Battle of Panipat History: Causes, Battles and Impact on India

Panipat is a textile town in Haryana, about 90 kilometres north of Delhi on the old Grand Trunk Road. On the open fields around it, armies fought three times for control of north India: in 1526, 1556 and 1761. When people say “the Battle of Panipat”, they usually mean one of these three, and each one ended with a different power in charge of Delhi. The first brought the Mughals in, the second kept them there, and the third broke Maratha power in the north.

Below, each battle gets its own section: who fought, why, who won and what changed afterwards.

Why was the Battle of Panipat fought three times at the same place?

Look at a map and the answer is mostly geography. Armies coming into India from Afghanistan and Central Asia crossed the passes of the north-west, moved through Punjab and then had to pass through the narrow strip of land between the Yamuna and the Shivalik hills to reach Delhi. Panipat sits right in that strip. A ruler in Delhi who wanted to stop an invader before he reached the capital would meet him somewhere around here.

The ground also suited the armies of the time. The flat plain had room for large bodies of cavalry, elephants and, from 1526 onwards, cannon. It had villages for supplies and water nearby. From the days of the Gupta Empire onwards, power in north India depended on holding the Ganga-Yamuna plain, and Panipat was one of the doors into it.

First Battle of Panipat (1526): Babur vs Ibrahim Lodi

The 1526 Panipat war was fought on 21 April 1526 between Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur, ruler of Kabul, and Ibrahim Lodi, Sultan of Delhi. At the time, north India was still ruled by the Delhi Sultanate, which had been in place since 1206 but was now weak and divided.

Who fought and why

Babur was descended from Timur on his father’s side and from Genghis Khan on his mother’s. He spent his early years trying to hold Samarkand and lost it more than once. Shut out of Central Asia, he turned to India, which was richer and politically split. By 1526 he had already raided across the Indus several times and had a foothold in Punjab.

Ibrahim Lodi was the third and last ruler of the Lodi dynasty, which had ruled Delhi since 1451. He tried to bring the proud Afghan nobles under tighter control, and many of them turned against him. One of them, Daulat Khan Lodi, the governor of Punjab, invited Babur to invade in the hope of getting rid of Ibrahim. So Babur came partly as a conqueror and partly as someone called in by Ibrahim’s own nobles.

How Babur won

On paper Ibrahim should have won easily. Babur’s army is usually put at around 12,000-15,000 men, while Ibrahim is said to have brought about 100,000 soldiers and a large number of war elephants. These figures come mostly from Babur’s own memoir, the Baburnama, so they may flatter him, but historians agree that he was heavily outnumbered.

What Babur had was firepower and a tested battle plan. He tied together carts with ropes and chains to make a barrier (the araba) and placed his cannon and matchlock men behind it, with gaps left for his horsemen to ride out. One flank rested on the town of Panipat and the other was protected by ditches and felled trees, so Ibrahim could not use his numbers to go around him. Babur’s cavalry then used the Central Asian tulughma tactic: dividing the army into centre, wings and reserve, with fast units on the wings that swung round and struck the enemy from the sides and rear.

Ibrahim ordered a frontal attack. His army crowded towards the carts, and the cannon fire frightened the elephants, many of which turned back into their own ranks. Babur’s flanking horsemen closed in from both sides, and the packed Lodi army could neither move forward nor spread out. Within a few hours it was over. Ibrahim Lodi was killed on the field, the only Sultan of Delhi to die in battle.

What changed after 1526

Babur occupied Delhi and Agra within days. The Delhi Sultanate, which had lasted a little over three centuries, came to an end, and the Mughal Empire began. Panipat did not make Babur safe at once, though. He still had to defeat Rana Sanga of Mewar at Khanwa in 1527, and that victory mattered almost as much as Panipat for his hold on north India.

