Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s2.t1.9

v1.c20.s2.t1.9

Mahmūd’s Invasion.—Within twenty years after this event, the sword of conquest and conversion was withdrawn from India, and Sind was the only province left to Mutawakkil (A.D. 850 [847-861]), the grandson of Harun, for a century after whom the throne of Baghdad, like that of ancient Rome, was sold by her praetorians to the highest bidder. From this time we find no mention whatever of Hindustan, or even of Sind, until Sabuktigin,¹ governor of Khorasan, hoisted the standard of independent sovereignty at Ghazni. In A.H. 365 (A.D. 974) he carried his arms [245] across the Indus, forcing the inhabitants to abandon the religion of their ancestors, and to read the Koran from the altars of Bal and Krishna. Towards the close of this century he made his last invasion, accompanied by his son, the celebrated Mahmud, destined to be the scourge of the Hindu race, who early imbibed the paternal lesson inculcating the extirpation of infidels. Twelve several visitations did Mahmud make with his Tatar hordes, sweeping India of her riches, destroying her temples and architectural remains, and leaving the country plunged in poverty and ignorance. From the effect of these incursions she never recovered; for though she had a respite of a century between Mahmud and the final conquest, it was too short to repair what it had cost ages to rear: the temples of Somnath, of Chitor, and Girnar are but types of the magnificence of past times. The memorial of Sakti Kumar proves him to have been the contemporary of Sabuktigin, and to one of his son’s visitations is attributed the destruction of the ‘city of the sun’ (Aitpur),² his capital.