The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c26: Chapter XIV. The Kingdom of Mālwa
The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c26
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Chapter XIV. The Kingdom of Mālwa
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MĀLWA, like Gujarāt, became independent of Delhi on the dissolution of that kingdom after the invasion of Tīmūr, at the end of the fourteenth century.
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The date of the appointment of Dilāvar Khān Ghūrī, the Afghān governor, is not precisely known, but he was certainly in Mālwa in 1392, and was probably appointed by Fīrūz Shāh of Delhi, who died in 1388. He remained quietly in Mālwa while Tīmūr sacked Delhi, and when Mahmūd Shāh Tughluq, fleeing before the conqueror, sought an asylum and was disappointed by his reception in Gujarāt, Dilāvar Khān received him as his sovereign, and entertained him with princely hospitality until he was able, in 1401, to return to his capital.
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Alp Khān, Dilāvar Khān's son and heir, strongly disapproved of the deference shown to Mahmūd, which he considered to be incompatible with the independence of Mālwa, and, while the royal guest remained at Dhār, withdrew to Māndū, where he occupied himself in perfecting the defences of that great fortress city.
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Dilāvar Khān never assumed the style of royalty, though he could maintain no pretence of dependence on Delhi, whose nominal lord was a prisoner in the hands of an ambitious minister, but in 1406 Alp Khān, impatient for his inheritance, removed his father by poison, and ascended the throne under the title of Hūshang Shāh.
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In the following year Muzaffar I of Gujarāt invaded Mālwa on the pretext of avenging the death of his old friend, defeated Hūshang before Dhār, drove him into the citadel, forced him to surrender, and carried him off a prisoner to Gujarāt, leaving in Mālwa, as governor, his own brother Nusrat Khān.
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Nusrat Khān treated Mālwa as a conquered country, and his rule was so oppressive and extortionate that the army expelled him, and elected as their ruler Hūshang's cousin, Mūsā Khān, who, fearing the vengeance of the king of Gujarāt, established himself in Māndū, the fortifications of which were now complete. Hūshang, on hearing of this usurpation, implored Muzaffar to restore him to his throne, swearing on the Koran that he was guiltless of his father's death, and Muzaffar, who had his own outraged authority to assert, sent his grandson Ahmad Khān, with an army to restore Hūshang.
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His orders were executed, and Ahmad Khān, after restoring Hūshang at Dhār, then the capital of Mālwa, returned to Gujarāt, but Mūsā Khān, who still held Māndū, was not inclined to submit, and most of the nobles of the kingdom, who were at Māndū with him, though they favoured Hūshang's cause feared to join him, as their wives and families would be left exposed to Mūsā's wrath.
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Hūshang marched to Māndū, and some combats took place between his troops and those of his cousin, but he had no means of reducing the fortress and marched off, but took possession of the kingdom by establishing military posts in the principal towns. Malik Mughīs Khaljī, said to have been descended of the elder brother of Jalāl-ud-dīn Fīrūz Khaljī of Delhi, and Malik Khizr, sons of Hūshang's paternal aunts, left Mūsā Khān and joined Hūshang, and Mūsā, who could not maintain an army without the revenues of the country, which his rival was collecting, was induced by Mughīs to vacate Māndū, which was promptly occupied by Hūshang.
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Hūshang's two abortive invasions of Gujarāt, undertaken for the purpose of supporting rebels against Ahmad I, who succeeded his grandfather on the throne of that kingdom in 1411, have already been described in Chapter XIII. He gained neither credit nor advantage from these attacks on a former benefactor, and he estranged his brother-in-law, Nasīr Khān of Khāndesh, by his tardiness in assisting him when Ahmad attacked him in 1417. Another invasion of the north-eastern districts of Gujarāt in 1418 ended in a disgraceful retreat, and Ahmad, exasperated by these unprovoked attacks, in 1419 invaded Mālwa, defeated Hūshang in a battle fought near Māndū, drove him into that fortress, plundered his country, and retired to Gujarāt at the beginning of the rainy season.
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In 1422 Hūshang undertook a most adventurous enterprise. Believing that elephants were required to make good his military inferiority to his neighbour of Gujarāt he resolved to lead a raid into Orissa, and to capture a number of these beasts from the raja. He cannot have understood the nature of the expedition on which he embarked, for he had to traverse the forests of Gondwāna, then an unknown country to the Muslims, but his objective was Jājpur¹, the capital of Orissa, distant more than 700 miles in a straight line from Māndū.
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¹ In 20° 51′ N. and 86° 20′ E.
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Leaving his cousin Mughīs as his regent in Mālwa he set out at the head of 1000 horse, carrying with him some horses and merchandise which might enable him to pass as a merchant. He travelled expeditiously, and in due course arrived before Jājpur, though it is difficult to believe that he was no more than a month on the road. At Jājpur the raja, one of the line founded by Chora Ganga of Kalinganagar, sent a message to Hūshang, at the spot where he was encamped, and asked him why he did not bring his caravan into the city. Hūshang replied that his men were too numerous to find accommodation, and the raja promised to visit his encampment, to inspect his merchandise and to pay, either in cash or elephants, for anything that he might purchase. On the day appointed the raja came forth attended by 500 horse, and Hūshang had the stuffs which he had brought with him spread on the ground for his inspection. They were damaged by a shower of rain which fell, and by the hoofs of the horses of the raja’s escort, and the damage supplied the pretended merchants with a pretext for quarrelling with the Hindus, whom they attacked and put to flight, the raja himself being taken prisoner. Hūshang then disclosed his identity and informed the raja that he had come to Orissa in search of elephants. The leading men of Jājpur sent an envoy to ask him to formulate his demands, and on learning that he required elephants sent him seventy-five. He then set out for his own country, but carried the raja with him as far as the frontier of the Jājpur state. On his homeward way he learnt that Ahmad I had invaded Mālwa and was besieging Māndū, but he found time to capture Kherla¹ and carry off the raja as his prisoner. As he approached Māndū Ahmad withdrew his troops from the trenches in order to oppose his entry, but he contrived to evade his enemy and entered the fortress.
