April 21, 1526

First Battle of Panipat

Babur defeats Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat

Babur wrote that Lodi's packed wings could neither advance nor force open a route of escape — and by the afternoon prayer the sultan's severed head had been brought to him.

Daybreak near Panipat, April 1526

After seven or eight days facing Babur's fortified position, and an unsuccessful Mughal night attack, Ibrahim Lodi's troops advanced in battle formation shortly after daybreak. Babur's memoir dates the day to Friday, 8 Rajab 932 — rendered as 20 April 1526 in Annette Beveridge's scholarly edition, though the Haryana government and many modern histories use 21 April.

Babur had prepared the ground with 700 carts gathered into his defences, and he placed a librarian, Abd Allah, among the commanders in the centre of his line.

Half a day

His flanking cavalry wheeled around Lodi's army while Ustad Ali Quli and Mustafa fired artillery from the centre. The fighting ran from morning until shortly after noon, when Lodi's army collapsed and Babur's troops pursued the fugitives.

Babur's own immediate estimate put 15,000–16,000 of Lodi's men dead across the field, 5,000–6,000 of them concentrated near Ibrahim; he separately recorded a much higher hearsay figure of 40,000–50,000. Ibrahim Lodi was found dead among the fallen, and his severed head was brought to Babur around the time of the afternoon prayer.

What one afternoon did not settle

Babur did not enter Delhi that day. He sent Humayun toward Agra and another detachment toward Delhi to secure the cities and their treasuries; Delhi was occupied within days, and the Friday sermon was read in his name on 27 April.

The battle began Mughal control at Delhi, but Babur still faced major Rajput and Afghan resistance. The familiar detail of cannon fire panicking Lodi's elephants is absent from his own battle account, which emphasises encirclement, arrows, artillery and an enemy unable to manoeuvre.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 4 sources 3 audit passes Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at 1526-04-20.

What the sources leave uncertain

The date is genuinely inconsistent in modern references. The Baburnama's 8 Rajab 932 is rendered as 20 April 1526 by Beveridge, Encyclopaedia Iranica and the Encyclopaedia of Islam, while the Haryana government and many modern histories use 21 April. The scholarly 20 April conversion is used here, with disputed confidence.
Army and casualty figures come primarily from Babur, an interested participant. His own immediate casualty estimate and the much higher figure he later heard should not be merged into a single precise total.
The exact number of Babur's cannon is not stated in his battle narrative.