Historical Battles in Ancient & Medieval Bharat

[Sanku]

Personally I feel that Peter has really strong points, whats the hurry to get off the topic, if people feel that peter is wrong, they can quote from primary sources and mention how or why his thesis does not stand to scrutiny rather than dismiss the texts as poetic.

[jaladipc]

It is good to see that correct History of India is presented by so many contributers in this thread. What is really disturbing as a person to me who had studied scrutinizingly some sections of Sanskrit Puranas which cover ancient History of India before 600 B.C to some extent, is that India's pre-History before 600 B.C is now given a euro-centric view by so called pseudo-scholars ( especially Indologists from reputated universities) through their latest version of AIT, the Aryan Migration theory. I don't know if this is the right place to bring up this topic. Mods, please guide me if I am in a wrong thread. Can some body shed light on India's ancient History before 600 B.C too.

With the AS of underwater ruins of Dwaraka Kingdom which dated back to over 7500 BC,AIT is just a trash can with no weight.
It just proved that one of those great epics like Mahabharata were not just confined to epics,but lead to the discovery of an ancient civilization aka dwapara yuga.
It does makes sense that at the end of each yuga the humanity will be cleansed and only those few will be left behind to spread the message.
According to this logic that dwapara yuga ended with all sinners and thereby leaving all alone a handful of sacred monks and folks who started the civilization again which we consider it as kaliyuga.

Considering the amount of money ASI spend on such things of utmost importance which ofcourse are vital to prove to the western morons that the great epics were from the mouths of the great people who were left behind after the end of the respective yugas.

If Dwapara itself dates back to 7500 BCE, there is no wonder that Ayodhya during tretayuga must be dated back to as much as before 15000 BCE.Since our fuedal politics interfere with almost everything in our present day to day life,it hard to get back to surveying of Ayodha for any remains to be carbon dated to show the world that even their african migration theory was wrong.But who is gonna do that? a noobie with kindergarten failed in Archeology like me or the current day babus who work for themselves?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOOM9dYBV6Y

[Lalmohan]

yes peter does have really good points on the whole and i have appreciated them, however on the issue of horse archer formations and tactics amongst non muslim indian armies, my personal feeling is that he continues to miss the point being made by others and continues down a fruitless track without making a sufficiently strong point of his own. after several attempts it is more productive if we move on rather than continue with the same specific issue

lets have a constructive discussion by all means, but there has been a lot of wheel spinning

[Airavat]

read a bit more of sandhu, his main criticism of the rajputs is their failure to evolve and learn, i.e. honour and courage alone only gets you so far. also he suggests that by a long term alliance with the mughals they ultimately weakened their own abilities and were left vulnerable to marathas and pindaris, eventually seeking 'protection' from the EIC.

Decline of the Rajput kingdoms in the 19th century had nothing to do with the Mughal empire, which had ceased to exist much earlier. The Rajput states carved up the Mughal subah of Ajmer among themselves; the town of Ajmer was captured by Bakht Singh of Jodhpur, Sambhar lake was divided between Jaipur and Jodhpur. Even from the Delhi province, the Jaipur state annexed the Narnaul division.

The medieval trade routes had enriched the Rajput states and made them powerful. But with the European domination of the sea trade, all the horse and trade caravans which used to pass through Rajputana dwindled down to a trickle and ultimately stopped. As Jadunath Sarkar points out, the revenue of Jaipur state was nearly 1 crore rupees under Sawai Jai Singh, but it had shrunk to just 18 lakh a century later, because of the changed trade routes. Such sharp falls in revenue damaged the ability of the Rajput states to finance their armies, and even to assert themselves on the vassal chieftains.

there were from say 800 AD to 1200 AD lots of different Rajput kingdoms, those that were strong and unified did throw out any invaders.

Actually the period of the brief Turk occupation of Rajputana begins and ends within the first few decades of the 14th century. Chittor was captured in 1303 after a six-month siege, and Alauddin was left so exhausted from this venture that he couldn't lift a finger to fight the Mongols who merrily looted Delhi for two months, while he hid himself in Siri fort. It can't be argued that the defenders of Chittor were less unified or weaker than those who forced the Turks to evacuate the fort 11 years later.

