji’s service and moved over to Pune and enrolled themselves with Shivaji to defend the Hindu Svarajya. The Sabhasad chronicle also confirms this by mentioning that mentions that “Venkoji Datto, an able brahmin officer of great accomplishment, and Shahji’s son Anandrao joined Shivaji’s service at Pune after leaving Shahji at Bijapur”. Shivaji appointed both of them to the rank of Panch-hazari (commander of 5000), which was a high rank in the Maratha army of the time that could possibly be attained only due high military ability or perhaps genetic relationship in the case of Anandrao. In any case Anandrao clearly proved himself to be of high military distinction. They were placed under the Sarnobat of the Maratha army, Prataprao Gujjar and marched with him for the attack on Surat. Following the plundering of Surat, Daud Khan Quereshi led the Moslem hordes along with Ikhlas Khan and suddenly ambushed Shivaji between Vani and Dindori in Northern Maharashtra. Shivaji quickly divided his forces into four divisions and began harrying the Mughals avoiding open confrontation. He personally led one division, even as he gave command of another to Anandrao. Anandrao distinguished himself on the field by leading the Marathas to safety when the Mogols pressed with great ferocity on his division. This distractionary move allowed Shivaji to personally attack the Mogol army after his division united with that of Anandrao’s and kill 3000 Moslems in the encounter that followed.

Subsequently, Awrangzeb arranged for a combined attack on the Marathas by the divisions of Daud Khan, Ikhlas Khan, Diler Khan and Bahadur Khan. Diler Khan began a systematic massacre of Hindus in the vicinity of Pune to draw Shivaji away while Ikhlas Khan took Salheri and Mulher forts in the north. In the fierce encounter Shivaji’s childhood friend Suryarao Kakde was killed. Shivaji immediately dispatched his brAhmaNa prime minister Moropant Pingle along with Prataprao and Anandrao to destroy Ikhlas Khan. They took the Mogol army on the open field — an important point in Hindu history because it showed the Marathas were now fully capable of engaging the one of the best equipped and most ably lead forces of the world in plain open combat. Anandrao showed exemplary valor in this this battle in which the Mogols faced a major defeat with several thousands dead. This phenomenal victory, one the greatest of Shivaji’s army, was in no small part due to the strategy and on-field leadership of the brAhmaNa Moropant Pingle, but the valor of Anandrao and Prataprao on the field were equally important. They captured the Mogol general Ikhlas Khan on the field. As result Anandrao was elevated to the peculiar rank of Haft-hazari- a rank that was for all practical purposes equivalent to the Sarnobat himself. This unusual rank, which Shivaji rarely awarded at that time, again shows that there was some special deal about Anandrao.

After the brAhmaNa officer Ravlekar conquered the fort of Panhala, the Adil Shahis were shaken and dispatched their ace general Bahlol Khan to retake the fort. The Mogols immediately made common cause with their Moslem brethren to attack the Maharattas, and held a meeting to plan a combined strike on the Marathas. But Shivaji got wind of this plan and dispatched his half-brother Anandrao and commander Prataprao, each with around 7500 troops to preemptively attack Bijapur. The Maratha generals rapidly surged forth and fell on Bahlol Khan at Umrani close to Bijapur before the Mogols could join him. On a hot April day the Marathas caught off the water supply of the Moslems and fell upon them in a combined attack by Prataprao and Anandrao. The Moslems were completely outclassed in the fierce battle, the Marathas routed them and Bahlol Khan was completely surrounded by the former. He secretly sent a message to Prataprao saying that he had no intention to fight Shivaji and was only making a show. Prataprao foolishly fell to the ploy and let Bahlol Khan go scotch-free. Prataprao then continued on to invade the Kanada country. Bahlol Khan retaliated with a replenished army and defeated the Maratha army. A little later on vijaya dashami day Shivaji worshiped bhavAnI and initiated a new campaign as he saw it as holy moment for war. He invaded the Kanada country again with the aim of taking both the uplands and the coast, when he got the news that Bahlol, who was let off by his Sarnobat, was returning to attack him. Furious, Shivaji sent a stinging letter to Prataprao that he need not show his face again until he destroyed Bahlol Khan.

Prataprao pricked by the letter sought Bahlol, and learned that he was fording the pass of Nessari just south of Kolhapur. He responded impulsively and charged at the Moslems with just 6 other men leaving the rest of his army far behind. What followed was a disastrous encounter in which the seven heroes went down fighting in a blaze, leaving a trail of slaughtered enemy troops. Shivaji deeply regretted his letter that lead to his ace general’s death and made sure that his clansmen were well-provided and promised Rajaram to Prataprao’s daughter. Anandrao Bhosle was now made acting Sarnobat and Shivaji asked him to punish the Moslems severely. He ably rallied the dejected Maratha troops. He made a deep thrust into the Bijapur territory and bore down on Bahlol Khan. At this point the Mogol army under Diler Khan came to the aid of Bahlol Khan and fell on Anandrao. Anandrao seeing himself outnumbered decided to resort to the classic tactic of feigned retreat like that used by the Mongols and with his cavalry rode into Karnataka at extraordinary speed. The Khans unable to keep up gave up, with Bahlol Khan retreating to Kohlapur, which he had taken earlier, and Dilir retreating northwards after a failed attempt on Panhala. Within a month Anandrao struck at Sampgaon near Bankapur which was Bahlol Khan’s jagir and looted his treasury carrying away 150,000 gold coins and 3000 ox-loads of other plunder. He demolished a Dutch outpost there and plundered it. Alarmed Bahlol Khan and Khizr Khan tried to intercept the Marathas, but Anandrao led a strong retaliation killing Khizr Khan and his brother and putting to flight Bahlol Khan. In the process the Marathas captured several war-elephants, several hundreds of horses and the Khan’s cash reserves. He then avoided any further brushes with the enemy and rapidly retreated to the Maratha territory. Soon there after Shivaji held a grand review of troops at Chiplun in the Konkan and appointed Hambirrao Mohite as the Sarnobat in place of Prataprao, recognizing his great deeds in the attack on the Mogols during the invasion of Baglana, Khandesh and Ahmedabad.

