The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c7.s3: Third Invasion
The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c7.s3
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Third Invasion
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Muhammad Ghauris invasion was mounted 150 years after the death of Mahmud Ghaznavi. How the Ghauris rose on the ashes of the Ghaznavids may be recapitulated very briefly. Sultan Mahmud died in Ghazni on 20 April 1030 at the age of sixty, leaving immense treasures and a vast empire. After his death his two sons Muhammad and Masud contested for the throne in which the latter was successful. Masud recalled Ariyaruk, the oppressive governor of Punjab, and in his place appointed Ahmad Niyaltigin. Niyaltigin marched to Benaras to which no Muslim army had gone before. The markets of the drapers, perfumers and jewellers were plundered and an immese booty in gold, silver, and jewels was seized. This success aroused the covetousness of Masud who decided to march to Hindustan in person for a holy war. He set out for India by way of Kabul in November 1037. Hansi was stormed and sacked in February the next year, but the Sultan on return realised that the campaign had been counterproductive. During his absence Tughril Beg, the Seljuq, had sacked a portion of Ghazni town and seized Nishapur in 1037. Khurasan was rapidly falling into the hands of the Seljuqs and western Persia was throwing off the yoke of Ghazni. On the Indian side an army of 80,000 Hindus under Mahipal seized Lahore in 1043, but hastily withdrew on the approach of forces from Ghazni. But curiously enough it was neither the Seljuq danger nor the threat from the Indian side that uprooted the Ghaznavids. The Seljuqs were not interested in the hilly terrain of what is now called Afghanistan, and were spreading westward to Damascus and the Mediterranean. The power that actually ousted the Ghaznavids comprised the almost insignificant tribesmen of the rugged hills of Ghaur lying between Ghazni and Herat, with their castle of Firoz Koh (Hill of Victory). They had submitted to Mahmud in 1010 C.E. and had joined his army on his Indian campaigns. But when the power of the Ghaznavids declined they raised their head. To take revenge of the death of two brothers at the hands of the Ghazni ruler, a third, Alauddin Husain, carried fire and sword throughout the kingdom. The new Ghazni which had been built by Sultan Mahmud at the cost of seven million gold coins was burnt down by Husain (1151), which earned him the title of Jahan-soz (world burner). The very graves of the hated dynasty were dug up and scattered, but even Afghan vengeance spared the tomb of Mahmud, the idol of Muslim soldiers. Near the modern town of Ghazni that tomb and two minarets (on one of which may still be read the lofty titles of the idol-breaker) alone stand to show where, but not what, the old Ghazni was.
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Alauddin, the world-burner died in 1161, and his son two years later, whereupon his nephew, Ghiyasuddin bin Sam, became the chief of Ghaur. He brought order to Ghazni and established his younger brother Muizuddin on the ruined throne of Mahmud (1173-74). Ghiyasuddin ruled at Firoz Koh and Muizuddin at Ghazni. The latter is known by three names as Muizuddin bin Sam, Shihabuddin Ghauri and Muhammad Ghauri. Muhammad Ghauri entered upon a career of conquest of India from this city.
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Muhammad Ghauri was not as valiant and dashing as Mahmud, but his knowledge about India and about Islam was much better. He now possessed Alberunis *India* and Burhanuddins *Hidaya*, works which were not available to his predecessor invaders. Alberunis encyclopaedic work provided to Islamic world in the eleventh century all that was advantageous to know on India.⁷¹ It provided information on Hindu religion, Hindu philosophy, and sources of civil and religious law. Hindu sciences of astronomy, astrology, knowledge of distance of planets, and solar and lunar eclipses, physics and metaphysics are all discussed by him. Ideas on matrimony and human biology are not ignored. Hindu customs and ceremonies, their cities, kingdoms, rivers and oceans are all described. But such a treatise, written with sympathetic understanding, evoked little kindness for the Indian people in the Muslim mind, for to them equally important was the *Hidaya*, the most authentic work on the laws of Islam compiled by Shaikh Burhanud-din Ali in the twelfth century. The Shaikh claims to have studied all earlier commentaries on the Quran and the Hadis belonging to the schools of Malik, Shafi and Hanbal besides that of Hanifa.⁷² These and similar works and the military manuals like the *Siyasat Nama* and the *Adab-ul-Harb* made the Ghauris and their successors better equipped for the conquest and governance of non-Muslim India. There need be no doubt that such works were made available, meticulously studied and constantly referred to by scholars attached to the courts of Muslim conquerors and kings.
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Muhammad Ghauri led his first expedition to Multan and Gujarat in 1175. Three years later he again marched by way of Multan, Uchch and the waterless Thar desert toward Anhilwara Patan in Gujarat, but the Rajput Bhim gave him crushing defeat (1178-79).⁷³ The debacle did not discourage Muhammads dogged tenacity. It only spurred him to wrest Punjab from the Ghaznavid, and make it a base of operations for further penetration into Indian territory. He annexed Peshawar in 1180 and marched to Lahore the next year. He led two more expeditions,⁷⁴ in 1184 and 1186-87, before Lahore was captured. By false promise Khusrau Malik, a prince of the Ghaznavid dynasty, was induced to come out of the fortress, was taken prisoner and sent to Ghazni. He was murdered in 1201. Not a single member of the house of Mahmud Ghaznavi was allowed to survive and the dynasty was annihilated.