The Rajput victories over the Turks in different parts of Rajasthan, have their own sequence of events, which need detailed study. But there is one constant in each of these victories.....jauhar. The voluntary destruction of the living (and their resources) to prevent capture and conversion to Islam. In other parts of the world political Islam had a steady progress over non-Muslim states because after each victory they would kill or convert the warrior class, and use the resources of the captured state for further conquests. This steady progress within India covered the northwest, Punjab, and Gangetic plains, but it was unsuccessful in Rajasthan. Neither Chittor, nor Jaisalmer, Jalor, Siwana, Ranthambhor, could ever become bases for the Turks that captured these forts, despite all their furious efforts. Instead, one by one, the Turks were defeated and ejected from these forts and Rajputana became home to powerful new Hindu kingdoms.

Every clan that defeated the Turks did not automatically become powerful. For example the Bhatis recovered Jaisalmer and the Chauhans won back Siwana, but the dominant clan that emerged in that region were the Rathods who spread their rule all over the Marwar plains.

the clan structure means also that it is hard for clans to unite against a common invader, so each gets picked off one by one.

Actually there are several instances of clans uniting against invaders, whether the Arabs or the Delhi Sultans. Unity of kingdoms or clans can only be temporary and they can never form a stable empire. Successful states in India did not emerge from mythical unity.

For example the rulers of Vijaynagar did not waste their resources in this fool's endeavor of uniting separate clans and kingdoms against the Turks. Instead, when the Hoysala kingdom was battling against the Madurai Sultanate, they used the opportunity to capture the fort of Penugonda. And on the death of Vira Ballala III at the hands of the Muslims, instead of sending aid Vijaynagar invaded the Hoysala kingdom and annexed its lands, driving the new ruler Virupaksha Ballala into exile just three months after his coronation.

Similarly the big kingdoms In Rajasthan emerged because the Sesodias and Rathods fought against and subjugated the other Rajput clans, while simultaneously routing the Turk invaders.

The actual weakness of the clan system is in creating bigger kingdoms. When the size of the growing kingdom becomes too big, portions break away to form separate kingdoms. Thus in Mewar: Dungarpur, Banswara, and Pratapgarh broke away to form separate kingdoms. Likewise in Marwar: Bikaner, Merta, and Kishangarh broke away from the parent Rathod clan to form separate kingdoms.

In all the successive empires of the Pratihars, the Chauhans, the Sesodias, the Rathods, it was a case of one clan becoming dominant over the others. When they weakened or fell, the subordinate clans rushed to take their place, giving no space to foreign invaders to establish themselves. Rajasthan could not be conquered, but at the same time it could never become the base of a stable empire.

[Lalmohan]

thanks Airavat, that is interesting. Some other points about rajput arms from sandhu (as i continue to read - and without too much reflection)

his assertion is that rajput cavalry when on the move was very potent and many times defeated turk and mughal cavalry in non-set piece battle situations. i read this as a heavy cavalry force that is able to move and hit hard as well as any other mobile units of the time. However, this same force fighting in a set piece (e.g. khanua) wastes its energies on manly frontal combat against unequal forces, e.g. strong defences well covered by muskets

at khanua, sandhu contends that the rajputs though defeated were not routed unlike babur's success at the battle of panipat shortly beforehand. the rajputs, having seen that they could not breach the defensive line and being surrounded on all sides, fought their way out through the back and retreated in good order. babur did not actively pursue* and despite heavy losses, the force was able to reconstruct itself in the rajput homeland

* added later: probably based on his experience immediately before khanua of rajput cavalry ripping his recon cavalry columns to pieces with heavy losses. given that the mughal cavalry here would have consisted largely of archers, the rajputs probably closed with surprise and then charged with lance and sword and smashed through lighter armoured mughals.

