War Elephants of the Mughal Empire

The war elephant had been a standard feature of Indian armies since at least the time of the Mauryas, and the Mughals inherited a long and sophisticated tradition of elephant warfare from the Sultanates of Delhi, the Bahmani successor states, and the Vijayanagara empire. The elephant was used in battle primarily as a shock weapon, in the charge or counter-charge, and as a mobile fighting platform from which a mahout and a small complement of musketeers could deliver fire. The animal’s thick hide offered considerable protection against arrow and sword, and a charging line of war elephants could disrupt even the most disciplined cavalry or infantry formation. The Mughal court maintained a substantial elephant establishment throughout the period of its effective rule, and the elephant corps, the fauj-i-fil, was an integral component of the Mughal military machine.

The Tradition of Elephant Warfare

The military use of the elephant in India can be traced back to the very beginnings of organised warfare in the subcontinent. The Buddhist and Hindu traditions both treated the elephant as the noblest of beasts, and the Mauryan empire of the fourth and third centuries BC was, by all accounts, the first Indian polity to maintain a substantial elephant corps. The subsequent dynasties of the Gangetic plain, the Deccan, and the south Indian peninsula all maintained elephant corps of varying size, and the war elephant was a standard feature of Indian armies down to the end of the medieval period.

The early Muslim invaders of India, including the Ghaznavid and Ghurid forces of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, encountered the Indian elephant on the battlefield and were forced to develop tactics to counter it. The later Delhi Sultanates, particularly the Khalji and Tughluq dynasties, made systematic use of the elephant in their armies, and the Lodi and Sur dynasties, the immediate predecessors of the Mughals, both maintained substantial elephant establishments. The Mughals therefore inherited a sophisticated tradition of elephant warfare, and they developed it further in the light of their own military experience.

The Hafila and the Imperial Elephant Establishments

The Mughal elephant establishment was organised on the basis of the hafila, or herd. Each hafila was a self-contained unit, consisting of a number of elephants together with their mahouts, their handlers, and their support staff, and each hafila was typically assigned to a particular noble or to a particular imperial function. The size of the hafila varied considerably, from a few animals in the case of a junior noble to several dozen in the case of a great mansabdari commander, and the largest hafilas of the imperial household contained upwards of a hundred animals.

The imperial elephant establishment at Agra was the largest and most prestigious in the empire. The imperial stables at Agra, the pil-khana, housed several hundred animals at any one time, and the animals were carefully bred, trained, and maintained by hereditary mahout and handler families. The pil-khana was headed by the mir-i-fil or master of the elephant corps, a high-ranking noble of the court who was directly responsible to the emperor for the maintenance, the breeding, and the deployment of the imperial elephants. The mir-i-fil was assisted by a substantial staff of officers, including the fil-bardars or elephant keepers, the fil-sitan or elephant drivers, and the fil-tahwil-daran or elephant accountants. The skills of the fil-bardars were passed from father to son, and the great mahout families of the Mughal court served the dynasty for several generations.

Recruitment, Capture, and the Kheddah Operations

The principal source of war elephants for the Mughal army was the wild herds of the forested regions of the subcontinent. The Indian elephant, Elephas maximus indicus, was distributed widely across the forested hill tracts of central, eastern, and southern India, and substantial herds were found in Assam, Bengal, the central Indian hill tracts, the western ghats, the Nilgiri hills, and the forests of Orissa and the northern Circars. The Ceylonese elephant, Elephas maximus maximus, was also known to the Mughals, but it was less commonly used for military purposes, and the principal war elephants of the Mughal army were drawn from the Indian stock.

The capture of wild elephants, the kheddah operation, was a major logistical undertaking. The kheddah was a large-scale drive in which a herd of wild elephants was driven into a stockade or a trap, and the animals were then separated, roped, and tamed by the mahouts and their assistants. The kheddah operation required the cooperation of a substantial force of beaters, drivers, and mahouts, and it was a major event in the life of the regions in which it took place.

The principal kheddah regions of the Mughal Empire were the forested tracts of Assam, Bengal, and the central Indian hill country. The Mughal court maintained a network of kheddah establishments in these regions, and the annual capture of wild elephants was an important source of revenue and of military supply. The animals captured in the kheddah operations were typically brought to the imperial pil-khana at Agra or to the provincial pil-khanas for training, and the best of the captured animals were eventually assigned to the imperial household or to the great mansabdari nobles. The animals used in war were typically the smaller, more agile Indian elephant rather than the larger, more placid Ceylonese variety, since the Indian elephant was better suited to the rough terrain of the Indian battlefields and its temperament was more suitable for the noise and confusion of the battlefield.

Training, Equipment, and the Howdah

The training of a war elephant was a long and demanding process. A newly captured animal typically required several years of patient handling before it could be considered suitable for military service, and the training process was, in effect, a long apprenticeship during which the animal was gradually accustomed to the noise, the discipline, and the routines of military life. The mahout, who typically spent the whole of his working life with a single animal, was the central figure in the training process, and the relationship between the mahout and his elephant was a close and personal one.

The principal equipment of the war elephant was the amari or howdah. The amari was a small carriage or platform mounted on the back of the elephant, and it was typically large enough to accommodate the mahout, one or two musketeers, and a small store of ammunition. The amari was secured to the elephant by means of a complex harness of ropes and straps, and the design of the amari varied considerably depending on the intended use of the animal. The war amari was typically smaller and more heavily constructed than the ceremonial amari of the imperial court, and it was often protected by a screen of light metal or hide.