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With Punjab in hand, Muhammad Ghauri began to plan his attack on the Ajmer-Delhi Kingdom. Muhammad bin Qasim had fought against the Buddhist-Brahmin rulers of Sind, and Mahmud of Ghazni against the Brahman Hindu Shahiyas of the Punjab. But now fighting had to be done with the Rajputs who had by now risen everywhere to defend their motherland against the repeated invasions of foreign freebooters. Muhammad Ghauri had already tasted defeat at the hands of Solanki Rajputs in Gujarat. Therefore, he made elaborate preparations before marching towards the Punjab in 587 H./1191 C.E. He captured Bhatinda, which had been retaken by the Rajputs from the possession of its Ghaznavid governor, and placed it in charge of Qazi Ziyauddin Talaki with a contingent of 1200 horse. He was about to return to Ghazni when he learnt that Prithviraj Chauhan, the Rajput ruler of Ajmer-Delhi, was coming with a large force to attack him. He turned to meet him and encountered him at Tarain or Taraori, about ten kilometers north of Karnal. The Rajput army comprised hundreds of elephants and a few thousand horse. The Muslims were overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers and their left and right wings were broken. In the centre, Muhammad Ghauri charged at Govind Rai, the brother of Prithviraj, and shattered his teeth with his lance. But Govind Rai drove his javelin through the Sultans arm, and had not a Khalji Turk come to his immediate assistance, Muhammad would have lost his life.⁷⁵ His rescue and recovery helped save his army which continued its retreat in good order. Prithviraj besieged Bhatinda but the gallant Ziyauddin held out for thirteen months before he capitulated.
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At Ghazni, Muhammad severely punished the Ghauri, Khalji and Khurasani amirs,⁷⁶ whom he held responsible for his defeat. Wallets full of oats were tied to their necks and in this plight they were paraded through the city. The Sultan himself was overcome with such shame that he would neither eat nor drink nor change garments till he had avenged himself Next year he again started from Ghazni towards Hindustan with full preparations and with a force of one hundred and two thousand Turks, Persians and Afghans. On reaching Lahore, he sent an ambassador to Ajmer and invited Prithviraj to make his submission and accept Islam. The arrogant message met with a befitting retort, and the armies of the two once more encamped opposite each other on the banks of Saraswati at Tarain, 588 H./1192 C.E. The Rajput army was far superior in numbers. Prithviraj had succeeded in enlisting the support of about one hundred Rajput princes who rallied round his banner with their elephants, cavalry and infantry. To counter such a vast number Muhammad Ghauri adopted a tactic which bewildered the Rajputs. Of the five divisions of his army, four composed of mountain archers, were instructed to attack (by turns) the flanks and, if possible, the rear of the Hindus, but to avoid hand to hand conflicts and, if closely pressed, to feign flight.⁷⁷ He delivered a dawn attack when the Indians were busy in the morning ablutions; the Hindus had to fight the invaders on empty stomach. Explaining the reason for the empty stomach Dr. Jadunath Sarkar writes: It was the Hindu practice to prepare for the pitched battle by waking at 3 Oclock in the morning, performing the morning wash and worship, eating the cooked food (*pakwan*) kept ready before hand, putting on arms and marching out to their appointed places in the line of battle before sunrise But in the second battle of Naraina (also called Tarain, Taraori) the Rajputs could take no breakfast; they had to snatch up their arms and form their lines as best as they could in a hurry In vain did they try to pursue the Turko-Afghan army from 9 oclock in the morning to 3 oclock in the afternoon at the end of which the Hindus were utterly exhausted from the fighting, hunger and thirst.⁷⁸
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When Muhammad found that the Rajput army was sufficiently wearied, he charged their centre with 12,000 of the flower of his cavalry. The Rajputs were completely routed. Govind Rai was killed. Prithviraj was captured⁷⁹ in the neighbourhood of the river Saraswati and put to death. Enormous spoils fell into the hands of the Muslim army.
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With the defeat and death of Prithviraj Chauhan, the task of the invader became easy. Sirsuti, Samana, Kuhram and Hansi were captured in quick succession with ruthless slaughter and a general destruction of temples and building of mosques. The Sultan then proceeded to Ajmer which too witnessed similar scenes. Through a diplomatic move, Ajmer was made over to a son of Prithviraj on promise of punctual payment of tribute. In Delhi an army of occupation was stationed at Indraprastha under the command of Qutbuddin Aibak who was to act as Ghauris lieutenant in Hindustan.⁸⁰
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Further extension of territory was in the logic of conquest. After Prithviraj, the power of Jayachandra, the Gahadvala chief, was challenged. Jayachandra had not come to the aid of Prithviraj hoping, perhaps, that after the defeat of the Chauhan ruler he himself would become the sole master of Hindustan. He was old and experienced, his capital was Kanauj, his dominion extended as far as Varanasi in the east, and he was reputed to be a very powerful prince of the time.
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The Sultan himself marched from Ghazni in 1193 at the head of fifty thousand horse and gave a crushing defeat to Jayachandra on the Jamuna between Chandwar and Etah, and Kanauj and Varanasi became part of Muhammad Ghauris dominions. The usual vandalism and acts of destruction at Varanasi struck terror into the hearts of the people about the cruelty of the Turushkas.