Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c6.s1.5

v1.c6.s1.5

In the months immediately following Nādir Shāh's invasion Heaven seemed to have taken pity on the sorely afflicted people of Northern India. In the next season there was adequate and timely rainfall, the earth yielded a profuse harvest, and all foodstuffs became cheap and plentiful, "as if to make amends for the people's recent sufferings." (Ashub, ii. 416.) But Nature is not half so much the cause of a nation's misery as Man. To outer seeming, "dignity and splendour returned to the Delhi Court after Nādir had left India, and the Emperor and the nobles turned to the management of State affairs and gave up all sorts of uncanonical practices." (Ibid.) But the moral canker in the Mughal Empire was too deeply seated to be killed by such outward show of piety and obedience to lifeless convention. A Nemesis worked itself out inexorably on the destiny of the Empire from the character of the Emperor and his leading ministers.