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History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.s4: Note 2—The Shahi Kings with Revised Dates and Their Coins.

History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.s4

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Note 2—The Shahi Kings with Revised Dates and Their Coins.

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We gave the probable dates of Shahi kings in Vol. I. (p. 201) and Vol. II (p. 157) estimated on the usual average of 20 years per reign, going back from 1021 A. D. given by Al-Beruni as the last date of Trilochanapāla's reign, as given here in the margin. It is necessary to reivse these dates from the detailed information available now in the writings of Utbi and other choriniders. It is certain that Jaipāl ruled till 1001 A. D. He may be taken to have ruled from 960 i. e. for forty years. We know that he burnt himself on a pyre both on account of his dishonour as of extreme old age. Wahind was taken possession of by Mahmud; and Anandapāla must have resided at Bhera the next city in the kingdom which was on the trade route from Wahind viz. Hazro and the Margalla pass and caravans took the fruit of Kabul to Peshawar and Lahore and Multan via Bhera and took back Indian goods, cotton &c., to Kabul. Anandapāla was killed in the battle of Nardin in 1009 or 1010 A. D. and Trilochanapāla made his submission and accepted terms and ruled without molestation till 1014 A.D. In that year Mahmud again invaded India and was confronted by Trilochanapāla in the Margalla pass. He was defeated and he escaped into Kashmir. His son Nidar Bhim defended Nandana fort and the access to Bhera. He too fled and retired into Kashmir. Bhera was taken by Mahmud and plundered. Trilochanapāla ruled in some hilly part of the Panjab near Kashmir till 1021. On he was immediately pursued in 1014 and was defeated in the battle of the Tauśī fought in that year or in 1021. He then again escaped into Kashmir and thence to Kanauj. As stated in a subsequent chapter we, however, do not believe that Trilochanapāla went to Kanauj, his mention there by later historians being a misreading for Rājyapāla. He died as stated by Al-Beruni in 1021 probably in the battle of the Tauśī and Bhima died five years later. Perhaps he went to Kanauj and died in the battle of the Rahīb described in a subsequent chapter. The amended dates with the name of Bhīma in addition would be as given in the margin. One prince of the family is spoken of as taking refuge with Bhoja of Malwa (Sachau).

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That these kings ruled from Kabul to Lahore is conceded by almost all historians. Sachau the translator of Al-Beruni writes in his preface to the latter's India "When Al-Beruni wrote, the Pāla dynasty which ruled Kabulistan and the Panjab had disappeared from the theatre of history and their dominions were in the firm grasp of Mahmud and his slave officers". This is incontestably proved by the fact that coins of these kings are found all over the Panjab, Thus in the Gazetteer of the Ludhiana

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Jaipāl 960-980 Anandapāla 980-1000 Trilochanapāla 1000-1021,

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Jaipāl 960-1001. Anandapāla 1001-1009. Trilochanapāla 1009-1021. Bhimapāla last king of the Shahis 1021-1026.

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District we read that coins of Sāmantadeva who was king of Kabul and the Panjab are found in the mound of the dilapidated town of Sunet; no coins of Delhi kings or of Mahomedan kings are found, though coins of ancient kings, Kushan and others, are also found which shows that Sunet was destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni".

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Of the Shahi kings, Sāmanta was a great king whose accession is placed by Thomas in 935 (but this is not certain, Elliot II p. 425) and he appears to have conquered the Panjab as his coins are plentifully found there. Coins of Bhīma are also found though rarely in the Panjab, but they are plentifully found in Kabulistan. We have seen that he founded Bhimanagar below Kot Kangra. He was grandfather of Diddā the notorious queen oppressor of Kashmir. No coins of Jaipal have been, strangely enough, yet found; but coins of Ānandapāla are found in plenty in the Panjab and even in the northern parts of the Gangetic Duab :(ditto). No coins have been found of Trilochanapāla or Bhīmapāla who probably did not rule over any part of the Panjab.

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These rulers appear to have been Śaivites from their coins which contain a figure of Nandi (Śiva's bull) but Bhīma I seems to have been a Vaishṇava as he is said in the Tarangiṇī to have built a temple of Keshava in Kashmir as already noticed in Vol. I (p. 194). Vaishṇavism appears to have been prevelent at this time in the Panjab as also in Kabulistan.