also, both at panipat and khanua - the decisive wings of the mughal force are said to be specifically "mongols", I am not sure if that is meant literally or if they are settlers from uzbekistan who are mongoloid as opposed to turkic. they are supposed to be archers and pinning the opposing flanks and turning them, allowing the main household cavalry to make the frontal coup de grace - which i assume to be heavy cavalry. sandhu contends that at khanua the rajputs formed up in mixed arms (elephant, horse and foot) instead of concentrating forces and stormed the mughal front repeatedly, only to run aground in deadly cross fire from matchlocks and archers strongly housed behind breastworks and carts - with gaps left to allow the household cavalry to stream through for the final attack

on artillery, he talks of "Rumi" or a byzantine/turk commander of artillery who is able to direct fire in support of the cavalry instead of random firing, but does not give this the same import as the matchlock men

[peter]

The medieval trade routes had enriched the Rajput states and made them powerful. But with the European domination of the sea trade, all the horse and trade caravans which used to pass through Rajputana dwindled down to a trickle and ultimately stopped. As Jadunath Sarkar points out, the revenue of Jaipur state was nearly 1 crore rupees under Sawai Jai Singh, but it had shrunk to just 18 lakh a century later, because of the changed trade routes. Such sharp falls in revenue damaged the ability of the Rajput states to finance their armies, and even to assert themselves on the vassal chieftains.

Very interesting. I did not know this. Also Jadunath Sarkar in his history of Amber (Jaipur) says that fortunes of Jaipur family went like a yo-yo in the mughal camp from the time of Man Singh. Jai Singh, contemporary of Aurangzebs, died a broken man and his sons (Ram Singh who was sent as a punishment against Lachit Barphukan the great warrior of Assam) and grandsons were made to suffer badly. I think the grandson had a mansab of only a 1000! Ram Singh was posted to Afghanistan after Assam campaign because Rajput war was raging in Rajasathan from 1680s onwards and Aurangzeb did not want any "big" king to be present in Rajputana.

.... Alauddin was left so exhausted from this venture that he couldn't lift a finger to fight the Mongols who merrily looted Delhi for two months, while he hid himself in Siri fort.

I did not know this. Are there more details on this?

The actual weakness of the clan system is in creating bigger kingdoms. When the size of the growing kingdom becomes too big, portions break away to form separate kingdoms. Thus in Mewar: Dungarpur, Banswara, and Pratapgarh broke away to form separate kingdoms. Likewise in Marwar: Bikaner, Merta, and Kishangarh broke away from the parent Rathod clan to form separate kingdoms.

Do you reckon Akbar's marriage diplomacy and thus divide and conquer strategy which was also followed by his succesors played a role in propping up younger branches or brothers to keep the main line in control? What about the division of Bundi into two separate kingdoms of Kota and Bundi by Shahjahan?

[peter]

on artillery, he talks of "Rumi" or a byzantine/turk commander of artillery who is able to direct fire in support of the cavalry instead of random firing, but does not give this the same import as the matchlock men

But the problem is Babur's guns fired a shot once an hour (or more). How do you reckon these caused havoc? Because in order to halt a cavalry you have to really mow them down and if Babur's estimates are believed Sanga had 100,000 people. A cannon firing a shot every hour does not seem potent.

[Lalmohan]

peter - please note i refer to sandhu placing emphasis on matchlocks and archers not just on artillery, also there were large numbers of smaller guns mounted on camels which appear to have a higher rate of fire. the larger guns dont seem to get much mention - probably for the reasons you mention

[tsarkar]

But the problem is Babur's guns fired a shot once an hour (or more)

This is the first time I'm hearing this. What was the reason?

There were hand cannons used quite effectively by Vlad Tepes enmasse against the Turks centuries earlier. At Chaldiran, Ottoman artillery and janisari matchlockmen broke repeated Iranian cavalry charges. The ability of Ottoman artillery to traverse and break Iranian flank attacks were noted in that battle. So if Ottoman guns had a higher rate of fire at Chaldiran, what went wrong with Babur's guns?

[Lalmohan]

big seige mortars probably fired once an hour

[Rahul M]

airavat ji, where exactly is vanayu supposed to have been ?

