First

Túrkí invasions.

Subuktigin, 977

A. D.

Mahmúd

1001-1030.

The first collision between Hinduism and Islám on the Punjab frontier was the act of the Hindus. In 977, Jaipál, the Hindu chief of Lahore, annoyed by Afghán raids, led his troops up the passes against the Muhammadan kingdom of Ghazní, in Afghánistán. Subuktigín, the Ghaznivide prince, after severe fighting, took advantage of a hurricane to cut off the Hindu retreat through the pass. He allowed them, however, to return to India on the surrender of fifty elephants, and the promise of one million dirhams (about £25,000) Tradition relates how Jaipál, having regained his capital, was counselled by the Bráhman, standing at his right hand, not to disgrace himself by paying ransom to a barbarian; while his nobles and warrior chiefs, standing at his left, implored him to keep faith. In the end, Subuktigín swept down the passes to enforce his ransom, defeated Jaipál, and left an Afghán officer with 10,000 horse to garrison Peshawar. Subuktigín was soon afterwards called away to fight in Central Asia, and his Indian raid left behind it only this outpost. But henceforth, the Afgháns held both ends of the passes.

In 997, Subuktigín died, and was succeeded by his son, of Ghazni, Mahmud of Ghazní, aged sixteen. This valiant monarch 3 reigned for thirty-three years, and extended the limits of his father's little Afghán kingdom from Persia on the west, to deep into the Punjab on the east. Having spent four years in consolidating his power to the west of the Khaibar Pass, he led His seven- forth in 1001 A.D. the first of his seventeen invasions of India teen inva

sions, Power in India; (5) Reports of the Archæological Survey of Westera 1001-1026. India, and materials supplied by the Statistical Survey of the various

Provinces of India; (6) Professor Blochmann's Aín-i-Akbari (Calcutta, 1873), together with Gladwin's older translation (2 vols. 1800). When the dates or figures in this chapter differ from Elphinstone's, they are derived from the original Persian authorities, as adopted by Sir Henry Elliot and Mr. Thomas.

1 The Tarikh Yamíni, written circ. 1020, by Al 'Utbi, a secretary of Sultán Mahmud, is the contemporary authority for this invasion. It is translated in Sir Henry Elliot's Persian Historians, vol. ii. pp. 18-24. The materials for the invasions of Subuktigin are Firishta, i. pp. 11-25 (e1. 1829); and Sir Henry Elliot's Persian Historians, vols. ii. iii. iv. and vi 2 His chronicler, Al 'Utbí, never once mentions Delhi or Lahore.

6

3 The Tabakát-i-Násirí (Sir Henry Elliot's Persian Historians, vol. ii. p. 270) speaks of the 36th year of his reign.' But the dates 997 to 1030 seem authoritative. The original materials for the invasions of Mahmud are Firishta, i. pp. 37-82; and Sir Henry Elliot's Persian Historians, vols. i. ii. iii. and iv.

This number, and subsequent details, are taken from the authorities translated in Sir Henry Elliot's Persian Historians, vols. ii. iii. iv.; and critically examined in the Appendix to his second volume, pp. 434-478 (1869

Of these, thirteen were directed to the subjugation of the Punjab; one was an unsuccessful incursion into Kashmir; the remaining three were short but furious raids against more distant cities-Kanauj, Gwalior, and Somnáth.

devotion

Jaipál, the Hindu frontier chief of Lahore, was again defeated. According to Hindu custom, a twice-conquered prince was deemed unworthy to reign; and Jaipál, mounting a funeral pile, solemnly made over his kingdom to his Patriotic son, and burned himself in his regal robes. Another local of the chief, rather than yield himself to the victor, fell upon his Hindus, own sword. In the sixth expedition (1008 A.D.), the Hindu 1008 A.D ladies melted their ornaments, while the poorer women spun cotton, to support their husbands in the war. In one great battle, the fate of the invaders hung in the balance. Mahmud, alarmed by a coalition of the Indian kings as far as Oudh and Málwá, entrenched himself near Peshawar. A sortie which he made was driven back, and the wild Ghakkar tribe burst into the camp and slaughtered nearly 4000 Musalmáns.

in

But each expedition ended by further strengthening the Mahmud's Muhammadan foothold in India. Mahmúd carried away progress India, enormous booty from the Hindu temples, such as Thaneswar 1001-1024. and Nagarkot, and his sixteenth and most famous expedition. was directed against the temple of Somnáth in Gujarát (1024 A.D.). After bloody repulses, he stormed the town; and the Hindu garrison, leaving 5000 dead, put out in boats to sea. The famous idol of Somnáth was merely one of the twelve lingas or phallic emblems erected in various parts of India. But Mahmud having taken the name of the 'Idol-Smasher,' Expedition the modern Persian historians gradually converted the plunder of Somnáth into a legend of his pious zeal. Forgetting the contemporary accounts of the idol as a rude stump of stone, Firishta tells how Mahmúd, on entering the temple, was offered