Anandrao also played a notable role in the campaigns of Shivaji in South India: In early 1678 Anandrao led a division of troops along with Shivaji in the capture of Lakshmeshvar and Gadag in Karnatak from the Adilshahi control. In middle of the same year he along with the able brAhmaNa general Hanumante conquered the fort of Vellore from the Adil Shahis and took the region. He was then sent north by Shivaji in the next year to deal with the Mogol garrison in central Maharastra near Akola. He scored a great victory on the Mogols capturing the fort of Balapur from them. Then in late 1679 when Dilir Khan invaded Bijapur, the British simultaneously attacked the Marathas on the West coast. Shivaji facing a possible 3 front war invaded Khandesh along with another division under Hambirrao Mohite to counter-attack the Mogols while he sent Anandrao with 10,000 troops to pincer the Mogols by appearing before Bijapur. Angre was dispatched to lead the Maratha navy against the Britons. Anandrao moved just south of Pandharpur and attacked the Mogol army. Through a constant series of harrying attacks he kept frustrating Dilir’s attempts to besiege Bijapur. Dilir to his alarm realized that he might be caught between two Maharatta armies escaped by making a westwards diversion in course of which he slaughtered many Hindus. After this last successful attack on the Mogols trying to besiege Bijapur Anandrao Bhosle passes out of Maratha history.

The accounts indicate that clearly he had, like his elder half-brother, inherited Shahji military abilities and was a notable commander of Shivaji’s army, probably as capable of Hambirrao himself. Yet, most Maharatta accounts are muted about him. Further, while Shivaji clearly trusting him with many important operations, and appointing him to an unusual high command, never really made him Sarnobat, even though he briefly acted in this capacity. Why was this ? Perhaps his birth outside the wedlock was a black mark that precluded him from occupying such a rank without a scandal. Perhaps Shivaji was also concerned that his blood relationship to Anandrao might have possible consequences on his successors if he legitimized his half-brother with a formal high appointment.

http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... ao-bhosle/

[member_19686]

War in the Konkan

Very little has been recorded of the valiant freedom struggle in the Konkan in the horror years of Indian history. The Konkans on the west coast of India had long been the bastion of the Indic civilization that withstood external attacks due to the protective influence of the Western Ghats. The first major wave of Islamic onslaughts on the region was initiated by Alla-ad-din Khalji when he dispatched his ace commander Maliq Kaffr to wage Jihad on the Kadambas, who were the principal rulers of the Konkans. In 1312, the Army of Islam entered the Konkan with a massive cavalry force and devastated Gopakapattana the capital of the Kadambas. The routed Kadambas fled inwards to Chandrapura with their surviving army and defended the land against the Islamic assault from this fortified stronghold. In the 1320s, in course of his invasion of South India Mohammad-ibn-Tughlaq made a lateral thrust into the Konkan, after his assault on Pune, to fructify the aborted Jihad of his predecessor. With over 80,000 horsemen he invaded Chandrapura, overwhelmed the Kadamba defenses and destroyed the city. However, as Tughlaq got engaged in other battles and started making preparations for his disastrous invasion of the Mongol empire via Tibet, the Kadamba chief Bhima Bhupala initiated the war of liberation in the Konkan in 1327. After a several encounters with the Islamic garrisons the Kadamba chiefs destroyed them completely, liberating much of Konkan region. Soon after that the large-scale Hindu revival began in South India under the Hakka and Bukka, and in 1347 the remaining territory of the Konkan in the province of Malerajya was liberated by the assault of Hakka.

