Visva Bharati University, Shantiniketan

An Essay on Gunpowder Technology in Medieval India

submitted by: Rishiraj Bhowmick

VBU ID – 02232431904

M.Phil. History Year 1, Semester 2

Professor Amarendra Kumar

Military Innovation in Medieval India

Dated: September 24, 2020.

 Military Innovation in Medieval India

An Essay on Gunpowder Technology in Medieval India

Gunpowder technology, especially the usage of gunpowder in warfare has always been a

fascinating subject for historians and non-historians, to a point that it becomes a topic of

pride for a nation. The more the introduction of gunpowder weapons are in the past, the

more the nation seems to be culturally and militarily superior; the idea that such military

innovations are the marks of glory is not a new one in the annals of History. Following

this, Indian History too has its contributed share in ascertaining the military past and

gunpowder innovations.

Just like any other cultured civilization, India too begins its history from the myths and

epics and hence it is of little surprise that amongst other things, modern military weapons

find their ‘origins’ in texts like Mahabharata or Ramayana in the Indian context.

Fantastical accounts of world-ending weapons on arrowheads launched by divine bows

is fantastical, and to suggest that India had an arsenal of ‘doomsday’ weapons long before

the technological advancement anywhere in the world is nothing but a natural attempt to

claim a superior status, as is done everywhere in the world.

But it is of rare occasions that history bases itself on the otherworldly, fantastical

accounts of divinities and so on. Instead, it looks at the dry, humble details of progression

to ascertain one’s position, in this case, the weapon technology, especially the

advancement from swords and bow and arrows to a more complex weapon system finds
its beginnings positioned not in the unprovable mythical surroundings but in the

medieval era of Indian subcontinent.

Perhaps the greatest technological advancement made in the military all over the world

was the introduction of gunpowder and turning it into a weapon. It is noteworthy that

the remark suggests gunpowder wasn’t initially used as a weapon. The central

component in firearms (used as an overarching term to denote both guns and cannons),

gunpowder was used for fireworks for celebration and what not. The origins and

introduction of gunpowder will digress the essay, hence for the sake of it, it will suffice to

suggest that China in 9th century was the birthplace of gunpowder1 which was spread in

Eurasia by the end of 13th century.

We are more interested in the introduction of gunpowder in the Indian subcontinent. In

the Indian context there has been a lot of doubt regarding the earliest reference of

gunpowder, so much so that there has been attempts to situate the references in ancient

Indian texts. H.M. Elliot’s note on the topic “On the Early Use of Gunpowder in India”2

brings the question afront for the first time. He gave a number of arguments forwarded

by Elphinstone, Halhed, Carey etc. who tried to situate the use of fire-arms in Ancient

India3. Elliot quotes Halhed - “Gunpowder has been known in China, as well as Hindustan,

far beyond all periods of investigation. The word ‘fire-arms’ is literally the Sanskrit

“agniaster”, “a weapon of fire” …canon is called ‘shataghnee’ or a weapon that kills one

hundred men at once and that Poorán-Shaster ascribe the inventions of these destructive

engines to Viswacarma.”4 If anything, one thing is of certainty that gunpowder’s origin is

1
History of Gunpowder – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder#India
2
Dowson, John, (ed.), “On the Early Use of Gunpowder in India” in History of India As Told by Its Own
Historians: The Muhammadan Period [The Posthumous Papers of The Late Sir H.M. Elliot, K.C.B], Trübner & Co.,
London, 1875, pp. 455-82.
3
Ibid. p.470-74
4
Ibid. p.471
from China. The ancient origins of gunpowder however have witnessed serious criticism,

or at least the assumption of military usage of gunpowder prior to the medieval ages finds

no substantial basis whatsoever. More or less it has been agreed that the proper usage of

gunpowder in India comes up during the medieval period.

When speaking of gunpowder, there seems to be an air of confusion regarding its use. The

word gunpowder being an English word at that, is suggestive of weaponry, which by and

large stands correct. But it is imperative to understand that what exactly was the

‘weapon’ in itself.

Sir Jadunath Sarkar suggests that much of the confusion regarding the usage of

gunpowder as a weapon in India is caused due to the failure to distinguish between two

terms – fireworks and firearms5. Sarkar suggests “all this is due to our writers’ failure

between fire-works and fire-arms, or in other words, combustible and explosive agents”6.