[tsarkar]

Large cannons without elevation and traverse mechanisms used against forts, yes. But most cannons those days were smaller and drawn on wagons.

[Lalmohan]

most mention is made of 2-3 small guns mounted on camel back on swivels. could be fired dismounted from tripods or even from the camel if it were suitably trained

[ramana]

So we really need to try to study artillery in early medeival India. Can we start a thread on that?

[Sanku]

So we really need to try to study artillery in early medeival India. Can we start a thread on that?

Can we do this within this thread itself please?

[Lalmohan]

[as i read on]
the big mughal siege mortar fired only 4 times at khanua, would take 400-500 men to move similar pieces or 3 elephants (later)
at a later battle it exploded

there were atleast two or three types of light cannon in regular use - falconets and similar, these fired shot of 4-5lbs over considerable distances, upto 3 miles according to one of humayun's chroniclers, plus many matchlock men firing large shot which probably penetrated chain mail armour quite easily. the courage of the rajputs kept them charging headlong into this murderous fire above and beyond normal sanity (there was no scope for flank attacks and besides the rajputs thought it unmanly to do so)

mughal gunnery comes from the turkish practice, the ottoman turks had already decimated the persian cavalry before. babur had learned carefully from them. he also learned how to place guns behind defences and use them to wear down his opponent in a forward defence

the novelty of panipat is not the use of artillery in itself, but its use to break up the opponent before unleashing his cavalry on it in the classic mongol style, again repeated at khanua

[ramana]

Sanku, It will get lost in the numerous pages. I wish Dr. R. Subramaniam were still alive for he had writtent ht ebook on these topes.

[peter]

peter - please note i refer to sandhu placing emphasis on matchlocks and archers not just on artillery, also there were large numbers of smaller guns mounted on camels which appear to have a higher rate of fire. the larger guns dont seem to get much mention - probably for the reasons you mention

Would it be possible for you to read the description of battle of khanua from babur nama? Many online copies of baburnama exist.

This applies to all of us who want to discuss this battle of Babur.

Few things to focus on:

a) Notice the placement of key generals on babur's side and their movements as they are attacked from sanga's side.
b) When is artillery fired from Babur's side? What is the impact? Could the artillery be shooting at its own men?
c) Did the flanks of babur loose?
d) Why did the battle last for 10 hours?
e) What was the role of archers?
f) How did the battle end?

Lastly let us not forget it is a one sided record i.e only Babur's POV.

For the record of the other side please consult James Tods Annals.

[Airavat]

airavat ji, where exactly is vanayu supposed to have been?

Vanayu (Arabia).

The medieval trade routes had enriched the Rajput states and made them powerful.

Very interesting. I did not know this. Also Jadunath Sarkar in his history of Amber (Jaipur)....

This can be discussed in the Rajasthan History thread.

most mention is made of 2-3 small guns mounted on camel back on swivels. could be fired dismounted from tripods or even from the camel if it were suitably trained

Babur also had his Ottoman gunners cast some new guns after Panipat, one of which was tested and fired a heavy ball 1600 paces.

[Lalmohan]

peter, what are the hypotheses you are trying to test? ... lets start from there before everyone boils the ocean of data

[peter]

peter, what are the hypotheses you are trying to test? ... lets start from there before everyone boils the ocean of data

Simple one. What does baburnama say about this battle and is the interpretation of various scholars correct? Since it is a primary source it would be useful.

[peter]

.

The medieval trade routes had enriched the Rajput states and made them powerful.

Very interesting. I did not know this. Also Jadunath Sarkar in his history of Amber (Jaipur)....

This can be discussed in the Rajasthan History thread.

If it is not too much trouble could you please answer it here? This thread could be a good repository of connected info.