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Elliot mentions that the last king Bhīma wrote a letter to Chandrarai (of Bundelkhand) advising him not to fight with Mahmud; and quotes Utbi as his authority (p. 427) extract from whose work is given at page 48 (Elliot II). As already stated, different copies of the Yamini read differently at certain places espacially in giving names. The translation which we have used of the Yamini does not contain this name; and we have taken the advice given to Chandrarai to retire as coming from Rājyapāla of Kanauj which is more probable as Bhīma could not have come so far south. But if he did, as his father Trilochanapāla is also represented to have done, he must have then been an ally of Mahmud whose subordinate he had become. The mention of his uncle being converted to Mahomedanism which we have in one copy also, seems to refer to one Sevakapāla (nabira nuptra-Jaipal i. e. a daughter's son of Jaipal) who had accepted Islam and who had been appointed by Mahmud governor of Peshawar. Subsequently he revolted and Mahmud attacked him and he was eventually killed.

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We may pause here a little and see how the small kingdom of Ghazni had become an extensive empire by this time. It is sometimes urged that Mahmud merely undertook plundering expeditions without the object of annexing territories and solidifying a powerful state. This appears to be wrong from what we have seen of the expansion of Mahmud's kingdom upto this time. He achieved a conscious expansion of his territory and solidified his state by forcible conversion In this he was actuated by religious zeal as well as by a correct appreciation of the essentials of a strong state. He first secured Khorasan and other provinces immediately to the west of his kingdom over which even in the days of Samani supremacy Sabuktagin had ruled. He next turned his attention to the east. The provinces of Jalalabad and Kabul (Lamghanat) were already annexed and forcibly converted to Mahomedanism. Mahmud first secured the Bannu district of the present N. W. Frontier province which was an ancient tract of the Hindus and was clearly in possession of the Shahis of Kabul. There are extensive mounds near Bannu which show that this district said to be settled first by Bharata, brother of Rāma (vide Rāmāyaṇa Uttarakāṇḍa), was in the possession of the Kabul Shahis "In these mounds coins are found plentifully not only of Azij and Vāsudeva of Indo-Bactrian period but also of the last Brahmin kingly line of Kabul"; but they contain no coins of any Mahomedan kings showing that the city was destroyed by Mahmud. The old road to Hindustan from Ghazni was via modern Bannu and the Kurrum and it fell into disuse when the Khyber pass was opened (Bannu Gazetteer). This district was, it seems, seized by Mahmud first and the people forcibly converted in order to enable him to pass over to India easily. Mahmud annexed the Peshawar District next, capturing Wahind after the signal defeat of Jaipal in the plain of Peshawar. Wahind was the capital of the Kabul kingdom and was also on the then second route to India, being a little above the junction of the Kabul river with the Indus. The basins of the two rivers Kramu and Kubhā (Kurrum and Kabul) well-known even in the Rigveda and situate in the first home of the Vedic Aryans, were thus in the hands of Mahmud and were now Mahomedan lands. Mahmud hereafter extended his kingdom westward by reducing the more distant provinces of the Samani empire and also eastward by first acquiring Multan which was already a Mahomedan state as also by annexing the kingdom of Bhatia which, as shown before, lay to the southwest of Multan and between the Indus and the Jhelum. Finally he annexed the Panjab the remaining province of the Kabul Shahis. He did not, for reasons which we will explain later on, apply to this province the process of forcible conversion though probably even here he appears to have converted many people. Thus the extension of the empire upto this point was by the gradual absorption of neighbouring provinces just in the same manner as the British empire gradually extended from Calcutta, Bombay and Madras by the gradual absorption of neighbouring provinces. We see Bengal first acquired by the British, then Bihar, then the U. P. and finally the Panjab by defeating the Sikhs. The process was here as with Mahmud the same, viz. first subjection with retention of previous powers as payers of tribute and then total absorption. Having thus extended his rule over the Panjab, Mahmud next turned his attention to the conquest and the plundering of the provinces further east. And the first kingdom which naturally he would attack was the kingdom of Thanesar which was immediately to the southeast of the Panjab.