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¹ In 21° 56′ N. and 78° 1′ E.
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The rest of this campaign has already been described in the preceding chapter. Hūshang was again unfortunate, and after his defeat returned to Māndū and, having allowed his army a brief period of repose, marched to Gāgraun², and besieged and captured that town. Thence he marched to Gwalior, and had been besieging the fortress for a month when Mubārak Shāh of Delhi advanced by way of Bayāna to attack him. He raised the siege and marched towards the Chambal, but Mubārak had gained his object by relieving Gwalior, and hostilities were averted by a treaty, under which each king agreed to return to his own capital.
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² In 24° 38′ N. and 76° 12′ E.
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The raja of Kherla, since he had been made prisoner by Hūshang in 1422, had acknowledged him as his overlord and paid him tribute, thus giving offence to his former suzerain, Ahmad Shāh Bahmanī of the Deccan, who still claimed his allegiance and, in 1428, besieged Kherla, but on Hūshang's marching to its relief retired southwards for three stages, closely followed by Hūshang. He then halted to receive Hūshang's attack, which at first succeeded, but his army was attacked, at the moment when victory seemed assured, by Ahmad Shāh Bahmanī, who had been lying in ambush, and was put to flight. Its rout was so complete that the ladies of Hūshang's harem fell into the hands of the victors, while the army of Mālwa fled headlong to Māndū. The scrupulous and pious Ahmad sent his prisoners to their lord under an escort of 500 horse.
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Hūshang's campaign against Qādir Khān of Kālpī has been described in Chapter x. Kālpī was captured, but Qādir Khān, whose chief offence against Hūshang had been the assumption of the royal title, was reinstated on swearing fealty. Hūshang was much annoyed on his homeward march by the quarrels of his four sons, Ghaznī Khān, 'Usmān Khān, Fath Khān, and Haibat Khān, graceless and worthless youths.
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After his return to Māndū he was engaged in punishing robbers, and when he had completed this task he founded the city of Hoshangābād, on the Narbada. Here he was alarmed by an accident which he took for an omen of death. A ruby fell one day from his jewelled crown, and though his courtiers endeavoured to reassure him, an attack of diabetes confirmed his fears. He left Hoshangābād and returned to Māndū, and on his way thither designated his eldest son as his heir. A number of the nobles, to whom Ghaznī Khān was obnoxious, supported the pretensions of 'Usmān Khān, who had been imprisoned for having grossly insulted his elder brother, and intrigues were set on foot for his liberation, to which the king would not consent.
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Hūshang died on July 6, 1435, within a day's march of Māndū, and Ghaznī Khān, who had the powerful support of his cousin Mughīs and his son Mahmūd Khān, was proclaimed under the title of Muhammad Shāh.
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He was a confirmed drunkard, and left the administration almost entirely in the hands of Mughīs and Mahmūd Khān, but displayed a malignant activity in putting to death his three brothers and blinding his nephew and son-in-law, Nizām Khān, and his three young sons. This barbarity alienated Mahmūd Khān, who began to scheme to depose the tyrant and to seize the throne for himself. His design was revealed to the king, who made arrangements to have him assassinated, but Mahmūd discovered the preparations and to protect himself took precautions so marked that they could not pass unnoticed, and the king took him into his harem and in the presence of his wife, who was Mahmūd's sister, conjured him to be faithful to him. Mahmūd swore that he harboured no designs against him and begged the king to slay him if he suspected him. The king excused himself for his suspicions, and outward harmony was restored, but mutual distrust remained and increased, and Mahmūd, shortly after the interview in the harem, caused his master's death by a dose of poison administered in his wine.
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A faction among the nobles raised to the throne Muhammad's son Mas‘ūd Khān, a boy of thirteen years of age, and, believing Mahmūd Khān to be yet ignorant of the late king's death, summoned him to the palace in Muhammad Shāh's name, and, when he refused to attend, went to his house in a body to arrest him; but he had concealed armed men in the house, and when the nobles entered it they were arrested and imprisoned. Those of their faction who had remained with Mas‘ūd Khān assembled the royal troops and raised an umbrella over his head, and Mahmūd marched on the palace to secure the persons of Mas‘ūd and his younger brother, ‘Umar Khān. Some fighting occurred between the royal troops and those of Mahmūd, and lasted until the evening, when the two boys were so terrified that they persuaded their attendants to allow them to flee from the palace by night. Mas‘ūd Khān sought the protection of a holy Shaikh, and found his way to Gujarāt, and in the morning his supporters, having nothing left to fight for, dispersed, and Mahmūd took possession of the royal palace. He offered the crown to his father, Malik Mughīs, then engaged in hostilities against the Hāra Rājputs of Harāotī, but he hastened to Māndū, declined the honour, and urged his son to ascend the throne. Mahmūd was accordingly proclaimed on May 13, 1436.
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There was still much disaffection among the nobles, who resented the usurpation of the throne by one of their number, and Mahmūd was obliged, immediately after his accession, to cope with a rebellion which assumed serious dimensions owing to the presence in the rebel ranks of Ahmad Khān, a surviving son of Hūshang. The rebellion was crushed, and the leading rebels, including Ahmad Khān, were pardoned and received fiefs, but they rebelled again, and Malik Mughīs was employed to crush them. Ahmad Khān, the most formidable of them, was poisoned by a musician at the instigation of Mughīs, and operations against the others were in progress when Ahmad I of Gujarāt invaded Mālwa with the object of placing Mas‘ūd Khān on his father's throne. The course of this campaign has been traced in the preceding chapter. Ahmad Shāh was compelled to retire to Gujarāt, and died, in 1442, before he could fulfil his promise to Mas‘ūd Khān.
