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I speaking with a friend about this issue, I got the idea of assigning a proper license to my content. I have now applied a Creative Commons to this entire blog.

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I have also added an about page that was missing for a while.

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When you need to look for bits out of history, they are available to you everywhere.

One such bit that caught my attention was a standard measure, called a Sher (शेर) that was being cleaned and polished for a wedding ritual. When the bride enters the groom’s residence for the first time, she strikes inward, a Sher full of grain (usually Rice) at the threshold with her right foot (thumb, if you care for the finer details). This ritual is called “Maap Olandne” (माप अोलांडणे), loosely translated, “Crossing the Threshold (Measure?)”. It signifies the ushering of wealth and food (धन, धान्य) by virtue of her entry. I believe, this is a common tradition that is followed in most Hindu weddings.

My focus however, is the Sher.

This particular Sher was made in the year 1910 and has the rhomboidal inscription of म श्री छ प on it (M, Shri, Chh, P). This stands for महाराज श्रीमंत छत्रपाती परवाना (Maharaj Shrimant Chhatrapati Parwana). If I am not mistaken, the Parwana means “issue”. (Will update after confirmation)

So how much exactly is a Sher?

1 Sher = 1.25kgs, so
4 Sher = 5kgs, which is also known as a Payli (पायली)

Other related Sher terminology:

1/2 a Sher = 1 Mapta (मापटं)
1/4 a Sher – 1 Chipta (चिपटं)
and
1/2 a Chipta = 1 Kolwa (कोळवं)

According to Wikipedia, the word jagirdar is derived from jagir and sardar. Mansabdar, probably was derived the same way. But we will let that pass for this post. While reading, Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court, 1707-1740, I stumbled upon the terms: Zat and Sawar. While the context of it all made sense regarding what these two terms went, I felt the need to know more and I found some information that was fairly interesting.

[Before I start, a quick note: Ideally, I think, these should be spelled as Zaat and Sawaar because of the way they are pronounced, however most authoritative historical texts, books and documents spell them as zat and sawar, so I shall go with the same spelling.]

While I am not sure of the etymology of these words I suspect that zat is the same as the near-Hindi word (zaat or jaat) meaning breed, caste or class. Sawar refers to horses; a ride, perhaps linked to Sawari.

The zat and sawar were parameters of defining a mansabdar’s “level”. Before this system was introduced, there was a single parameter – the count of horses that a mansabdar maintained during Akbar’s times and therefore (possibly) the subsidy that he received in exchange for that. Mansabdars didn’t often maintain the required troops or horses, and this new, fairly elaborate system was used to classify mansabdars.

The zat was a rank conferred by the king on the mansabdar, whereas the sawar was a count of horsemen that were to be maintained. The actual number of horses that they had to maintain is a different and interesting story.

There were three levels of mansabdars and this was a factor of the zat and sawar count.

The mansabdar at the highest level was the one who had equal zat and sawar, e.g. 4000 zat and 4000 sawar. The second level was when the sawar was half the zat, e.g. 4000 zat and 2000 sawar. The lowest level of mansabdar was when the sawar was less than half of the zat.

One would imagine that a mansabdar with a sawar of 10 would have 10 horses, but this wasn’t so. And for good reason. A sawar of 10 was to maintain 20 horses. There were to be three backup horses for the first 3 sawar, 2 backup horses for the next 4 sawar and no back up for the last 3 horses in the sawar of 10. So you had 20 (9+8+3) horses for a sawar of 10. The good reason being that the backup horses would come in use in case for fatigue or death of the mounts.

The system was actually more elaborate than what I have presented.

However, I shall leave that for when I compare this with the Saranjam system employed by the Marathas. It would be an interesting study, given that the Marathas were well versed with the Mughal mansabdari system, given that a few Marathas actually served as mansabdars or jagirdars for the Mughals.

Primary References:

Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals Part – II, Satish Chandra, Har-Anand Publications, ISBN: 8124110662

Secondary References:

Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court, 1707-1740, Satish Chandra, Oxford University Press, ISBN13: 9780195667905

Maratha Confederacy: A study in its Origin and Development, V. S. Kadam, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., ISBN: 8121505702

Mansabdar. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 10, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansabdar

Upon arrival at the Baljuna, the provisions were used up. It happened that from the north a wild horse ran up. Kasar brought it down. From its skin they made a kettle; with a stone they got fire, and from the river, water. They boiled the flesh of the horse and ate it. Genghis Khan, raising his hand toward the sky, swore thus: ‘If I finish “the great work”, then I shall share with you men the sweet and the bitter; if I break my word, then let me be as this water.’ Among the officers and men, there was none who was moved to tears. [Genghis Khan, by John Man, Bantam Books, ISBN13: 9780553814989]

This, according to John Man, ‘marked Temujin’s [Genghis Khan] nadir in military terms, but a turning point in terms of leadership.‘ This situation, is brought upon Temujin by way of treachery, because of which he retreats to Baljuna.