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That there was a kingdom at Thanesar is probable, as Al-Beruni mentions Thanesar in his geographical chapter. (Strange-ly enough he mentions Thanesar once between the Jumna and the Ganges and again in the place where it should properly come; probably the first name has to be corrected). There was also a famous deity at Thanesar and there is one even now. Mahomedan later writers name it Jagsom, a word which can-not be reduced to its Sanskrit equivalent. Here was the ancient kingdom of Pratāpavardhana, father of Harsha the last Bud-dhist emperor of Northern India. Mahmud is said to have undertaken this expedition against Thanesar to take possession of some celebrated elephants which Utbi calls by the name of Silmān, while later writers call them Moslem, as they bent down, in prayer as it were, like Mahomedans, in jenuflexion. Probably all the motives for Mahmud's expeditions were present viz: desire of obtaining plunder, of breaking a famous idol and of subjugating an adjacent kingdom. Utbi describes this expedition as follows (p. 394-5): “Accordingly the Sultan marched towards Thanesar with an army educated in the chamber of the sacred war and passed a desert so dreadful that a bird would not fly over its atmosphere. But providence granted aid and they came to that place. Before them they found a running stream full of water, lofty mountains and ground full of impracticable stones. The enemy retired into the mountains. The Sultan crossed the river by two fords and attacked the enemy and (by evening) scattered them among the rocks. And as for the stamping elephants which constituted their confidence they left them on the spot. The Sultan's elephants went after them and brought them to the Sultan's halting place. The army shed so much blood that the water of the river became undrinkable.”

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The above account is simple and indicates that there was a stubborn fight with some chief not mentioned and that the elephants for which Mahmud principally came were secured. There is no mention of an idol being broken, but Utbi in the beginning mentions idol-breaking as one of the objects of Mahmud. The identification of Thanesar becomes doubtful owing to the difficulty of arriving at a stream after marching through a desert which does not fit in with the actual position of Thanesar (Elliot Vol. II 452). But we must remember that Utbi does not write from personal knowledge and is always hyperbolical in his descriptions. There is the river Sarasvati near Thanesar and the Karnal District Gazetteer, in describing its physical aspects, states that there are hilly tracts to the north of Thanesar from which torrential rivers come such as the Sarasvati (p. 1). The battle may not have been fought in the immediate vicinity of Thanesar but at some distance. The battle is rightly placed in 1014 A. D., as the Gazetteer also does, a year after the annexation of the Panjab and Mahmud may have come upon Thanesar suddenly through the desert via Multan. The whole of the Panjab was now under him and he could take any route he liked. He had visited Multan ere this a second time and punished the Mahomedans there for again relapsing into the Karmatian heresy.

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The account given by Firishta of this expedition is, we think, wholly imaginary. Firishta places this event in 402 H. (1011 A. D.) and relates that Ānandapāla on learning Mahmud's intention to attack Thanesar and desecrate the famous idol there named Jagsom, although he was subordinate to Mahmud, submitted a respectful protest. But Mahmud refused saying that the followers of the religion of Mahomet exerted themselves in the subversion of idolatry to obtain reward in heaven. The Raja of Delhi thereupon called upon the Hindus of the whole of India to come together to defend the idol of Thanesar. But Mahmud attacked Thanesar before the Hindus could assemble. After capturing Thanesar, Mahmud wished to march on Delhi; his nobles told him that he could not safely do it till he had conquered and annexed the Panjab behind him. All this is pure imagination as Delhi was not then in such a leading position as to appeal to the Hindus of the whole of India. It was, if it had come into existence, an insignificant subordinate kingdom. The expedition again according to Utbi took place after the reduction of the Panjab to the position of an annexed province at the battle of Nazin ( Nandana ) and when Ānandapāla was already dead. Firishta by ante-dating this event has given this imaginary glowing account. Even Elliot rightly says here, though he restricts his remark to Delhi only, "There is nothing in the Yamini to warrant the reference to Delhi; the existence of which is nowhere alluded to by contemporary writers." ( Al-Beruni, as already stated, does not even mention Delhi in his geographical chapter). "The frequent mention by Firishta of Delhi and its Raja in connection with the Ghazni kings does not rest on solid foundation." ( p. 454 ). The fact is that writers coming four or five centuries later cannot divest themselves of their surroundings and must bring in Delhi which was so famous in their days.

