The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c21.s1.94

v4.c21.s1.94

The third battle of Pānīpat closes the history of the Moghul Empire. The destruction of the Marāthā power did nothing to weld the various states into which it had been broken or to restore the power and authority of the emperor. Shah 'Ālam was brutally blinded in 1788 by a Rohilla ruffian, Ghulām Qādir, and in 1803 was formally taken under the protection of that power which the victory of Plassey had already designated as successor of the Great Moghuls. His son Akbar II (1806–37) lived and died a pensioner of the same power, whose outraged authority sent his grandson, Bahādur II, to end his days as an exile in Rangoon.