However, the Islamic Jihad was renewed as Alla-ad-din Bahmani declared himself Sultan in Gulbarga and initiated an invasion of the Konkan under his friend Maliq Saif-ad-din Ghori (“nicknamed the Sword of Islam”), one of the surviving descendents of the terrible Turk from Ghazna, Shihab-ad-din Ghori, the killer of Prithiviraja Chahamana. The Turkic cavalry ravaged the Palasige province and annexed it to the Bahmanid empire, with Ghori being appointed as the viceroy in 1357. He began systematic forced conversions of Hindus and destruction of their shrines. In 1365, Muhammad Bahmani the successor of Alla-ad-din launched a large scale invasion of the Konkans to wrest it completely from Vijayanagara and the Hindu chiefs. The Kadambas were completely broken in this attack and they had to bury their family idol of Saptakoteshvara to prevent it from being destroyed by the Moslems. The Hindus were savagely persecuted by the Turkic hordes under this sultan as well as his successor Sultan Mujahiddin Fath Khan. As the Hindus called for help, Bukka Raya began operations in Goa in 1377 but died shortly thereafter. In 1378 Mujahiddin perished and Vira Harihara Raya, the son of Bukka, sent his great Brahmin general Madhava to liberate the Konkans. After two years of intense fighting, he drove the Moslem garrison out of Goa and reinstalled the idol of Saptakoteshvara. Then he moved northwards and captured Chandrapura bringing much of the Konkans under Vijayanagaran control. Madhava’s rule of Konkan is supposed to have restored peace and prosperity in the land and the Konkans thrived due the maritime trade conducted by the Vijayanagaras. Madhava was succeeded by a series of Vodeyar and Nakaya viceroys of the Vijayanagarans who consolidated Hindu rule for around 95 years. In 1395 the Ghorids holed up in the fortress of Rangini made one last attempt to restore Islamic rule. But the Hindu general Bayachanna Vodeyar marched on them, besieged the fort and cutoff the supply routes from Bijapur to the Moslem garrison. The Ghorids tried to make a sally down-hill but they were mowed down by the Hindu archers lying in wait on the forested sides of their path. With that the power of the Ghorid Turks in India was ended once and for all.

Subsequently, the region was divided amongst multiple Hindu viceroys. The surviving Kalyani Chalukyans were appointed to control the northern Konkans in Samgameshvar, while the Maharattas were posted around Vishalgad and also in the interior south in Bankapur from where they controlled Goa. The Hindu chiefs realized that controlling the Konkan was important to prevent the Moslem tyrants of Bijapur from gaining supplies from Arabia and the Turkic world via the sea route. Most importantly, the horse which was scarce in the Deccan and held the key in the struggle with Vijayanagara could be alternatively obtained by the sea route. The chiefs of Samgameshvar and Vishalgad held this frontier for the Hindus. They attacked the Turkish fleets with their own fleets and captured their horses and repulsed them from Indian coast. They used Vishalgad as a robustly fortified backend for their operations against the Bahmanid Moslems pressing on them from the East via the land route. Bankapur served as the nexus with the Vijayanagaran heartland. They also captured Haj-goers and held them as ransom to hold off Bahmanid attacks on the Konkan from land and Turkic attacks from sea. In 1455 the Bahmanid army attacked Konkan but a united counter attack by the Vodeyar, Chalukyans and Maharatta chiefs, strengthened by the Vijayanagaran auxiliaries resulted in a crushing defeat of the Army of Islam at Wai and they dismally retreated from the region.

In 1453, Khwaja Mahmud Gawan, a Turko-Mongol merchant and renowned Islamist from Iraq, arrived in Bidar. His Islamic scholarship and knowledge of the Sharia’t was unparalleled amongst the Indian Moslems and he was soon appointed as the prime minister of the Bahmanid empire and went about the task of enforcing correct Islamic practice by inviting Mullahs from the Middle East and Central Asia. In the mean time, would be conqueror of Constantinople, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II came to power in Turkey and tried to assassinate his brother Yusuf Adil Khan who was also contending for the throne. However, Yusuf escaped by ship and came to Bidar, where Mahmud Gawan picked him up as his assistant. In 1469, Mahmud Gawan with over 200,000 troops Bahmanid troops, in three divisions under himself, and the Turks, Yusuf Adil Khan and Kush Khadaam initiated a terrible Jihad on the Konkan. With the Moslems sweeping through the land the Maharatta warrior Appaji decided to draw the Moslems to the difficult terrain of Vishalgad and hold out there till the monsoon arrived. The Turks being poor fighters under rainy conditions, with their horses suffering from the humidity, retreated and were put to sword by the Hindu troops. However, Mahmud Gavan being a resolute campaigner got the aid of two traitorous Maharatta brothers, Karan Singh and Bhim Singh to aid him in the war. The Turks advanced again, and Appaji decided to hold them up using the same tactic of defending from the well-fortified Vishalgad. However, Karan Singh and Bhim Singh were breeders of the Varanus lizard which they used in climbing forts. Accordingly Karan and Bhim decided to help the Moslems in taking the fort, in return for the province of Wai. Karan and Bhim sent out several lizards to scale the precipice on which the fort was located with ropes tied to them. With the aid of these ropes they climbed the fort and sent down rope ladders for more men to follow them. Then they cut their way to the main fort gate and opened it. In the process Karan Singh was killed by the Hindu defenders but the Moslems managed to get in and massacred Appaji and his men. With the fall of Vishalgad, Mahmud Gavan attacked the Chalukyan army by surprise at Samgameshvar. Unprepared and surrounded by a large Moslem force, the Chalukyans were exterminated by the Moslem army and their entire kingdom was thoroughly plundered. With that ended the last flash of this great Hindu dynasty which had seen the likes of Pulakeshin. The Virupaksha Raya of Vijayanagar was in his declining years and failed to gather sufficient reinforcements to battle the massive Moslem horde. For his traitorous activities, the Hindu Bhim Singh, was conferred the title Raja Ghorpade Bahadur (Dakkani word for the Varanus lizard) by the Sultan at the behest of Gavan.