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Mahmūd Shāh’s troubles were not ended by Ahmad Shāh’s retreat. ‘Umar Khān, the younger son of Muhammad Shāh, had fled from Gujarāt to Chitor, whence he had again crossed the frontier of Mālwa and was welcomed by the garrison of Chanderī, who acknowledged him as king. He had been slain during Ahmad Shāh’s invasion, but the garrison had proclaimed another pretender, Malik Sulaimān, under the title of Shihāb-ud-dīn Shāh. Mahmūd besieged Chanderī for seven months, during which period the pretender died, and finally carried it by assault, but during the siege Raja Dongar Singh the Tonwār, of Gwalior, had invaded Mālwa and laid siege to a town named Shahr-i-Nau, not now traceable. Mahmūd invaded Gwalior, plundered and devastated the country, defeated the Hindus, and drove them into the fortress, which he besieged. Dongar Singh raised the siege of Shahr-i-Nau and retired into his own dominions, and Mahmūd, whose sole object had been the expulsion of the invader, returned to Māndū, where he completed the great mosque founded by Hūshang.
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The feeble Sayyid, Muhammad Shāh, now occupied the throne of Delhi, the affairs of which kingdom were in the utmost confusion, and a faction among the nobles, who admired the energy and enterprise of Mahmūd Shāh of Mālwa, and were, perhaps, affected by the consideration that he was a member of a family which had already ruled India, not without glory, invited him to Delhi, and offered him the throne. In 1440 he marched northwards and encamped before Tughluqābād, within eight miles of the city, but his partisans were either too weak to afford him any assistance or had repented of the advances made to him, for the royal army, commanded nominally by Muhammad Shāh’s son ‘Alā-ud-dīn, and actually by Buhlūl Lodī, marched forth to meet him. Mahmūd retained one division of his army in reserve, and sent two, under his sons Ghiyās-ud-dīn and Qadr Khān, against the enemy. The battle, which lasted until nightfall, was indecisive, and Muhammad Shāh proposed terms of peace, of which the principal condition was Mahmūd’s retirement. The offer was readily accepted, for Mahmūd had learnt that during his absence the mob had risen in Māndū, removed the gilded umbrella from the tomb of Hūshang, and raised it over the head of a pretender. The nobles of Delhi were, however, deeply disgusted with the meanness of spirit which permitted an invader thus to depart in peace, and when Buhlūl Lodī violated the treaty by following the retreating army and taking some plunder the exploit was magnified into a great victory, and honour was satisfied.
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On reaching Māndū, on May 22, 1441, Mahmūd found that the rebellion had been suppressed by his father, and rested for the remainder of the year, but marched in 1442 to punish Kumbha, the Rānā of Chitor, for the assistance which he had given to 'Umar Khān, the son of Muhammad Shāh Ghūrī. On his way he learnt that Nasīr Khān, son of Qādir Khān, governor of Kālpī, had assumed the royal title, styling himself Nasīr Shāh, and had, moreover, adopted strange heretical opinions, which he was spreading in his small state. He was minded to turn aside and punish him, and actually marched some stages towards Kālpī, but was persuaded by his courtiers to pardon the offender, who had sent an envoy with tribute and expressions of contrition, and to pursue the object with which he had left Māndū.
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After entering the Rānā's dominions he captured a fort and destroyed a temple, and advanced to Chitor, the siege of which he was forming when he learnt that the Rānā had retired into the hills. He followed him thither, and the Rānā returned to Chitor.
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While Mahmūd was preparing again to form the siege of Chitor his father, Malik Mughīs, who had led an expedition against Mandasor, died, and he retreated to Mandasor, followed by the Rānā, who, in April, 1443, attacked him, but was defeated, and suffered a second defeat in a night attack which Mahmūd made on his camp. The Rānā then retired to Chitor and Mahmūd, who had decided to postpone until the following year the siege of that fortress, returned to Māndū.
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Immediately on his return he received a mission from Mahmūd Shāh Sharqī of Jaunpur, who complained of the misconduct of Nasīr Khān of Kālpī, and sought permission to attack him, which was granted. Mahmūd afterwards repented of having acceded to the request of Mahmūd Sharqī, and desired him to desist from molesting Nasīr Khān, who had fled to Chanderī and sought his assistance. Mahmūd Sharqī evaded a decided answer and on January 12, 1445, Mahmūd Khaljī marched for Chanderī. Thence he marched on Kālpī, avoiding the army of Jaunpur, which was drawn up at Erij to meet him. An indecisive battle was fought near Kālpī, and desultory fighting, in which neither gained any decided advantage, continued for some months, at the end of which period peace was made¹. Nasīr Khān, who promised amendment, was to be restored by degrees to the districts comprising the small state of Kālpī, and Mahmūd Khaljī returned to Māndū, where he occupied himself in building a hospital.
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¹ See Chapter x.
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In October, 1446, he again invaded the Rānā’s dominions. He halted at Ranthambhor, removed Bahār Khān from the command of that fortress, appointed Malik Saif-ud-dīn in his stead, and next halted on the Banās, while his army besieged the Rānā in Māndalgarh. The siege was raised on the Rānā’s promising to pay tribute for the fortress, and Mahmūd marched on Bayāna. When he was within two leagues of the fortress the governor, Muhammad Khān, sent to him his younger son, Auhad Khān, with 100 horses and 100,000 *tangas* as tribute, and Mahmūd, having sent complimentary gifts in return, halted until he had ascertained that Muhammad Khān had substituted his name for that of ‘Ālam Shāh of Delhi in the *khutba* and had struck coin in his name, and then retired by way of Ranthambhor, near which place he captured a minor fortress, and continued his journey towards Māndū, sending Tāj Khān with 8000 horse and twenty-five elephants to besiege Chitor. Before reaching Māndū he collected 125,000 *tangas* as tribute from the raja of Kota.