The battle also showed Indian rulers what field artillery and disciplined firearms could do against a large army that relied on cavalry and elephants. Over the following decades guns became a normal part of Indian armies. Babur himself recorded the battle in detail in the Baburnama, which is why we know more about 1526 than about most medieval Indian battles.

Second Battle of Panipat (1556): Akbar’s army vs Hemu

Thirty years later, the Mughals were fighting at Panipat again, this time to save the dynasty. The Second Battle of Panipat was fought on 5 November 1556 between the army of the young Akbar, commanded by his regent Bairam Khan, and Hemu, the general who had just taken Delhi from them.

Why the Mughals were in danger

Babur’s son Humayun had a troubled reign. In 1540 he was defeated by the Afghan leader Sher Shah Suri and spent about fifteen years in exile, part of it in Persia. He won back Delhi in 1555, but died about six months later after falling down the stairs of his library. His son Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar was only thirteen.

The Afghans of the Sur dynasty still held much of north India, and their strongest commander was Hemu, also known as Hemchandra Vikramaditya. He came from an ordinary trading family and rose to become chief minister and general of Adil Shah Suri, one of Sher Shah’s successors. He is said to have won twenty-two battles in a row. When Humayun died, Hemu moved quickly. He defeated the Mughal governor at Tughlaqabad and took Delhi in early October 1556, then took the title Raja Vikramaditya. For a few weeks, a Hindu ruler sat on the throne of Delhi, something that had not happened for a very long time.

The battle and the arrow

Bairam Khan, who had served both Babur and Humayun, persuaded the Mughal commanders to fight instead of retreating to Kabul. The Mughal army is usually estimated at around 20,000 men. Hemu is said to have had about 30,000 troops and a large force of war elephants, with figures as high as 1,500 elephants given in some accounts. Akbar was kept back from the fighting. Shortly before the battle, a Mughal advance force captured Hemu’s artillery, so this time it was the Mughals who had the edge in guns.

Hemu led from the front on his elephant, Hawai. His elephants broke into the Mughal wings and for a while he seemed to be winning. Then an arrow hit him in the eye and he fell unconscious in the howdah. When his men saw their commander’s elephant without him in sight, they lost heart and the army broke up.

Hemu was captured and brought before Akbar and Bairam Khan. Accounts differ on who struck the blow: some say Bairam Khan killed him, others that Akbar was urged to strike first so that he could take the title of ghazi. Hemu’s head was sent to Kabul and his body was displayed in Delhi.

What changed after 1556

The victory secured the Mughal throne for Akbar. No other commander in north India could now challenge the dynasty, and Bairam Khan ran the government until Akbar took full control in 1560. It was from this base that Akbar built the empire he is known for, with its revenue system, alliances with Rajput rulers and, in 1564, the abolition of the jizya tax on non-Muslims.

Hemu was winning when the arrow struck him, so luck played a bigger part in 1556 than in either of the other two battles.

Between the battles: the Mughal high point and the rise of the Marathas

For the next 150 years the Mughals were the strongest power in India. Under Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb the empire covered most of the subcontinent, and this is the period of Fatehpur Sikri, the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal.

Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707) took the empire to its largest size, but his long and costly wars in the Deccan drained the treasury. He also reimposed the jizya, which turned many Hindu nobles against the court. After his death in 1707, a series of weak emperors followed and the provinces began to act on their own.

The Marathas gained most from this. Their state had been founded by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the seventeenth century, and in the eighteenth century the Peshwas, especially Baji Rao I and his son Balaji Baji Rao, pushed Maratha power north into Malwa, Gujarat, Rajputana and up to Delhi. By the 1750s the Marathas were collecting tribute across much of India and looked set to replace the Mughals as the leading power.

Third Battle of Panipat (1761): Marathas vs Ahmad Shah Abdali

The Third Battle of Panipat was fought on 14 January 1761, the day of Makar Sankranti, between the Marathas and Ahmad Shah Durrani (also called Ahmad Shah Abdali), ruler of Afghanistan. It was by far the largest and bloodiest of the three Panipat battles.

