Ghurid

The Battle of Tarain

The Ghurid victory that opened northern India, 1192 CE

588 AH / 1192 CE

Imagined 360° reconstruction of The Battle of Tarain

Educational historical reconstruction

Where

Tarain (Taraori), on the plain north of Delhi toward Thanesar

29.7800, 76.8200 · View on OpenStreetMap

Background

The battle of Tarain, fought on the plain north of Delhi toward Thanesar, was one of the decisive encounters in the history of the Indian subcontinent. The Ghurids, a dynasty from the mountains of Ghor in present-day Afghanistan who had supplanted the Ghaznavids, pressed their power eastward into the plains of Hindustan under the commander Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad, known as Muhammad of Ghor. At Tarain in 1191 he was defeated and wounded by a confederacy of Rajput princes led by Prithviraj Chauhan and forced to withdraw; but he returned the following year, in 1192, with a reorganised army, and on the same field broke the Rajput host decisively. The Muslim sources, above all Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani in the Tabaqat-i Nasiri and Ibn al-Athir in al-Kamil, describe the contrast of the two ways of war: the lighter, faster Ghurid army with its disciplined mounted archers on the wings against the heavier Rajput host, and the victory of mobility over weight. The triumph at Tarain opened the whole of the northern plains to Muslim rule: within a few years Muhammad of Ghor's general Qutb al-Din Aybak had taken Delhi and the other great cities, and on the Ghurid foundation the Delhi Sultanate would rise as the first lasting Muslim state in the heart of India. This scene depicts the field and the two arrayed armies before the clash: in the foreground the Ghurid mounted archers in mail and lamellar under their tall dark green banners, and far across the dry plain the Rajput host strung along the skyline under red and yellow standards, without any graphic depiction of the slaughter itself.

What you see

A broad, flat plain of dry golden stubble under a wide pale sky, open country with a low sun on the horizon; the kind of level ground on the northern plains of Hindustan where the fate of the region was decided by cavalry, not a city or a fort in sight.

In the foreground, mailed riders in lamellar armour and conical helmets on barded horses, and a dismounted man with a full quiver of arrows on his back: the Ghurid mounted archers whose mobility decided the day, drawn up close while the enemy stands far off.

Tall dark green war banners cluster over the Muslim host in the foreground, while a line of red and yellow standards marks the opposing army strung along the distant skyline; two arrayed hosts facing each other across the open field before the clash.

This is the second battle at Tarain, where the Ghurid commander Muhammad of Ghor, having been beaten and wounded on the same field the year before, returned with a reorganised army and broke the Rajput confederacy under Prithviraj Chauhan by the mobility of his horse-archers. Juzjani gives the fullest account in the Tabaqat-i Nasiri.

The field lies on the plain north of Delhi toward Thanesar, on the old invasion route from the north-west into the heart of Hindustan.

The victory opened the whole of the northern plains to Muslim rule and led directly to the taking of Delhi and the founding of the Delhi Sultanate, a hinge in the history of the subcontinent. The scene shows the arrayed forces and the ground, not the killing.

The two battles of Tarain (1191 and 1192) are recorded by Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani in the Tabaqat-i Nasiri and by Ibn al-Athir in al-Kamil; the second was the decisive Ghurid victory.

Primary sources

Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh (13th c.): Standard Sunni history for the Ghurid campaigns in India.

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