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The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v2: Volume 2

The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v2

Language
English

Contents

Volume 2

Front matter

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The History of Bengal, Volume II: Muslim Period 1200—1757

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VOLUME II

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1200—1757

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EDITED BY SIR JADU-NATH SARKAR, KT., C.I.E., M.A., HONY. D.LITT. *Hony M.R.A.S. (London), Hony Fellow R.A.S. of Bengal and* *Bombay, Corresponding Member Royal Hist. Soc. (Eng.)*

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(University of Dacca emblem)

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PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF DACCA RAMNA, DACCA.

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First Edition, August, 1948

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PRINTED BY SURES C. DAS, M.A., ON BEHALF OF GENERAL PRINTERS & PUBLISHERS LTD. AT THEIR WORKS ABINAS PRESS—119, DHARAMTALA ST., CALCUTTA.

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BY

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THE PUBLICATION COMMITTEE

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On behalf of the University of Dacca and of the History of Bengal Publication Committee, it is my privilege to offer my most sincere thanks to Sir Jadunath Sarkar through whose untiring efforts this volume is seeing the light of the day. But for the admirable promptness and skill with which he modified our old scheme to suit the altered conditions, the publication of this volume would have been indefinitely delayed. This achievement of Sir Jadunath is all the more creditable since he worked under conditions in which any one who did not possess his indomitable courage would have broken down. Sir Jadunath suffered bereavement after bereavement while he was engaged in the preparation of this volume.

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It is a great pity that before this volume could be completed, two of the promoters of the scheme were taken away from us by the cruel hand of death. Shifāul-Mulk Hakim Habibur Rahman Khan who was the embodiment of all that is best in Muslim culture, died suddenly in the midst of his labours. He was engaged at the time of his death in collecting useful material for the social and cultural history of mediaeval Bengal intended for this volume. Equally sudden was the death of our indefatigable Secretary, Dr. S. N. Bhattacharyya of the Department of History, University of Dacca, who had been actively associated with the scheme from the very beginning.

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I take this opportunity of thanking sincerely all the learned scholars without whose help this volume could not have been published.

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Dacca, 8th May, 1948.

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M. HASAN Vice-Chancellor, University of Dacca.

Editor's Preface

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The first volume of this History, containing the Hindu period, was published in May 1943. The second and third volumes, which were to cover the early Muslim and the Mughal periods respectively, were planned at the same time as the first in 1936, and should in normal circumstances have followed it in two to four years. But the times were not normal, and a number of unforeseen difficulties have compelled the editor not only to delay their publication but also to alter their plan.

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My first and most serious difficulty sprang from the insufficiently known fact that while the Hindu period of Bengal history, in almost every part of it has been worked over by a large number of modern scholars producing fruits of a high standard,—the Muslim period, except for a few reigns still remains unexplored ground, and we are still encompassed by almost the same mist of tradition and the deceptive light of pious frauds, which baffled Captain Charles Stewart when he attempted the first History of Bengal in English 130 years ago. Even the chronology of many of the early Muslim rulers of Bengal is still unsettled, as their coins are so few and so badly executed that their dates cannot be read with certainty. This want of modern research has been most acutely felt in respect of the social, economic and cultural history of mediaeval Bengal, the only exception being the studies in Vaishnavism, which, however, relate to the Mughal period. The students of our province's economic history have concentrated their attention on the British period and the late 17th century British trade in Bengal, while in respect of the rest of the country's history during the Muslim period, the surface has been hardly scratched.

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Thus a history of Bengal under Muslim rule is bound to be a production of very uneven parts, being up to modern standards of scholarship and rich in accurate details in certain topics or reigns only, and totally dark or covered with the haze of loose tradition in all others.

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It was originally intended to spread the political and cultural history evenly through these two volumes, one ending with the Mughal conquest (1575) and the other with the downfall of Muslim rule (1757). But if this plan had been adhered to, the publication of each of these volumes would have been put off till a new generation of research students had arisen and lit up the dark places of our cultural and social history during the middle ages. Therefore, the first change that was forced upon me was to put all the political narrative of the projected two volumes in one and print it first, as the necessary contributors were available and they could be asked to supply their chapters in two years. The social and cultural history of the entire Muslim age was assigned to the final volume, which we could not hope to compile in the near future.

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The next hitch occurred after the chapters of this "political history" volume had been allotted to different scholars and they had been given two years' time to submit their work. Some of them, after wavering, declined the task, many others were found to be habitually incapable of writing their promised chapters within the time limit, or indeed ever at all. So, at last the painful truth dawned upon the mind of the Editor that he must personally shoulder the burden of writing the major portion of even the political history of Bengal during five and a half centuries, if this volume was to be completed in his lifetime. That, as will be remembered, was also the sad experience of Dr. R. C. Majumdar, the Editor of the first volume. As will be seen, I have had to write more than 200 pages in this volume of a little over 500 pages, besides revising and sometimes recasting the work of many of the other contributors.

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After these preliminary troubles had been got over as best we could, we had hopes of the manuscripts for the different chapters being sent in to the Editor by the end of 1941; but just at that time came the war with Japan and the air raids on Bengal and Assam. The libraries of our Universities and learned Societies were closed and their most valuable books and journals were sent into storage in safer places far inland. Thus, our Bengali contributors could not consult learned works or verify references. This interruption lasted during the pendency of the war.

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When the world war ended, our troubles instead of easing, became rather intensified. Political disorder, sectarian fights, and even common types of crime, raised their ugly heads all over the province on a scale unheard of before. The evil was aggravated by almost universal labour trouble, which interrupted postal and railway communications, and during several months the working of printing presses. Thus, though the first chapter of this volume was put in type as early as October 1944, its actual printing made very slow progress for over two years, for no fault of the printers. However, by intense activity during 1947, the book was completed and the printing nearly finished by the end of that year.