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The last expedition convinced Mahmud that it was possible to extend his raids into Mid-India where the city of Mathura famed for its temples and their riches was situate. He had also a cause of quarrel with the Pratihāra Emperor of Northern India, Rājyapāla, as he had twice assisted the kings of the Panjab in their fights with him. But he took time before he undertook this distant expedition and made due preparations. He wished to secure his rear and there were troubles in his western provinces. Utbi has related them in his history with fullness. He mentions also a change of viziers at Ghazni. The government at Ghazni was an ordered one and Mahmud exercised strict control over the governors of provinces. Khorasan was the centre of learning in those days and learned men from there were appointed to high offices. The language of the learned was Persian, but the new vizier who was himself a poet and a man of learning ordered all documents to be drawn up in Arabic. Ilekkhan king of Turks died about this time and he was succeeded by his brother. While Mahmud was attacking and subduing idolators in Hindustan, the idolators of Chin and Mongolia came down upon the Mahomedan Turks of Kashgar with a force of one hundred thousand men. This was a precursor of those dreadful inroads of the Moguls under Changiskhan which devastated Asia two centuries later. Togankhan, brother of Ilekkhan, sent for succour from all Mahomedan states to oppose this formidable invasion and probably Mahmud sent a contigent. A fierce battle was fought and the idolators of Chin like the idolators of Hind were defeated and almost annihilated. Mahmud continued his previous friendly relations with the Turks under Togankhan and cemented them further by marrying a daughter of Ilekkhan to his son Masa'ud, whom he appointed governor of Balkh.

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Utbi also describes how Mahmud by his zeal for religion had become renowned and "by his intelligence had even come to be considered a guide in expounding the law" and "watched that the ordained statutes should be kept pure from the dust of innovation”. The Sultan commissioned spies to discover heretics and their places of meetings. They were brought from different places and cities to the court and impaled on trees or stoned. And the venerable Abu Bakar, a religious nobleman, coincided in opinion with the Sultan. Utbi further relates how a certain Tahirti who claimed to be a Sayyad and an emissary from the king and Khalifa of Egypt with letters and robes was proceeding to Ghazni but was stopped by order of Mahmud at Herat and conveyed back to Nishapur, capital of Khorasan and there tried for heresy and finally executed with the consent of Kadir Billah the Khalifa of Baghdad. Mahmud sternly suppressed heresy as well as the schism of Khilafat throughout his extensive dominions and thus acquired fame throughout the Mahomedan world (p. 444). It is no wonder that zealous soldiers collected at Ghazni to take part in his religious wars against infidels which by the destruction of idols and the acquisition of plunder secured advantage in the next as well as in this world.

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Having conquered Khwarism which had meantime rebelled and having annexed that land to his other kingdoms, “the Sultan thought he would undertake a third sacred conquest and he arrived at Bost and examined the accounts of collectors. The conquests of Hindu territories so as to become the territory of Islam were overflowing and “the veil of infidelity remained nowhere except in Kashmir”. “Nearly twenty thousand men had come from the plains of Mawarannahar (beyond the Oxus) through zeal for Islam. They excited the purpose of the Sultan and he desired to proceed with those troops to Kanauj. This was a country quite unknown to foreign kingdoms.”

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Utbi thus describes the march to Kanauj and the fight near Mathura. “From the rivers Jihun (Sind) and Jhelum and Chand he went sraight to Tibet. And wherever he came, envoys came to meet him, offering submission and allegiance. And when he arrived near Kashmir, Habali son of Shasin, general of the army of Kashmir, joined his service. As he was told that there was no room for any one who had not accepted Islam, he took his position with robbers (skirmishers) and went before the troops. The army passed valley after valley and every night before the crowing of the cock, the sound of fife and drum arose (vide description of the march of Harsha by Bāṇa Vol. I p. 143). On the 29th of Rajab in 409 H. (1018) they left the Jumna behind and came to the castle of Barm (Baran) in the country of Harun; the king was the greatest of the sovereigns of India but when he saw the army sea, he came down with about 10,000 men and accepted Islam. From hence they came to the fortress of Kaljand who had immense riches, strong cavalry and grand army. He arranged his army, his cavalry and his elephants and waited for the approach of the Sultan in a wood into whose intricacies a ray of the sun could not penetrate and from whose leaves and branches a needle would not reach the ground. The Sultan commanded his advanced guard to force themselves into the midst of the forest. They found a road from the upper castle and when the green sea struck out "Allah Akbar" they stood firm for a time and made charges from their position. At length it became known that all events are in the grasp of destiny and the well-formed scimitar, though its force may be extreme and its edge sharp, is but a vassal to the decree of fate, if it penetrate to the Moslem blood. The despicable ones threw themselves into the river in order that the current might be the means of their preservation, but some came to the sword and some were drowned. Five thousand perished and Kaljand drew his dagger, killed his wife and ripping himself up went to hell. Of their wealth 185 heads of elephants and other plunder came to the Sultan. In the city there was a place of worship of the Indian people, and when he came to that place he saw a city of wonderful fabric and conception, so that one might say this is a building of paradise".

