BAHMANI KINGS, 1347-1525.

287

States

1303.

Alá-ud-din (post 1303 A.D.). After a period of confused fighting, Muhamthe Bahmaní kingdom of the Deccan emerged as the represen- madan tative of Muhammadan rule in Southern India. Its founder, in the Zafar Khán, an Afghán general during the reign of Muhammad Deccan, Tughlak (1325-51), defeated the Delhi troops, and set up as Musalmán sovereign of the Deccan. Having in early youth been the slave of a Bráhman who had treated him kindly and foretold his future greatness, he took the title of Bahmaní,1 and transmitted it to his successors.

Bahmaní

dynasty,

1347-1525.

The rise of the Bahmaní dynasty is usually assigned to The the year 1347, and it lasted for 178 years, until 1525.2 Its successive capitals were Gulbargah, Warangal, and Bídar, all in the Haidarábád territory; and it loosely corresponded with the Nizám's Dominions of the present day. At the height of their power, the Bahmaní kings claimed sovereignty over half the Deccan, from the Tungabhadra river in the south to Orissa in the north, and from Masulipatam on the east to Goa on the west. Their direct government was, however, much more confined. In their early struggle against the Delhi throne, they derived support from the Hindu southern kingdoms of Vijayanagar and Warangal. But during the greater part of its career, the Bahmaní dynasty represented the cause of Islám against Hinduism on the south of the Vindhyas. Its alliances and its wars alike led to a mingling of the Musalmán and Hindu populations.

armies,

of Hindus

For example, the King of Málwá invaded the Bahmaní Composite dominions with a mixed force of 12,000 Afgháns and Rájputs. 1347-1525. The Hindu Rájá of Vijayanagar recruited his armies from Afghán mercenaries, whom he paid by assignments of land, and for whom he built a mosque. The Muhammadan Bahmaní troops, on the other hand, were often led by converted Hindus. The Bahmani army was itself made up of two hostile Mingling sects of Musalmáns. One sect consisted of Shiás, chiefly and MusalPersians, Túrks or Tartars from Central Asia; the other, of máns. native-born Musalmáns of Southern India, together with Abyssinian mercenaries, both of whom professed the Sunni faith. The rivalry between these Musalmán sects frequently imperilled the Bahmaní throne. The dynasty reached its highest power Fall of under the Bahmaní Alá-ud-dín 11. about 1437, and was broken up by its discordant elements between 1489 and 1525.

1 His royal name in full was Sultán (or Sháh) Alá-ud-dín Gángo Bahmaní. These extreme dates are taken from Thomas' Pathán Kings, pp. 340, 341. Materials for the Bahmaní dynasty : Sir Henry Elliot's Persian Historians, vols. iv. vii. viii.; Firishta, vol. ii. pp. 283-558 (ed. 1829).

Bahmaní dynasty, 1489-1525.

Five Mu-
hammadan

States
of the
Deccan,
1489-1688.

Fall of Hindu kingdom of Vijaya.

nagar.

Battle of

Tálikot, 1565.

and Pále

India.

Out of its fragments, five independent Muhammadan kingdoms in the Deccan were formed. These were (1) The Acil Shahí dynasty, with its capital at Bijápur, founded in 1489 by a son of Amurath II., Sultán of the Ottomans; annexed by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1686--88. (2) The Kutab Shahi dynasty, with its capital at Golconda, founded in 1512 by a Túrkomán adventurer; also annexed by Aurangzeb in 1687-88. (3) The Nizám Shahí dynasty, with its capital at Ahmadnagar, founded in 1490 by a Bráhman renegade from the Vijayanagar Court; subverted by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahán in 1635. (4) The Imad Sháhí dynasty of Berar, with its capital a Ellichpur, founded in 1484 also by a Hindu from Vijayanagar; annexed to the Ahmadnagar kingdom (No. 3) in 1572. (5) The Baríd Shahí dynasty, with its capital at Bidar, founded 1492-1498 by a Túrki or Georgian slave. The Barid Shali territories were small and undefined; independent till after 1609. Bidar fort was finally taken by Aurangzeb in 1657.