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These troubles and the necessity of printing off the composed matter promptly during 1947, explain why the proofs could not be sent to our distant contributors but had to be read in Calcutta. If any errors have crept in, the writers should not be held responsible for them.

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This long delay has robbed one of our valued contributors, Dr. Sudhindra Nath Bhattacharya, Ph.D., of the pleasure of seeing his work in print; and it is now the Editor’s painful duty to give him posthumous thanks for his excellent chapters (82 pages of print, Chapters 13-16) relating to a period that he had made peculiarly his own. His intensive study of the history of Bengal’s north-eastern frontier during the reign of Jahangir, his minute attention to topography, his gift of identifying even petty villages by ransacking the lists of villages in different districts compiled by Government for the use of post offices, and his acumen in correcting errors of date in accepted works, all lend a special value to the work of Dr. Sudhindra Nath Bhattacharya. He had written his contribution at much fuller length and requested the Editor to compress it to a size more in keeping with the general plan of this volume. The Editor has reduced it to half its original length, but nowhere has any of the author’s opinions been altered.

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The other contributors are happily still in our midst and to them I render my thanks for their valued assistance: Dr. Kalika Ranjan Qanungo (91 pages, Chapters 1-3), Professor Nirod Bhusan Roy (38 pages, Chapters 4 and 8), Dr. A. B. M. Habibullah (36 pages, Chapters 6 and 7), Dr. Jagadish Narayan Sarkar (7 pages, Chapter 18), Dr. Surendra Nath Sen (20 pages, Chapter 19) and Dr. Kali Kinkar Datta (33 pages, Chapters 22 and 23).

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No attempt has been made to remove the minor differences of opinion or date between one contributor and another in their respective sections; and each of them must be judged in the light of the authority relied upon by him.

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For the Editor’s own portion of this volume (200 pages, Chapters 5, 9-12, 17, 20, 21, 24-26, besides some sections of Chapters 14 and 18), his only apology is the nature of the raw material on which he had to work. He had to clear the jungle and break virgin soil in respect of certain periods in his share, such as the viceroyalties of Prince Muhammad Shuja’, Shaista Khan, and Murshid Quli Khan. In these, my predecessors, the Riyāz-us-salātin and its English version, Stewart’s History of Bengal, had merely left to us an uncharted wilderness, and I had to construct their true story by piecing together a large number of stray hints in Persian manuscripts and letters and European traders’ reports. A comparison of these chapters with the corresponding pages in Stewart will show how our knowledge of the history of Bengal has advanced beyond recognition in the century and a quarter that have followed the days of Stewart. No period of the history of mediaeval Bengal is now known even in half such fulness and accuracy of detail, supported by absolutely contemporary records, as the reign of Jahangir (1608-1627). But that was due entirely to my discovery of the *Bahāristān-i-Ghaibi* (Mirzā Nathan’s personal recollections) in the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris (in 1919) and the Ahom *buranjis* brought to light at Sir Edward Gait’s initiative. These priceless materials have been exhaustively utilised through the long and devoted study of Professor Sudhindra Nath Bhattacharya.

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In conclusion, I must thank the General Printers & Publishers Ltd., for their patient care in printing what was often very badly typed and worse corrected manuscripts and keeping the composed matter standing for long periods of civil disturbance. Dr. Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, Ph.D., smoothed the launching of the scheme by making the preliminary arrangements and giving constant attention to the work to be done by the Dacca Committee, during his five years’ Vice-Chancellorship of that University, till his retirement in 1942. The present Vice-Chancellor of the Dacca University, Dr. Mahmood Hasan, D. Phil, has made my work much easier by taking an unfailing interest in the book and solving every difficulty as it arose, so as to expedite its publication.

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For the very detailed and helpful index, with its cross references and explanatory notes, we are indebted to the trained skill of Professor Nirod Bhusan Roy M.A. Sriyut Asoka K. Majumdar, M.A., has been very helpful to me in expediting the printing.

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The cost of book production is now four times what it was in 1938 when the publication of this History was planned, and there is an acute shortage of skilled assistants. For this reason and also to avoid further delay in the publication of this volume, no map (except one), picture or coin plate could be included in it. The Editor’s regret for this cruel necessity is no less keen than that of his readers, especially as all will miss the very necessary illustrations of the changes in the river-courses and land-routes during the six centuries covered by this volume. We can only hope that with better times this defect will be made good in Volume III.

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February, 1948. JADUNATH SARKAR

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Muslim Conquest of Bengal Sections 1, 3-6 by Dr. Kālikā Ranjan Qānungo, M.A., PH.D. Professor, and Head of the Department of History, Dacca University Section 2 by Sir Jadunāth Sarkār, M.A., D.LITT. Ex-Vice-Chancellor, Calcutta University . . . 1-29 Appendix A. Race, parentage and dates of Md. Bakhtyār Khilji Dr. K. R. Qānungo . . . 30-34 Appendix B. Geographical notes Dr. K. R. Qānungo . . . 35-38 Appendix C. Coins and Chronology of ‘Iwāz Dr. K. R. Qānungo . . . 39-41

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CHAPTER II. Bengal under the Mamluks (1227-87) Dr. K. R. Qānungo . . . 42-57

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CHAPTER III. Bengal under the House of Balban Dr. K. R. Qānungo . . . 58-91 Appendix A. Chronology Dr. K. R. Qānungo . . . 91-94

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CHAPTER IV. Rise of the Ilyās Shāhi Dynasty . . . 95-119 Sections 1 and 7 by Sir Jadunāth Sarkār Sections 2-6, and 8 by Professor Nirod Bhusan Roy, Professor of History, Mymensingh College

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CHAPTER V. Intervening Hindu Dynasty . . . 120-129 Sections 1-3 by Sir Jadunāth Sarkār Section 4 by Dr. K. R. Qānungo

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CHAPTER VI. Later Ilyās Shāhis and the Abyssinians (1442-1498) . . . 130-141 Dr. A. B. M. Habibullah, M.A., PH.D. Lecturer Calcutta University

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Husain Shāhi Dynasty (1493-1538) Dr. A. B. M. Habibullah . . . . . . 142-165

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Bengal under Imperial Afghan Rule Professor Nirod Bhusan Roy, M.A. . . . . . 166-178

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CHAPTER IX.