Mahmud Gavan then sent a horde under Yusuf Adil Khan, to ravage Bankapur and Belgaum along with Sultan Mahmud Bahmani. In 1472, the Belgaum fort came under the combined attack of Gavan and Adil Khan in the battle that followed the Maharatta chief Kanoji, the brother of Appaji, resisted strongly but perished in an attempt to stave off the numerical superior Islamic army. In the subsequent years, the bloody power struggle amongst the Moslems in Bidar resulted in the beheading of Mahmud Gavan by his own peers in 1481. Taking advantage of this, Virupaksha Raya in his last years tried to liberate the Konkans via Goa, but the loss of Belgaum greatly handicapped the Hindus. The Moslem army quickly regrouped under the Ottoman Turk, Yusuf Adil Khan, at Belgaum and set out to invade Goa in late 1482 with 100,000 horsemen. He was joined by the Hindu traitor Bhim Singh Ghorpade, who was looking for lucrative plunder. At first the Vijayanagaran army seemed to hold the upper hand and the Moslems were retreating under a string damaging attacks. But Adil Khan sent the treacherous Ghorpade to destroy key leaders of the Vijayanagaran army. With this the Hindus fell into disarray and were broken and dispersed by Adil Khan. Yusuf Adil Khan placed Kush Khadaam as the governor of Goa and subsequently went on to become the independent Sultan of Bijapur. Thus, the Konkans passed out of the Hindu hands into the grim shadows of Islamic rule.

http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... he-konkan/

[peter]

War in the Konkan

Very little has been recorded of the valiant freedom struggle in the Konkan in the horror years of Indian history. ....

Thanks for the informative posts. Would you know what happened to Anand Rao's family?

[Virendra]

In the 1320s, in course of his invasion of South India Mohammad-ibn-Tughlaq made a lateral thrust into the Konkan, after his assault on Pune, to fructify the aborted Jihad of his predecessor. With over 80,000 horsemen he invaded Chandrapura, overwhelmed the Kadamba defenses and destroyed the city.

Can the more learned ones please tell us how we can validate such statistics. 80,000 cavalry seems a bit too high, specially for a lateral thrust by someone already engaged in other battles/campaigns etc elsewhere.

Regards,
Virendra

[member_19686]

In the 1320s, in course of his invasion of South India Mohammad-ibn-Tughlaq made a lateral thrust into the Konkan, after his assault on Pune, to fructify the aborted Jihad of his predecessor. With over 80,000 horsemen he invaded Chandrapura, overwhelmed the Kadamba defenses and destroyed the city.

Can the more learned ones please tell us how we can validate such statistics. 80,000 cavalry seems a bit too high, specially for a lateral thrust by someone already engaged in other battles/campaigns etc elsewhere.

Regards,
Virendra

Consider the following and then 80k does not seem all that high:

The army of the Sultanate comprised of the soldiers in the permanent employment of the ruler and special recruits enrolled on the eve of an expedition or for performing a specific task. The Ghaznavid tradition of enrolling mercenaries was continued by the Turkish sultans in India. Writing early in the reign of Iltutmish, Fakhr-i-Muddabir mentions a body of troopers "who have voluntarily joined the forces". Balban employed 3,000 Afghan horse and foot in his campaign against the Mewatis,33 and appointed thousands of Afghan officers and men in the forts of Gopalgir, Kampil, Patiali, Bhojpur and Jalali to contain the restive elements there.34 On his way to Lakhnauti Balban enrolled about 2,00,000 horsemen and infantry.35 So also used to do Sultan Raziyah. Throughout the medieval period, mercenaries (Muslims, says Afif for Sultan Firoz's times) used to be enrolled in the army. Recorded instances imply that such recruitment was an established practice.36 "It is perhaps safe to guess that such recruitments (with the object of fighting against the infidels) were confined to Muslims only", says Habibullah.37 Enrolment of fresh levies was a continuous process. It was necessary to replenish the troops, for losses used to be great. in his campaigns against the Mewatis alone Balban is said to have lost one hundred thousand men in the course of one year. Rebels like Tughril Beg of Bengal took two years to subdue only after great losses had been inflicted on the royal troops on two earlier occasions.

The cost of emergency recruitment was high. In the fourteenth century the cost of emergency recruitment and equipping 1000 horsemen in a short time came to three lakh tankahs.38 Prince Alauddin Khalji was the muqta of Kara. He was permitted by his uncle Sultan Jalaluddin Khalji to recruit extra troops to lead an expedition into central Hindustan. He enrolled three to four thousand horsemen and two thousand infantry in a short time for leading an expedition to Chanderi en route to Devagiri. The cost of recruiting them can be estimated from the statement of Barani quoted above.

Regular Troops

The soldiers in the permanent employment were paid a regular salary. Since war (Jihad) was a permanent and ever expanding activity of the Muslim regime, most sultans maintained a large standing army on a permanent basis, and did not disband troops after a conquest was accomplished or a foreign invasion repulsed. According to Farishtah Alauddin Khalji's regular army consisted of 4,75,000 horsemen well equipped and accoutered. There were two separate forces. One was meant to repulse Mongol invaders while the other was sent out on the conquest of newer regions.39 The annual salary paid to a cavalrymen by the Sultan was 234 tankahs. In addition 78 tankahs were paid to a do aspa or to one who possessed an additional horse because maintenance of an extra mount added to the soldier's efficiency.