Sarkar posits that the first proper fire-arm was introduced by Babur in 1526 in the First

Battle of Panipat. While arguing this, he provided a detailed logic to the terminologies of

firework and firearm respectively. He writes “fire-arms truly so called must have the

propelling power of their shot in some explosive substance, their missile must not be

hurled by hand…secondly they must discharge some solid projectile which will penetrate

and not merely burn…these were not fire-arms. Nor they can be applied to the old rockets

(hawai), fire-wheels (charkha) and squibs (patakha); though gunpowder is used in

making them, they are merely fire-works…such fire-works had been in use among the

Afghans in Bengal from before Babur’s invasion, evidently learnt from the Portuguese

mariners or even the Chinese”7. Hence the idea of an ancient Indian origin, if any, will

5
Sarkar, Jadunath, “Chapter VII – Babur’s Invasion: First Panipat 1526”, in, Military History of India, M.C. Sarkar
and Sons Pvt Ltd., Calcutta, 1960, pp. 52-55.
6
Ibid. p. 52
7
Ibid. p. 53.
suggest the use of gunpowder not as missile but more of a pyrotechnic improvisation like

burning sulphur or hot coal or arrows with burning tips, which Sarkar suggests was used

in ancient Greece etc. In essence, Sarkar’s argument suggests two points – one, that it is

important to understand the difference between fire-works and fire-arms, the latter

being absent from ancient India and second, which is more of a continuation of the first,

that the proper use of gunpowder not just as a pyrotechnic ingredient but as a weapon

was used in 1526 in Panipat where his army “solely consisted of handguns and light

pieces resting on falconets…his only large mortar was cast by Ustad Ali Quli at Agra in

October in 1526 and first used in the Battle of Khanwa…”8.

While Sarkar’s argument is sound enough, his work, although called a ‘Military History of

India’ overlooks any regional advancement in gunpowder technology prior to Babur’s

arrival, which was taken up by later historians.

The gunpowder debate gained impetus when Iqtidar Alam Khan took on the topic in a

number of articles and his book “Gunpowder and Firearms – Warfare in Medieval India”.

Khan takes on a number of claims made prior to him by other historians, namely P.K.

Gode and M. Akram Makhdoomee, which Khan proposes are based on stray statements9.

Khan writes “A major part of this evidence…is problematic in nature. It can be relied upon

only to the extent that is corroborated by contemporary records”10. Khan admits that it

can be plausible to make a case for the existence of gunpowder during the Sultanate

period and that a “A primitive type of gunpowder artillery was already in vogue in

8
Ibid. p. 54.
9
Khan, Iqtidar Alam, “Early Use of Cannons and Muskets in India: A.D. 1442-1526” Journal of the Economic and
Social History of the Orient, Vol. 24, No. 2 (May, 1981), pp. 146-64.
Note: A major part of the article was included as “The Alleged Presence of Canon in The Delhi Sultanate During
the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Akram Makhdoomee’s and Abu Zafar Nadvi’s Theses” in Gunpowder
and Firearms – Warfare in Medieval India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2004, pp. 210-217.
10
Khan, Op.Cit. p. 146.
different parts of the India during the second half of the fifteenth century. Already by the

middle of the century, there was known in North India a firearm with designation

Kashakanjir which threw balls 'by the extensive force of combustible substances

(darruha-i atishin)'”11, however he does not equates the “Kashakanjir” with a canon or a

mortar as Makhdoomee does, but rather a trebuchet or a mangonel which was used to

hurl huge stones across some distance. As we saw the argument put forth by Jadunath

Sarkar regarding the failure of distinguishing the two terms – firework and firearm, Khan

too criticizes Gode and Makhdoomee on their flawed methodology. For Gode he writes

“Gode has tried to establish that in the second half of the 15th century, cannons and

muskets were already being used in Gujrat, Malwa and Kashmir. But since much of the

evidence about the use of canon and muskets in the period is confined to Persian

chronicles it could not have been directly accessible to Gode, who was not proficient in

the Persian language…he had to depend on English translations or on the information

reproduced in secondary works…this made it difficult for him to sift and critically

examine the available evidence in totality. He was thus neither able to work out the

chronology of the introduction of cannons and musket in different regions nor able to

identify the stages through which the tactical use of firearms was evolved in India down

to AD 1526”12.