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Last Afghan Sultans, (1553-1575) Sir Jadunāth Sarkār . . . . . . . 179-186

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CHAPTER X.

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First Mughal Conquest of Bengal Sir Jadunāth Sarkār . . . . . . . 187-206

Chapter XI.

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Mān Singh Kachhwā, Viceroy Sir Jadunāth Sarkār . . . . . . . 207-215

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CHAPTER XII.

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Transformation of Bengal under Mughal Rule Sir Jadunāth Sarkār . . . . . . . 216-233

Chapter XIII.

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State of Bengal under Jahāngir Dr. Sudhindra Nāth Bhattāchārya, M.A., PH.D. Lecturer, Department of History, Dacca University . . . . . . . . . 234-246

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CHAPTER XIV.

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Conquests of Islām Khan (1608-1613) Dr. Sudhindra Nāth Bhattāchārya . . . . . 247-270 Appendix. Islām Khan's dates Dr. Sudhindra Nāth Bhattāchārya . . . . . 270-272

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CHAPTER XV.

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Last Achievements of Islām Khan Dr. Sudhindra Nāth Bhattāchārya . . . . . 273-288

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CHAPTER XVI.

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Twenty Years of stagnation and reverse (1613-1633) Dr. Sudhindra Nāth Bhattāchārya . . . . . 289-315

Chapter XVII.

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Bengal under Shah Jahan Sir Jadunāth Sarkār . . . . . . . 316-338

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CHAPTER XVIII.

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Mir Jumlā in Bengal 1659-1663 Sections 1 and 2, Dr. Jagadish Nārāyan Sarkār, PH.D. Lecturer, Patna College Sections 3-5, Sir Jadunāth Sarkār . . . . 339-350

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CHAPTER XIX.

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The Portuguese in Bengal Dr. Surendra Nāth Sen, D.LITT. Director, National Archives of India . . . 351-370

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CHAPTER XX.

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Bengal under Shāista Khan and Ibrāhim Khan Sir Jadunāth Sarkār . . . . . . 371-396

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CHAPTER XXI.

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Bengal under Murshid Quli Khan Sir Jadunāth Sarkār . . . . . . 397-421

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CHAPTER XXII.

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Shujā-‘ud-din Md. Khan Dr. Kāli Kinkar Datta PH.D. Head of Department of History, Patna College 422-435

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CHAPTER XXIII.

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Alivardi Khan Dr. Kāli Kinkar Datta, PH.D. . . . . 436-454

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CHAPTER XXIV.

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Marāthas in Bengal Sir Jadunāth Sarkār . . . . . . 455-467

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CHAPTER XXV.

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Sirāj-ud-daulah Sir Jadunāth Sarkār . . . . . . 468-480

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CHAPTER XXVI.

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End of Muslim Rule Sir Jadunāth Sarkār . . . . . . 481-500

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Sir Jadunāth Sarkār . . . . . . 501-508

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INDEX

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Professor Nirod Bhusan Roy . . . . 509-530

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BENGAL

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THE MUSLIM CONQUEST OF BENGAL

I. The Khilji Invasion

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The Muslim conquest of Bengal in the beginning of the thirteenth century was but a phase of the Turanian *Volkerwanderung*, which had begun with the migration of the Kara-Khitai horde from the borders of Mongolia in a south-westerly direction and the resultant dislodgment of the nomadic tribes of the Trans-Oxus region in the second half of the twelfth century A.D. It was about this time that a fresh wave of the camel-rearing Turkoman tribes named the Ghuzz and the Khiljis or Khalajis, whose original habitat is not definitely known, burst upon the Saljuq Empire, overran Khorāsān, Seistān and Afghānistān, and forced themselves as "squatters" on the settled population of the same ethnic origins, who had migrated into these tracts as early as the tenth century A.D. This inflow of warlike peoples revived the dying energies of Islam which had been losing force in India ever since the death of Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi, so that after the lapse of a century and a half Islam started afresh in its career of aggressive imperialism. The tide of migration of the nomads swelled by the more adventurous elements in the countries through which they moved, took its destined course to the east of the Indus, and permanently affected the political destiny of India by giving the character of colonisation to the Muslim conquest of Northern India in the thirteenth century. Its first rush did not stop till Muhammad Bakhtyār Khilji carried the victorious banner of Islam further eastward into South Bihar, and soon after planted it triumphantly on the banks of the Bhāgirathi and the Karatoyā.

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Muhammad Bakhtyār was one of the crowd of Khilji adventurers who separated themselves from their tribe settled in Garamsir, now known as Dasht-i-Margo, situated on the eastern border of Seistān. He had no pretensions to a high lineage or rich heritage in his native land, having been perhaps hardly better conditioned in life than his illustrious lieutenant 'Iwāz Khilji, who with his wife and his ass left Garamsir about this time in search of a kingdom in Hindustan. Muhammad Bakhtyār came to Ghazni perhaps later than 1195 A.D. seeking employment as a soldier in the army of Shihābuddin Ghori, and on being rejected there he proceeded to the court of Malik Qutbuddin Aibak at Delhi. There too luck did not befriend Bakhtyār, because he was a man of short stature, long arms and an ill-favoured countenance, without the means of providing himself with a horse and a suit of armour. However, his boiling nomad blood urged him forward to a sort of "Eastward Ho" as it were to Badāyun; but even there he was not considered worth a jagir but only a cash salary by Malik Hizbar-ud-din, the Sipāh-sālār of that province. Having served under the Governor of Badāyun for a short time, Muhammad Bakhtyār repaired to Oudh about 1197 A.D. Malik Husāmuddin, Governor of Oudh, recognised the worth of Bakhtyār; but he too prudently kept the ambitious free-lance captain at a safe distance by granting him in jagir two parganas in the south-eastern corner of the modern Mirzāpur district, which had not perhaps been previously visited by any Muslim army. However, a frontier command with freedom of exertion was just the thing that suited the military genius of Bakhtyār and the predatory instincts of his nomad followers.