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4. From this poetical but concise account of the secretary of Mahmud who was probably in Ghazni, we can determine the course of the expedition by the help of other information. Mahmud marched with an army of about one lakh of men of whom 20,000 were irregular amateur Turkish soldiers from beyond the Oxus. But he kept strict discipline on the march, as a great commander does, rising in the early morning and marching throughout the day. For he had to surprize the enemy by the celerity of his movement. He marched along the foot of the Himalayas in order probably to avoid crossing big rivers lower down. And on the way, every castle must have submitted to, or been conquered by, such a formidable force. He did not allow Hindus, in the name of submission, to join his army and create a discordant treacherous element and he asked the Kashmir contingent to march ahead. (It is difficult to imagine that Kashmir could have really sent one and we will speak about this later on). Having crossed the Jumna, on the 20th of Rajjab or in December 1018 he marched southwards without crossing the Ganges, through Antarbed, as Kanauj was on the west bank of the river and as he did not wish to place that river before him as an obstacle in attacking Kanauj. Naturally he was opposed here and there by feudatory Rajput chiefs, but generally they submitted as the king of Baran did. Baran is undoubtedly the modern Bulandshahar; it is an ancient town sometimes identified with the Vāraṇāvata of the Mahābhārata and ancient coins of the second century B. C. of Śaka satraps and Kushans have been found there as also a copper-plate belonging to the Gupta period. There was a feudatory king probably belonging to the Dor Rajput clan and his name was Haradatta (which was read as Harun in Persian). A copper-plate belonging to this line of kings dated 1096 A. D. has been found here, giving the genealogy of this line and in it Haradatta is the 7th king and he submitted to Mahmud (Bulandshahar Gazetteer). Probably his conversion with ten thousand of his followers is an hyperbole of Utbi. Marching southwards, Mahmud was opposed near Mathura by one Kaljand with a considerable force and this Kulachandra fearlessly and stubbornly fought with the vast army of Mahmud. He was most probably a general of, and a feudatory chieftain under, the Pratihāra emperor Rājyapāla of Kanauj.

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Mathura the most sacred city of the Hindus, especially the Vaishnavas, was in the heart of the empire of Kanauj and the Pratihāra emperors were often devotees of Vishnu. Mathura had been founded by Śatrughna, a brother of Rāma and it was the birth-place of Śrīkṛiṣṇa. Mathura was sacred to the Buddhists also and during the Hindu period its importance still more increased. The superb temples built there and the immense treasures accumulated therein could not be given up to the idol-breaker and plunderer without a struggle and Rājyapāla though unwilling to sacrifice himself must have sent a strong force to oppose Mahmud. The battle is said to have been fought in a wood; and the place has been identified with the village of Mahāban on the maps. And there must have been then a great forest surrounding the place; for this is the place where Nanda lived and reared Śrīkṛiṣhṇa in a forest, which long remained uncut down to recent times. The place is about six miles from Mathura and Shahajahan is recorded to have killed tigers in the jungle (Mathura Gazetteer). There is a small hill and a fort there and Kulachandra may even have been the hereditary protector of this Mahaban which is also a sacred place. He fought stubbornly with his infantry, cavalry and elephants and Utbi as usual attributes the success of Mahmud to the dictates of fate. Mahmud had no doubt come with an irresistible force, but it may be related to the credit of the Hindus that they did not deliver their sacred city to plunder and devastation without making a frantic effort to save it. Kulachandra in the usual Rajput fashion when unable to avert his fate killed his wife first and himself thereafter. The almost superhuman grandeur of the city of Mathura and the immense booty which Mahmud undoubtedly got in its sack are thus described by Utbi.

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"They had built one thousand castles which they had made idol-temples and in the midst of the city they had built a temple higher than all, to delineate the beauty and decoration of which the pens of all writers and the pencils of all painters would be powerless. In the memoir which the Sultan wrote of this journey he thus declares that if any one should undertake to build a fabric like that, he would expend thereon one hundred thousand packets of a thousand dinars and would not complete it in two hundred years with the assistance of the most ingenious masters. And among the mass of idols there were five idols made of pure gold of the height of five cubits; and one had a jacinth arranged on it which the Sultan would have bought in the bazar gladly for fifty thousand dinars; and another had a sapphire of azure water of one solid piece weighing four hundred miskāls. From the feet of that idol they got 400, miskals weight of gold. Of silver the idols were so many that they who estimated their weights took a long time in

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weighing them. They devastated all that city and the Sultan passed therefrom towards Kanauj, leaving the greater part of his army there."