Space precludes any attempt to trace the history of these local Muhammadan dynasties of Southern India. They preserved their independence until the firm establishment of the Mughal Empire in the north, under Akbar's successors. For a time they had to struggle against the great Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar. In 1565 they combined against that power, and. aided by a rebellion within Vijayanagar itself, they overthrew it at Tálikot in 1565.

The battle of Tálikot marks the final downfall of Vijayanagar as a centralized Hindu kingdom. But its loca! Hindu chiefs or Náyaks seized upon their respective fiefs, and the Muhammadan kings of the south were only able Independ- to annex a part of its dominions. From the Náyaks are ent Nayaks descended the well-known Palegárs of the Madras Presidency, gars of and the present Mahárájá of Mysore. One of the bloodSouthern royal of Vijayanagar fled to Chandragiri, and founded a line which exercised a prerogative of its former sovereignty by granting the site of Madras to the English in 1639. Another scion, claiming the same high descent, lingers to the present day near the ruins of Vijayanagar, and is known as the Raja of Anagundi, a feudatory of the Nizám of Haidarábád. The independence of the local Hindu chiefs in Southern India, throughout the Muhammadan period, is illustrated by the Manjarábád family, which maintained its authority from 1397 to 1799.1

Lower Bengal threw off the authority of Delhi in 1340. Its ! See article MANJARABAD, The Imperial Gazetteer of India.

NGÀL

INDEPENDENT BENGAL KINGS.

289

dence of

1573;

Muhammadan governor, Fakír-ud-dín, set up as sovereign, with Indepenhis capital at Gaur, and stamped coin in his own name. A Bengal, succession of twenty independent kings ruled Bengal until 1538, 1340-1576; when it was temporarily annexed to the Mughal Empire by Humáyún. It was finally incorporated with that Empire by Akbar in 1576. The great province of Gujarát in Western India Of Guja rát, I39Ihad in like manner grown into an independent Muhammadan kingdom, which lasted for two centuries, from 1391 till conquered by Akbar in 1573. Málwá, which had also set up as an independent State under its Muhammadan governors, was annexed by the King of Gujarát in 1531. Even Jaunpur, Of Jaunincluding the territory of Benares, in the very centre of the pur, 13941478. Gangetic valley, maintained its independence as a separate Musalmán State for nearly a hundred years from 1394 to 1478, under the disturbed rule of the Sayyids and of the first Lodí at Delhi.

VOL. VI.

T

State of

India in

1526.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE (1526 TO 1761 A.D.).

WHEN, therefore, BABAR invaded India in 1526, he found it divided among a number of local Muhammadan kings and Hindu princes. An Afghán Sultán of the house of Loči. with his capital at Agra, ruled over what little was left of the Early life historical kingdom of Delhi. Bábar, literally the Lion, bor of Babar, in 1482, was the sixth in descent from Timúr the Tartar. At 1482-1526. the early age of twelve, he succeeded his father in the petty kingdom of Ferghána on the Jaxartes (1494); and after romantic adventures, conquered Samarkand, the capital of Tamerlane's line in 1497. Overpowered by rebellion, and driven out of the Valley of the Oxus, he seized the kingdom of Kábul in 1504. During twenty-two years he grew in strength on the Afghán side of the Indian passes, till in 1526 he burst through them into the Punjab, and defeated the Delhi sovereign Ibráhím Lodí at Pánípat. This was the first of the three great Battles of battles which decided the fate of India on that same plain, viz Pánipat. in 1526, 1556, and 1761. Having entered Delhi, he received the allegiance of the Muhammadans, but was speedily attacked Conquers by the Rájputs of Chittor. In 1527, Bábar defeated them at Northern Fatehpur Síkri near Agra, after a battle memorable for its penis India, and for Babar's vow, in his extremity, never again to touch wine. He rapidly extended his power as far as Multán and Behar. He died at Agra in 1530, leaving an Empire which stretched from the river Amu in Central Asia to the borders of the Gangetic delta in Lower Bengal.