Who fought and why

Ahmad Shah had been a commander under the Persian ruler Nader Shah. After Nader Shah was murdered in 1747, he set up his own kingdom in Afghanistan and began raiding Punjab and north India. Punjab was the richest prize, and it brought him into direct conflict with the Marathas, who pushed into Punjab in 1758 and drove out his officials.

Inside India, some powerful rulers were also alarmed by the Marathas. The Rohilla chief Najib-ud-Daula invited Ahmad Shah to return, and Shuja-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Awadh, eventually joined him. For Ahmad Shah, then, the campaign was about holding Punjab and stopping the Marathas. For the Marathas, it was about keeping their position as the protectors of Delhi and the main power in the north.

Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao sent a large army north under his cousin, Sadashiv Rao Bhau, with his own son and heir Vishwas Rao. Bhau’s army included a strong artillery wing under Ibrahim Khan Gardi, trained in the European style. It was also followed by a huge crowd of non-combatants: families, servants, traders and pilgrims hoping to visit holy places in the north. Estimates of the whole column run from about 300,000 people up to half a million, though such numbers are hard to check.

Two months of siege at Panipat

Bhau took Delhi in 1760 and then moved north. By late 1760 the two armies faced each other near Panipat. Instead of fighting the quick, mobile war the Marathas were known for, Bhau dug in behind a fortified camp. Ahmad Shah’s cavalry cut off his supply routes from the south.

The waiting went on for about two months. Food and fodder ran out in the Maratha camp, horses died and the crowd of camp followers made the hunger worse. By January 1761 Bhau had little choice but to break out and fight.

The battle on 14 January 1761

Each side is usually estimated at around 45,000-60,000 fighting men, with the Marathas fielding over 200 cannon. The battle began at dawn. Ibrahim Khan Gardi’s guns did heavy damage early on, and in the morning the Maratha attack, especially in the centre, pushed the Afghans back.

Ahmad Shah kept fresh troops in reserve and sent them in during the afternoon. His mobile horsemen, some carrying light swivel guns on camels, hit the tired Maratha lines again and again. Around this time Vishwas Rao was shot and killed. Bhau came down from his elephant and went into the fighting on horseback, and he too was killed. With both leaders gone, the Maratha army fell apart. The Afghans chased the fleeing soldiers and camp followers for miles, and the killing went on into the night.

What changed after 1761

The losses were enormous. Estimates suggest that 60,000 to 70,000 people died in the battle, and many more were killed in the pursuit or died afterwards. A large part of the Maratha leadership was killed or captured. Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao died a few months later, in June 1761, and the news is said to have broken him. In Marathi, “Panipat jhala” (a Panipat has happened) is still used to mean a total disaster.

Ahmad Shah did not stay to rule. His own army had suffered heavily, his men wanted to go home, and he returned to Afghanistan within a few months. He came back to Punjab in later years, mainly to fight the Sikhs, but never tried to hold Delhi. The result was that neither the winner nor the loser controlled north India after Panipat. The Mughal emperor was powerless, and the region split among the Sikhs, the Jats, the Rohillas, Awadh and others.

The Marathas did recover faster than most people expected. Under Peshwa Madhavrao I they regained much of their position, and by 1772 Mahadji Shinde had brought the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II back to Delhi under Maratha protection. But the confederacy was now more divided, with the big families such as the Shindes, Holkars, Gaekwads and Bhonsles acting more on their own.

How the Panipat battles opened the way for the British

The years around Panipat were the years when the East India Company was gaining ground in the east. It won at Plassey in 1757, four years before the third battle, and at Buxar in 1764, three years after it. While the Marathas and Afghans were exhausting each other in the north, the Company was turning Bengal into a base of money and soldiers.

