Ahsham ( Mughal Infantry ) Ahsham is composed of an infantry , the personnel of the artillery , the artificers , and the attendants on the court . The incident of service , which was common to all these men and caused their inclusion under one head , was the fact that they were all borne direct on the imperial books , and received their pay from the imperial treasury , without the intervention of a mansabdar . The Ahsham were neither mansabdars , tabinan , nor ahadis . Akbar had 12 , 000 matchlockmen ( the only men in the group at all entitled to be reckoned as soldiers ) come the doorkeepers , the palace guards , the letter carriers and spies , the swordsmen , wrestlers , slaves , litter - bearers , carpenters , water - carriers and so forth . There is a class of troops called Dakhin ( extra , additional ) which seems no longer that existed in Alamgir ' s reign . Infantry . The Moghul army consisted of cavalry , infantry , and artillery . But the second and third branches held a very subordinate position to the first . The army was thus essentially an army of horsemen . The Moghuls from beyond the Oxus were accustomed to fighting on horseback . They despised the foot - soldier who were not proficient in artillery . Until the middle of the eighteenth century , while the French and English had demonstrated their vast superiority in disciplined infantry , the Indian foot - soldier was little more than a night - watchman ; a guardian of baggage either in camp or in the line of march . The infantry held an inferior position and was of little or no consideration . It consisted of a multitude of people assembled together without regard to rank or file . There were swordsmen , gunmen , archers , matchlock men and guards . Some were armed with lances , too long or too weak to be of any service , and even though disciplined , could not be relied upon . To keep night watches and to plunder defence less people was their greatest service , except their being a perquisite to their commanders , who received a fixed sum for every man and hired every man at a different and less price . In short , the infantry were more a rabble of half - armed men than anything else , being chiefly levies brought into the field by petty zamindars , or men belonging to the jungle tribes . Any Mahomedan or Rajput who respected himself , managed somehow or other to provide himself with a mount and obtained enrolment as a cavalry soldier , who was in popular estimation a gentleman . The high figures for Infantry in each district and province , shown in volume II of the Ain - i - AkbarI , can only be accepted under considerable reservation . These numbers can only represent the men called on to render strictly local duty , and they must have consisted almost entirely of villagers armed with long pikes , or swords and shields , perhaps even with only an iron - bound bambu staff [ lathi ) . The foot soldiers received the smallest pay . The musketeers cut a sorry figure at the best of times , which may be said to be when squatting on the ground and resting their muskets on a kind of wooden fork which hangs to them . Even then they are terribly afraid of burning their eyes or their long heards and above all least some jinn , or evil spirit , should cause the bursting of their musket . Some have ten , fifteen , or twenty rupees a month . The infantry was inconsiderable . The king infantry can exceed 15 , 000 , including musketeers , foot - artillery , and generally every person connected with that artillery . From this an estimate may be formed of the number of infantry in the provinces . The fighting men confound servants , sutlers , tradesmen , and all those individuals belonging to bazars or markets , who accompany the troops . Including these followers the army immediately about the king ' s person , particularly when it is known that he intends to absent himself some time from his capital , may amount to two or even three hundred thousand infantry . This will not be an extravagant computation , if we bear in mind the immense quantity of tents , kitchens , baggage , furniture , and even women , usually attendant on the army . Classes of infantry soldiers . Nagas . These bodies of so - called Hindu devotees were common in the armies in the 18th century . Rajah of Jaipur entertains a large number of them . There was a corps of them in the Audh service from about 1752 to the end of the century . The last leader of these was Rajah Himmat Bahadur , who belongs to Bundelkhand . With this exception the Mahomedans , they do not seem to have retained any of these fakirs in their employ . Anquetil Duperron ' s Zend Avesta describes a body of these armed vagabonds , numberingsome 6000 men , that writer met in 1757 on their sway to Jagannath . The three