Same with Makhdoomee’s thesis, Khan points out the flaws; “Makhdoomee…have tried

to prove that artillery was present in the Delhi Sultanate from the very beginning. By

implication… suggest its introduction in North India by the Turks… have sought to

substantiate this view by citing evidence derived from contemporary as well a later

11
Khan, Iqtidar Alam, “Gunpowder and Empire: Indian Case”, in, Social Scientist, Vol. 33, No. 3/4 (Mar. - Apr.,
2005), pp. 54-65
12
Khan, Op. Cit., p.147.
Persian text. M. Akram Makhdoomee has also used two of the Persian dictionaries

compiled in India during the 15th century. However, the interpretations…often suffer

from one basic flaw. To some of the terms used for missile-throwing instrument in the

13th and 14th century texts, they have attributed meaning which were attached to them

in the 15th century. In other word while interpreting the evidence derived from 13th and

14th century sources… have often tended to ignore the process of gradual transfer of

many of the terms denoting missile-throwing instruments like the crossbow (tufak or

tufang) and the mangonel (maghribi) different kinds of firearms that came to be used in

India during the 15th century”13.

Khan thus never denies the presence of gunpowder in pre-Mughal era. By clues and

contexts provided by then contemporary literature it is shown that there indeed existed

the know-how of gunpowder techniques. For example, he writes “the most significant

piece of evidence purportedly indicating the presence of artillery in India during the 14th

century, is a passage in Tarikh-i-Firishta wherein it is stated on the authority of an earlier

history that in AD 1368-69 “Karkhana-i-atishbazi”, which before this was not known to

the Muslims of Deccan, was made the backbone of the army. The authority to which

Firishta refers as his source in this context is Mulla Daud Bedari who wrote his book

Tuhfatu's-Salatin during A.D. 1397-1422 19. This book would naturally be regarded as a

contemporary source for the early history of the Bahmani kingdom. Any information

furnished by this source about the developments taking place in the Bahmani kingdom

A.D. 1368-69 should be treated as of decisive significance”14. For the term ‘Karkhana-i-

atishbazi’ he suggests that the translation provided by other historians was rather weak

13
Khan, Op.Cit. p.147.
14
Khan, Iqtidar Alam, “Muhammad Qasim Firishta on the Introduction of Firearms in The Bahamani Kingdom”,
in, Gunpowder and Firearms – Warfare in Medieval India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2004, pp.205-
209.
as it was associated with more of a modern connotation – Karkhana at present meaning

a factory and atishbazi was simply mistaken for being firearms; what Khan suggests is to

look at these terms within their own spaces and times rather than to use them to suit

theories – Khan says – “to render this term (Karkhana) a “factory”, though linguistically

permissible, would mean importing into this expression a modern connotation…the

translation of the term “atishbazi” as “firearms” is patently wrong…the term “atishbazi”

simply denotes pyrotechnic”15. So, from the given context, what Khan suggested was that

instead of a factory of firearms, “Karkhana-i-atishbazi” was more likely a department of

pyrotechnics.

If we forego of the ancient Indian origins of gunpowder as suggested by Elliot, Khan

established the earliest viable introduction of pyrotechnics in a eulogy by Amir Khusro

written for Jalaluddin Firoz Khilji16 in which a ‘hawai’ is mentioned and then further

evidenced by other literature from that period. Specifically, Khan mentions Firishta’s

work, “Tarikh-i-Firishta”, where it is implied that pyrotechnic works were made available

in India in around 1258 at a reception of a Mongol envoy by Nasir Al-din Mahmud of the

Delhi sultanate; the Mongols, in turn, received this technique from China. Firishta’s

account on the ‘Karkhana-i-atishbazi’, as mentioned earlier, gives us a view of gunpowder

technology in the Bahamani kingdom, albeit the fact that Firishta himself borrowed it

from Daud Bedari. Firishta’s account thus sheds light on the existence and use of

pyrotechnics with gunpowder as the main ingredient in the Vijayanagar and Bahamani

kingdom, which took the form of weapons like ‘tir-i-hawai’ (rocket) or ‘ban’ around 1366-

67. Khan thus implies that gunpowder travelled from Delhi Sultanate to Vijayanagar.

15
Ibid. p. 207.
16
Ibid. p. 207.
Thus, in essence, what we can see is that the use of gunpowder in India, at least based on

the evidences dating prior to Babur’s arrival, seems to be confined as either pyrotechnics

for celebrations or installed on crude rockets or ‘ban’ (which is pointed out by both

Jadunath Sarkar and IA Khan) which had more of a chaotic effect rather than doling any

real damage to the enemy camps, given their erratic flight pattern and chances. Since we

are prioritizing the origins rather than looking at the then future of gunpowder and its

uses, it is safe to leave the European advancements for the moment.