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About eleven miles due east of Chunār and some thirty miles from Mirzāpur, the village of Bhuili, overhung by a fort in ruins at the northern foot of the Vindhya range, now marks the cradle of Muhammad Bakhtyār's power and ambition. It is situated within the pargana of that name which along with the pargana of Bhāgwat, later on known as Hanwā, constituted the jagir¹ of Muhammad Bakhtyār. After having supplanted the petty Gahadvār chiefs of this tract, he began ravaging the open country to the east of the Karmanāsā and in the direction of Muner and Bihār. His fame as a doughty Lord Marcher and successful general soon attracted to his standard large bodies of Khiljis and Turks wandering about in Hindustan in search of bread and a new home. As the eastward expansion of the Muslim power through North Bihār was at this time barred by the powerful Hindu kingdom of Mithilā under the Karṇātaka dynasty, the momentum of the Muslim offensive under the leadership of Muhammad Bakhtyār acquired a greater driving force in South Bihār. Further, Malik Qutbuddin Aibak is said to have hailed the rising star of Islam in the east by sending him a khilat “with words of praise and encouragement.” Muhammad Bakhtyār was not the knight-errant of Islam to seek out and fight only his most formidable Hindu adversaries of whom there were several in the neighbourhood. Hariśchandra, son of Jayachandra of Kanauj, maintained his independence till at least 1200 A.D.; a feudatory of that house, Rāṇaka Vijayakarṇa, erected a votive stone-pillar at Belkhārā within 8 kos of Chunār, in 1197 A.D.; the Mahānāyakas of the famous fort of Rohtās maintained their independence and one of their sub-vassals, Mahāmaṇḍalika Udayarāja¹ of Navanerā-pattana granted some villages to a Brahman family in 1197 in the neighbourhood of Dehri-on-Son. Muslim chronicles ignore the stone and copper-proved existence of these Hindu powers which too seemed to have seen no reason to be perturbed by the activities of the Muslims at their doors.

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¹ Bhāgwat and Bhuili as jagirs of Muhammad Bakhtyār have been correctly identified by Raverty, whom Blochmann also corroborates. Bhuili is the north-eastern pargana of Chunār tahsil. The village of Bhuili lies in latitude 26° 8' N. and longitude 83° 3' E. The pargana of Bhuili touches the pargana of Bhāgwat on the west, the latter being about 20 miles from north to south with an average breadth of 7 miles. The fort of Patita, which was perhaps the head-quarters of Bhāgwat pargana, lies about 8 miles south-east of Chunār. For details see the Gazetteer of the Mirzapur District, 1911.

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¹ EI. xxii. 222.

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Muhammad Bakhtyār had no siege-train for capturing strong Hindu forts; nor was it his policy to provoke any wide-spread commotion in the country. His object was to secure a maximum of booty at a minimum of risk and bloodshed. So he confined himself to scouring the open country undefended by the field army of any organised State. After having plundered the Hindu territory “for a year or two,” he made a sudden dash for “the fortress of Bihar” (hisār-i-Bihār), captured it by forcing its postern-gate and put to the sword all its inhabitants, most of whom were shaven-headed monks possessing much wealth and more books. As the Muslims learnt afterwards that it was a vihāra or madrāsa, they gave the whole country the name of Bihar, which had once been no doubt a land of Buddhist monasteries also. The fortified monastery which Bakhtyār captured probably in 1199 A.D. was known as Audand-Bihār or Oḍaṇḍapura-vihāra.

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According to all Muslim historians, Muhammad Bakhtyār led his army a second time in the direction of Bihar in the year following the sack of the fortified monastery of that name. This year, i.e. 1200 A.D., he was busy consolidating his hold over that province, as the author of Riyāz-us-salātin says, “by establishing thānas or military outposts and by introducing administrative arrangements,”—which we know was the invariable method of stabilizing a conquest. It is not definitely known what other portions of South Bihar were conquered by the Muslims this year. There is a very faithful echo of the then state of things in Bihar in the Buddhist tradition which tells us that the famous saint and scholar, Śākya Śrībhadra of Kashmir visited Magadha in the year 1200 A.D. The traveller found Odantapurī-vihāra and the Vikramaśilā monastery in ruins, and terrified by the excesses of the Turks in Magadha he fled for safety to Jagaddala-vihāra in the Bogrā (?) district of North Bengal.¹ Bengal under its pious and aged ruler Lakshmaṇasena was slumbering in apathy till a year after Bakhtyār stole a march upon her and rudely knocked at the palace-gate of Nudiā.

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¹ S. C. Das, Antiquity of Chittagong (JASB. 1898, p. 25).

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During the dry season of the year 1201 A.D. a troop of foreign cavalry was riding with loose reins towards the city of Nudiā. When the sun was at the meridian these men, only nineteen in number, slackened the momentum of their ride before the city-gate, and assumed the placid demeanour of merchants. The strangers slowly proceeded unchallenged through the city to the palace of King Lakshmaṇasena where all of a sudden they drew their swords, and as the Muslim historian puts it, began the holy war. All was now tumult and panic within the palace as well as in the city outside. When the old monarch, just seated at his meal, learnt that the assailants had already dashed into his palace and the inner apartments, he hurriedly took to flight and got into a boat which sailed down the river for some refuge in East Bengal.² The victory of Bakhtyār was completed “when his whole army arrived and the entire city was brought under control.”

