Consider the following statements about cavalry warfare in India: 1. The iron stirrup made it possible for the armoured warrior to sit firmly on a horse without falling off. 2. The iron stirrup also allowed a cavalry charge with lances held tightly to the body, without the rider being thrown off by the shock of impact. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Correct — C, Both 1 and 2. The iron stirrup changed what a mounted man could do with his body. A rider braced in stirrups is far less likely to be unseated while fighting, which matters most for a warrior weighed down by armour, and he can put the weight and momentum of the horse as well as his own behind a blow instead of relying on the strength of his arm — the first statement in the stem. The second statement carries that forward to the charge with the lance held tightly against the body, where the whole moving mass of horse and rider is delivered at the point of the weapon and the shock of impact would otherwise throw the rider backwards over the tail. Both propositions are accepted by the key, and both belong to the standard Indian account of how the armoured cavalry of the Turkish armies came to dominate the battlefield.
- (a)1 only — Accepts the seat and rejects the charge. The key accepts both, and the two statements are steps in one argument — a firm seat is precisely what makes it possible to absorb the shock of a couched lance.
- (b)2 only — Accepts the harder claim and rejects the plainer one. That a rider braced in stirrups is less likely to fall off while fighting is the least disputed thing anyone says about the stirrup.
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — Rejects the entire link between the stirrup and armoured cavalry. Whatever the argument about how much the stirrup alone accomplished, the connection between a secure seat and heavy shock cavalry is not in doubt.
Foot supports for riders appear first in India, where a loop for the big toe was in use late in the second century before the common era, and the rigid iron stirrup that could bear a rider's full weight spread later from the horse cultures of Central Asia. Its arrival is bound up with the rise of the heavily armoured horseman, and in the Indian narrative with the cavalry of the Turkish armies from the eleventh and twelfth centuries onward. A later CDS paper works over the same evidence from Indian sculpture, citing a ring-stirrup on the Konarak horse and a broad, probably wooden, stirrup at Khajuraho.
Answer this one to the key and then keep the argument honest, because it is genuinely contested. The historiography knows this as the great stirrup controversy: one line of scholarship, which the Indian textbooks follow, credits the stirrup with making shock combat and the couched lance possible; another points out that heavily armoured cataphracts had used lances from horseback since antiquity, long before stirrups, and argues that the high cantled saddle did more for the charge than the stirrup did, so that the stirrup's chief service was to stop the rider being dismounted. The keyed answer here is both statements correct, which is what a candidate must mark; the second statement is the one a working historian would want to qualify.
- A rider supported by stirrups is less likely to fall off while fighting and can put the weight and momentum of horse and rider behind a blow.
- The earliest foot supports for riders are found in India — a loop for the big toe, in use late in the second century BCE.
- The rigid iron stirrup is associated with the armoured cavalry of Central Asian and, in India, Turkish armies.
- A rival reading holds that lances were used from horseback by armoured cataphracts long before stirrups existed.
- That reading credits the cantled saddle rather than the stirrup with making the couched-lance charge possible.
- Treating the two statements as independent; they are two steps of a single claim.
- Assuming a technology explanation must be uncontested. This one is a long-running scholarly dispute.
- Dating the stirrup to the Turkish invasions alone; foot supports for riders are far older, and Indian in origin.
As a two-statement item like this one, or as a statements question on the sculptural evidence for stirrups in India.
Assertion (A): During the time of Akbar, for every ten cavalrymen, the mansabdars had to maintain twenty horses. Reason (R): Horses had to be rested while on march and replacements were necessary in times of war.
- (a) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
- (b) Both A and R are true, but R is not a correct explanation of A
- (c) A is true, but R is false
- (d) A is false, but R is true
Answer(a) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Cavalry seen as an institution rather than as equipment. Requiring two horses for every trooper shows how much of a medieval army's cost went into keeping mounted men in the field — the same arm whose fighting power the stirrup transformed.
CDS_GK_2025_I_Q362025Consider the following statements about the use of stirrup in India: 1. The Konarak horse sculpture (c. 1250) shows a ring-stirrup. 2. A broad, probably wooden, stirrup appears in Khajuraho sculptures (probably 10th century). 3. The iron-stirrup was used in the Delhi Sultans' armies from the thirteenth century onwards. How many of the above statements is/are correct?
- (a) 1
- (b) 2
- (c) 3
- (d) Nil
Answer(c) 3
The evidence behind the claim this question makes. Where this 2022 item states what the stirrup did for a rider, the later paper asks what Indian sculpture actually shows and when the iron stirrup reached the armies of the Delhi Sultans.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The earliest known foot support for a rider, a loop for the big toe, is attested from which one of the following regions?
- (a)India
- (b)Egypt
- (c)Greece
- (d)Mesopotamia
Answer(a) India — a toe loop was in use late in the second century BCE, long before the rigid iron stirrup spread from Central Asia.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The chief military advantage claimed for the iron stirrup is that it
- (a)allowed horses to carry heavier loads over long marches
- (b)gave the armoured rider a firm seat so that the weight of horse and rider could be put behind a blow
- (c)made it possible to shoe horses with iron
- (d)replaced the chariot in Indian warfare
Answer(b) gave the armoured rider a firm seat so that the weight of horse and rider could be put behind a blow.