The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c12.s2.3

v4.c12.s2.3

When Buhlūl Lodī, the elected head of a confederacy of Afghān chiefs, appeared on the scene, the old empire of Delhi had really ceased to exist. His grandfather had been governor of Multān under Fīrūz Tughluq, and his father and several of his uncles had served under the Sayyids. Buhlūl annexed the Punjab to Delhi; his son Sikandar Lodī during a reign of thirty years added considerably to the kingdom he had inherited from his father. But the Delhi kingdom was actually a congeries of semi-independent governorships mostly held by Afghāns (Lodīs, Farmūlīs or Lohānīs). Bābur himself says that when he first entered Hindūstān this country was governed by five Muslim and two pagan rulers, namely the Lodīs in the Delhi empire which extended from Bhera to Bihār; Sultān Muhammad Muzaffar in Gujarāt; the Bahmanīs in the Deccan; Mahmūd Khaljī in Mālwā; Nusrat Shāh in Bengal; the Raja of Vijayanagar, and Rānā Sanga in Chitor. In order to make himself master of Hindūstān, Bābur would have to dispose of the Lodīs and of Rānā Sanga. The leading *dramatis personae* in this Indian episode are Ibrāhīm Lodī—the son of Sikandar Lodī, the son of Buhlūl Lodī—who came to the throne in 1517; and ‘Ālam Khān or ‘Alā-ud-Dīn—another son of Buhlūl Lodī. Outside the ruling house were Daulat Khān, governor of Lahore, the son of Tātār Khān, who held Sirhind and all the countries of the Punjab to the north of the Sutlej; Dilāwar Khān, Ghāzī Khān and Hājjī Khān, his sons; Hasan Khān Mewātī, Biban—an Afghān chief, king of Oudh—and Rānā Sangram Singh, or Rānā Sanga of Chitor, who was the acknowledged head of the Hindu chiefs.