The salary bill of 4,75,000 horsemen at the rate of 234 tankahs alone would have come to 111 million or eleven crore tankahs annually. This was high by any standards, more so when it did not include the allowance to do aspas, payment to the infantry and expenses on the large staff of officials involved with the upkeep of such a large army. The salary paid to soldiers under the Khaljis was high. Besides there was unrestrained plunder in every campaign. it was probably because of this reason that Alauddin changed the rule regarding Khams. He took away 4/5 of the booty (ghanimah) and distributed 1/5 to the participating soldiers. Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq maintained his army on the pattern and regulations of Alauddin Khalji.40 Muhammad Tughlaq's cavalry is said to have consisted of 900,000 horsemen,41 double the size of that of Alauddin Khalji. Alauddin had freezed the prices of articles of daily use by soldiers through his Market Control. So, he paid a fixed salary to them. Under Muhammad Tughlaq there was no market control and the salary of troops would probably have gone up. Even at the rates fixed by Alauddin, the salary bill would have come to twenty-two to twenty-five crores annually. Muhammad Tughlaq's empire was vast and revenue from far-off regions of Dwarsamudra to Satgaon and Telingana to Malwa and Gujarat used to be collected without much problem (before the spate of rebellions started). Firoz Tughlaq's army was not that large.42 Nevertheless as will be seen presently, the expenditure on his army establishment was no less large. There were Arab and Persian contingents in Firoz Tughlaq's army. Sure enough, the size of the army varied from time to time. The Saiyyads were weak and the Lodis not so strong. But even in the newly created Muslim kingdoms of the fifteenth century like Gujarat, Malwa, Jaunpur etc., war remained the most prominent activity and 'the army consumed most of the revenue.

http://voiceofdharma.com/books/tpmsi/ch05.htm

[member_19686]

Thanks for the informative posts. Would you know what happened to Anand Rao's family?

No I am not aware of that.

There were 2 other illegitimate half brothers of Shivaji though named pratapji and bhivji who served under Shivaji's legitimate half brother Vyankoji/Ekoji the ruler of Thanjavur in his conflict with Shivaji.

You can read about that here:

http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... anjavur-i/

[Ankit Desai]

Well, this is not exactly a war but a warrior's tale.

X-posting from General Discussion

The only living master of a dying martial art-shastar vidya

Nidar Singh, a 44-year-old former food packer from Wolverhampton, is now thought to be the only remaining master. He has many students, but shastar vidya takes years to learn and a commitment in time and energy that doesn't suit modern lifestyles.

I've travelled all over India and I have spoken to many elders, this is basically a last-ditch attempt to flush someone out because if I die with it, it is all gone.

It is not just martial technique, there is a lot of oral tradition and linguistic skills that has to be there as well,

So far he has only met four people who could claim to be masters, now all dead. The last of these, Ram Singh, whom he met in 1998, died four years later.

-Ankit

[Yagnasri]

I remember seeing a History Channel programme wherein the Shastsra Vidya was a marshal art of Rajputs and a lot of weapons were shown in the programme. As per the above report it is a marshal art of Nihangs. We do not find any reference to any other places. can any gurus tell me what is this art about which we do not find any regular references.

[Ankit Desai]

I remember seeing a History Channel programme wherein the Shastsra Vidya was a marshal art of Rajputs and a lot of weapons were shown in the programme. As per the above report it is a marshal art of Nihangs. We do not find any reference to any other places. can any gurus tell me what is this art about which we do not find any regular references.

Please refer ManjaM's post as below to get some idea.

^^ really interesting. I did some googling and came across Sri Nidar Singhs website - http://www.shastarvidiya.org/index2.jsp

Seems like he has collated a lot of information on this subject.

-Ankit

[Sanku]

Airavat; can you please post a translation? (and anyone else who can)

हूँ भूख मरूं हूँ प्यास मरूं, मेवाड़ धरा आजाद रवै
हूँ घोर उजाड़ां में भटकूं, पण मन में मां री याद रवै,
हूँ रजपूतण रो जायो हूं रजपूती करज चुकाऊंला,
ओ सीस पड़ै पण पाघ नही दिल्ली रो मान झुकाऊंला.......

पीथळ के खिमता बादल री, जो रोकै सूर उगाळी नै,
सिंघां री हाथळ सह लेवै, बा कूख मिली कद स्याळी नै?
धरती रो पाणी पिवै इसी, चातग री चूंच बणी कोनी,
कूकर री जूणां जिवै इसी, हाथी री बात सुणी कोनी,
आं हाथां में तलवार थकां, कुण रांड़ कवै है रजपूती ?
म्यानां रै बदळै बैर्यां री, छात्याँ में रैवैली सूती,
मेवाड़ धधकतो अंगारो आंध्यां में चमचम चमकै लो,
कड़खै री उठती तानां पर पग पग पर खांडो खड़कैलो,
राखो थे मूंछ्याँ ऐंठ्योड़ी, लोही री नदी बहा द्यूंला,
हूँ अथक लडूंला अकबर स्यूँ, उजड्यो मेवाड़ बसा द्यूंला,
जद राणा रो संदेष गयो पीथळ री छाती दूणी ही,
हिंदवाणों सूरज चमकै हो अकबर री दुनियां सूनी ही।

[Virendra]

I remember seeing a History Channel programme wherein the Shastsra Vidya was a marshal art of Rajputs and a lot of weapons were shown in the programme. As per the above report it is a marshal art of Nihangs. We do not find any reference to any other places. can any gurus tell me what is this art about which we do not find any regular references.