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² The region to which Rāi Lakhmaniyā fled from Nadia is named in the T.N. as Bang wa S-k-n-āt. Bang means East Bengal and the second place-name is a copyist's error for Sil-hāt i.e., Sylhet. The invariable practice of Persian writers is to designate a district by joining together two well-known places in it, which might be even 50 miles apart; e.g., Sultanpur-Nandurbar, Vani-Dindori, Trimbak-Nasik, Dholpur-Bari, Kora-Jahanabad, Kara-Manikpur. The grandfather and father-in-law of the saint Chaitanya in the 15th century had migrated from Dacca and Sylhet to Nadia. We can easily imagine that the opposite current, from Nadia to Sylhet, had flowed two centuries earlier.

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Such is the story of Malik Muhammad Bakhtyār’s capture of the royal palace of Mahārājā Lakshmaṇasena that decided for ever the fate of the Hindu sovereignty of Bengal. A variant of the same story is given by Isami, the author of the Futuh-us-salātin, a metrical history of India, written less than a century after the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri, who tells us that Muhammad Bakhtyār reached Nadia in the disguise of a merchant-caravan from Seistan, and induced Rāi Lakhmaniyā to come out of the palace to inspect the thorough-bred Tartar horses and excellent brocade of China, besides vast stores of the rare products of every clime, which he had brought for sale. “When the Rāi reached the *Kārwān*” (halting-place of caravans), the narrative continues,

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“Muhammad offered him a rich *peshkash* of precious things, and at the same time made a signal to a party of his soldiers to fall upon the Hindus. The Turks charged, and defeat befell the Hindu soldiers, a party of whom, however, stood their ground firmly around the Rai and created alarm among the Turks........At last when the brave warriors of the Khilji breed made a hurricane-like onslaught and killed some Hindu *sawārs*, the Rai fell a prisoner to Bakhtyār.”

II. The Sack of Navadvip Historically Reconstructed

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There is no evidence that Navadvip was ever the permanent capital of the Sena kings. It was merely a holy place on the bank of the Ganges, where pious people took up their residence out of regard for its sanctity. With the coming of the Sena king and his officers, a city grew up from the thronging of the traders and servants who ministered to the needs of a rich and populous Court. The city, however, consisted almost entirely of thatched bamboo houses,—the characteristic feature of Bengal architecture, whence the name of *Bangālā* given even to the stone edifices in Delhi Fort built in this style of arched bamboo roofs. Every rich or pious person wished to live as close to the holy river as possible, and therefore these houses formed a long narrow sprawling line for some six miles along the bank of the Ganges. No fort, no protective wall of brick, is mentioned by any historian as guarding Navadvip then or ever afterwards, and such a defensive work seems unlikely to have existed in 1200 A.D. Most probably a bamboo palisade,—like the *sāl* wood palisade of ancient Pātaliputra noticed by Megasthenes,—encircled the main portion of the city, with an octroi post at the gate.¹

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¹ The palace, as we know, stood on the very bank of the Ganges, while the city’s western gate must have been far inland in order to intercept the merchandise that came from the south and the west by the land route, so that the custom duty could be collected here.

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Bengal’s strategic point of defence against any land attack from the western side was the narrow pass of Teliāgarhi near Rājmahal. North of this point it was very easy for armies to march from Bengal towards Tirhut and Oudh along the north bank of the Ganges, crossing the Kosi and the Gandak at some convenient ford. Hence the name of the ‘Gateway of Bengal’ (*Dārbangā*) given to the Tirhut district. But south of Teliāgarhi lay the enormous land of hill and jungle, popularly called *Jhārkhand* (or Forest Country), through which no large army could pass on account of its lack of roads, food supplies and human habitations. Only small select bodies of hardy cavalry mounted on superb horses could make a dash across this *terra incognita*, if they were guided by local zamindars. Such invaders would leave the Ganges on their left flank at Teliāgarhi—or even further west at Mungir—and after traversing Jhārkhand would rejoin the same river beyond Birbhum.¹ This route has been repeatedly followed by invaders of Bengal in more recent times, such as Mir Jumla in 1659 and the Peshwa Bālāji Rāo in 1743.

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¹ Md. Bakhtyār's starting point in this Bengal expedition was Bihār, which means the city of Bihār Sharif—and not Patna. His line of advance from Upper India was most probably across the Son river somewhat south of Muner, then through Bihār Sharif and the Gaya district, and eastwards and southwards through Jhārkhand to Nadia.

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It would be reasonable to suppose that the Sena Rajah had posted his defensive forces at Teliāgarhi only, and left Navadvip denuded of troops, never imagining that the Teliāgarhi defences would be turned by the forced march of Turkish horsemen through the wilderness of Jhārkhand.

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The surprise of a city by foreign soldiers disguised as horse-dealers cannot be dismissed as an impossible figment of the imagination. At the end of the 17th century the Emperor Aurangzib wrote,

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"From the news report of the province of Kabul it is learnt that 11,000 horses, fit to be cavalry remounts, with one groom for every two horses, have entered Kabul, it being the usual practice that after selection by the governor of Delhi the horses are sent to the Emperor.......This is a very strange act of negligence on the part of Amir Khan (the *subahdār* of Kabul). It is as if 5,500 brave Turānis have entered our imperial dominions from foreign parts. Such was the number of the men who wrested the kingdom of Hind from the hands of the Afghans (in Babur's invasion). In future, whenever the droves of horses arrive the governor of Kabul should allow only one groom to every twenty horses, and that groom too should be a useless old and weak man" (*Ahkām-i-Alamgiri*, § 49).

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The actual scene of the surprise of Nadia has been hitherto misunderstood through lack of a careful and detailed study of the exact words of Minhāj-i-Sirāj, our earliest and best authority. We give a literal translation of the Persian text here:

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"The second year from this, Muhammad Bakhtyār got his troops ready, started from Bihar and suddenly entered the city of Nadia, so fast that not more than 18 troopers could keep up with him, while the rest of his army were coming up behind him. When he reached the gate of the city he did not molest any one, but (proceeded) silently and modestly, so that none could imagine that it was Md. Bakhtyār, but most probably the people thought that the (new-comers) were traders who had brought high-priced horses for sale. When he reached the gate of the residence of Rāi Lakhmaniya, he drew his sword and began the slaughter of infidels. At that

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time the Rāi......was seated at his meal......when cries rose up from the gate of his palace and the middle of the city. By the time that he learnt what the circumstances were, Md. Bakhtyār had run into his palace and harem and cut down a number of people; (so) the Rāi fled away by the back-door with bare feet......" (*Tabaqāt-i-Nāsiri*, text, Bib. Ind., 150-151).