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Towards the end of 1450 Mahmūd, as has been already recorded in the preceding chapter, invaded Gujarāt in support of Kanak Dās, raja of Chāmpāner, but retired to Māndū without effecting anything or gaining anything beyond an instalment of tribute from Kanak Dās. His invasion of Gujarāt in the following year, which has also been described, ended in a disastrous defeat, which was not retrieved by a raid on Surat, carried out by his son in 1452.
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In 1454 he led a punitive expedition against the rebellious Hāra Rājputs on his northern frontier, put many of them to the sword, and sent their children into slavery at Māndū. Marching on to Bayāna, he collected tribute from the governor, Dāūd Khān, who had succeeded his father, Muhammad Khān, confirmed him in the government, and composed a long-standing dispute between him and Yūsuf Khān of Hindaun. On his return to Māndū he appointed his younger son, Fidāī Khān, entitled Sultān ‘Alā-ud-dīn, to the command of the fortress of Ranthambhor and the government of Harāolī, the district of the Hāra Rājputs.
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Later in the same year Mahmūd invaded the Deccan at the invitation of two rebellious nobles, and laid siege to the fortress of Māhūr, but raised the siege and retired when ‘Alā-ud-dīn Ahmad Shāh Bahmanī marched to the relief of the fortress.
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In 1455 he again attacked the Rānā, marching to Chitor and ravaging his dominions. Kumbha attempted to purchase peace by a large indemnity, but as the money sent bore his own name and device it was indignantly returned, and the devastation of the country continued. Mahmūd retired to Māndū for the rainy season, but returned, when it was past, to Mandasor, and began the systematic conquest of that region. He occupied a standing camp, and sent his troops in all directions to lay waste the country. While he was thus employed it was suggested to him that it would be a work of merit to recover from the idolators the city of Ajmer, which contained the holy shrine of Shaikh Mu‘īn-ud-dīn Chishtī, and he marched rapidly on the city and invested it. Gajānhar, the Rājput commander, made daily sorties, all of which were unsuccessful, and on the fifth day of the investment ordered a general sortie, which was driven back into the city. The pursuers entered with the pursued, and the city was won after great slaughter in the streets. Mahmūd paid his devotions at the shrine, appointed Khvāja Ni‘matullāh, whom he entitled Saif Khān, governor of the city, founded a mosque, and marched to Māndalgarh. Temples were destroyed and the country was devastated in the neighbourhood of this fortress, the siege was opened, and the approaches were carried up to the walls. On October 19, 1457, the place was carried by assault, with great slaughter. A remnant of the garrison shut itself up in the citadel, but was compelled by want of water to surrender, and the lives of the men were redeemed by a promise to pay 1,000,000 *tangas*. The temples in the fortress were overthrown, a mosque was built of their stones, and Mahmūd turned again towards Chitor, sending columns in different directions to harass the Rājputs and reduce them to obedience. Būndī was captured by one column, various districts were harried and placed under contributions of tribute by others, and heavy indemnities were exacted from the *raja* of Kūmbhalgarh and the *raja* of Dungarpur, whose fortresses were too strong to be taken without tedious sieges, to which Mahmūd was not disposed to devote his time.
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After this protracted and successful campaign he returned to Māndū, and in 1461 was induced to embark on a disastrous expedition to the Deccan.
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Nizām-ul-Mulk Ghūrī, who was perhaps related to Mahmūd, was a noble at the court of Humāyūn Shāh, known as the Tyrant—the most brutal and depraved of the line of Bahman. He was traduced at his master’s court, and the tyrant caused him to be assassinated. His family escaped to Māndū and besought Mahmūd to avenge his death, and the invitation was welcomed by Mahmūd, who composed a recent quarrel with ‘Ādil Khan II of Khāndesh and invaded the Deccan. The tyrant Humāyūn had been removed, and had been succeeded by his infant son, Nizām Shāh, who was carried into the field by his nobles. When the two armies met, that of the Deccan gained some slight advantage, but the precipitate action of a slave named Sikandar Khān, who had charge of the person of the child king, decided the fate of the day. He conceived his master’s life to be in danger, carried him from the field, and delivered him to his mother, who was at Fīrūzābād, in the south of his dominions.
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After this victory Mahmūd occupied Berar and the northern Deccan, entered Bīdar, the capital, and besieged the citadel, but meanwhile the guardians of the young Nizām Shāh had sought aid of Mahmūd Bīgarha of Gujarāt, who had arrived on the frontier of the kingdom with 80,000 horse. Mahmūd Gāvān, one of Nizām’s two ministers, marched by Bīr to meet him and assembled a force of 20,000 horse. Mahmūd Bīgarha placed a similar force at his disposal and Mahmūd Khaljī found his direct line of retreat barred. He retired hastily by way of eastern Berar, followed by Mahmūd Gāvān, who cut off his supplies and so harassed him that he abandoned his elephants, after having blinded them, and burnt his heavy baggage. His retreat soon became a rout, and to avoid his pursuers he plunged into the forests of the Melghāt, where his army was nearly destroyed. Over 5000 perished of thirst, and the Korkūs fell upon the remnant and slaughtered large numbers. Mahmūd put the Korkū chieftain to death, but his vengeance could not save his army, few of whom returned to Māndū.
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He learnt little from this disaster and later in 1462, again invaded the Deccan with 90,000 horse, but the army of the Deccan was drawn up to meet him at Daulatābād, and the sultan of Gujarāt once more marched to Nandurbār. On this occasion Mahmūd Khaljī retired before it was too late, and again traversed the Melghāt on his homeward way, but his march was now leisurely, and his troops suffered from nothing more serious than the difficulty of the roads.