1 Firishta says, '30,000 Ghakkars with their heads and feet bare.' Colonel Brigg's Firishta, vol. i. p. 47 (ed. 1829). Elphinstone gives the number of Mahmúd's expeditions somewhat differently from the number and order adopted in the above text from the Persian authorities, translated by Sir Henry Elliot. Thus Elphinstone gives the expedition of 1008 A.D. as the fourth (p. 328), while Sir Henry Elliot gives it as the sixth (Persian Historians, vol. i. p. 444). In the same way, Elphinstone gives the Somnáth expedition as the twelfth (p. 334, ed. 1866), while Sir Henry Elliot gives it as the sixteenth (vol. ii. p. 468). These instances must suffice to indicate the differences between Elphinstone and the later materials derived from Sir Henry Elliot and Mr. Edward Thomas. In subsequent pages, the more accurate materials will be used without pausing to point out such differences.

VOL. VI.

S

to Somnáth, 1024.

the jewelbellied god.

an enormous ransom by the priests if he would spare the Fiction of image. But Mahmúd cried out that he would rather be remembered as the breaker than the seller of idols, and clove the god open with his mace. Forthwith a vast treasure of jewels poured forth from its vitals, which explained the liberal offers of the priests, and rewarded the disinterested piety of the monarch. The growth of this myth can be clearly traced, but it is still repeated by uncritical historians. The linga or solid stone fetish of Somnáth, had no stomach, an could contain no jewels.

The sandal

wood gates.

Results of

invasions,

Mahmud carried off the temple gates, with fragments of the phallic emblem, to Ghazni,3 and on the way nearly perished with his army in the Indus desert. But the famous 'Sandalwood gates of Somnath,' brought back as a trophy from Ghaza: by our troops in 1842, and paraded through Northern India. were as clumsy a forgery as the story of the jewel-bellied ido! itself. Mahmud died at Ghazní in 1030 A.D.

As the result of seventeen invasions of India, and twentyMahmud's five years' fighting, Mahmúd had reduced the western districts 1030 A.D. of the Punjab to the control of Ghazní, and left the remem brance of his raids as far as Kanauj on the east, and Gujarat in the south. He never set up as a resident sovereign in India. His expeditions beyond the Punjab were the adven tures of a religious knight-errant, with the plunder of a templecity, or the demolition of an idol, as their object, rather than serious efforts at conquest. But as his father had left Peshawar as an outpost garrison, so Mahmud left the Punjab as an conquered. Outlying Province of Ghazní.

The

Punjab

Mahmud's justice and thrift.

The Muhammadan chroniclers tell many stories, not only of Mahmud's valour and piety, but also of his thrift. One day 2 poor woman complained that her son had been killed by robbers in a distant desert of Irak. Mahmúd said he was very sorry, but that it was difficult to prevent such accidents so far from the capital. The old woman rebuked him with these words,

1 Colonel Brigg's Firishta, vol. i. pp. 72, 73 (ed. 1829).

2 Sir H. Elliot's History of India from the Persian Historians, vol. ú. p. 270, from the Tabakát-i-Násirí; also Appendix, vol. ii. p. 476; vol. N. pp. 182, 183, from the Habibu-s-Siyar of Khondamir. But see, even is 1832, H. H. Wilson in the Asiatic Researches, vol. xvii. pp. 1941 A foundation for Firishta's invention is, however, to be found in the co temporary account of Al Biruni (970-1029 A.D.), who says that the top ci the linga was garnished with gems of gold.

3 Of the four fragments, he deposited one in the Jama Masjid at Ghari another at the entrance of his palace, and the third he sent to Mecca, ap

the fourth to Medina. Tabakát-i-Násirí,

HOUSE OF GHOR, 1152-1186.

275

'Keep therefore no more territory than you can rightly govern.' The Sultán forthwith rewarded her, and sent troops to guard all caravans passing that way. Mahmud was an enlightened patron of poets, and his liberality drew the great Ferdousi to Ferdousi. his court. The Sultán listened with delight to his Sháh-námah,

or Book of Kings, and promised him a dirham, meaning a golden one, for each verse on its completion. After thirty years of labour, the poet claimed his reward. But the Sultán finding that the poem had run to 60,000 verses, offered him 60,000 silver dirhams, instead of dirhams of gold. Ferdousi retired in disgust from the court, and wrote a bitter satire which records to this day the base birth of the monarch. Mahmud forgave the satire, but remembered the great epic, and, repenting of his meanness, sent 100,000 golden dirhams to the poet. The bounty came too late. For as the royal messengers bearing the bags of gold entered one gate of Ferdousi's city, the poet's corpse was being borne out by another.