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Carefully interpreting the words of this original authority and bearing in mind the topography of Nadia as just described, we can thus reconstruct the story of the attack with the help of a small amount of allowable historical imagination :—

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From his last night's resting place in the woods, some 20 miles north-west of Navadvip Muhammad Bakhtyār resumed his march at sunrise. It was already noon when he came to the gate of the city and by that time only 18 troopers, mounted on the best horses, were able to keep up with him, the others were coming behind in straggling groups, separated one from another by a quarter of an hour's ride. He rode through the city slowly and silently in an unostentatious style without molesting any people, so that this small party was naturally taken for a band of foreign traders, who had brought horses for sale. That they did not excite the people's curiosity is a proof that caravans of Turkish horse-dealers had visited Nadia before and no doubt spied out the secrets of the place. At this slow pace Muhammad Bakhtyār took some 25 minutes to pass from the custom-barrier of the city to the gate of the Rajah's bungalow, a distance of at least 1½ miles, and by this time a second batch of his horsemen had already entered by the city gate and a third batch was within hail of it.

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The sun had already begun to decline from the meridian, and according to the immemorial Indian practice,—which even the Mughal Emperors followed,—the morning Court having been dismissed, all people had returned home to take their bath, noon-day meal, and the inevitable siesta, and there was a general slackness and dispersion of people throughout the city, every man going his own way. Such was the moment of the attack.

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Arrived at the Rajah's palace-gate, Muhammad Bakhtyār's party drew their swords, cut down the unsuspecting and probably half-undressed guards, and pushed into the inner quarters. Immediately on hearing this clamour the second party of silently pacing Turkish horsemen, who had now reached some spot midway between the city-gate and the palace-gate, raised their war cry and began an attack where they were, and the third and fourth bands of stragglers spurred their jaded horses and hastened to share in the loot. Thus only can we explain the significant statement that at the time of Muhammad Bakhtyār's very first onset "cries rose up from the gate of the Rajah's palace *and* the middle of the city,"—i.e., there were two groups of Turks making a simultaneous attack on two parts of the city, and not a single party of 19 horsemen attacking one point only.

III. The Siege of Gaur and the Reduction of Varendra

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Muhammad Bakhtyār's surprise of Nudia was not a mere fortunate stroke of random raid, but the starting point of a well-planned campaign. Bakhtyār did not send any troops in pursuit of the fugitive king nor did he leave any detachment behind to occupy the Rāḍh tract permanently. He stopped only for a few days at Nadia to collect booty by sacking the city thoroughly, and swept forward to strike at Gaur, the historic capital of Bengal. History does not record definitely how and when the city of Gaur with its ample and mighty fortifications fell to the lance of Bakhtyār. We hear of no blockade, assault or massacre but the bare mention that in the mauza or tract where the city of Gaur stood Bakhtyār established his seat of government. On the other hand, there is the indirect testimony of Minhāj in his subsequent chapters on the Khilji Maliks to support the view that Gaur at first occupied a secondary position for about two decades, after which the seat of government was removed from Devkot to Gaur in the reign of Sultan Ghiyasuddin ‘Iwaz Khilji. In the absence of details of the conquest we can only infer that like the warriors of the steppe and the desert in every age operating in a civilized country, the army of Bakhtyār also first ravaged the open country without making an attempt on Gaur,—if it was resolutely defended as a local tradition of doubtful value would have us believe. At any rate Muhammad Bakhtyār fairly completed his conquest of the Varendra tract with the historic city of Gaur before the year 599 A.H., and with a handsome portion of the spoils of Bengal he started by way of Bihar for the presence of Malik Qutbuddin who had almost about the same time (23 March, 1203) completed the conquest of Kālinjar¹ Mahobā and Kālpi. It was on the whole a clever stroke of diplomacy on the part of Muhammad Bakhtyār to seek an amicable understanding with Malik Qutbuddin who might otherwise refuse to recognise him as the lawful ruler of Bihar and Bengal and cause him perpetual anxiety by instigating the governors of Oudh and Kālinjar to attack his possessions in Bihar and Mirzapur.

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¹ Tāj-ul-maāsir, MS. p. 261, "du-shumba bistum Rajab" is an untenable reading as 20th Rajab was a Friday. I read hashtum for bistum, which gives Sunday-Monday.

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Malik Ikhtyāruddin Muhammad Bakhtyār devoted the next two years (1203-1205) to the peaceful administration of his newly founded kingdom. He followed the usual practice of Muslim conquerors by pulling down idol-temples and building mosques on their ruins, endowing madrasas or colleges of Muslim learning and evincing his zeal for religion by converting the infidels. But he was not blood-thirsty, and took no delight in massacre or inflicting misery on his subjects. The problems of internal administration and the conciliation of his military chiefs were together solved by the establishment of a sort of feudal government in the country.

