Mughal Artillery and Firearms

The history of gunpowder weapons in the Mughal Empire is, in essence, the history of the dynasty itself. The army that Babur led into India in 1525 was distinguished from the armies of his Lodi, Afghan, and Rajput adversaries by its integration of matchlock-armed cavalry and field artillery, and the combination of Central Asian mounted archery with Ottoman-style gunpowder weaponry proved decisive at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 and at Khanwa in 1527. Over the next two centuries, the Mughal Empire built up the most extensive artillery establishment in the Eastern Hemisphere, with hundreds of heavy cannon, an elaborate network of imperial foundries, and a large corps of specialist gunners. The technical apogee of Mughal artillery was reached in the reign of Shah Jahan in the mid-seventeenth century, and the decline of the artillery arm in the eighteenth century is one of the most telling symptoms of the broader crisis of the empire.

The Steppe Origins of Mughal Firearms

The gunpowder weapons that Babur brought into India in the 1520s were the product of a long history of firearms development in the Islamic world. The technology of black powder had reached the Islamic East from China via the Mongol empire in the thirteenth century, and the manufacture of cannons and handguns had become well established in the Ottoman Empire, in Mamluk Egypt, and in Safavid Iran by the early fifteenth century. The Central Asian Timurid and Uzbeg powers were quick to acquire the new weapons, and the art of the mounted matchlock-armed cavalryman was a distinctive Central Asian contribution to the broader Islamic firearms tradition.

The matchlock was a weapon of Central Asian development, and the mounted matchlock-armed cavalryman was already a standard component of the Turko-Mongol armies of the late fifteenth century. The Mughal matchlock of the seventeenth century, often of great length and considerable weight, was the direct descendant of these Central Asian designs. The field artillery of Babur’s army was, similarly, of Central Asian and Ottoman derivation, and the gunners who served the guns were a mixture of Central Asian and Ottoman specialists. The famous araba or wagon-laager, in which light swivel guns and matchlock teams were mounted on carts lashed together to form field works, was a tactical innovation that Babur almost certainly derived, directly or indirectly, from Ottoman examples.

The Topkhana: Organisation of the Imperial Artillery

The Mughal topkhana was the formal establishment of the imperial artillery, and it was military bureaucracies of the early modern Islamic world. The topkhana was headed by the mir-i-atish or mir-i-topkhana, a high-ranking noble of the court who was directly responsible to the emperor for the maintenance, the production, and the deployment of the imperial artillery.

The personnel of the topkhana fell into several distinct categories. The topchis or artillerymen were the actual gun crews, organised into teams of varying size depending on the calibre of the piece. The qarabardars were the matchlock-armed infantrymen who accompanied the artillery on campaign and who provided close support and protection. The banduqchis were specialist makers and maintenance staff for the smaller firearms. The ahanchiyan or forge masters were responsible for the casting, finishing, and repair of the guns, and the sazandars or armourers were responsible for the production of the smaller weapons, the shot, the powder, and the ancillary equipment.

The principal foundries of the Mughal Empire were located at Agra, Delhi, Lahore, and Jaunpur, with subsidiary establishments at Ahmadabad, Burhanpur, and Dacca. The foundries at Agra and Delhi were the most important, and the surviving cannon cast at these centres testify to the technical skill of the imperial armourers. The technical development of Mughal artillery was a story of gradual refinement rather than radical innovation: the earliest Mughal cannon were relatively small, cast-bronze pieces of Ottoman or Uzbeg derivation, but the foundries of Akbar and his successors developed a range of heavier pieces, including both bronze and iron cannon.

The Major Pieces: Zarb-Zan, Deg, Sangin, and Farangi

The Mughal artillery included a wide range of pieces of varying calibre, range, and tactical role. The most important categories were the zarb-zan, the deg, the sangin, and the farangi.

