The flat plains of Panipat had seen the battle in 1526 and 1555 where Babar defeated Ibrahim Lodi and Akbar defeated the Afghan army led by Hemchandra, aka Hemu, who was captured and beheaded by Behram Khan. Now two and half centuries later, two mega armies stood waiting for a battle. What kind of enemy’s strength are we talking of? There are many records, one of them is written by Kasiraj, a sixty year old man, who was part of Bhau’s huge army. He wrote his Kasiraj bakhar, nearly nineteen years after the war. He estimates Abdali’s men to be around eighty thousand while the Marathas had seventy thousand. There are many historians who have given different figures but what we are looking is the fact that they two armies were well matched.

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Luisterboek: 5 januari 2023