Narayan Ji AFAIK "Shastar vidya" and "Gataka" are two different martial systems and the Rajput contribution is towards Gataka.
During his storming of Mughal settlements the Sikh guru Hargobind had freed 52 Rajput princes from Mughal captivity.
As a sign of gratitude the princes taught the liberators their martial arts. This was later modified and codified by the Sikhs in the name of "Gataka".
Don't know much about Shastar Vidya but I've heard that it is different from "Gataka".

Regards,
Virendra

[Virendra]

Airavat; can you please post a translation? (and anyone else who can)
हूँ भूख मरूं हूँ प्यास मरूं, मेवाड़ धरा आजाद रवै
हूँ घोर उजाड़ां में भटकूं, पण मन में मां री याद रवै,
हूँ रजपूतण रो जायो हूं रजपूती करज चुकाऊंला,
ओ सीस पड़ै पण पाघ नही दिल्ली रो मान झुकाऊंला.......

I may starve sans food or sans water, Mewad should remain free.
I may wander in wilderness but motherland should remain in my heart.
I'm a Rajput born and shall do the Rajput duty.
My head may fall but the Turban/Honor wouldn't, I shall subdue Delhi's arrogance.

पीथळ के खिमता बादल री, जो रोकै सूर उगाळी नै,
सिंघां री हाथळ सह लेवै, बा कूख मिली कद स्याळी नै?

Clouds don't have the guts to stop the Sun from rising.
Wolves don't have the guts to face a lion's wrath.

राखो थे मूंछ्याँ ऐंठ्योड़ी, लोही री नदी बहा द्यूंला,
हूँ अथक लडूंला अकबर स्यूँ, उजड्यो मेवाड़ बसा द्यूंला,

Keep your moustaches up, I shall soak in river of blood.
I will fight Akbar endlessly and sprout life back into ravaged Mewad.

I more or less understand the rest as well but cannot translate in best possible way due to some terms that I don't get.
I hope Airavat or someone else would do better justice to the lines left.

Regards,
Virendra

[member_19686]

I remember seeing a History Channel programme wherein the Shastsra Vidya was a marshal art of Rajputs and a lot of weapons were shown in the programme. As per the above report it is a marshal art of Nihangs. We do not find any reference to any other places. can any gurus tell me what is this art about which we do not find any regular references.

Narayan Ji AFAIK "Shastar vidya" and "Gataka" are two different martial systems and the Rajput contribution is towards Gataka.
During his storming of Mughal settlements the Sikh guru Hargobind had freed 52 Rajput princes from Mughal captivity.
As a sign of gratitude the princes taught the liberators their martial arts. This was later modified and codified by the Sikhs in the name of "Gataka".
Don't know much about Shastar Vidya but I've heard that it is different from "Gataka".

Regards,
Virendra

No Gatka is just exhibition/play fighting.

When the Brits suppressed Shastar Vidiya (just like they did with Kalari in Kerala), it slowly morphed into gatka and practiced by Sikhs in the British army.

Only a few Nihangs kept the real thing alive.

www.shastarvidiya.org/gatka.jsp explains it well.

[SBajwa]

Shastra Vidya is "Education of the weapons of India"

Shastra = Weapon
Vidya = Education

Gatka is "mock fighting" or Exercise to practice Shastra Vidya. This was often done by the Sikh Gurus post the martyrdom of the fifth Guru Sri Guru Arjan Dev ji at Lahore.

so first five Sikh Gurus were Saints only
The next five sikh Gurus were both Saints and Soldiers.
Guru Gobind Singh codified the Sikhs calling them "Khalsa" meaning "The army of the Creator Nirankaar" or God.

so before a Sikh (person who take Sri Guru Granth Sahib as their Guru) becomes Khalsa they have to be
to be totally fit (run 100 meters in 11 seconds) and agile., and also know some Shastra Vidya.

so If I see a 300 lbs bearded person with a turban who can barely walk with a small knife as a ceremonial sword., He is not a Khalsa as per Guru Gobind singh, as he can neither run away from a danger, nor protect himself or do the supreme duty of the Khalsa which is to "protect the people who need help"

Just taking a vow and not fulfilling the reason of the vow is a bigger insult to your Guru then cutting your hair.

[RamaY]

so before a Sikh (person who take Sri Guru Granth Sahib as their Guru) becomes Khalsa they have to be
to be totally fit (run 100 meters in 11 seconds) and agile., and also know some Shastra Vidya.

Pls share more details on the preparedness/qualifications required to become Khalsa.

[Airavat]

जद राणा रो संदेष गयो पीथळ री छाती दूणी ही,
हिंदवाणों सूरज चमकै हो अकबर री दुनियां सूनी ही।

When the Rana's message came, Peethal's chest swelled up with pride,
The Sun of the Hindus was sparkling, while Akbar's world was abandoned.

Hinduan Suraj (Sun of the Hindus) was the title conferred on the Maharanas of Mewar.

'Peethal' was the nom de plume of Prithviraja Rathore, brother of the Raja of Bikaner, who inspired Maharana Pratap to continue his resistance against Akbar for the sake of Hindu pride.

