sent prisoners to Dehly, where, after being exposed to every sort of popular insult, they were publicly put to death.*

Though the Sikhs followed Banda to the field, they do not revere his memory in a religious view, or consider him as a spiritual leader; and he is even spoken of by some of their writers as a heretic. He

* A Mohammedan author, in a work intituled Seir Mutákherin, thus relates the circumstances of their deaths:

"It is singular that these people not only behaved firmly during their execution, but they disputed with each other who should suffer first, each making interest with the executioner to obtain the preference. Banda was at last produced, his son being seated in his lap, his father was ordered to cut his throat, which he did, without uttering one word. Being then brought nearer the magistrate, the latter ordered his flesh to be torn off with red-hot pincers, and it was in those torments he expired; his black soul taking its flight, by one of those wounds, towards the regions for which it was so well fitted." No person of even the most common feeling, can read this account without a sentiment of horror, and indignation against the perpetrators of those murders, and the author who relates them.-See Sketch of the Sikhs, by General Malcolm.

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was by birth a Hindu, of those people known by the name, Bairaghi. Amongst other changes proposed by him, he wished to make the Sikhs refrain from eating flesh, abandon their blue dress, and instead of the salutations commanded by Guru Govind, to say on meeting each other, Success to piety, success to the sect." The class of Acalis, or immortals, which had been established by Govind, opposed Banda's innovations with inflexible perseverance; for which many of them suffered martyrdom. At the death of Banda all the institutions of Govind were restored; but the entire blue dress, instead of being, as at first, worn by all Sikhs, is now the particular distinction of the Acalis.

After the defeat of Banda, the Sikhs were pursued by the Mohammedans with implacable fury. An imperial edict was issued, ordering all who professed the religion of Nanac, wherever they should be found, to be instantly put to death without any form of trial. A reward was offered for the head of every Sikh; and to give

more effect to the edict, all Hindus were commanded, under pain of death, to cut off their hair. Such as could escape their persecutors, fled into the woods and mountains which bound the Panjab on the N.E. From that time to the invasion of India by Nadir Shah, in 1738, little is known of the Sikhs. Soon after that event, we find them established principally at Delawál on the banks of the Ravy,* where they constructed a fortress. Here they resumed their warlike predatory habits, and are said to have harassed and plundered the straggling parties of the Persian army on its return from Dehly. The state to which the empire was reduced by this invasion, and the weak character of Mohammed Shah, its sovereign, were opportunities eagerly seized, and actively employed by the Sikhs, to extend their possessions: and the admission into their sect of numerous military

* By Rennell termed the Rauvee it is the Hydraotes of the Greek Geographers.

adventurers, and others, who in consequence of the disasters that had happened, were left without employment, seems at this period to have prodigiously increased their force. Since the death of Guru Govind, no spiritual leader had been chosen by them; nor, since that of Banda, any temporal chief; they therefore do not now appear as acting under one supreme authority, but as following the banners of different chiefs, who from rank, property, or extraordinary valour and talents, were enabled to form parties; and hence we presume is the origin of that federative community of Rajahs or chiefs, of which the constitution of that extraordinary people is composed. The influence of those chiefs in their federative councils, was naturally then, as now, in proportion to their respective force, or as sometimes happens in all assemblies, that which is obtained by address and the powers of eloquence. But, according to their institutions, the GuruMata, or national council, in case of war, chuses for a limited time a military leader.

The Sikhs gradually made themselves masters of the Duabs* of Jallindhara and Ravy, or country situated between the Ravy† and Beyah,‡ and between the latter and the Setlege.§ They, however, received several checks from Mir Munnoo, the Mohammedan governor of Lahore, who named Adina Beg Khan to the charge of the countries in which the Sikhs had principally established themselves. Adina Beg defeated them in an action fought near Makhaval; but whether from policy, or as it is pretended from being himself secretly of their religion, instead of prosecuting hostilities, he entered into a negociation with them, which ended in their engaging on their part to desist from their predatory conduct, and on his, in promising to leave them undisturbed in the terri

* Duab signifies a tract of land nearly enclosed by the approximation of two rivers. That formed by the Ganges and Jumna is called, by way of pre-eminence, The Duab.-Rennell. § Hesudrus.

+ Hydraotes.

+ Hyphasis.