War Horses in the Mughal Military
The horse was the foundation of the Mughal military system from the moment Babur led his Chaghatay-Timurid host across the Indus in 1525 until the gradual decline of the cavalry arm in the eighteenth century. The army that conquered northern India in the 1520s and 1530s was, in its essential composition, a cavalry army, and the entire architecture of military rank, pay, and reward was calibrated to the mounted trooper and his mount. The recruitment, the breeding, the trade, the training, and the care of the war horse were therefore matters of the highest strategic concern to the imperial government, and they are examined in detail below, with attention to the broader context of the Mughal cavalry and the Mughal military organisation. The symbolic significance of the horse in Mughal visual culture is also treated.
The Breeds of the Mughal War Horse
The Mughal war horse was, in its origins, principally a Central Asian or Arabian animal. The ideal war horse of the seventeenth century was the Turki horse of Central Asia, particularly of the regions of Turkestan, Badakhshan, and the areas east of the Caspian. The Turki was a small, hardy, and enduring animal, standing typically between fourteen and fifteen hands, and it was prized above all for its stamina, its ability to survive on poor fodder, and its sure-footedness in the mountainous terrain of the Afghan and Central Asian campaigns. The Arabian horse, imported through the ports of Gujarat and the Red Sea, was somewhat smaller and finer-boned than the Turki, and it was particularly valued for its speed, its intelligence, and its beauty.
The Iranian horse, often of Turkoman origin but bred in the great studs of the Safavid empire, was also highly prized, and substantial numbers were imported into India during the seventeenth century. The Central Asian horse, including the animals of the Uzbek and Turkmene herds, was imported through the northwestern frontier, and the principal entrepôts of the trade were Kabul, Qandahar, and Peshawar. The Indian breeds, including the Kathiawari, the Marwari, and the various pony breeds of the mountainous regions, were generally regarded as inferior to the imported animals for heavy cavalry work, although they were widely used in the provincial levies and in the light cavalry of the Rajput and Maratha chiefs.
The Trade in Horses
The import of horses into India was branches of the Mughal foreign trade, and the volume of the trade was substantial. Contemporary European estimates suggest that perhaps ten to twenty thousand horses were imported into India each year in the seventeenth century, the great majority of them from Central Asia and Iran, with smaller numbers from Arabia and the Horn of Africa. The trade was a major item of imperial expenditure, and the drain of specie from India to pay for the imported horses was one of the principal economic concerns of the imperial government.
The Price and Value of a War Horse
The price of a war horse in the seventeenth century varied enormously according to the breed, the quality, the training, and the colour. A good Turki or Arabian cavalry horse could cost several hundred rupees, a sum substantially greater than the annual income of the average cultivator and roughly equal to the annual pay of a mid-ranking mansabdar. The most prestigious animals, the matched pairs of horses that pulled the carriages of the emperor and the great nobles, or the chargers on which the emperor was mounted on state occasions, could cost several thousand rupees, and the most valuable animals in the imperial stables were beyond all price.
The mansabdari system, examined in detail on the Mughal mansabdari page, required each mansabdar to maintain a prescribed number of cavalry, with a prescribed number of horses, of a prescribed quality, and the muster rolls of the imperial army were carefully scrutinised at each formal review. The replacement of horses lost in battle or by natural death was a major item of mansabdari expenditure, and the imperial government periodically supplemented the mansabdari requirements with direct distributions of horses from the imperial stables.
The Training and Care of the War Horse
The training of a Mughal war horse was a long and demanding process. The animal was first broken to the saddle and to the bit, and then progressively accustomed to the noise and confusion of the battlefield. The cavalry horse was taught to remain steady under fire, to advance in formation, to wheel and to charge on command, and to endure the close combat of the cavalry mêlée without bolting. The training of the more specialised horses of the emperor’s household, including the chargers of the imperial bodyguard and the matched teams of the imperial carriages, was carried out by specialist syces and grooms in the imperial stables, and the best animals were trained for years before being put to ceremonial use.
The Stable Organisation
The imperial stables, the ishrak-khana of the Mughal court, were bureaucratic establishments of the empire. The principal officers included the mir-i-ahur, the master of the horse, and a hierarchy of subordinate officers responsible for the various categories of animals. The imperial stables of Akbar and his successors housed several thousand horses, organised into separate establishments for the emperor’s personal use, for the imperial bodyguard, for the ceremonial occasions of the court, and for distribution as gifts or as salary supplements to the great nobles.
The provincial stables were of comparable importance, and the great provincial capitals, including Lahore, Agra, Ahmadabad, Burhanpur, and Dacca, all maintained substantial horse establishments. The provincial stables were particularly important for the supply of remounts to the mansabdari contingents, and the quality of the provincial horse establishment was a matter of direct concern to the emperor.
The Horse in Battle and the Symbolic Significance of the Horse
The cavalry charge was the decisive manoeuvre of the Mughal set-piece battle, and the massed charge of the heavy cavalry, the asawaran-i-kalan, was the principal means by which the outcome of the battle was decided. The charge was typically preceded by a period of missile exchange, in which the matchlock-armed cavalry and the qarabardars of the artillery train attempted to disorder the enemy formation, and it was delivered at a fast canter with the lance or sabre. The famous battles of the dynasty, including the First Battle of Panipat in 1526, the Battle of Khanwa in 1527, and the Battle of Samugarh in 1658, were all decided by such charges.
The horse also had a profound symbolic significance in Mughal visual culture. The horse was the traditional mount of the warrior and the king, and the image of the ruler on horseback was one of the standard iconographic types of Mughal painting. The most famous example is the equestrian portrait of Jahangir by Abu’l Hasan, in which the emperor is shown slaying a lion with his sword while mounted on a magnificent charger, and the painting is one of the masterpieces of the Mughal art tradition. The horse also featured prominently in the royal hunts, treated in more detail on the Mughal festivals page, and the ceremonial review of the imperial cavalry was events of the court calendar.
Sources
- S.A. Khan, Mughal Art of War (2012), ch. on the horse.