On 21 April 1526 Babur, the Timurid ruler of Kabul, defeated Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi on the plain of Panipat, north of Delhi. Behind a barrier of carts, Babur's guns and matchlock men held the front while his horsemen swept around the sultan's flanks. Ibrahim died on the field, and the victory opened northern India to Babur and began the Mughal Empire. The sources agree that Babur was heavily outnumbered, but they disagree widely on how heavily.
Babur and the Delhi sultanate
Babur was a descendant of Timur who had lost his homeland in Central Asia and made Kabul his base in 1504. From there he raided into the Punjab. Northern India was ruled by the Delhi sultanate under Ibrahim Lodi, whose quarrels with his own nobles led some of them, including the governor of the Punjab, Daulat Khan Lodi, to turn to Babur. At the end of 1525 Babur set out on a full invasion and marched on Delhi.1
A fortress of carts
Babur reached Panipat, about 50 miles north of Delhi, on 12 April 1526 and found the sultan's army in front of him. He tied some 700 carts together into a barrier, with gaps through which his cavalry could charge, and placed his guns and matchlock men behind it. He dug trenches and felled trees to build barriers on both wings. The Panipat district administration's history page calls this combination of a wing-and-center formation, the tulughma, and the cart barrier, the araba, the real reason his guns were so effective.2
For about a week Ibrahim refused to attack. The district history page argues that he meant to let the Indian summer wear Babur down, and that a failed night raid by Babur's men on 18 to 19 April changed his mind, because he feared a night battle in which his own nobles might betray him.3
21 April
When Ibrahim finally advanced, his troops were brought up short by Babur's barrier and packed together on too narrow a front. Babur's horsemen wheeled in on both flanks and the rear while his guns fired into the crowded mass at close range. The district history page adds that the noise of the guns frightened the sultan's war elephants, which trampled his own men. Ibrahim Lodi was killed in the fighting. According to Britannica, Babur occupied Delhi three days later and reached Agra on 4 May.4
The date is given in the Julian calendar, which Europe still used in 1526. Babur himself, in his memoirs, dated events by the Islamic calendar.5
How many fought
Every figure is uncertain. For Babur's army, the Britannica entry on the Panipat battles gives about 10,000 men, Britannica's biography of Babur no more than 12,000, and the Panipat district page about 15,000 with 20 to 24 field guns. For the sultan's army, the Britannica battle entry gives 100,000 men and 1,000 elephants, while Britannica's biography says it was reported at 100,000 with 100 elephants. The district page says Babur's own estimate of 100,000 included camp followers, and puts the fighting force at 30,000 to 40,000 with at least 1,000 elephants. The Britannica entry gives Afghan losses of 20,000 to 50,000 and says Babur's losses are unknown.6
What followed
Panipat did not end Babur's wars. Britannica's biography of Babur describes how he still had to defeat the Rajput confederacy of Rana Sanga of Mewar at Khanwa in 1527 and the eastern Afghans on the Ghaghara in 1529. But the battle made him master of the Delhi sultanate's heartland, and the dynasty he founded, the Mughals, ruled much of the subcontinent for generations. The district history page offers a caution: Afghan disunity, it argues, did as much to decide the day as Babur's guns. The battle is told in full in our article on the First Battle of Panipat, and the later battles on the same plain in our articles on 1556 and 1761.7