Invades India, 1526.

1526-30.

Humáyún,

His son, HUMAYUN, succeeded him in India, but had to Emperor, make over Kábul and the Western Punjab to his rival brother Kámrán.1 Humáyún was thus left to govern a new conquest,

1530-56.

1530. Accession to the throne. Capture of Lahore and occupation of the Punjab by his rival brother Kámrán. Final defeat of the Lodis under Mahmud Lodí, and acquisition of Jaunpur by Humáyún.

1532. Humáyún's campaigns in Málwá and Gujarát.

[Footnote continued on next 185

HUMAYUN AND AKBAR.

291

and at the same time was deprived of the base from which his
father had drawn his supplies. The Mughal hordes who had
accompanied Bábar were more hateful to the long-settled
Indian Afgháns than the Hindus themselves. After ten years
of fighting, Humáyún was driven out of India by the Bengali Humáyún
expelled
Afgháns under Sher Shah, the Governor of Bengal. While fly-
by Sher
ing through the desert of Sind, as an exile to Persia, his famous Sháh.
son Akbar was born to him in the petty fort of Umarkot (1542).
Sher Shah set up as Emperor, but was killed while storming Afghán
the rock-fortress at Kálinjar (1545). His son succeeded to dynasty of
Delhi,
his power. But under his grandson, the third of the Afghán 1540–56.
house, the Provinces revolted, including Málwá, the Punjab,
and Bengal. Humáyún returned to India, and with Akbar, then
only in his thirteenth year, defeated the Indo-Afghán army
after a desperate battle at Pánípat (1556). India now passed
finally from the Afgháns to the Mughals. Sher Shah's line dis- Humáyún
appears; and Humáyún, having recovered his Kábul dominions, regains
"' his throne.
reigned again for a few months at Delhi, but died in 1556.
AKBAR THE GREAT, the real founder of the Mughal Empire Akbar the
as it existed for two centuries, succeeded his father at the age of Great,
1556-1605.
fourteen.1 Born in 1542, his reign lasted for almost fifty years,
from 1556 to 1605, and was therefore contemporary with that
of our own Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603). His father, Humá-
yún, left but a small kingdom in India, scarcely extending
beyond the districts around Agra and Delhi. At the time of
Humayun's death, Akbar was absent in the Punjab under the
guardianship of Bairám Khán, fighting the revolted Afgháns.
Bairám, a Túrkomán by birth, had been the support of the
exiled Humáyún, and held the real command of the army
which restored him to his throne at Pánípat in 1556. He now
1539. Humáyún defeated by Sher Shah, the Afghán ruler of Bengal, at
Chapar Ghát, near Baxár, the Mughal army being utterly routed.
Retreats to Agra.

1540. Humáyún finally defeated by Sher Shah near Kanauj, and escapes
to Persia as an exile. Sher Shah ascends the Delhi throne.
1556. Humáyún's return to India, and defeat of the Afgháns at Pánípat by
his young son Akbar. Remounts the throne, but dies in a few
months, and is succeeded by Akbar.

For dates see Thomas' Pathán Kings, pp. 379, 380. Materials for Humá-
yun's reign: Sir Henry Elliot's Persian Historians, vols. iv. v. vi.; Firishta,
vol. ii. pp. 154-180 (1829); Elphinstone, pp. 441-472 (1866).

1 Materials for reign of Akbar: the Ain-i-Akbari, of Abul Fazl (old translation by Francis Gladwin, 2 vols., 1800; best edition by Professor Blochmann (Calcutta, 1873), left unfinished at his death); Sir Henry -Elliot's Persian Historians, vols. i. v. and vi.; Firishta, vol. ii. pp. 1812-82; Elphinstone, 495-547 (1866).