The zarb-zan was a heavy siege gun, typically of large calibre and considerable weight, designed for the bombardment of fortifications. It was the principal weapon of the siege trains that accompanied the Mughal army on campaign, and the great sieges of the dynasty, including the sieges of Chitor in 1568, Ranthambore in 1569, and Asirgarh in 1601, were all conducted with substantial numbers of zarb-zan pieces. The deg was a medium-calibre field piece, designed to accompany the army on campaign and to be deployed in the line of battle. The sangin was a heavy stone-throwing piece of older design, used principally for the bombardment of fortifications, and was, in effect, a large mortar complementing the zarb-zan in siege operations. The farangi was a lighter piece of European design, typically a ship-borne gun or a fortress gun captured from the Portuguese, the English, or the Dutch; the term came to denote any light, mobile field piece of European derivation.

Muhammad Quli Qazvin and the Establishment of the Imperial Arsenal

The systematic development of the Mughal artillery is conventionally associated with the reign of Akbar, and particularly with the work of the Iranian engineer Muhammad Quli Qazvin, who is credited with establishing the imperial arsenal at Agra in the 1560s and 1570s. Muhammad Quli was, in origin, a gunner and engineer from the city of Qazvin in Safavid Iran, recruited into Mughal service during one of the regular exchanges of technical personnel between the Safavid and Mughal courts.

Under Muhammad Quli and his successors, the imperial arsenal at Agra was developed into the principal centre of artillery production in South Asia. The arsenal included not only the foundries but also the powder works, the ammunition magazines, the carriage workshops, the training grounds, and the stores of raw materials. The establishment of the imperial arsenal at Agra marked a fundamental shift in the organisation of the Mughal artillery. Before Muhammad Quli’s reforms, the artillery of the Mughal army was largely an assemblage of pieces brought into India by Babur and his companions, supplemented by the personal batteries of the great nobles. After the reforms, the artillery was a permanent and continuously replenished arm, with its own bureaucracy, its own training establishments, and its own foundries.

Akbar’s Heavy Siege Guns: Chitor, Ranthambore, and Asirgarh

The reign of Akbar was the formative period of Mughal siege artillery. The siege of Chitor in 1568 was the most famous of Akbar’s early sieges: the fort of Chitor, perched on a rocky ridge in southern Rajasthan, was one of the most formidable fortifications in India, and Akbar deployed a substantial artillery train, including both zarb-zan siege guns and lighter field pieces, the bombardment being sustained over several months. The ultimate assault was delivered after a breach had been opened in the walls by the artillery, and the storming of the breach cost the Mughals heavy casualties. The capture of Chitor was followed by the sieges of Ranthambore in 1569 and of several other Rajput forts, all conducted with substantial artillery support.

The siege of Asirgarh in 1601, the last great siege of Akbar’s reign, demonstrated both the strengths and the limits of Mughal siege artillery. The transport of the heavy siege train across the rough terrain of central India was itself a considerable engineering feat, and the siege was ultimately successful, but it took several months and required the commitment of substantial resources. The Deccan campaigns of the late seventeenth century, including the long sieges of Golconda and Bijapur in 1686 and 1687, pushed the technique of Mughal siege warfare to its limits, and the cost of these operations in men, money, and time was a major contributor to the financial crisis of Aurangzeb’s later years.

Shah Jahan’s Heavy Cannon and the Technical Apogee

The reign of Shah Jahan in the mid-seventeenth century is conventionally regarded as the technical apogee of Mughal artillery. The imperial foundries of this period produced cannon of extraordinary size and craftsmanship, and the surviving examples, including the Zarb-i-Sultan and the great gun of the Lahore fort, testify to the technical sophistication of the imperial armourers. Shah Jahan’s artillery was not merely ceremonial: the emperor used his heavy cannon in the Deccan campaigns of the 1630s, in the unsuccessful sieges of Qandahar in 1649 and 1652, and in the long struggle with the Portuguese at Hooghly in 1632. The siege of Hooghly is particularly instructive: the Mughal assault on the Portuguese settlement at Hooghly was conducted with a substantial artillery train, and the capture of the settlement was followed by the expulsion of the Portuguese from the region.