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In 1465 Mahmūd was much gratified by the arrival at Māndū of Sharaf-ul-Mulk, an envoy from al-Mustanjid Billāh Yūsuf, the puppet ‘Abbāsid Caliph of Egypt, who brought for him a robe of honour and a patent of sovereignty. The honour was an empty one, such patents being issued chiefly for the purpose of filling the coffers of the needy pontiffs who were in theory the Commanders of the Faithful, and in practice obsequious courtiers of the Mamlūk Sultans of Egypt, but it was highly prized by the lesser sultans in India.
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Nizām-ul-Mulk, an officer of Nizām Shāh of the Deccan, now led a large army against the fortress of Kherla. Sirāj-ul-Mulk, who held it for Mālwa, was helplessly drunk when the enemy arrived before the fortress, but his son attempted to withstand the invader. He was defeated and fled, and Nizām-ul-Mulk occupied Kherla. Mahmūd retaliated by sending Maqbūl Khān against Ellichpur, the capital of Berar, and though he failed to capture the city he laid waste the fertile district in which it stood and returned to Māndū with much spoil, but in the following year a treaty of peace was concluded with Muhammad III, who had succeeded his brother Nizām on the throne of the Deccan and Mahmūd’s possession of Kherla was confirmed but the integrity of Berar, with that exception, was maintained.
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In the same year Mahmūd marched to Kūmbhalgarh and besieged Rānā Kumbha, who was then in that fortress. Learning that Chitor was denuded of troops, Mahmūd ordered his officers to assemble an army, as quietly and unostentatiously as possible, at Khaljīpur, hard by Mandasor, in order that a sudden descent might be made on the Rānā’s capital, but Kumbha discovered the design and sallied from Kūmbhalgarh to attack him. He was defeated, but succeeded in making good his retreat to Chitor, and as the opportunity of surprising the fortress had been lost Mahmūd returned to Māndū. While he had been thus engaged Sher Khān, a Turkish officer in his service, had captured Amrelī in Kāthiāwār and slain its raja, Chītā.
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Muhammad III of the Deccan had broken the treaty of 1466 by tampering with the loyalty of Maqbūl Khān, Mahmūd’s governor of Kherla, who transferred his allegiance to the southern kingdom and surrendered the fortress to the son of the raja whom Mahmūd had imprisoned. Mahmūd’s sons, Tāj Khān and Ahmad Khān, made a forced march to Kherla, defeated the raja’s son, put him to flight, and re-occupied the fortress. The Gonds with whom he took refuge, on hearing that Tāj Khān was preparing to attack them, sent the fugitive to him in chains. Mahmūd visited Kherla, and marched thence to Sārangpur, where he received Khvāja Kamāl-ud-dīn Astarābādī, an envoy from Tīmūr’s great-grandson, Sultān Abu-Sa‘īd, king of Transoxiana, Khurāsān, and Balkh. When the envoy departed he was accompanied by Shaikh-zāda ‘Alā-ud-dīn, whom Mahmūd sent as his envoy to Abu-Sa‘īd.
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In 1468 the landholders of Kachwāra raided some of the districts of Mālwa, and Mahmūd at once marched to punish them. His son Ghiyās-ud-dīn built, in an incredibly short space of time, a fortress which he named Jalālpur, on the border of Kachwāra, which was occupied by a garrison which curbed the predatory tendencies of the rebels.
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In the same year Mahmūd marched to Chanderī, and thence sent Sher Khān and Fath Khān to capture the town of Karahra, 160 miles distant from his camp. They invested the place and pushed forward their parallels until they were able to throw lighted combustibles into one quarter of the town. The fire spread, and destroyed 3000 houses, and the town was captured without difficulty, no fewer than 7000 prisoners being taken. Mahmūd was informed at Chanderī of the outbreak of the conflagration, and is said to have ridden in one night from that town to Karahra in order to witness the discomfiture of the unbelievers, but this is hardly credible.
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In the course of this expedition Mahmūd received, on February 20, 1469, ShaikhzAda Muhammad Qarmalī, Qutb Khān Lodī, and Kapūr Chand, son of Karī Singh, raja of Gwalior, who came as envoys from Buhlūl Lodī, king of Delhi, to seek his help against Husain Shāh of Jaunpur, whose repeated attempts to gain possession of Delhi gave its master no rest and appeared, at this time, to be certain of success. Bayāna was held out as the bait, and Mahmūd promised, in return for the cession of this district, to supply Buhlūl with 6000 horse whenever he might have need of them.
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After the dismissal of this mission Mahmūd returned to Māndū, exhausted with unceasing warfare. He was now sixty-eight years of age, and during a reign of more than thirty-three years he had preferred the song of the lark to the cheep of the mouse, and to be worn out rather than rusted out. In the course of his return march to his capital he suffered severely from the fierce heat of an Indian summer, and on June 1, 1469, shortly after his arrival at Māndū, he expired.
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He was the greatest of the Muslim kings of Mālwa, which reached its greatest extent during his reign. His ambition may be measured by his attempts to conquer Delhi, Gujarāt, Chitor, and the Deccan, in all of which he failed, but against his failures must be set his signal successes against the Rānā Kumbha and many minor Rājput chieftains, his enlargement of the frontiers of his kingdom, and the high estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries. His recognition by the phantom Caliph, worthless though it was, proved, at least, that his fame had reached distant Egypt, and the mission from Sultan Abu-Sa‘īd conveyed to him the more valuable regard of a king in fact as well as in name. He earned a reputation as a builder, and one of his works was a column of victory at Māndū, erected to commemorate his successes against Rānā Kumbha of Chitor. The more famous column of victory at Chitor is said to commemorate victories over Mahmūd of Gujarāt and Mahmūd of Mālwa. If this is so it, ‘like some tall bully lifts its head and lies.’ Mahmūd I failed to capture Chitor, but the Rānā never gained any important victory over him. The successes of the Gahlots against Mālwa were gained by Sangrama Singh, not by Kumbha, against Mahmūd II, not Mahmūd I.