The British fought three wars with the Marathas between 1775 and 1818. By then the Maratha chiefs were rivals as often as allies, and the Company could deal with them one at a time. By 1818 the Company was the strongest power in India.

It would be too simple to say that Panipat caused British rule. The Company’s money, its trained infantry and the weakness of the Mughal centre all mattered. But most historians agree that 1761 removed the one Indian power that might have united the north in those decades. Some even link the long struggle for control of north India to the later freedom movement in India, which had to start from a country carved up under Company and then Crown rule.

What the three battles of Panipat tell us about warfare in India

Put side by side, the three battles trace how fighting changed over 235 years. In 1526 one side had guns and the other did not, and the guns decided it. In 1556 both sides had artillery, and the result turned on leadership and a single arrow. In 1761 both armies had large numbers of cannon, but hunger and supply decided the battle before the first shot was fired.

Cavalry mattered in all three. Babur’s flanking horsemen, Hemu’s elephants and Ahmad Shah’s mobile reserves each did the decisive work in their battle. And in all three the death or loss of a commander (Ibrahim Lodi, Hemu, then Vishwas Rao and Bhau) was the moment the losing army gave up.

The religious framing of these battles needs care. The third battle is sometimes told as Hindus against Muslims, but Ibrahim Khan Gardi, a Muslim, commanded the Maratha guns, and the Marathas had earlier been allies of the Mughal emperor. Most historians treat Panipat in 1761 as a fight over Punjab, tribute and control of Delhi.

Visiting Panipat today: what you can still see

Modern Panipat is a busy industrial city known for handloom and recycled textiles, especially blankets and rugs. The battlefields are now farms, roads and housing, so do not expect an open field with markers. A few sites still tie the town to its history:

• Panipat Museum, run by the Haryana government, has maps, weapons and displays on all three battles. Start here so the other sites make sense.
• Kabuli Bagh mosque, built by Babur after his victory in 1526 and named after his wife, Kabuli Begum.
• Tomb of Ibrahim Lodi, a simple platform tomb in the town, protected by the Archaeological Survey of India.
• Kala Amb, the site linked to the third battle, where a memorial now stands. The name comes from a mango tree said to have turned dark after the fighting.

Panipat is an easy day trip from Delhi by train or by road along NH-44. If you go in winter, the weather is pleasant, and on 14 January you may find Maratha visitors at Kala Amb marking the anniversary of the battle.

Read Next

• Mughal Empire History: Rulers, Administration and Legacy
• Delhi Sultanate History: Dynasties, Rulers and Administration
• Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj: The Warrior King Who Built the Maratha Empire

Frequently Asked Questions

How many battles of Panipat were there?

Three major ones: in 1526 (Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi), 1556 (Akbar’s army defeated Hemu) and 1761 (Ahmad Shah Abdali defeated the Marathas). Smaller clashes took place in the area at other times, but these three are the ones history books mean.

Which Battle of Panipat is asked most often in exams?

All three appear regularly, but questions on the first battle usually focus on Babur’s use of artillery, the araba and the tulughma, while questions on the third battle focus on its causes and its effect on Maratha power and the rise of the British.

Is there a film on the Third Battle of Panipat?

Yes. Ashutosh Gowariker’s Hindi film “Panipat” (2019) tells the story of the third battle, with Arjun Kapoor as Sadashiv Rao Bhau and Sanjay Dutt as Ahmad Shah Abdali. Like most historical films, it takes liberties, so read a good history alongside it.

Why does the Third Battle of Panipat matter so much in Maharashtra?

Almost every Maratha family of standing lost someone at Panipat, including the Peshwa’s own son. The memory survives in ballads, novels and the phrase “Panipat jhala”, used for any crushing defeat.

Sources and Further Reading

• Babur, Baburnama (Babur’s own memoir, with his account of the First Battle of Panipat)
• Abul Fazl, Akbarnama (the official history of Akbar’s reign, covering the Second Battle of Panipat)