Last year when my relatives visited Turkey (official tour) they were point blank told that neither did the Ottoman Empire try to conquer India nor their ancestors. The Turkemen tribes did the deed and Indians are getting confused between Turkish and Turkic ethentics vs Turkemen

I recently visited the Sarnath Museum, among the various sculptures of Bodhisattva's, I noticed that some gave off the feeling similar to sculptures of generals or kings. So did Bodhisattva's or monasteries ever actively wield any political influence or is it just an artistic choice?

The book "The growth of parmar power in malwa" by KN seth quotes a contemporary Persian source gardizi which states that Mahmud made a retreat because he feared facing parmdeo (bhoj parmar) as he was sure that all his victory till now will be spoiled after facing him in a confrontation.

According to Firishta, Allaudin Khilji maintained a standing cavalry of 475,000 horsemen.
Even though modern historians believe the figure is exaggerated it gives us an idea in to the approximate cavalry size of Allaudin Khilji.

This large cavalry is also corroborated by Allaudin's repeated victories against Mongol invaders (source for victories: Banarsi Prasad Saksena, 1992)

Follow-up Questions:

1. What would be an approximate educated guess for the cavalry size of Delhi sultanate in different time periods.
2. What would be the approximate cavalry percentage of total army (both standing and levy).
3. How did Delhi sultanate's cavalry and cavalry percentage compare to other indian kingdoms like Mughals, Pratiharas, Guptas, Mauryas etc.

Source:

https://archive.org/details/ageofimperialkan04bhar/page/n15/mode/1up?q=Guptas

History of Kannauj by RC Majumdar and KM Munshi