The most authoritative document on the history of Mongols is the “The Secret History of the Mongols,” and it fails to mention of this.

I can imagine why.

Such instances are the ones that go off record. You may know about it, but there is never a document about such incidents. For one, they potentially expose a weak moment about a hero, for the other, and perhaps more important, these incidents are so intimate that they are necessarily off the record. Even if you were a part of the incident and were charged with documenting history. There is something about men in difficult circumstances that binds them, bonds them.

We might think that this was pure rhetoric and exaggeration, but, you might agree that we aren’t new to rhetoric and exaggeration. I invite you to read today’s newspaper (or any day’s newspaper for that matter).

And while we are at it, here is some more, from “The Secret History of the Mongols”:

Thus Jamuqa, attempting to demoralize the Naiman soldiers
on the eve of battle with Chinggis Qahan, attributes qualities of superhuman toughness to the Mongol commanders:

Their foreheads are of cast copper,
They have chisels for snouts,
They have awls for tongues,
Their hearts are of iron,
They have swords for whips.

More, pictures in my Flickr Set

I still continue to love and be intrigued with this sculpture.

Yet, I was disappointed by the lighting in some of the sections in the V&A. Especially the South Asia section. Most of the artefacts are in glass cases (for obvious reasons; I understand), what I don’t understand is why the lights are so harsh at times and so far away.

One reason is, I suppose to, dissuade photographers (low lighting conditions, and flash will always bounce on the glass cases). But that should hardly be the concern for the museum. More people come there to see things.

The other reason, and I believe this may be more the reason, is that strong lights may affect the artefacts there. Yet, am sure there must be some way to get in more light without causing damage to the artefacts?

I believe this is another example of a person who became a word. Like Louis Pasteur. A small background, before I begin: Subedei is a Mongol word. According to the Wikipedia article on Subedei, he is also know as “Subedei Baatar (meaning Subedei Warrior/Hero in Mongolian history books)” Baatar, seems to be a common word in Mongolian – Starting from the capital – Ulan Baatar (spelling variants to this exists too, Ulan Bator, for example). I’ll stick with Baatar for this article. Ulan Baatar translates to Red Hero, named in the honour of Damdin Sükhbaatar.

And coming back to the theory, I believe that the word Subedar in Hindi (Hindustani, to be more precise), is a derivative of Subedei. Apart from his other conquests, he fought significant wars in Central Asia – I’d assume that given his fame – he lived in the history books of that time – for some time. So the word must have remained in memory for some time – let’s assume a couple of hundred years – for the sake of my theory – and that the word eventually became a more generic one – to mean a lead – in an army. Subedei died in 1248. A little more than hundred years later, Timur-e Lang was born (1336) and ruled most of Central Asia until 1405. Along comes Babur in 1526 – after the First Battle of Panipat – and establishes the Mughal Empire. Mughal, being the Turkish word for Mongol. Pretty long winded, but I’ll now get to the point.

This is how I think the word Subedar, though a title now, came as a variant of Subedei via Mongolia. The reason, by the way, about the background of Ulan Baatar earlier, is that I noticed a word, in the book, Subotai the Valiant: Genghis Khan’s Greatest General by Richard A. Gabriel – bagatur. It gives the same meaning to this word as baatar – brave, valiant, hero. Bagatur - again – closely resembles Bahadur - the Hindi word for brave, valiant, hero. Richard Gabrial further works on this word and mentions that the Russian word – bogatyr - is a derivative of bagatur.

This theory has been confirmed.

The Subedar theory however is suspect, a bit fanciful even. (Just this indulgence, however, has helped me stumble on a few things of note.) The reason why my theory may fall to pieces, is that it’s likely that the word is an extension of the word suba, meaning district, collection of villages etc. and anyone who was responsible for such a suba, would aptly be called Subedar.

But if bahadur travelled from the steppes of Mongolia via Uzbekistan to India, there may be a glimmer of hope for subedar.

PS: If you do have ideas about the root of Subedar, I’d love to hear from you – help my theory – either ways.

Updates:

1. Added image of Baji Prabhu Deshpande (24.10.2006)