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Such is the account, painful to a Hindu, of the sack of Mathura by Mahmud in the declining days of the Imperial Pratihāra kings of Kanauj. Wealth always has passed from the weak to the strong and one is reminded here of the sack of Rome by Alaric in the declining days of the Roman Empire so graphically described by Gibbon "Eleven hundred and sixty years after the foundation of the Imperial city which had subdued and civilized a considerable part of mankind, it was delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia. The recently converted Goth spared the Vatican and many Christians found asylum there; but a cruel slaughter was made of the Romans; gold and jewels were removed and the palaces of Rome were stripped of their splendid furniture. Many a statue was melted for its precious material and many a vase was shivered into fragments by the stroke of a battle-axe. It is not easy to compute the multitude who from a honourable position and prosperous fortune were suddenly reduced to the miserable position of captives. Fugitives from Rome filled the povinces and this awful catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished empire with grief and terror."

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CHAPTER XIII

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THE FALL OF KANAUJ.

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Grief and terror must have seized the Emperor of Northern India and Râjyapâla, like Honorarius the emperor of Rome, fled and was neither in Mathura nor in Kanauj but was already in Bari beyond the Ganges, a place not yet identified. Mahmud must have heard all this through his informers. He, however, took care to take an augury on the Koran and pursued Râjyapâla beyond the Ganges with a small force that he may be tempted to come to a fight. Utbi rightly describes him as the chief of the kings of India and says that all kings bent their necks to him and acknowledged his power and dignity. The name of this king, we now know, was Râjyapâla a word which might be read in Persian as Raja Jaipal or Haipal and Elliot in the absence of the epigraphic evidence we now possess, it is no wonder, identified him with Jaipal, king of Lahore who was already dead and who perhaps, he thought, was acknowledged king even in Mid-India. Later Mahomedan historians call him by various other names which are all absurd guesses and some have called him Kunvarpâla i. e. heir apparent of Jaipal. On the 8th of Shaban (January 1019, Elliot II p. 457) "Mahmud reached Kanauj where a mountain rose before him and his army passed the Ganges to pursue the fugitive emperor. As the Sultan did not probably come at him, he (returned and) reduced the seven fortresses of Kanauj placed on the margin of the water of the Ganges" (Utbi p. 457). "Nearly 10,000 temples were built in these castles and the lying idolators declared that the fabrics were two or three hundred thousand years old". Kanauj is an ancient town supposed to be ruled by the Vedic king Kuśika father of Viśvâmitra and its sacredness was as great as that of Mathura. It was a flourishing city at this time and its grandeur had begun in the days of Harsha four hundred years before. It was already a vast city in his days as recorded by Hiuen Tsang whose description of it we have quoted in Vol. I (p. 28). The greater number of the people had left the place and the Sultan took the forts in one day and plundered them. Kanauj appears, however, to have been not as grand as Mathura. The glowing description given by Mahmud is sometimes wrongly transferred to Kanauj but from Utbi it is clear that it belongs in reality to Mathura. Mahmud is not clearly stated to have destroyed the temples here as at Mathura.

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"The Sultan thence turned to Manj a fortified place of the Brahmins" and they for a time resisted him but finding resistance unavailable "they threw themselves down from the castle while some killed themselves with darts and the edge of swords". What place this was has again not been ascertained. It must have been a place lower down on the Ganges and said to be in the present Etawa District. From hence the Sultan came to the fortress of 'Aster' held by Jandbal the Violent. "This fortress was situated in the midst of a forest upon an eminence and deep moats were drawn around it". This place is identified with Asni now a village on the western bank of the Ganges in the Fatehpur district where there is even now a strong fort on the Ganges. Its chief was probably subordinate to Kanauj and likely to give trouble. Having subdued this chief, Mahmud directed his course towards Chandrarâi who was the owner of a very strong fortress." This was of course the Chandel king, the owner of the almost impregnable fort of Kalanjar, who was an independent king, as even Utbi relates that "he had never owned submission to any one and knew nothing but boasting and pride". (p. 450.)