[Lalmohan]

peter, what are the hypotheses you are trying to test? ... lets start from there before everyone boils the ocean of data

Simple one. What does baburnama say about this battle and is the interpretation of various scholars correct? Since it is a primary source it would be useful.

please be more precise, what specifically, e.g. babur won because of x, y, z or babur did not win comprehensively because of m, n, o

otherwise its a general chin wag and not analysis

[Sanku]

Lalmohan>>peter, what are the hypotheses you are trying to test? ... lets start from there before everyone boils the ocean of data
Simple one. What does baburnama say about this battle and is the interpretation of various scholars correct? Since it is a primary source it would be useful.

please be more precise, what specifically, e.g. babur won because of x, y, z or babur did not win comprehensively because of m, n, o

Yes I would like to see, what your hypothesis on this matter is, too; if possible could you extend it to general "the invaders from 1033-1300 period" (ending with Babar?) "pin the victories on these particular and unique combination"

I assume there would be common pattern (apart from the obvious one of getting the faith) since all the attacks are from various branches of Turko-Mongol nomadic barbarian tribes from same region of the world.

Was it same population explosion based numerical superiority which propelled tribes under Genghis Khan ? (or any other reason for tribes being forced to move out for survival due to weather patterns etc)

[jambudvipa]

Sankuji nice to see you back.

i am quite intrested in learning more about soruces which deal with the artillery used in mediveal India.There exists a large body of work on Ottoman and Chinese artillery.but Indian artillery seems to be a neglected subject.

[Lalmohan]

baburnama may be a primary source, but it is also a propaganda tool (written to praise the emperor) - so has to be balanced with other references

sandhu has done that in his analysis (contemporary turk sources as well as the various compilations of rajput version of events) and presents it from a practioners viewpoint, i.e. a trained strategic and tactical military leader and officer

sanku, we should also separate the strategic and tactical

the repeating pattern of the eurasian landmass is nomadic tribes displacing other nomadic tribes for pasture and the displaced falling upon the agrarian populations for easy pickings. this is time immemorial. the tribes fell upon chin, germania (pushing the goths into rome), iran and through to hindustan etc.

in the medieval period, the mongol battering ram through central asia displaced the turks westwards and southwards, who displaced the afghans, who ended up in bharat. in the west the mongols annihilated the islamic heartlands. the mongol world then splits into five, the one of interest to us is the chagatai khanate - who settle in transoxania and become muslims and merge with the turkic peoples

babur inherits the mongol and turkic military traditions (though despises the mongols themselves, despite being related to genghiz khan)

by baburs time, there is no longer a great khan (well - its the yuan emperor, but the turks no longer bother with him ever since timur's time), transoxania is fought over by various turkic groups and babur is pretty much driven out of there. to his west, the ottomans and iranians are slugging it out, he is able to advance into afghanistan and then follow the afghan power trail into northern india where various turkic and afghan nobles have set themselves up in power in an arc from peshawar through the doab and extending into parts of gujrat

given the various interparty squabbles between all the powers present in north india at the time (afghan, turk, rajput), babur's entry was not too difficult, but once inside india he had to win desicively for the control of delhi. you could sit in delhi and extract tribute from far and wide without doing too much else

babur's victory at panipat, khanua and the third one that i can never remember are not in dispute, the question that i think is being asked is "how?"

conventional historians have concatenated that to "he had artillery" - but that is an insufficient arguement

sandhu makes the case that babur combined artillery from the turks with the orgnaisation, C2 and cavalry tactics of the mongols and the use of offensive-defensive wagons and breastworks to capitalise on his matchlocks, light artillery and archers to create a killing zone, which neither the afghans/turks nor rajputs (north indian powers) had the experience or initiative/brains to overcome, despite being familiar with the different parts of the puzzle... which then left them vulnerable to the classic mounted archer outflanking and heavy cavalry coup de grace - which genghiz and timur had long perfected and refined

mounted archers are a skirmishing force, they are lightly armed on fast ponies. they operate in 10 man units and turn and wheel as one - concentrating firepower and manouvering rapidly. a column if a few thousand will charge at the enemy firing arrows at range to cause disruption, at the last moment, they will wheel and 'flee' - firing arrows backwards as they go. the enemy is harrassed and might become disorganised. if the enemy doesnt pursue, they will wheel and return, harrassing and withdrawing, wearing down heavier armed troops. if the enemy pursues perhaps frustrated and angry, the light archers will draw them out, firing all the time behind them and lead them into a stretched or disorganised formation, where they will be ambushed by the heavy cavalry probably using terrain masking and thus weakened and surprised will be more susceptible to a heavy shock delivered by lance, mace and sword