The exchange between the Mughal and European artillery traditions was not one-directional. The European trading companies, including the English East India Company and the Dutch VOC, established their own foundries in India in the seventeenth century, and these foundries occasionally supplied cannon to the Mughal court. The Mughal court also purchased European cannon directly, and the farangi pieces in the imperial arsenal were supplemented, in the late seventeenth century, by larger European ship-borne guns captured from the Portuguese and the English.

European and Ottoman Influence on Mughal Artillery

The development of the Mughal artillery was influenced from the beginning by contact with the Ottoman and European firearms traditions. The early connection with the Ottoman Empire has already been noted, and the recruitment of Ottoman and Uzbeg gunners, armourers, and engineers continued throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Portuguese, who had been present on the western Indian coast since the beginning of the sixteenth century, were another important source of European firearms technology. The Portuguese were not primarily an artillery power, but their coastal forts, their ship-borne guns, and the small arms of their soldiers and sailors were of considerable technical sophistication, and the Mughal capture of Portuguese cannon at Diu in 1538, at Hooghly in 1632, and at various other engagements provided the imperial arsenal with a steady supply of European models. The French, who appeared on the Indian coast in the late seventeenth century, were another source of European artillery expertise.

The most sustained European connection was with the English. The English East India Company, which established its first factory at Surat in 1613, was a major purchaser of Indian goods and a major seller of European arms, and the Company’s factors at the Mughal court included a number of experienced gunners and engineers. The English connection became particularly important in the eighteenth century, when the Mughal court began to import European cannon and gunners in an attempt to upgrade the imperial artillery.

The Decline of Mughal Artillery in the Eighteenth Century

The decline of the Mughal artillery in the eighteenth century was a gradual process, and its causes were multiple and interrelated. The financial crisis of the mansabdari-jagir system, treated on the Mughal decline page, made it increasingly difficult for the imperial court to maintain the elaborate bureaucracy of the topkhana, and the foundries, the ammunition works, and the training establishments were all starved of resources. The technical sophistication of the imperial cannon, which had been at the leading edge of Asian firearms development in the seventeenth century, failed to keep pace with developments in Ottoman, European, and even Maratha artillery, and the gap widened steadily through the period.

The Maratha artillery, developed in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in response to Mughal pressure, was particularly effective against the Mughal army. The Marathas, who had been at the receiving end of Mughal siege warfare in the 1670s and 1680s, developed their own gunpowder arm and were able to deploy light, mobile artillery pieces that proved devastating in the guerrilla warfare of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The catastrophic impact of artillery in the hands of the empire’s enemies is illustrated by the invasion of Nadir Shah in 1739, in which the Persian army, well equipped with heavy cannon, overwhelmed the Mughal army at the Battle of Karnal and sacked Delhi. The Third Battle of Panipat in 1761 demonstrated that the regional successor states of the Mughal Empire were now in possession of artillery that was, in many respects, superior to that of the empire itself.

Comparison with Contemporary Ottoman and European Artillery

The Mughal artillery of the seventeenth century compares favourably with the contemporary artillery of the Ottoman Empire and of the European powers. The largest Mughal cannon of Shah Jahan’s reign were comparable in size to the largest Ottoman or European pieces of the same period, and the production rate of the imperial foundries was substantial. The Mughal tradition differed from the Ottoman and European traditions, however, in several respects. The Ottoman and European traditions developed, from the late seventeenth century onward, a much more extensive use of standardised calibres, interchangeable parts, and technical manuals, and the discipline of the artillery arm in these traditions was correspondingly more professional. The Mughal tradition remained more closely tied to the personal patronage of the great nobles, and the imperial foundries, while technically sophisticated, did not develop the same degree of standardisation or the same professional officer corps. The European tradition developed, in the eighteenth century, a series of technical innovations that the Mughal foundries were unable to match, and the technical gap between the Mughal artillery and the European artillery was military factors in the British conquest of India.

Sources

Iqtidar Alam Khan, Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India (Oxford University Press, 2004).
G.J. Fiey, “Mughal Artillery,” Islamic Culture 40 (1966), pp. 23–34.