The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c7.17

c7.17

It is worth while to refer to earlier attempts in this quarter, for Muizzudin’s victory on the plains of Tarain was not, as is generally supposed, an isolated personal triumph, nor was it an accident. It was on the one hand, the execution of a deliberate plan by a resolute conqueror and on the other, the fulfilment of a process which extended over the whole of the 12th century. His was only the most successful of the many attempts made by the Turks from the northwest to get a foothold in Hindusthan, and which, therefore, may be regarded as priliminaries to Tarain. The Shansabani conqueror thus, perhaps, unwittingly, brought to a successful end a century of reconnoitering activity, a programme of military action of which he was not the originator. Mahmud’s brilliant campaigns had shown the way, and the Ghaznawide governors of the Punjab, although living under a fast declining empire, maintained pressure on the Hindu states of the Gangetic valley. According to Baihaqui¹, Ahmad Niyal-tigin, in course of his expedition, penetrated as far as Benares. The same authority also credits Masud with the capture of Hansi². Ibrahim is also said to have conducted expeditions against the “infidels”³. The cumulative effect of these raids at the end of the 11th century could not have been great, but the seriousness of the Turkish menace was realised by the Rajput kings. This is clear from the mention of the tax called “*Turushka danda*” (probably collected either to pay off the Turks or to meet the increased cost of fighting them), in a grant of the Gahdvala ruler, Govindachandra¹. The language of the grant suggests that the tax was a familier impost. These attacks increased in frequency and extent in the following century. A grant of Madanapala, dated in 1109, refers to his father Govindachandra as having “compelled the *Hammira* to lay aside his enmity by his matchless fighting”². In an inscription of the feudatory prince, Lakhanapala of Budaon, his great-grand-father Madanapala is mentioned “in consequence of whose distinguished prowess there never was any talk of the *Hammira* coming to the bank of the river of the gods”³. The queen of Govindachandra extols her husband as one “who had been commissioned by *Hara* (God) in order to protect Baranasi from the wicked *Turushka* warrior as the only one who was able to protect the earth”⁴.” The reference to Benares seems to indicate its connection with the expedition of Hajib Tughatigin, the governor of the Punjab under Masud III who is reported to have penetrated to a place across the Ganges which no one except Mahmud had reached before⁵. Vijayachandra (1150-1170) also claimed to have “swept away the affliction of the globe by streams of water flowing from the eyes of the wives of the *Hammira*, the abode of wanton destruction to the earth”⁶ The last Gahdvala ruler, Jayachandra, is also credited in later Sanskrit works with having overcome the “king of Ghor"¹. This must refer to some priliminary inroad before the final engagement.