Battle of Khanwa
Babur defeats Rana Sanga’s coalition at Khanwa
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗Before meeting Rana Sanga, Babur publicly poured away his wine, broke valuable drinking vessels, and swore abstinence to stiffen his frightened army.
Khanwa, west of Agra, 17 March 1527
Babur's army deployed near Khanwa, west of Agra, behind a cart-protected position divided into right, left and centre. His memoir's chronology places this on 17 March 1527.
Rana Sanga had advanced toward Babur's recently conquered Agra–Delhi position with a coalition of Rajput rulers and Afghan opponents of Mughal rule. Failed negotiations and preliminary clashes around Bayana brought the two armies to Khanwa.
The date is genuinely inconsistent across modern references. Babur's memoir as translated by Annette Beveridge, and Encyclopaedia Iranica, convert 13 Jumada II 933 to 17 March; several modern histories and the Smithsonian chronology give 16 March.
Carts, matchlocks and flanking parties
The coalition attacked both Mughal wings repeatedly. Babur reinforced the threatened positions, fired matchlocks and artillery from behind the carts, sent flanking parties toward the coalition's rear, and eventually ordered his centre and reserves forward.
The coalition broke and dispersed after prolonged fighting. Babur retained Agra and the core of his new Indian state, and afterwards publicly styled himself ghazi.
Encyclopaedia Iranica cautions against reducing the victory to technological superiority: disciplined deployment, mobility, carts, reserves and flanking tactics were integral. The opposing army was not exclusively Rajput or Hindu either — it included Afghan opponents of Babur, notably Mahmud Lodi and Hasan Khan Mewati.
The account it all comes from
Babur's detailed battle narrative is embedded in a highly polemical victory letter composed by Shaikh Zain. Its religious rhetoric and claims about enemy losses are not neutral reporting.
That letter names Hasan Khan Mewati among the dead, saying he was struck by matchlock fire. Babur's own memoir also records that he ordered a tower of enemy heads erected afterward.
The familiar details it does not contain — that Rana Sanga was shot, that Ajja Jhala assumed his insignia, that Silhadi deserted — derive from later traditions.
Sources
Researched 24 Aug 2026 4 sources not yet audited Date disputed
How this was checked
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Date disputed. Sources disagree about when this happened.
What the sources leave uncertain
- The date is genuinely inconsistent across modern references. Babur’s memoir as translated by Annette Beveridge and Encyclopaedia Iranica convert 13 Jumada II 933 to 17 March 1527; several modern histories and the Smithsonian chronology label the battle 16 March. The listed date should therefore not be presented without a note.
- Babur’s detailed battle narrative is embedded in a highly polemical victory letter composed by Shaikh Zain; its religious rhetoric and claims about enemy losses are not neutral reporting.
- Accounts that Rana Sanga was shot, that Ajja Jhala assumed his insignia, or that Silhadi deserted derive from later traditions and are not stated in Babur’s contemporary account.