[Airavat]

Another old Rajasthani poem from Bikaner, Chanda Rau Jeta Si ro (छंद राऊ जेठसी रॊ), describing a 16th century battle between the Rajputs of Bikaner and the Mughals of Punjab was translated by LP Tessitori:

It was composed by Vithu Sujo Nagarajota, a Charana at the stipend of Rau Jeta Sih (Rao Jeth Singh) of Bikaner, about the year 1535 A.D., to celebrate a victory obtained by the latter prince over Kamran who from the Panjab had invaded his territory. The fact that the Muhammadan historians do not even mention this unfortunate adventure of the son of Babar, only enhances the value of the poem, which may thus claim the credit of filling a small gap in the history of India. But the subject of the Jeta Si ro Chanda is not restricted to the battle in which Kamran was routed. Like all bardic poems of some bulk and importance, it contains also an introduction giving an account of the military exploits of Rau Jeta Sih's predecessors, from his ancestor Chundo (Rao Chunda), the daring Rathora who was the first to win for himself and his descendants the title of Rau of Marwar, down to Viko (Bika), the founder of Bikaner, and his son Luna Karana, the gallant father of Jeta Sih. It is the story of a gradual but at the same time amazingly rapid conquest on the part of a vigorous race (Rathore Rajputs), who in the narrow space of four generations succeeded in subjugating to its sway the greatest part of the Rajputana desert from the chain of the Aravalli to the bed of the Naiwal, a stretch of over three hundred miles.

The date for this battle between Rao Jeth Singh and Kamran (Samvat 1591) falls within the period when Kamran, as we know from the Muhammadan chronicles, was consolidating himself in the Panjab. From the Bikaneri sources we know that Bhatner, the important stronghold on the Bikaner-Panjab frontier, had been conquered by Kheta Si Ararakamalota, a vassal of Rau Jeta Si, some time after the latter's accession in Samvat 1583, or thereabout. Naturally, Kamran must have felt tempted, if not actually compelled, to expel the Rathoras from Bhatanera, and after doing it, he probably resolved to continue his march southwards and inflict on Bikaner such a blow as would prevent the Rathoras from attempting to reconquer their lost conquest. Though defeated and obliged to beat a hasty retreat from the fort of Bikaner, he did not fail in his object altogether, for Bhatner remained in his hands and the Rathoras were unable to reconquer it for several years.

This 400 year old poem is in archaic Marwari and the language will be quite difficult for modern Rajasthanis to understand. As an example, this single page, in which Rao Jeth Singh conducts psychological warfare by sending a message to Kamran, describing how each of his ancestors like Mallinatha, Chunda, Jodha, Bika, and Duda had repeatedly defeated their Muslim opponents and how the Mughal Kamran would meet the same fate at his hands:



As a sample of the archaic language, the last line of the first quatrain reads: Jeev le bhaji gau Nemjir. Translated as:
(The Turk) Nemjir ran away (bhaji gau or "bhag gayo" in contemporary Marwari) with his bare life (jeev le).

[Sanku]

Many thanks Virendra and Airavat

[Sanku]

The full poem that I posted above.

[peter]

.....
The full poem that I posted above.

This poem is sung wondefully! Though it seems to be new or rather not very old.

I have lots of poems sung by Charans on Maharana Pratap.

I will post them today.

Here is a snippet of letter exchange between Pratap and Prithvi Raj Rathore of Bikaner. Both of them were brothers (their mothers were sisters). The story goes that when http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Sh ... han_Kamboh returned to Akbar's court after a campaign in Mewar he boasted that Pratap would surrender soon. To check the veracity of this claim Prithviraj (Pithal) was asked to write to Pratap.

[Yayavar]

Narayan Ji AFAIK "Shastar vidya" and "Gataka" are two different martial systems and the Rajput contribution is towards Gataka.
During his storming of Mughal settlements the Sikh guru Hargobind had freed 52 Rajput princes from Mughal captivity.
As a sign of gratitude the princes taught the liberators their martial arts. This was later modified and codified by the Sikhs in the name of "Gataka".
Don't know much about Shastar Vidya but I've heard that it is different from "Gataka".

Regards,
Virendra

No Gatka is just exhibition/play fighting.

When the Brits suppressed Shastar Vidiya (just like they did with Kalari in Kerala), it slowly morphed into gatka and practiced by Sikhs in the British army.

Only a few Nihangs kept the real thing alive.

http://www.shastarvidiya.org/gatka.jsp explains it well.

gatka is played/practiced outside too. My family - not my urban generation though - had proponents and they were neither in British Army nor Sikhs.

[Sanku]

.....
The full poem that I posted above.

This poem is sung wondefully! Though it seems to be new or rather not very old.

I have lots of poems sung by Charans on Maharana Pratap.

I will post them today.

Here is a snippet of letter exchange between Pratap and Prithvi Raj Rathore of Bikaner. Both of them were brothers (their mothers were sisters). The story goes that when http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Sh ... han_Kamboh returned to Akbar's court after a campaign in Mewar he boasted that Pratap would surrender soon. To check the veracity of this claim Prithviraj (Pithal) was asked to write to Pratap.

Yes Peter, the poem is a relatively new poem (you can find the details of the Kavi from the link ) -- only about 60 odd years or so.

It retells the same story (of Prithviraj and Rana Pratap) -- in similar refrain.

[ramana]

Lalmohan, Have you been to the National Army Museum in Chelsea? There is a museum of the Sword there also.