Ghor,

1152-1186.

the

During a century and a half, the Punjab remained under House of Mahmud's successors, as a Province of Gházní. But in 1152, the Afgháns of Ghor1 overthrew the Ghaznívide dynasty; and Khusrú, the last of Mahmúd's line, fled to Lahore, the capital of his outlying Indian territory. In 1186, this also was Obtains wrested from him; 2 and the Ghorian prince Shaháb-ud-dín, Punjab, better known as Muhammad of Ghor, began the conquest of 1186. India on his own account. But each of the Hindu principalities fought hard, and some of them still survive seven centuries after the torrent of Afghán invasion swept over their heads.

mad of

On his first expedition towards Delhi, in 1191, Muhammad Muhamof Ghor was utterly defeated by the Hindus at Thaneswar, Ghor's badly wounded, and barely escaped with his life. His scattered invasions, hosts were chased for 40 miles. But he gathered together 1191-1206. the wreck at Lahore, and, aided by new hordes from Central defeat, Asia, again marched into Hindustán in 1193. Family quarrels 1191. among the Rajputs prevented a united effort against him.

1 Ghor, one of the oldest seats of the Afghán race, is now a ruined town of Western Afghánistán, 120 miles south-east of Herát. The feud between Ghor and Ghazní was of long standing and great bitterness. Mahmud of Ghazni had subdued Ghor in 1010 A.D.; but about 1051 the Ghorian chief captured Ghazní, and dragged its chief inhabitants to Ghor, where he cut their throats, and used their blood for making mortar for the fortifications. After various reprisals, Ghor finally triumphed over

Ghazni in 1152.

2 Tabakát-i-Násirí. Sir II. Elliot's Persian Historians, vol. ii. p. 281.

His first

Dissen

sions

among the Hindu princes.

Court

pageant at Kanauj, 12th century A.D.

A sway

The cities of Delhi and Kanauj stand forth as the centres of rival Hindu monarchies, each of which claimed the first place in Northern India. A Chauhán prince, ruling over Delhi and Ajmere, bore the proud name of Prithwí Rájá or Suzerain. The Rahtor king of Kanauj, whose capital can still be traced across eight square miles of broken bricks and rubbish,1 celtbrated a feast, in the spirit of the ancient Horse-sacrifice, to proclaim himself the Over-lord.

At such a feast, all menial offices had to be filled by royal vassals; and the Delhi monarch was summoned as a gatekeeper, along with the other princes of Hindustán. During the ceremony, the daughter of the King of Kanauj was nominally to make her swayamvara, or 'own choice' of a husband, a pageant survival of the reality in the Sanskrit epics. The Delhi Rájá loved the maiden, but he could not brook to stand at another man's gate. As he did not arrive, the Kanauj king set up a mocking image of him at the door. When amvara, or the princess entered the hall to make her choice, she looked calmly round the circle of kings, then stepping proudly past them to the door, threw her bridal garland over the neck of the ill-shapen image. Forthwith, says the story, the Delhi monarch rushed in, sprang with the princess on his horse, and galloped off towards his northern capital. The outraged father led out his army against the runaways, and, having called in the Afgháns to attack Delhi on the other side, brought about the ruin of both the Hind kingdoms.

maiden's

choice.

Distribu tion of Rajputs, circ. 1184.

The tale serves to record the dissensions among the Rajput princes, which prevented a united resistance to Muhammad of Ghor. He found Delhi occupied by the Tomára clan, Ajmere by the Chauhans, and Kanauj by the Ráhtors. These Rajput States formed the natural breakwaters against invaders from the north-west. But their feuds are said to have left the King of Delhi and Ajmere, then united under one Chauhán Overlord, only 64 out of his 108 warrior chiefs. In 1193, the Afgháns again swept down on the Punjab. Prithwi Rájá of Delhi and Ajmere 3 was defeated and slain. His heroic princess burned herself on his funeral pile. Muhammad of Ghor, having occupied Delhi, pressed on to Ajmere; and in

1 See article KANAUJ, The Imperial Gazetteer of India.

2 Aswa-medha, described in a previous chapter.

3 Descended from the eponymous Rájá Aja of Ajmere, circ. 145 A.D. : and on the mother's side, from Anang Pál Tuar, Rájá of Delhi, wh adopted him; thus uniting Delhi to Ajmere. See article AJMERE-MERWARA, in The Imperial Gazetteer of India.