Considering the fact that Khan at length discusses Mughal empire and gunpowder

technology, it would be impertinent to not look at it, along with several other discussions

in the same vein.

Gunpowder has always been an essential factor, a cog-in-machine, for any empire to be a

superpower, at least it was so during the medieval era. So much so, there formed a

hypothesis called the ‘Gunpowder Empire’ hypothesis which was proposed by V.V

Bartol’d and further developed by Marshall G.S. Hodgson and William H. McNeill17.

According to them, an expensive and powerful artillery was the backbone for a

centralized empire due to the fact that only an absolute monarchy with a centralized state

could have afforded cannons thus helping with terminating local powers. Hodgson and

McNeill put three empires in this thesis – the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals.

Khan, as shown above, suggests that “Cannons of…simple description appear to have

been already in vogue in different parts of India during the second half of fifteenth

century. But the precise date of the introduction of canon in the subcontinent is not very

certain”18. Owing to this, Khan discusses the use of cannons specifically in Malwa,

17
Hodgson, Marshall G. S., The Venture of Islam, Volume 3, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1974, pp.17–
18; McNeill, William H., The Pursuit of Power, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1982.
18
Khan, Op.Cit., “Gunpowder Artillery in India During the Fifteenth Century”, p. 41.
Bahamani kingdom, and Gujrat, arguing that the possession of these cannons as siege

weapons eased the expansion of Lodis and Gujrat Sultanate19. Interestingly, this

argument is countered by Douglas E. Streusand in his review of Khan’s book. While

Streusand agrees to the book’s inherent usefulness in terms of being one of the most

informative and lucidly written books, he argues that Khan’s thesis has some flaws of his

own – about the statement above, he writes “His argument is convincing but actually

contradicts the gunpowder empires hypothesis because the Lodi and Bahmani states

swiftly fragmented and Gujarat remained a provincial principality until the Mughal

conquest. Clearly the additional leverage of gunpowder siege weapons was not sufficient

to sustain a large, durable polity”20. Streusand holds the term ‘gunpowder empire’ by

Hodgson and McNeill to be inadequate in terms of its description – he posits that rather

than the empires being formed on gunpowder, the term means empires in the gunpowder

era.

Mughal expansion with the help of gunpowder seems to be only partially correct. A few

historians, like that of Streusand himself, along with Peter Lorge suggest that it wasn’t

only gunpowder that consolidated the empire. Although none of them deny the on-field

military superiority of the Mughals, but that superiority remained confined in the fields

only, in direct conflicts. Lorge writes “Military practice was revolutionized not by mortars

but by field guns and handguns combined with horse-archers. And while field guns could

be expensive, particularly when produced in large numbers out of bronze or brass,

handguns became relatively cheap when their barrels were made of wrought iron. The

major shift in power was not with respect to fortresses, but with respect to the

19
Ibid., pp. 46-47.
20
Streusand, Douglas E., “IQTIDAR ALAM KHAN. Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India. (Aligarh
Historians Society Series.) New York: Oxford University Press. 2004. Pp. xiv, 263. $35.00”, in The American
Historical Review, Volume 111, Issue 3, June 2006, pp. 817-818. https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.111.3.817
battlefield…Mughal success required superior horse-archers and light field guns. Their

strength lay also in the correct combination of those arms. This included siege artillery

where it was useful, but relied upon lighter weapons in the field”21. Streusand too

suggests something similar – “Perhaps the Mughals benefited from the prestige of Babur’s

great victories, but they certainly had superiority in both firearms and cavalry. Neither

alone would have guaranteed superiority on the battlefield; the combination did. The

Mughals neither produced nor employed firearms as well as the Europeans or the

Ottomans did. Gunpowder produced in South Asia was consistently inferior, though the

reason and significance are unclear. Unlike the Ottomans, the Mughals did not engage

directly in the manufacture of gunpowder but purchased it on the open market”22.

As far as siege artillery goes, both Streusand and Lorge contend the fact that given the

bulk of the machinery and the locations of forts in India, it became a question of logic and

feasibility – whether carrying out long drawn sieges was worth the expense and effort.

