The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c10.21

c10.21

Thirdly, the country during the period experienced a Brahmanical reaction that produced three-fold effects on its fortune. In the first place, under the stress of this movement Brahman ministers overthrew their Kshatriya and Sudra masters, usurped their thrones and set themselves up as rulers, which brought about a kind of political revolution and instability. Lallya (also known as Kallar), the Brahman minister of the Kshatriya king Lagaturman of Kabul, deposed and imprisoned his sovereign and seized his kingdom in 870 A.D. (256 A.H.) at a time when his country was faced with a first class external crisis on account of the aggressions of Saffarid Yaqub ibn Layth.¹⁴ Within a year of his usurpation Lallya was driven out of Kabul by Yaqub, and Afghanistan, which had for centuries been the north-western part of India, was lost once for all. In Sindh, while the Arab raids were in progress, the Brahman minister Chach deposed and slew his Sudra master Sahasi Rai II, married his widowed queen and set himself up as ruler¹⁵ about 700 A.D. Chach’s son Dahir had to pay the price of his father’s usurpation. In 712 A.D. he was defeated and killed by the Arab general Muhammad bin Qasim and Sindh was for ever lost to Hindu India. In the second place, the rise of orthodox Hinduism alienated the Buddhist population in the country and quite a large number of them, at least in Sindh, not only became indifferent towards the ruling family but even went over to the side of the Arab invaders and rendered them material assistance against their king and country.¹⁶