[Sri]

Was reading the Alexander's conquest and about the battle of Hydaspes. Almost in unison all western and Indian accounts tell that porus was the most powerful king of India. Nothing can be further from truth. The kingdom that was most powerful was Maghad. Even before Alxander crossed Hydaspes, he had received a messenger from Magad who had assured Alexander that Nanda's (rulers of Maghad) had army 3 times the size Porus had. He was told that even if he acquired Porus's kingdom and decided no to march on to Maghad, he would still have to face the mighty Nanda. Could that be the reason Alexander decided to give Porus his kingdom back?

[Lalmohan]

sri - most sources i have read do not place porus in the premier league amongst indian kings of the time. alexander was fought to a stalemate on the jhelum and most indian casualties took place during the disengagement from the day's battle as per indian rules of warfare - which the greeks did not follow. realising how difficult it would be to continue - the greek troops 'rebelled' and alexander forced them to march back via the makran - killing off large numbers, and picking up an eventually fatal wound at multan

[Rahul M]

sri, I do not think any history book explicitly says that. however, in many accounts the battle of hydaspes is elevated to that between India and alexander, which it was not.

from greek sources the armies of prasei and gangaridai were many times the size of the paurav army.

As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having had all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at-arms and horsemen and elephants. For they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand war elephants.

in comparison, the paurav army had 80-200 elephants, depending on whom you believe.

[Yagnasri]

Does any one has Six Glorious ehohs of Indian History by Savarkar? I tried my level best even to purchase it but I could not get it in any online store also. The 1st chapter which is avaliable on net shows a detailed manner how Alex3 ran with tail between his legs.

[RamaY]

^ They are available online sir.

http://www.savarkar.org/content/pdfs/en ... n_v001.pdf

[Yagnasri]

Thannk you sir. The link you have given has one chapter and I got the rest from the website. This is the link for the entire book.

http://www.savarkar.org/content/pdfs/en ... n_v000.pdf

The web site has other great works of Savarkar. Must read them.

[Atri]

Thannk you sir. The link you have given has one chapter and I got the rest from the website. This is the link for the entire book.

http://www.savarkar.org/content/pdfs/en ... n_v000.pdf

The web site has other great works of Savarkar. Must read them.

This is better resource on savarkar - http://www.savarkarsmarak.com/downloadbooks.php

[Murugan]

MARVELS OF INDIAN IRON: Through The Ages (Hardcover)
by R Balasubramaniam

The technology of forge welded cannons and a catalogue of some of the massive indigenous iron cannons of the subcontinent are presented. The famous wootz steel of the Indian subcontinent is described in the last section. Written simply and profusely illustrated with line drawings and photographs, the book embodies the latest researches on the subject.

[Virendra]

If there's a books thread, you might post it there as well. Thank you

[Marut]

MARVELS OF INDIAN IRON: Through The Ages (Hardcover)
by R Balasubramaniam

The technology of forge welded cannons and a catalogue of some of the massive indigenous iron cannons of the subcontinent are presented. The famous wootz steel of the Indian subcontinent is described in the last section. Written simply and profusely illustrated with line drawings and photographs, the book embodies the latest researches on the subject.

The author was leading metallurgy professor in IIT-Kanpur and frequented BRF as well until colon cancer very cruelly cut his life short

[peter]

Yes Peter, the poem is a relatively new poem (you can find the details of the Kavi from the link ) -- only about 60 odd years or so.

It retells the same story (of Prithviraj and Rana Pratap) -- in similar refrain.

Some more from the contemporaries of Pratap:

एही भुजे अरीति । तसलीमत हिन्दू तुरक
माथै निकर मसीत परताप कै परसादसी
रोहै पाताल राण । जाँ तसलीम न आदरै
हिन्दू मुस्सलमाण एक नहीं ता दोय हैं

[When such is the usage of the day that Hindus have to bow low and perform Tasleem to Musalmans,
It is only in your country, O Pratap, that the temples are seen reconstructed where mosques had come up
Only if, O Pratap, you hold the Hindu Banner high and don't acknowledge (Akbar's) suzerainty
Hindus will retain their independence and identity and not get merged with Musalmans]

रोकै अकबर राह । लै हिन्दू कूकुर लखां
बीअर तो बाराह पाडै घणा परताप सी
सुख हित स्याल समाज, हिन्दू अकबर बस हुए
रोसीलो मृगराज पजै न राण परताप सी

[Akbar obstacles the path of pratApa with help from a lakh Dog-Hindus (those who have gone to Akbars side)
But when did they stop the Boar-like march of pratApa! A single vArAha-Hindu is enough.
For sake of comfort some coward jackal-Hindus have taken Akbar as overlord
But when did Lion-Hindus like pratApa ever accept his suzerainty!]

लोपै हिन्दू लाज सगपण रोपै तुरकसूँ
आरज कुल री आज पूंजी राण प्रतापसी

[When Hindu honour has disappeared; they shamelessly give their daughters to musalmans;
O Pratap rANA, today You are the only refuge left for the Aryakula honour]

Do observe the adjectives used for those Hindus who were siding with Akbar. Charan Dursa Adha, composer of the poems given above, was not an "ashrit Kavi" at Pratap's court!

It is just very odd that modern intelligentia says that Pratap was wrong and Akbar (including his rajput supporters) had a Pan Indian outlook!