Already mentioned, Mughals were indomitable on field with their techniques. For

Streusand, “Although Mughal military history includes no lack of combat, with numerous

campaigns and sieges, there were remarkably few major battles...The paucity of battles

during a century of steady Mughal expansion indicates that their opponents avoided

offering battle because they expected to lose…Unable to defeat the Mughals in battle, their

opponents used time and distance against them, defending fortresses and attacking

Mughal lines of communication. Mughal expansion thus depended on the ability to take

fortresses. Once Akbar demonstrated that ability at Chitor, he and his successors rarely

had to complete another siege until the Deccan campaigns. Completing a siege meant

21
Lorge, Peter A., “South Asia to 1750”, in, The Asian Military Revolution: From Gunpowder to the Bomb,
Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008, pp. 127-128.
22
Streusand, Douglas E., “The Mughal Empire”, in, Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Ottomans, Safavids and
Mughals, Westview Press, United States of America, 2011, p. 256.
enormous costs, in blood and treasure. The Mughals thus had great incentives to permit

their adversaries to surrender for terms… To avoid the costs of bringing sieges to an end,

the Mughals offered terms to most adversaries in sieges. The terms were favorable; they

were incentives to surrender and normally offered the opposing leaders incorporation

into the Mughal system as mansabdars”23. Elsewhere he thus suggests that “Fortresses

were units of political bargaining power, more valuable intact than surrounded and

damaged”24. A similar contention is put forth by Lorge who argues against the Hodgson-

McNeill thesis; he suggests that “Babur was not the only ruler with sufficient funds to

purchase effective guns, nor was his use of heavy artillery anything new. Cannon had

already had something of an effect in increasing the power of regional rulers, but this had

been limited. South Asia was perhaps too wealthy for economic access to cannon to be

limited to a single rich king. Moreover, the shift to cavalry warfare, and the political

organization that accompanied it, dispersed considerable military and political power

back to the local level”25. And even Khan posits that “Apart from the sieges of Chittor and

Ranthambore, Akbar’s military operations leading to territorial acquisitions did not

involve prolonged siege operations. In most cases, the issues were decided in open

battles, which naturally did not allow the use of mortars on large scale”26. Post evaluation

of these statements, one can surmise thusly that the Mughal instrument of expansion

vastly depended on the combination on the on-field military supremacy, although limited

and incentives for surrender.

23
Ibid., p.255.
24
Streusand, Douglas E., “The Process of Expansion” in Gommans, Jos J.L., & Kolff, Dirk, H.A. (eds.) Warfare
and Weaponry in South Asia 1000-1800, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 350.
25
Lorge., Op. Cit., p. 128.
26
Khan, Op.Cit., “Artillery in Mughal India: 1556-1739”, p. 95.
While gunpowder weapons like the muskets and cannons etc. did facilitated the

consolidation of the Mughal empire, it also became the death knell for it in the long run.

There are two factors to it, the diffusion of the knowledge of gun-making and the

supposed disinterest of the empire to advance their technology leading to a technological

stagnation. Both of these are well discussed by Khan and is generally agreed upon. If we

look at the disinterest in advancing in the weapon technology, it might have been

overconfidence over the superiority of their own weapons over their rivals, but a

suggestion made by Khan is the Mughal monopoly over the canon production or at least

an attempt towards it. This happened, Khan argues, after the introduction of European

techniques of gun-making with wrought irons – “the introduction from Europe the art of

making less costly wrought-iron cannons naturally contributed to making light cannons

much cheaper…many of the chiefs all over the country began to possess them in limited

numbers…Mughal response to this was…to enforce imperial monopoly on the production

and use of every kind of firearms”27. If we look at the Gunpowder Empire thesis, Hodgson-

McNeill, it suggests that the technological stagnation comes to fruition when a central

government believes that their machines could easily destroy the local government and

thus assumes that there is no need for any further development. It might have been true

for the Mughal empire if not for two reasons – one, even Khan agrees that although there

was a ready availability of newer technology from Europe like flintlock pistols which

easily surpassed the Mughal matchlocks, why did the Mughal empire did not proceed to

follow that is a question which needs examination28; this is again disputed by Lorge who

argues that although the monopoly case might be true, it seems hard to prove. For Lorge,

“There was very little in the way of native innovation, but then almost the entire range of

27
Khan, Ibid., p. 193.
28
Ibid.
gunpowder weapons had been developed elsewhere. The rise of the Mughals did not end

the constant flow of foreign gun technology into South Asia, mostly in the form of experts

brought in to manufacture weapons”29. However, instead of monopoly, a more plausible

reason can be given. By this time where Europe had made greater progress, the guns

made in Asia were becoming comparatively inferior. One of the insufficiencies of the

Mughal gun makers was absence of powerful bellows for firing a large furnace where all

the metals required for making a gun could be molten. As the Indian furnaces were small,

molten metal from various furnaces had to be mixed for casting a gun. This resulted in

inconsistency in the metal used from several furnaces. Here Khan’s argument stands to

reason. Although the cast iron guns of Europe were inferior from their bronze ones,

Indians failed at improving better bronze guns by using European methods due to lack of

big bellows and furnaces30. So, the stagnation wasn’t based in disinterest but in the

stunted technology. Other than that, it might also be a possibility that the popularity of

the simple, cheap and a very common matchlock could never be replaced by a costlier

and quite complex for the commoner flintlocks, although they were at a time employed

in the Mughal court.