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Mahmūd was a good Muslim. He substituted the unpractical and inconvenient lunar calendar, sacred to Islam, for the solar calendar in all public offices, he destroyed temples and idols and slew or enslaved their worshippers, and he was so scrupulous about meats that when he was besieging the citadel of Bīdar he harassed the saint Khalīlullāh Butshikan, son of Shāh Ni‘matullāh of Māhān, with questions regarding a supply of lawful vegetables for his table. The saint expressed surprise that one who was engaged in attacking a brother Muslim and slaying his subjects should be so scrupulous in the matter of his food. Mahmūd acknowledged, with some embarrassment, the justice of the rebuke, but pleaded that the laws of the faith had never sufficed to curb the ambition of kings.
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Mahmūd I was succeeded by his eldest son, Ghiyās-ud-dīn, who took his seat on the throne two days after his father’s death. He earned the gratitude of his servants by retaining in their posts all those whom his father had appointed, and displayed a confidence in the loyalty of his near relations rarely found in an eastern king. His next brother, Tāj Khān, was confirmed in his fiefs and received the title of ‘Alā-ud-dīn, and his younger brother, Fidāī Khān, was permitted to retain the government of Ranthambhor and other districts. His declaration of policy resembled that of the Roman emperor Augustus. His father, he said, had extended his sway over the whole land of Mālwa, and it should be his care to hold what had been acquired, not to molest his neighbours. So averse was he from war that when Buhlūl Lodī raided Pālampur, near Ranthambhor, he would not take the field himself, but ordered Sher Khān, governor of Chanderī, to obtain satisfaction from the invader, which task was sufficiently well performed, and when, in 1484, he marched from Māndū in response to an appeal from the raja of Chāmpāner, who had sought his aid against Mahmūd Begarha, he was suddenly smitten with compunction, and consulted the doctors of the law on the legality of aiding an infidel against a Muslim, and, on their delivering the opinion that such assistance was unlawful, at once returned to Māndū.
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At the beginning of his reign he conferred on his eldest son, ‘Abd-ul-Qādir, the title of Nāsir-ud-dīn Sultān, designated him as his heir, and associated him with himself in the business of government.
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Ghiyās-ud-dīn found his own chief amusement in the administration of his harem, which it was his fancy to organise as a kingdom in miniature, complete in itself. Its army consisted of two corps of Amazons, of 500 each, one of African and one of Turkish slave girls, who at public audiences were drawn up on either side of the throne. The harem contained, besides these, 1600 women, who were taught various arts and trades, and organised in departments. Besides the musicians, singers, and dancers usually found in a royal seraglio there were goldsmiths, blacksmiths, shoemakers, weavers, potters, tailors, makers of bows, arrows, and quivers, carpenters, wrestlers, and jugglers, each of whom received fixed wages, their officers, also women, being paid at higher rates, also women who supervised the various crafts and administrative departments. These women were recruited, at great trouble and expense, from all parts of India, but a case in which one of his agents abducted a girl from her parents led him to order the cessation of recruitment in his own dominions. A replica in miniature of the great bazar in the city was erected within the precincts of the palace, and was filled with the artists, artisans, and craftswomen of the harem. The king himself regulated with meticulous nicety the pay and allowances of all, even to the quantities of grain, fodder and meat allotted to the various animals employed or domesticated within the extensive premises set apart for the harem, decided disputes, and generally wasted in these futile pursuits the time and energy which should have been devoted to the administration of his kingdom.
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When not thus employed he devoted himself to the ceremonies of his faith, and to inventing others, to add to the list of those with which the daily life of a devout Muslim is encumbered. He insisted on being aroused every night, shortly after midnight, even if force should be necessary, for the recitation of the voluntary night prayers, and he abstained, not only from all intoxicants, but from all food of the legality of which there was the slightest doubt, and from wearing clothes of materials not sanctioned by the law of Islam.
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His folly and profusion were practised upon by rogues and impostors, whose fraudulent tricks needed but to be connected in some way with professions of religion to receive unmerited rewards. A beggar from Delhi picked up a handful of wheat from a heap lying in the courtyard of the palace and carried it into the royal presence. When asked the meaning of his action he explained that he was one who had committed to memory the whole of the Koran, which he had recited over each single grain of the wheat in his hand, which he now offered to the king. Honours and favours were showered upon him.
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Another rogue brought to the king the hoof of an ass, which he asserted to be a hoof of the ass on which our Lord had entered Jerusalem. He received 50,000 *tangas* and was, of course, followed by three other rogues, each bearing the hoof of an ass, of which he told the same story and for which he received the same reward. As though this were not enough, a fifth appeared, with a fifth hoof, and the king commanded that he likewise should receive 50,000 *tangas*. The courtiers protested against this folly, and asked their master whether he believed that the Messiah’s ass had five legs. ‘Let him have the reward,’ replied the crowned fool, ‘perhaps he is telling the truth and one of the others made a mistake.’
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At such a court as this beggars of all classes of course abounded, and the taxes wrung from a thrifty and industrious people were squandered on rogues, vagabonds and idlers.
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Ghiyās-ud-dīn’s declining years were embittered by a violent quarrel between his two sons, ‘Abd-ul-Qādir Nāsir-ud-dīn and Shujā‘at Khan ‘Alā-ud-dīn, whose mother, Rānī Khurshīd, daughter of the raja of Baglāna, favoured the cause of the younger. The miserable king, whose naturally feeble intellect was now impaired by old age, was incapable of composing the strife, and vacillated between his heir and his wife’s favourite. Murders were committed on either side, and both appealed to arms. Nāsir-ud-dīn marched out of the capital and assembled an army, and both his father and his mother attempted to persuade him to return, the former that the prince might resume the government of the kingdom, which had latterly fallen entirely into his hands, and the latter that she might find an opportunity of putting him to death. Nāsir-ud-dīn’s first attempt to storm the capital was unsuccessful, but the greater part of the nobles and the army was on his side, and he was eventually admitted by the Bālāpur gate. He seized his mother and brother, imprisoned the one and put the other to death, and on October 22, 1500, ascended the throne with the consent of his father. He caused those of the nobles who had opposed him to be put to death and designated his second son, Miyān Manjhla, as his heir, conferring on him the title of Shihāb-ud-dīn.