IV. Ikhtyaruddin Muhammad Bakhtyār's Tibet Expedition

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Muhammad Bakhtyār's Tibet expedition was the last episode of his meteoric career. But it still remains a riddle in history. It is not clear why the conqueror of Gaur had become more interested in exploring the secrets of the *terra incognita* between the uplands of Varendra and the Himālayas across which lay the lands of Tibet, China and Turkestan—than the rich and civilized kingdoms of the plain lying within the easy reach of his conquering arms. There was the kingdom of Kāmrup only on the other bank of the river Tistā-Karatoyā on his right flank, and to his left lay the unsubdued kingdom of Mithilā between the Kosi and the Gandak; more dangerous to his far-flung possessions in Bihar and Bengal were in his rear the Sena Power of Vikrampur, and the Eastern Ganga Empire of Orissa. Muhammad Bakhtyār had already lost half his game by his failure to capture the person of Mahārāja Lakshmanasena. The old king reigned in peace at Vikrampur till 1206 A.D. The subjugation of the wealthy Hindu kingdoms on the plains of Eastern India should have engaged Bakhtyār's attention first before he could venture on a distant enterprise on the other slope of the Himālayas. It was perhaps his inborn spirit of adventure inflamed by the lure of the fabled gold of the northern mountains that urged him to undertake the disastrous expedition to Tibet. Or, was it the pioneer spirit of exploring and opening a short cut to Turkestan?

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Muhammad Bakhtyār's Tibet expedition, however, was not a leap in the dark suddenly resolved upon and undertaken without much fore-thought or adequate preparations, diplomatic and military. Tibet had not been a land of mystery to the people of Bengal, but an attractive resort of religious preachers and scholars since the days of the Pālas, and Tibetan traders perhaps as much frequented the annual fairs of North Bengal through the Darjeeling route since then as they do in our days. So it was not difficult for Muhammad Bakhtyār "to make himself acquainted with conditions of the boundaries of Tibet and Turkestan" as Minhāj-i-Sirāj says. At that time "between the country of Lakhnawati and Tibet" lay the “hills” or rather the jungle tract which were inhabited by three non-Indian Mongoloid tribes, the Koch, the Mech, and the Tharu or Tiharu. As an essential preliminary Muhammad Bakhtyār perhaps made raids of exploration into the tribal tracts, as we are told by Minhāj-i-Sirāj that Bakhtyār, prior to his expedition, had captured a Mech chief and induced him to accept Islam at his hands. This man, later known as ‘Ali the Mech, agreed to act as Bakhtyār’s guide through the submontane region and he had been perhaps instrumental in winning for his master the loyalty of the tribes, which, as we learn, stood well the test of Bakhtyār’s darkest hour of misfortune. With the kingdom of Kāmrup, which had no love lost with the descendants of Lakshmanasena—since that monarch’s invasion of Kāmrup—Muhammad Bakhtyār seems to have been in friendly intercourse. The river Tistā-Karatoyā flowed unviolated between the Muslim principality of Lakhnawati and that country.

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Four years after his brilliant Bengal campaign Muhammad Bakhtyār and the Turks were on the war-path again. Shortly before his Tibet expedition he sent Muhammad Sherān and his brother Ahmad Sherān of his own tribe in command of an army towards Lakhnor (Nagar in the Birbhum district), and Jājnagar (kingdom of Orissa). This was intended to keep the Hindus south of the Ganges busy, and perhaps to annex the Rādh region permanently. He left Ali Mardān Khilji in Sarkar Ghorāghāt to watch the eastern frontier from his headquarters at Barsul (Barsala of the Ain), while Husām-ud-din Khilji was entrusted with the defence of the western march in the direction of Oudh and Tirhut. Husām-ud-din with his headquarters at Ganguri (most likely Gankarah in Sarkar Tānda of the Ain), ruled the entire tract from the Rājmahal hills to the lower course of the Burhi (old) Kosi, that formed the boundary between the territory of the Lakhnawati and the kingdom of Mithilā or Tirhut. The expeditionary forces had perhaps as their rendezvous the town of Devkot, about ten miles south of modern Dinajpur. Toward the close of the winter of 1206 A.D. Muhammad Bakhtyār started from Devkot at the head of his grand army, ten thousand well-equipped horses, on his fateful expedition.

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The invading army marched in a north-easternly direction till they reached the neighbourhood of Bardhan-kot, a fabled city said to have been founded by Shāh Gursh-āsp of Irān during his legendary wanderings in the East. In front of the city flowed a mighty river named Bāgmati “thrice as broad as the Ganges” (which was no other than the Old Tistā as correctly guessed by Blochmann), and without crossing this river Muhammad Bakhtyār’s army was conducted by ‘Ali, the Mech, for ten days up the river Bāgmati till they found themselves among the mountains. On the eleventh day from their start from Bardhan, the troops crossed the river Bāgmati or Tistā over an ancient bridge of “hewn stone,” also known to have been a relic of Shāh Gursh-āsp’s might. Now began the march through the territory of the Rajah of Kāmrup at its extreme northern point.

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‘Ali, the Mech, took leave of his master and Muhammad Bakhtyār, having left some troops under two officers to guard the passage, began his ascent. Then followed fifteen days’ hard march up-hill and down-dale through the labyrinth of the Himālayas, and on the sixteenth day they sighted an open country populous and well-cultivated. The whole country now rose against the invaders and inflicted serious losses on the Muslim army in a pitched battle that raged from morning till sun-set. Muhammad Bakhtyār, though technically victorious, broke up camp that very night and began his disastrous retreat. For fifteen days the army of Bengal found no food for men nor even grass for horses, as the hillmen had utterly destroyed all the forage of the countryside. The Turks ate up their famished horses and many died of hunger and exhaustion. When they reached the bridge they found to their dismay that it had been deserted by their comrades and materially damaged by the troops of the Rajah of Kāmrup. After a perilous halt for some days on the Kāmrup side of the river they desperately attempted to cross the deep and rapid stream on horse-back. Out of Bakhtyār’s grand army scarcely more than one hundred survived to accompany him to Devkot, in utter destitution.