babur had this done against him in central asia, and he did it to others. its all about having sufficient situational awareness and maintaining enough C3 during the battle to change your force deployments and hitting where it hurts most

the afghans/turks had some of these abilities when they first arrived in india, but over time they lost their ability to maintain superb cavalry and relied more and more on elephants. the rajputs had elephants and heavy cavalry and almost no C3 in battle. once started it was meant to be fought to the finish as deployed. whilst locally clan leaders could rally their men and move them around a little, overall - the commander/king (who may not have been a militarily competant man himself) could do little to order units around the field

so... if the field was constrained and the enemy could not manouever or outflank, rajput brute power and courage would count very highly. if the enemy could move around and attack from different sides and move around rapidly, rajputs would exhaust themselves and be vulnerable to attack by the fresh reserves - as happened at khanua. however even after a debacle like khanua, the rajputs fought themselves out of the encirclement and withdrew in good order (not what it says in the baburnama). sandhu believes this to be the case since the pursuit is short and the rajput army regroups - unlike the afghan/turk armies which were dispersed and had to be rebuilt further in the doab to come back to haunt Humayun

[ParGha]

Can anyone provide the organization, armament and tactics used by the Ahom Kingdom? (Yes, I am looking at you Singha).

[Rahul M]

thanks a lot airavat ji.

[ParGha]

I have often read that despite being kicked out of West Asia by the Muslim horse-archer armies and being repeatedly invaded in their own country by English long-bowmen, the French nobility prefered to discourage archery among its commoners. Their rationale was that if the commoners got a taste of killing foreign gentlemen on horses, they may get dangerous ideas of trying it at home with oppressive native nobles. Apparently it was preferable to be defeated, killed, enslaved (by Muslim armies; wonder where some Arabs get blue eyes?) or bankrupted for ransom (by English armies), than to trust their fellow countrymen or reform the corrupt social system.

At one point of time Indians were some of the most famous infantry archers in the ancient world; almost all the mythical heros were legendary marksmen, in recorded history the Persian emperors eagerly sought Indian archer mercenaries for their armies. When and how does this disappear? Does it also have to with the onset of feudalism in India?

[Lalmohan]

gunpowder

[Rahul M]

ParGha, archery never disappeared from India in that sense, only after firearms were introduced it was slowly replaced by it. I remember reading a 19th century account of a britisher on Indian bows and throughout he maintains that Indian archery was excellent(which was the reason behind his motivation to study it in the first place) but at that time was a dying art as firearms took its place.
nowhere do you get the feeling that he is talking about a practice that was anything but held in highest regard in the culture.

[ParGha]

North Indians gradually stopped using massed archers, a la English at Agincourt, about the time of the end of Guptas. Individual kingdoms may have kept it alive for a while longer, but it was a dying practice long before gunpowder.

Phillip Mason writes that by medieval era individually archery was pursued as a form of exercise (to build shoulder muscles) and casual hunting. But at the yoeman farmer level, where the ranks of massed archers are recruited, the lathi/quarterstaff was the exercise of choice - which directly translated to the bhalla/spear as the weapon of choice in war. The native powers that finally rose to beat back the Mughals - i.e Marathas, Jats, Sikhs were more known for their collective mastery of staff weapons than archery. Archery seemed to have been relegated to tribals, like Bhils and Santals, who would have been outside the feudal setup anyways. It is one of the reasons I am really curious about the Ahoms.

Lalmohan: A trained fusilier could fire off 3 rounds per minute with a Brown Bess, while a trained archer could fire off 5 arrows in the same time - both to the same effect and range. However it took a lot less training to prepare a fusilier (any oprhan or beggar plucked up from newly industrializing English towns would do), as opposed to an archer whose muscles must be trained to draw the long bow from a young age (usually required hardy farmers who were well-off enough to spare somw time to learn this in their youth).

