Note 1668 — SECTION III. HINDŪSTĀN

Well-known are the three decisive historical battles fought near the town of Pānī-pat, viz. those of Bābur and Ibrāhīm in 1526, of Akbar and Hīmū in 1556, and of Aḥmad Abdālī with the Mahratta Confederacy in 1761. The following lesser particulars about the battle-field are not so frequently mentioned:—(i) that the scene of Bābur’s victory was long held to be haunted, Badāyūnī himself, passing it at dawn some 62 years later, heard with dismay the din of conflict and the shouts of the combatants; (ii) that Bābur built a (perhaps commemorative) mosque one mile to the n.e. of the town; (iii) that one of the unaccomplished desires of Sher Shāh Sūr, the conqueror of Bābur’s son Humāyūn, was to raise two monuments on the battle-field of Pānī-pat, one to Ibrāhīm, the other to those Chaghatāī sult̤āns whose martyrdom he himself had brought about; (iv) that in 1910 AD. the British Government placed a monument to mark the scene of Shāh Abdālī’s victory of 1761 AD. This monument would appear, from Sayyid Ghulām-i-‘alī’s Nigār-nāma-i-hind, to stand close to the scene of Bābur’s victory also, since the Mahrattas were entrenched as he was outside the town of Pānī-pat. (Cf. E. & D. viii, 401.)