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Many of the nobles in the provinces, including Sher Khān, the powerful governor of Chanderī, and Muqbil Khān, governor of Mandasor, declined to believe that the new king had ascended the throne with his father’s consent, and took up arms against him. After one unsuccessful attempt to crush this rebellion, and another attempt, equally unsuccessful, to conciliate the rebels, he took the field against them, and assembled his army at Na‘lcha, leaving his son Shihāb-ud-dīn in charge of the capital. At Dhār he received news of the death of his father, on February 28, 1501, from poison, administered, as it was generally believed, by his orders. He encountered the rebels at Sārangpur and utterly defeated them. Sher Khān fled to Chanderī, and thence to Erij and Bhānder¹, and Nāsir-ud-dīn occupied Chanderī, but discovered that a faction in the town had invited Sher Khān to return and promised him their active support. He sent a force against the rebel, who was advancing on Chanderī and who was defeated and so severely wounded that he died in the course of his retreat. The king marched as far as the spot where the body had been buried, exhumed it, and carried it back to Chanderī, where it was exposed on a gallows. He then appointed Bihjat Khān governor of Chanderī and returned to Māndū, when by deep drinking he aggravated the natural ferocity of his disposition and by his violent and irascible temper alienated his nobles.
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¹ In 24° 31′ N. and 73° 45′ E.
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In 1503 he led a marauding expedition into the dominions of the Rānā, and later in the year sent a force to the aid of Dāūd Khān of Khāndesh, whose dominions had been invaded by Ahmad Nizām Shāh of Ahmadnagar.
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In 1510 Shihāb-ud-dīn, his son and heir apparent, rose in rebellion, and was joined by most of the nobles in the provinces and many in the capital, who were disgusted by the king’s tyranny. Nāsir-ud-dīn marched against him and met him, with greatly inferior numbers, at Dhār. Shihāb-ud-dīn, encouraged by his numerical superiority, attacked his father, but was defeated and fled to Chanderī, and, when he was pursued thither, to Siprī. His father followed him, and having vainly attempted to persuade him to return to his allegiance set out for Māndū, but died on his way thither.
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Of the manner of his death there are two accounts. According to one he contracted a fever and insisted on bathing in cold water, which so aggravated his illness that it terminated fatally. According to the other he gave expression to his suspicions of many of his nobles, whom he believed to have been secretly in correspondence with Shihāb-ud-dīn, and uttered menaces, until they became so apprehensive that they poisoned him. Immediately after his death they unanimously raised to the throne, on May 2, 1511, his son ‘Alā-ud-dīn Mahmūd II, who was in the camp, and sent Nāsir-ud-dīn’s body to Māndū for burial.
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Shihāb-ud-dīn, on hearing of his father’s death, returned to Mālwa and marched on Māndū, but Mahmūd II outstripped him and arrived there first, and when Shihāb-ud-dīn reached the city the gates were shut in his face. After attempting, without success, to persuade the governor of the city, Muhāfiz Khān, to admit him, he retired to the fortress of Asīr, in Khāndesh.
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Mahmūd II confirmed in his post his father’s minister, a Hindu named Basant Rāi, but the Muslim nobles so resented his tenure of this high place that they murdered him. The intrigues of Muhāfiz Khān, governor of Māndū, drove Iqbāl Khān and Mukhtass Khān, two of the leading nobles, into rebellion and they fled to the Narbada and sent Nusrat Khān, the former’s son to Asīr, to summon Shihāb-ud-dīn to the throne of Mālwa. The prince was so overjoyed that he set out at once, riding hard, in the great heat, to join his adherents, but he succumbed, and on July 29, 1511, died on the road. The rebels sent his body to Māndū for burial, proclaimed his son king under the title of Hūshang II, and marched into the central districts of Mālwa. A force was sent against them and defeated them, and Hūshang took refuge in Sehore, but the leaders convinced the king that they were loyal at heart, and had rebelled only in consequence of the intrigues of Muhāfiz Khān. This officer had already angered the king by proposing that he should put to death his eldest brother, Sāhib Khān, and the quarrel became so acute that Muhāfiz Khān attacked the king in his palace. He was defeated and driven off, and avenged himself by proclaiming Sāhib Khān king under the title of Muhammad II¹. Mahmūd II escaped from Māndū and withdrew to Ujjain, where he was joined by Iqbāl Khān, Mukhtass Khān, and Dastūr Khān. Sāhib Khān advanced to Na‘lcha, and Mahmūd retired to Dīpālpur, where most of the nobles, whose wives and families were in Māndū, deserted him. He asked Bihjat Khān, governor of Chanderī, to give him an asylum in that fortress, but Bihjat Khān replied that he was the servant of the king who held Māndū. Mahmūd knew not where to turn, and remained irresolute for some days, until he bethought himself of Mednī Rāi the Purbiya, a Rājput of eastern Hindūstān, who held the military government of a small district in Mālwa and was noted for his valour. He responded to the king’s call, and came to his aid, and his accession induced Bihjat Khān of Chanderī to change his attitude, so that he sent his son Shiddat Khān to the king with offers of service.
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¹ Muhammad II reigned nominally from A.H. 917 to A.H. 921 (A.D. 1511–1516). His extant coins bear the latter date.