[Lalmohan]

by the time of the rise of the marathas, jats, sikhs, would not musketry and artillery be quite dominant on the field, with staff weapons and swords required for the CQB finish?

probably archery became the poor man's weapon? closely related to hunting?

[Yagnasri]

Maratas used maskets. Sikhs also did it. their method of two shots and charge is well known.But I think archary also never fully went away. remember reading some 30,000 arrows kept ready by Jhansi (under lakshmi Bai)

[Rahul M]

ParGha, that's not necessarily correct, I know for example that in eastern India archery was in vogue well into the gunpowder era. since you were asking about ahom armies, archers formed a significant part of the armies of koch and ahom kingdoms IIRC. archers were the predominant soldiers in the revolts against muslim rule in bengal where gunpoweder frequently performed poorly due to humidity.

[ParGha]

by the time of the rise of the marathas, jats, sikhs, would not musketry and artillery be quite dominant on the field, with staff weapons and swords required for the CQB finish? probably archery became the poor man's weapon? closely related to hunting?

Not at the time of their rise, only after their establishment as powers to be reckoned with. At the time of their rise, except for a few well-off sardars and personal followers, most of them were poor or had been reduced to poverty. It was only when they were well established that they could afford to buy firearms en masse, and/or hire European trained infantry from Carnatic Coast and UP/Bihar areas.

[ParGha]

ParGha, that's not necessarily correct, I know for example that in eastern India archery was in vogue well into the gunpowder era. since you were asking about ahom armies, archers formed a significant part of the armies of koch and ahom kingdoms IIRC. archers were the predominant soldiers in the revolts against muslim rule in bengal where gunpoweder frequently performed poorly due to humidity.

Yes, I don't know much about how the infantry of principalities further east were organized and equipped, which is why I asked. In N and W India, where an infantry capable of decimating an horse-archer army would have been most useful, it was sadly missing.

The other way of defeating it would have required heavily armored infantry, but it may not have been very practical for hot Indian plains (though Roman heavy infantry did fight quite successful campaigns in N Africa and W Asia against cavalry armies).

[Rahul M]

romans actually changed their force composition quite a lot after getting beaten all ends up with infantry heavy armies. their later forces were much more cavalry heavy including armoured cavalry and even quite a number of armoured horse archer mercenaries. AFA I remember their successes against cavalry heavy armies with heavy infantry was in europe against germanic tribes where the temperature was much cooler.

[Singha]

strangely enough the most detailed account of part of the ahom-mughal conflict is in a unusual place. so I will make an exception here and post the link:
http://www.defence.pk/forums/military-h ... -asia.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahom%E2%80 ... _conflicts
http://www.assamspider.com/gallery/728- ... aideo.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moamoria_rebellion
this is crucial - they did not have a professional standing army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paik_system
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/13959895
the main sword weapon was called HengDang
http://taiahominternational.org/?page_id=10

I have also seen another weapon (in my house) which was like a long wooden flattened shaft at the end of which a curved
dao type thing was fixed. since i was small, not sure what it was used for and where it appeared. never seen it in market so
must have been from 1920s my grandma's household.

the distance from the mughal border to sibsagar being close to 800km , the usual strategy was probably to avoid open
battle with superior mughal cavalry, use distance and terrain to sap the morale and health of the invader, let the rainy
season diseases kill the horses and strain the supply lines and then fall upon them from various directions in areas where
local advantage could be sustained. guwahati changed hands many times...it was not the 'core' center of gravity in those
days as it was only the capital of the defunct Koch empire earlier.

just like british -vs- spanish the lighter and faster ahom longboats always had some advantage over the heavier mughal
boats sailing up from dhaka.

[Singha]

instead of skipping gau for shilling two places worth visiting in gau are the state museum and the sankardeva kalashetra.
they have a lot of stuff. even japanese ww2 weapons and defused bombs are there.