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Utbi mentions here a quarrel between Jandbal the Violent (perhaps a chief belonging to the ancient Gautama clan which even now inhabits the Fatehpur District-Fatehpur Gazetteer-or a Sengâr chief whose descendants are now on the south of the Jumna and known as the Maharajas of Jagmanpur in the Jalaun District) and Chandrarai, which cannot be well understood and in the midst of this quarrel Mahmud came upon Chandrarai who "depending upon the repelling power of his forts and his numerous army determined to oppose the Sultan. But Haibal advised him not to fight and he retired with his army and treasures into a mountain." Utbi attributes this advice of Haibal to the treacherous motive of taking possession of the fort (probably Kalpi) of Chandrarai himself when the Sultan had defeated him; but "the Sultan without stopping to reduce the fort pursued Chandrarai into his place of retirement for three successive days and killed many men and seized their arms and accoutrements. They took some elephants by force and others came willingly whom they gave the name of Khudādād or God-given. They obtained from the treasure of Chandrarai three thousand packets of gold, silver and jewels and saphires and so great an abundance of slaves that the price of each did not exceed ten dirhams. The Sultan returned to Ghazni and the renown of his prosperity extended from the east to the west".

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This certainly was the most extended, the most fruitful and the most energetic expedition undertaken by Mahmud in which he came as far south as modern Cawnpore and Kalpi. Later Mahomedan historians and Firishta especially have made many incongruous statements and additions in consequence of their ignorance of the real history of the period and even of the geography of Antarbed. And European historians have been at pains to explain the movements of Mahmud by relying chiefly on Firishta. But as Elliot has pointed out all this arose from following Firishta too implicitly without referring to more original and authentic sources (p. 408). That principal source is the Yamini of Utbi and we have given the above account from it. The real probable course of Mahmud after entering the Antarbed appears to be this:—he moved via Meerut and Baran south as far as Mahâban, then crossed the Jumna and plundered Mathura. He then repassed the Jumna, arrived at Kanauj, crossed the Ganges to frighten Râjyapâla and returning took Kanauj. Going south through Antarbed he defeated a powerful chief and crossing the Jumna again at Kalpi pursued Chandrarai into the mountains but not as far as Kalanjar. He recrossed the Jumna at Kalpi and returned as he had come through the Antarbed. The same course is described in the history of Nizamuddin Ahmad, an extract from which is given by Elliot (Vol. II p. 460-1) in which Nizamuddin makes only a few alterations in what Utbi has stated.

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The real difficulty is in determining the names and actions of Hindu chiefs and we have already stated on the basis of epigraphic evidence now available which was not before Elliot that the king of Kanauj was the Pratihāra emperor Râjyapâla and the Chandrarai was the Chandel king Ganda both of whom had assisted Ānaṇdapāla in his fight with Mahmud. Mahmud would certainly have not returned without giving a lesson to both. The advice which Haibal (Rājyapāla) gave to Chandrarai appears to us to be a friendly advice and both escaped without being reduced to subjection. This must have troubled Mahmud and this is, in our view, the reason why he returned again next year as described by Utbi, Nizamuddin Ahmad and even Firishta.

