The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.46

v3.c20.46

Later in the same year he led an expedition into two districts disguised in Persian histories under the names of Qīrāt and Nūr and said to have been situated between the boundaries of India and Turkistan. The most probable conjecture identifies them with the districts of Dīr, Swāt, and Bajaur. The enterprise was successful and the command of the last named district having been bestowed upon ‘Alī *bin* Qadr, a Saljūq Turk, Mahmūd again invaded Kashmīr and besieged Loharkot, but abandoned the siege after a month and retired from Kashmīr. He did not return at once to Ghaznī, but marched into the Punjab to chastise Bhīmpāl for having joined the confederacy of the rajas of Hindūstān. The army, instead of besieging Lahore, dispersed throughout the neighbouring country in order to subsist upon it and to prevent supplies from reaching the capital, and Bhīmpāl was reduced to such straits that he fled and sought an asylum with the Chauhān raja of Ajmer. His flight marks the formal annexation of the Punjab by Mahmūd, who may henceforth be regarded as an Indian ruler. Less than a century and a half after his death the Indian province of his great empire became the kingdom and the sole refuge of his descendants.