Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s12.1

v2.c27.s12.1

Delhi palace passed into Maratha hands on 3rd August 1760, but the coveted capital of India proved a Dead Sea apple to them. It had been emptied by the repeated spoliations of Nādir and Abdālī, and what little remained had been taken away by the wazir Imād-ul-mulk before his flight. Imād had even stripped off a portion of the silver ceiling of Shah Jahan’s ‘Paradise on earth’—the Dīwān-i-khās within the palace-fort. The new masters of the imperial city were actually starving. On 5th August they write from Delhi, “There is no money for paying even one week’s subsistence in a month; our men and horses are fasting. If we could discover the hiding-places in the fort, ten or twenty krores could be secured. But we cannot enter the female apartments of the palace. The Bhāu is trying persuasion [for discovering the secret.]" [*SPD.* xxvii. 257, 258.]