The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c15.114

v1.c15.114

Two Sikh Feudal States, Patiāla and Nābha, are included within the area now irrigated from the Sutlej, but Amritsar, the holy city of the Sikhs, lying beyond the Sutlej, about two hundred and fifty miles from Delhi, is under the immediate British Raj. Fifty miles west of Amritsar is Lahore, the old Musalmān capital of the Punjab. We conquered the Punjab from the Sikhs, but for many centuries it had been ruled by the Musalmāns. In the break-up of the Mughal Empire during the eighteenth century, invaders came from Persia and from Afghānistān, who carried devastation even as far as Delhi. In their wake, with relative ease, the Sikhs, contemporaries of the Marāthās of Poona, established a dominion in the helpless Punjab. They extended their rule also into the mountains of Kashmīr, north of Lahore.