This brings us to the second factor of the supposed ‘death-knell’ as mentioned above –

the availability of the matchlock at an unprecedented level. The affordability of

matchlocks and the relative ease in gaining expertise with them, one did not have to be a

warrior. Ultimately this led to the dissemination of firearms into the general public which

helped forming resistance against the Mughal empire. Beginning in the late-sixteenth

century, not only political rebels, but even peasants opposing tax collection acquired

firearms. As domestic tensions grew, the widespread use and manufacture of matchlock

29
Lorge, Op. Cit., p. 128.
30
Khan, Op.Cit.
muskets played a role in the breakdown of central authority, and the Mughals, despite

numerous innovative efforts, failed to halt the eventual Balkanization of their empire31.

To surmise in Khan’s own words, “The presence of a variety of muskets in Mughal India

seems to have created a paradoxical situation. On the one hand… the Mughal authorities

seem to have relied in a considerable measure on matchlocks as effective weapons to be

used in small scale operations aimed at overcoming local defiance. The increasing

dissemination of the musket and skills relating to its manufacture and use among the

common people, on the other hand would in time enhance the capacity of the local chiefs

and even of the peasant communities to resist Mughal troops, especially while the latter

were involved in collecting land revenue”32.

Thus, we have observed a few things so far. One, that it is without question that

gunpowder and its usage has affected the history of the world in an undeniable fashion.

Although this essay did not delve much into that, it remains a certainty. As far as Indian

History goes, gunpowder technology saw its ups and downs, owing it to time and people.

With the European advent, things changed, from a general reluctance to a more accepting

attitude near the eighteenth century. One is left to wonder whether a sooner acceptance

of new guns and technology could have changed the history of India or not. Maybe the

European imperialism would have faced a proper resistance before it was too late, but

these “if-then” scenarios are now only good for romanticized novels. It stills remains a

tad bit unclear on whether there was a ‘gunpowder revolution’ in pre modern or even a

pre-Mughal India. So much so that Iqtidar Alam Khan too presents a small uncertainty on

31
Ibid.
32
Khan, Op.Cit., “Musket and Peasant Resistance” p. 164.
the matter, as he writes “the story of firearms in a pre-modern India is thus a complex

one: innovation is followed by retrogression…”33.

33
Khan, Op.Cit., “Conclusion”, p. 199.

Bibliography –
• Dowson, John, (ed.), “History of India As Told by Its Own Historians: The
Muhammadan Period [The Posthumous Papers of The Late Sir H.M. Elliot,
K.C.B], Trübner & Co., London, 1875
• Gommans, Jos J.L., & Kolff, Dirk, H.A. (eds.) Warfare and Weaponry in South
Asia 1000-1800, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001,
• Khan, Iqtidar Alam, “Early Use of Canons and Muskets in India: A.D. 1442-
1526” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 24, No. 2
(May, 1981), pp. 146-164.
• Khan, Iqtidar Alam, Gunpowder and Firearms – Warfare in Medieval India,
Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Khan, Iqtidar Alam, “Gunpowder and Empire: Indian Case”, Social Scientist,
Vol. 33, No. 3/4 (Mar. - Apr., 2005), pp. 54-65
• Lorge, Peter A., The Asian Military Revolution: From Gunpowder to the Bomb,
Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008.
• Sarkar, Jadunath, Military History of India, M.C. Sarkar and Sons Pvt Ltd.,
Calcutta, 1960.
• Streusand, Douglas E., Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Ottomans, Safavids and
Mughals, Westview Press, United States of America, 2011
• Streusand, Douglas E., “IQTIDAR ALAM KHAN. Gunpowder and Firearms:
Warfare in Medieval India. (Aligarh Historians Society Series.) New York:
Oxford University Press. 2004, The American Historical Review, Volume 111,
Issue 3, June 2006 https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.111.3.817