When most think of Medieval Indian armour most usually think of either Zirah Baktar or Chahar Aina. However those types are actually rather modern. Throughout the large timespan of the Middle Ages aswell as the diverse regions of the Subcontinent there have been various forms of armours in use. Unfortunately there are no surviving examples of armour from the actual Middle Ages. However there is iconography. Here we will look into iconography depicting armour throughout the Middle Ages.
First we have a man clad in scale armour from the Ajanta Caves Paintings. Although they date anywhere from the 5th-7th century which is more of an intermediate phase between the Classical era & the Middle Ages, armour during the Early Middle Ages wouldn’t likely have been far off from those of the Late Classical Antiquity.
And here is a coin of #Shashanka (606-636 AD) the founder of the Gauda kingdom. He seems to be depicted wearing a muscle cuirass & shin guards. Again not very different from Classical era.
With various waves of Islamic invasions during the High Middle Ages the Subcontinent got introduced to armour that covered more of the body from head to toe. However we don't have much iconography of this era. The Basatin Al-Uns gives us our earliest look into the armours worn by troops of Islamic India during the 14th century. Here we can see the cavalry of #Ghiyasuddin_Tughlaq (1320-1326 AD) of Hindustan clad in composite armour. Most are wearing lamellar cuirasses called #Jawshan , segmented/laminar shoulder armour, plate lower arm, foot, shin, knee & thigh armour. There's also an additional round disc attached on the chest. There's likely mail underneath but difficult to say to for certain. Some are also wearing Brigandine/Coat of Plates style armour called #Chihalta_Hezar_Masha.
Next we go into the 15th century. This is from a Shahnamah manuscript composed in 1438 during the reign of #Alauddin_Mahmud_Shah (1436-1469 AD) of Malwa. Here we see the cavalrymen clad in scale armour & about no type of metalic armour for the infantrymen. This back to basics may more have been just regionalism.
We draw very close to the end of the Middle Ages. This is a depiction of the army of Alexander from the Sharfnama manuscript composed during the reign of #Ruknuddin_Barbak_Shah (1459-1476 AD). We see both the cavalry & the infantry clad in composite armour. We already know the Bengal Sultanate had a standing army composed mostly heavy infantry from the Chinese sources. Anyway they are shown weaing a conical helmet called #kulahkhud with scale aventail, #Chihalta_Hezar_Masha (Brigandine/Coat of Plates), plate vembraces or #bazubands .
The last example is going to be a battle scene from the Jagamohana Ramayana, an Odia adaptation of the Ramayana by Balarama Dasa (1474-1522). And the body armour is similar to that of Bengal but the helmet styles are very different. We know from the sources of the next century that this type of body armour was popular in Vijayanagara & the Deccan Sultanates aswell, probably due to the climate of these regions. Anyway this covers the armour types during Medieval India. This was just a basic introduction really without going into much details on how which functions.
Author: Ishtiak Ahmed
