The First Battle of Panipat was fought between the invading Timurid army of Babur and the Lodi dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. The battle, which saw the death of Sultan Ibrahim Lodi and the demise of his kingdom, resulted in the establishment of the Mughal Empire by Babur.
History[]
Zahiruddin Muhammad, known as Babur (literally, the "tiger"), was a direct descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan and the ruler of a small principality in Ferghana, Central Asia. In 1525, having lost his ancestral home to the rival Uzbeks and "tired of wandering about like a king on a chessboard," Babur invaded northern India in search of a new kingdom. "Placing his hand on the reins of confidence in God," he faced Sultan Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat, a few days' march from Delhi. Ibrahim, ruler of central-northern India, commanded 1,000 elephants and 100,000 men. Fatally, however, he lacked gunpowder weapons. Ibrahim was provoked into attacking on a narrow front against a line of stockades and wagons roped together, from the shelter of which Babur's cannons and matchlocks poured out deadly fire. Babur's mounted archers reduced the unwieldy Indian army to a panicked mob. Sultan Ibrahim himself died in the rout, and Babur seized his domains, which formed the core of the Mughal Empire. With his capital at Agra, he extended his rule to cover most of northern India (including Delhi) before his death in 1530.