leaders marched first , a long pike in one hand and a buckler in the other . The main body was armed with swords , bows , and matchlocks . Haji Mustapha , during his adventurous attempt in 1758 to reach Masulipatam via Western Bengal and Pachet , came across 5000 of these devotees on their way to the Ganges at Sagar . A description of a corps of these Nagas commanded by a disciple ( chela ) of Himmat Bahadur , and then in the employ of Daulat Rao , Sendhiah , Gusains , or Nagas have always been considered good troops . Alighol . In the later years of mughal empire , a class of troops known as Alighol would seem to have been the equivalent of the ghazis and so frequently heard of on Afghan frontier . These were a sort of chosen light infantry of the Rohilla Patans . Sometimes the term appears to be applied to other troops supposed to be used generally for desperate service . Silah - posh . In 1799 , the Jaipur Rajah had a body - guard of sixteen hundred men , armed with matchlocks and sabres , who were called the silah - posh , no doubt from their being clad in armour . Najib . They were irregular infantry , who disdained uniform and carrying a musket , their arms being a matchlock or blunderbuss and a sword . They disdained to stand sentry or do any fatiguing duty , considering it their only business to fight and to protect the person of their prince . The long practice had enabled them to load with sufficient readiness , while their matchlock carried farther and infinitely truer than the firelock of those days . The Najibs was also excellent swordsmen . Najibs in the Nawab of Oudh ' s service in 1780 , were clothed in blue vests and drawers , furnishing their own arms and ammunition ( matchlock , sword , shield , bow , and arrows ) . Their discipline was very contemptible ; they answered very well for garrison duty , but could not stand the charge of cavalry , having no bayonets while their arms were totally unfit for prompt execution . Pathabaz . They are courageous men and expert swordsmen . They received their name from their weapon , the patta or straight rapier . They are one type of Dakhin soldiers . Dhalait . They are shield bearer . Ashob applies it to one of the three - foot soldiers who followed Sad - ud - dln Khan , the Mir Atash , when forced in 1151 H , ( 1738 ) , much against his will , to accompany Nadir Shah ' s general of artillery into the streets of Dihli , to put the inhabitants to the sword . This Bhalait was sent as a messenger to carry a note to the Wazir , Qamr - ud - din Khan . Amazons . At the end of the 18th century the Nizam at Hydarabad had two battalions of female sepoys , of one thousand each , which mounted guard in the interior of the palace , and accompanied the ladies of his family whenever they moved . They were with the Nizam during the war against the Mahrattas in 1795 , and at the battle of Kurdlah did not behave worse than the rest of his army . They were dressed as sepoys used to be , and performed the French drill with tolerable precision . The corps was called the Zafar - paltan or victorious battalion , and the women gardani . The pay was five rupees a month . This Nizam seems to have had a penchant for female warriors . Sihbandi . They are armed men entertained by local officers when engaged in collecting the land revenue . The word is also used for local levies by Danishmand Khan , It would be applied by Babar to the Indian levies of Ibrahim Lodi . Barqandaz . They are the foot soldier using a musket , appears rarely , if at all , in earlier writings , unless as a mere metaphor . Rates of pay for Matchochnen , . The following table shows the rates of pay for the various classes of the matchlock men . The mounted men were in the position of officers , or were perhaps what we should call mounted infantry . First the pay of the regular matchlock men ( Bandtiquch - i - jangi or Tufang - chi ) who were either Baksariyahs or Bundelahs . Of these some drew rates of pay specially fixed , and entered in the official diary at the time when they were entertained ( Hukmis ) . The usual rates , which every one else got , were as follows Baksariyah . They are from town of Baksar on the Ganges in the Bhojpur . The region supplies Rajput and Bhuinhar clans to serve as matchlockmen and gunners in the army of the Moghuls . Sometimes the men of the garrison artillery are usually designated Baksariyah . Bundelahs . Bundelahs are , of course , the Rajput clan whose home is in the country south of the Jamnah and east of the Betwah river . They were held to be an inferior class of troops , and employed principally as matchlockmen . They were always renowned , however , for their bravery . In the end , through the rise of the Orchhah rajah , the head of their clan , and that of the so - called Dhangya State , formed by Champat Rae and extended by his more famous son , Chattarsal , their position was much enhanced , and during the 18th century they played an extremely prominent part , fighting first on the side of the Moghuls and subsequently against them . Arabs . In later times , in the Dakhin at any rate , the best infantry were held to be the Arabs , who received higher pay than others . They received Rs . 