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This disastrous failure of Bakhtyār deeply affected the subsequent course of the history of Bengal for half a century. The Hindu powers found a a respite and a longer lease of life; severe losses in man-power arrested the expansion of the Muslim principality of Gaur; Bihar, from which Bakhtyār had drawn a large number of troops for this expedition, was ultimately lost to Bengal. Demoralisation seized the Khiljis; treachery and dissensions became rife in the land when luck deserted Bakhtyār. Shame and remorse made him avoid society, and perhaps a lurking suspicion of murder haunted his mind. A consuming fever attacked him, and when the conqueror of Bengal was hovering between life and death, Ali Mardān Khilji is said to have murdered the dying hero with a thrust of his dagger about three months after his return to Devkot in 602 A.H. (1206). By a curious coincidence in the same year happened two other significant events of our medieval history : namely the murder of Sultan Mu'iz-uddin Ghuri on the banks of the Jhilam, and the demise of the last great Hindu king Mahārāja Lakshmanasena in his river-girt eastern capital at Vikrampur. During the few years that he outlived the disaster of Nudia the ‘pious and scholarly Rajah employed his pen and purse in building for himself an enduring edifice of literary fame.

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¹ TN. 152.

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Malik Ikhtyār-ud-din Muhammad Bakhtyār was indeed the maker of the medieval history of Bengal. He made his mark in an age when "From the *nakhas* to the *Masnad*" (from the slave-market to the carpet of royalty) was a more common phenomenon in the East than one "From Log Cabin to White House" in the New World of the nineteenth century. But Muhammad Bakhtyār unlike other Indo-Muslim worthies was born a free man, and lived and died a free man, elevating himself by his own unaided efforts from the position of a poor adventurer to that of a Sultan in all but the name. His life was too short and stormy to give him time and opportunity to consolidate his conquests and prove his capacity as an administrator. No doubt, Muhammad Bakhtyār was above all a soldier excelling all his contemporaries in dash, resourcefulness and leadership. Though plebeian by birth and deformed in body, he was a born leader of men, brave to recklessness and generous to a fabulous extent. His weaknesses were those born of over-confidence and uninterrupted success.

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No written chronicle throws light on the actual extent of the principality of Lakhnawati founded by him. We have no coins or inscriptions of Muhammad Bakhtyār's time to spread on a modern map and give the reader an idea of the geography of the Khilji dominion at his death. Some pioneers¹ in the reconstruction of the history of Bengal have been rather persistent in under-estimating the extent and importance of Muhammad Bakhtyār's achievements, which were in their opinion "mere plundering raids" magnified into conquests by the later historians. They are inclined to confine the Muslim possessions in Bengal to the narrow stretches of the river Mahānandā and the Punarbhavā, though facts unchallenged by them prove with approximate certainty that the principality of Lakhnawati was at this time much larger—roughly bounded on the north by a north-easterly straight line from the modern town of Purnea *via* Devkot to the town of Rangpur; on the east and the south-east by the Tistā and the Karatoyā; on the south by the main stream of the Ganges; and on the west by the lower course of the Kosi and from its mouth across the Ganges to the Rājmahal hills. And within this limit Muhammad Bakhtyār firmly held, besides *Sarkar* Lakhnauti, the major portion of the *mahals* of each of the six other *Sarkars*,¹ Tānda, Purnea, Pinjrah, Tājpur, Ghorāghāt and Barbakābād of Todarmal’s rent-roll of the Subah of Bengal. As regards his possessions in Bihar, which suffered no loss during his life-time, we must hold, till contrary evidence of numismatics and archaeology comes to light, that from the foot of the Vindhya hills in the Mirzapur district along the southern bank of the Ganges right up to the Rājmahal hills his authority was predominant in the greater part of South Bihar; and in addition he perhaps also held the riverine tracts on the north bank of the Ganges from the mouth of the Gandak river to that of the Kosi.² Throughout the Middle Ages the same historical relation between Bengal and Bihar continued,—the latter always serving as the stepping-stone to the sovereignty of Bengal from the time of Muhammad Bakhtyār to that of Alivardi Khan, and yet being regarded as a minor partner in the scheme of government.

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¹ Monmohan Chakravarti, JASB. New Series. IV. 153; Benerji, *Bangalar Itihas*, II. 1st edition, 7-9.

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¹ The cities of Lakhnawati and Devkot in *Sarkar* Lakhnauti; Ali Mardan’s fief of Barsul (Barsala, *Sarkar* Ghoraghat): Muhammad Sheran’s fiefs of Santosh and Moseda (in *Sarkar* Barbakabad); “territory between Devkot and Bekanwah” fief of Minhaj’s informant, Muta’mid-uddaula (*Bekanwah* of Raverty corrected as Bangaon, a *mahal* in *Sarkar* Barbakabad); Husam-uddin’s fief with headquarters at Ganguri or Gankuri (identified with *Gankarah* in *Sarkar* Tanda); *Narankoti* and its variants, perhaps the scribe’s perversion of *diyar-i-Kosi*, though printed as *diyar-i-Koe* (*Nasiri, Text*. 156): which was Ali Mardan’s fief according to Raverty, whereas Nizamuddin Ahmad gives *Barsul*. The Kosi, on this side of which Husam-uddin ‘Iwaz received Ali Mardan Khilji coming from Delhi (*Nasiri, Trans*. 578n), had certainly been the boundary of Bakhtyar’s territory. Later on all through the medieval period that river was regarded as the indisputable boundary between Tirhut and Bengal. For grounds of identification the reader is referred to Appendix B to this chapter.

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² The traditional boundary always claimed by the Muslim rulers of Bengal, and recognised by the Delhi emperors down to Babur—was the river Gandak on the northern bank of the Ganges. Through this riverain tract of Bhagalpur and Mungir lying north of the Ganges lay the high way of communication between Bengal and Oudh down to the middle of the fourteenth century.

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The system of government that prevailed in Muhammad Bakhtyār’s time,—and also long afterwards, was a sort of clannish feudalism. The major portion of the country was divided among the army officers, most of whom were Turks and Khiljis. The motley host of adventurers that followed the fortune of Muhammad Bakhtyār settled down comfortably in their new home each holding a knight’s fee. Muhammad Bakhtyār created some big governorships on the frontiers, and entrusted them to powerful Lords Marcher, Ali Mardān, Husām-uddin ‘Iwaz and Muhammad Shirān,—

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