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Mahmūd, thus reinforced, marched to meet his brother, who advanced from Māndū. The armies met in the evening, and while they were encamped for the night Afzal Khān deserted the prince, taking half of the army with him to Mahmūd’s camp, and Muhammad fled without fighting. Mahmūd at once marched on Māndū, being joined on the way by the remnant of Shihāb-ud-dīn’s supporters from Sehore, and on November 28 found his brother, who had assembled a number of troops, barring his way to the capital. Muhammad was defeated, and fled into the fortress, and Mahmūd, after an ineffectual attempt to induce him to submit, opened the siege of the place. On January 6, 1512, he was admitted into the fortress by some of his partisans, and Muhammad and Muhāfiz Khān fled, with such jewels and treasure as they could collect and carry with them, and threw themselves on the protection of Muzaffar II of Gujarāt, who was then encamped at Baroda. The course of Muhammad’s subsequent wanderings has been traced in the preceding chapter. He found a home, for a time, in Berar, under the protection of ‘Alā-ud-dīn ‘Imād Shāh.
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Mahmūd was now established at Māndū, and soon had occasion to repent of having summoned the Purbiya Rājputs to his aid. Mednī Rāi assumed the office of minister, dismissed from their posts all the old nobles of the kingdom, in whose places he appointed men of his own faith and race, and induced the king to sanction the assassination of Afzal Khān and Iqbāl Khān, whom he accused of entering into correspondence with Muhammad. The Muslim nobles viewed with mingled disgust and apprehension the supremacy of the idolators in the state, and Sikandar Khān, governor of Satwās and one of the most important of the great fief-holders, raised the standard of revolt. Bihjat Khān of Chanderī excused himself from obeying his sovereign’s command to march against the rebel, and Mansūr Khān of Bhīlsa, who obeyed the royal summons, was so ill supported that he abandoned the attempt to crush the rebellion, and joined Bihjat Khān at Chanderī. Mednī Rāi reduced Sikandar Khān to obedience, and by confirming him in his fiefs induced him to renew his allegiance to Mahmūd.
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Bihjat Khān of Chanderī was still contumacious, and when Mahmūd marched in person to Āgar sent letters to Sāhib Khān, or Muhammad Shāh, in Berar, and to Sikandar Shāh Lodī of Delhi, begging the former to join him and receive the crown of Mālwa, and seeking the assistance of the latter against a king who was dominated by infidels.
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While Mahmūd was awaiting the return of a mission which he had sent to Bihjat Khān for the purpose of recalling him to his obedience, he was perturbed by the news of a revolt in his capital, and of the invasion of his kingdom by Muzaffar II of Gujarāt, but the revolt was immediately suppressed and Muzaffar was recalled to Gujarāt by domestic disturbances. No sooner had Mahmūd been reassured by this news than he learnt that Sikandar Khān was again in rebellion, and had defeated and slain a loyal officer who had endeavoured to reduce him to obedience. At the same time he learned that his brother had reached Chanderī and had been proclaimed king by Bihjat Khān and Mansūr Khān. He retired to Bhilsa and remained for some time in that neighbourhood. His inaction encouraged the rebels to send a force to Sārangpur, but the governor of that district defeated them, and the news that a contingent sent to their help by Sikandar Shāh Lodī had retired restored Mahmūd's spirits, and disheartened, in a corresponding degree, his enemies. An attempt of Muhāfiz Khān to return to Māndū was defeated, and the rebels were ready to come to terms. The king was no less weary of the conflict, which, as he now understood, was being prolonged only in the interest of the Purbiya Rājputs, and ceded to his brother the districts of Rāisen, Bhīlsa, and Dhamonī, besides remitting to him a substantial sum for his immediate needs. The retention of the money by Bihjat Khān excited the apprehensions of Muhammad, who believed that he was about to be betrayed to his brother, and fled to the protection of Sikandar Shāh Lodī, thus enabling his host to make an unqualified submission to Mahmūd, who, on December 18, 1513, was received at Chanderī by Bihjat Khān, who endeavoured, without success, to free him from his subservience to Mednī Rāi.
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Early in 1514 the king returned to Māndū, where he fell entirely under the influence of the Rājput minister, and at his instigation put many of the old Muslim nobles of the kingdom to death. The rest left the court, and even menial servants were dismissed, until the king was entirely in their power. He made an effort to free himself by dismissing Mednī Rāi, but the minister refused to accept his dismissal, and the Rājputs were restrained from violence only by prudential considerations, and promised in future to abstain from what was their greatest offence in the eyes of Muslims—the keeping of Muslim women as concubines. One of their leaders, Sālibāhan, refused to make this promise, and the offence thus continued. Mahmūd then attempted to remove Mednī Rāi and Sālibāhan by assassination, and succeeded in the case of the latter, but the former was only wounded, and the Rājputs attacked the king’s small bodyguard of Muslims, but were defeated, chiefly owing to their fear of provoking the intervention of Muzaffar II of Gujarāt by proceeding to extremities.
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In 1517 Mahmūd lost patience with his Hindu masters, and, leaving Māndū on the pretext of hunting, eluded his Rājput escort and fled to the frontier of Gujarāt, where he sought aid of Muzaffar II, whose ready response to the appeal, and the capture of Māndū, the terrible massacre of the Rājputs, and Mahmūd’s restoration to his throne have already been described in the preceding chapter.
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The Rājputs had not all been in Māndū when it was taken by Muzaffar, and Mednī Rāi had established himself in the northern and eastern districts of the kingdom: his officers held Chanderī and Gāgraun, and his brother, Silahdī, Rāisen, Bhīlsa, and Sarangpur.
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Mahmūd recalled all his old Muslim nobles and their troops, and by the advice of Āsaf Khān of Gujarāt, who had been left, with 10,000 horse, by Muzaffar II to assist him against his enemies, marched first to Gāgraun, which was held by Hemkaran for Mednī Rāi.
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