12 a mouth , while the lowest pay was only Rs . 5 a mouth . The Arabs were in general fully to be depended on , but particularly so in the defence of walls . Other classes under this general head of Ahsliam were Bhilah , Mewati , Karnataki , Mughal . The golandaz ( ball thrower ) or artilleryman , the Degandaz ( pot thrower ) and the Bandar ( rocket holder ) are also included in this section . certain men immediately around the emperor ' s elephant as qurqchis , there being two kinds , those in yellow and those in red . They are worked as gamekeepers , a sentinels over the women ' s apartments also . Bhilah . These were men of the wild tribe whose home is in the rugged country between Ajmer and Gujarat . In their own country nothing but highway robbers and skilful hunters , wearing clothes mostly of leaves . Their principal weapon , which no doubt they brought with them when in the emperor ' s service , was the long bow of bambu called kamanth . Mewati . These men are further designated Tir - andaz ( archers ) . Mewat is the hilly country south and west of the Jamnah , between Agrah and Dehli . It derives its name from the tribe inhabiting it , the Meos . The men from Mewat are called Mewrahs , and they are described aspost - runners and spies . Neither the name nor these duties seem to have belonged to the MewatTs in the 18th century though mewrah had survived as a name for a post - runner of any kind . Karnataki . These must have been men from the south of India , the word Karnatak by the Moghul usage applying to the whole of peninsular India south of the Tungahbhadra , except Adoni . These men in the Moghul army were of the same class as those who formed our first sepoy battalions in the south of India . Kala Piyadah . army led against Nizam - ul - Mulk by Mubariz Khan , subahdar of Haidarabad , says there were in it 30 , 000 matchlockmen of the Dakhin known as Kala piyadah They have been very similar to the Karnataki . Rawat . This is a name which in Northern India indicates generally any respectable Hindu landholder who is not of very high caste . It applies to general body of Mahrattah soldiery , most of whom were of the kumbi caste . Bargi . Another general name used when speaking of the Mahrattah soldiery , is Bargi . Mughal . As to these men there no reason for their appearance in this list of men serving in the infantry , but it is curious to find that there were any Mughals , who would deign to serve in this inferior branch of theservice . Farangi . These must have been Europeans serving in the capacity of common soldiers . They were probably for the most part native Christians , or so - called Portuguese , either from Goa , or from the colonies of that nation settled about the mouth of the Ganges and Brahmputra . There may have been among them some fugitive sailors from ships lying at Surat or Cambay . More usually , however , such men entered the artillery . In 1739 there were still Franks in the Mughal service . They were all Frenchmen , either attached to the artillery or practising as surgeons , bone - setters ( shikastahband ) , or physicians . The chief of them , Farangi Khan and Farashish Khan , were accounted nobles and drew nobles ' pay . These Europeans lived in a special quarter called Pay . The pay of the classes above enumerated is given as follows . The word sair means common soldiers . According to Bernier , the pay of foot soldiers at Rs . 20 , 15 , and 10 a month , and the pay of FarangTs as Rs . 22 a month . Rations , when issued to the above men , were as follows : Flour ( arad ) , 1 1 / 2 sir , Split peas ( dal ) 3 / 4 sir , salt ( namak ) 3 / 4 of a dam , ghi ( roghan - i - zard ) , 2 dams . Artificers or other men classed under Infantry . . Of these there were a number , artisans and labourers , who can scarcely be designated soldiers at all ; they were really camp - followers , though they may possibly have carried some sort of weapons for their own protection , just as litter - bearers with swords when on active service . The Beldars were used to make difficult roads passable ; they also threw up the field - works usually made to protect the guns . One duty of the carpenters and axemen was to cut a road through the thorny jungle with which most petty strongholds were surrounded . The following table gives the names and pay of some of these artificers .