The war elephant in battle was typically deployed in one of two ways. In the first, the elephant was used as a shock weapon, the riderless or lightly ridden animal being driven into the enemy formation to disorder it and to create a breach through which the cavalry or the infantry could exploit. In the second, the elephant was used as a mobile fighting platform, the amari carrying one or more musketeers who could deliver a sustained fire from a position of considerable tactical advantage. The arms and armour of the war elephant were relatively simple: the principal weapon was the natural offensive capacity of the animal itself, supplemented by the fire of the musketeers in the amari and, in some cases, by a sword or a spear fixed to the end of the trunk. The thick hide of the elephant offered considerable natural protection against arrows and against light swords, and the principal vulnerability of the animal was to firearms, to which the hide offered no protection.

The Elephant in Battle: The Set-Piece Engagements

The war elephant played a notable role in several of the great battles of the dynasty. At the First Battle of Panipat in 1526, the Lodi army deployed a substantial elephant corps, and the Mughals’ success against it depended in part on the use of araba carts and concentrated matchlock fire to panic the animals and turn them back on their own lines. At the Battle of Khanwa in 1527, the Rajput confederacy under Rana Sanga similarly relied on its elephants, and at the Battle of Haldighati in 1576, Rana Pratap’s small Rajput army included a famous elephant contingent.

Elephants in Siege Warfare and Other Military Operations

The war elephant played a significant, if less spectacular, role in the siege operations of the dynasty. The principal uses of the elephant in siege warfare were in the transport of heavy artillery, the construction of siege works, and the assault on the breaches opened by the artillery bombardment. The elephant was also used in the blockade of besieged forts, in the patrolling of the lines of communication, and in the various forms of logistical support required by a major siege operation. The siege of Chitor in 1568 and the siege of Asirgarh in 1601, treated in more detail on the Mughal artillery page, both involved substantial numbers of elephants. The Mughal siege trains of the seventeenth century, particularly those deployed in the Deccan campaigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, included substantial elephant contingents, and the capture of the Deccan forts of Golconda, Bijapur, and the Maratha hill forts all involved the use of elephants in significant numbers.

The elephant was also used in a number of non-military operations that were nevertheless of military significance. The transport of the heavy guns of the imperial artillery, particularly in the rough terrain of central India and the Deccan, was a major logistical problem, and the elephant was the only animal capable of moving the heaviest pieces across country. The construction of the great imperial roads, the clearing of the forests around the forts, and the various forms of engineering works required by the army all made extensive use of elephant labour.

The Cost of Maintaining Elephants

The maintenance of a war elephant was a major component of imperial military expenditure. The cost of a single trained war elephant, including the cost of the animal itself, the cost of the amari, the cost of the harness and the equipment, and the cost of the mahout and the support staff, was substantial, and the sufi or elephant allowance, set out in the Ain-i-Akbari, was a major item in the mansabdari salary. The regulations distinguished several grades of elephant, with corresponding rates of allowance, and the sufi allowance was one of the most carefully regulated elements of the mansabdari system.

The economic importance of the elephant extended well beyond the military. The elephant was used in the imperial hunting expeditions, in the transport of the imperial household on progress, in the construction of the great public works, and in a variety of ceremonial functions. The imperial pil-khana of Agra was, in effect, a substantial economic enterprise, and the various trades and crafts associated with the elephant were an important component of the urban economy of the imperial capital.

The Elephant in Mughal Heraldry and Symbolism

The elephant was the symbol of the imperial power, and the imperial elephant, the fil-i-khas, was a central element in the pageantry of the court. The standard of the imperial household, the alam, was sometimes depicted with an elephant, and the imperial coinage, the architecture of the imperial forts, and the decorative arts of the court all made extensive use of the elephant motif. The governor of a major province was typically assigned a number of elephants as part of his official establishment, and the mir-i-fil of the provincial capital was a significant figure in the provincial administration. The Mughal innovation was, in part, the elaboration of the elephant symbolism, inherited from a long Indian tradition, within the framework of the imperial court.

The Decline of the War Elephant

The tactical significance of the elephant declined over the course of the seventeenth century, as firearms became more accurate and the dangers to elephants from sustained matchlock and artillery fire became apparent. The long Deccan campaigns of Aurangzeb saw the last major employment of war elephants in Mughal warfare, and the Mughal decline page examines the late imperial crisis in greater depth.

The technical causes of the decline were several. The matchlock-armed infantry and the field artillery of the seventeenth century were both more accurate and more powerful than their predecessors, and the elephant was increasingly vulnerable to sustained firearm fire. The Maratha light cavalry made particular use of the matchlock against the imperial elephant corps, and the Maratha hill forts, in which the Maratha forces could operate in small parties and deliver concentrated fire against the imperial elephants, were particularly effective.

The political and economic causes of the decline were equally significant. The financial crisis of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, treated on the mansabdari system page, made it increasingly difficult for the imperial court to maintain the elaborate pil-khana at Agra, and the provincial pil-khanas were progressively reduced. The Maratha and Sikh conquests of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries deprived the empire of several of its principal kheddah regions, and the supply of new war elephants became correspondingly difficult.

The war elephant did not disappear from the Indian military scene with the end of the Mughal Empire. The regional successor states of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the Maratha Confederacy, the Sikh Misls, the Nizam of Hyderabad, and the kingdom of Mysore, all maintained elephant corps of varying size, and the war elephant was used in several engagements of the early British period, including the Battle of Assaye in 1803. The formal military use of the elephant in the Indian subcontinent effectively ended, however, with the consolidation of British rule in the nineteenth century.

Sources

S.A. Khan, Mughal Art of War (2012), ch. on the elephant corps.