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The year is not given by Utbi and Nizamuddin gives 400 H while Firishta gives it as 412 which Elliot considers most probable. Nizamuddin states that when Mahmud heard that Raja Ganda had killed the Raja of Kanauj for having recognised and submitted to tha Sultan, he resolved to invade his territory. But this event must have happened later and Nizamuddin is wrong in assigning this cause for this expedition. For then there was no reason for attacking Kanauj and its chief Haibal and defeating him at the battle of the Rahib as Utbi and Nizamuddin both describe. Further we are not yet told by Utbi that Jaipal (Rājyapāl) had submitted to the Sultan. He had fled to Bari and had not come to any fight with Mahmud. To completely subjugate him the next expedition was undertaken by Mahmud. And it appears that like Shivaji or any astute general, Mahmud did not inform even his army that he was proceeding against Rājyapāla. Utbi says that Mahmud set out with the avowed intention of punishing the Afghan robbers who from their mountain fastnesses troubled caravans. Having done this Mahmud suddenly turned towards Hindustan " passed the desert and left behind fords and passages of rivers, ravaged the country as he passed and arrived at the river Rahib (not identified) whose whirlpools could carry away horsemen. Here in a fitting place Jaipal (Rājyapāla) had halted and would not permit any one to pass the water. The Sultan ordered hides to be inflated and eight men at night threw themselves into water. And Rājyapāla sent five elephants and a body of men to oppose them but they held on and pierced those elephants through and through with arrows and bore the men to the ground. And the Sultan encouraged every one to swim saying " we ought to endure the toil of a day for the rest of a whole life". And men holding horses' manes swam over. We are reminded here of a similar feat accomplished by Govind III, when he attacked Kanauj itsefl, described in Volume II (p. 166). And theyk illed many men and brought seventy elephants to the Sultan's yoke by compulsion. The infidels fled leaving their treasures as booty. The Sultan had taken augury from the Koran and the promise was fulfilled and "the Sultan was raised on the effectual settlement of the seat of justice and felt assured of extended prosperity and empire". Here ends Utbi's account of this expedition and even here Utbi does not mention that Rājyapāla submitted and even that Mahmud returned to Ghazni. It, however, seems that Mahmud did not retire without obtaining a formal submission from Rājyapāla who, as we shall have to state later on, must have promised to pay a yearly tribute to the Sultan. Thus fell the empire of Kanauj, though the Pratihāra line of its kings for a time continued to rule, as stated elsewhere, till it was supplanted by the Gāhadavālas under Chandra. Other historians bring in here Puru Jaipal. Nizamuddin mentions him and states that he opposed the crossing of the Jumna by Mahmud. Firishta mentions him as the grandson of Jaipal, Raja of the Panjab. Jumna is of course wrongly substituted for the Rahib which may have been the Ghaggar or some other river in Oudh in which province Bari is placed by Al-Beruni. We know that Oudh was directly under Kanauj and it may be possible, as Elliot has surmised, that Trilochanapāla after his defeat on the confines of Kashmir at the battle of the Tauśi may have taken refuge with Rājyapāla king of Kanauj. Al-Beruni states that Trilochanapāla died in 1021 A. D. (412 H.) and this battle on the Rahib may have been fought in that year and Trilochanapāla must have fought bravely in this battle and ended his life on the battle-field on the east bank of the Rahib.

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EXPEDITION AGAINST KALANJAR.

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From here onwards we lose the guidance of the account written by Utbi, a contemporary and secretary of Mahmud and have to rely on later historians or Bakharkars who wrote two or three hundred years later. Why Utbi finishes his account here is inexplicable. There is not the smallest doubt that he lived upto the year 420 H and later for he mentions that in that year Kadhi Abdulla Said went on pilgrimage to Mecca and he also relates the controversies which raged between him and Abu Baker on his return. The translator of Utbi remarks in a foot-note here that if this year be correct Utbi must be taken to have lived longer than he is supposed to do (p. 474). Again Utbi states that Mahmud passed a long life and the translator again remarks in a foot-note that this expression would imply that Utbi lived during a greater part of Mahmud's life than is usually supposed (p. 483). It is, therefore, a puzzle why Utbi does not carry on his narrative down to the year 420 H or 1029 A. D. Probably he finishes his account with the climax attained at this time (1020 A. D.) by Mahmud's good fortune. His empire at this moment was so extensive that it reached on the north-west to the Caspian sea, including as it did Khwarism and even Georgia, while on the south-east, it touched the Sarsuti including the Panjab and Thanesar.

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He had further humbled and subjected to a yearly tribute the emperor of Northern India, at the battle on the Rahib and perhaps he had defeated and entered into friendly relations with the king of the Turks beyond the Oxus. He had finally obtained incalculable wealth from the raid on Mathura and Kanauj and human nature impelled him to expend it on a magnificent mosque at Ghazni, being incited thereto, perhaps, by the sight of the magnificent temple at Mathura "which the best architects" he said "could not have built in two hundred years." He, therefore, at this time designed and reared a splendid mosque at Ghazni, the old mosque there being built for a smaller number of people and at a time when Ghazni had but a small territory. Utbi describes the building of the grand Juma Masjid of Ghazni on which “slaves from Hind and Khorasan worked day and night and superintendents richly paid supervised from morning to evening. Trees were brought from Hind and Sind and used on the said works; mighty stones of marble, square and hexagonal, were brought from distant places. And they drew out the domed porticoes so perfectly spherical that the arch of the sky was but a myth in comparison.” They spared not the purest gold in their paintings and gilding, and crushed the bodylike idols and fastened them in the doors and walls. The Sultan commanded a closet to be constructed for his own use.

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“He commanded the fabric to be square with expanding porches and interlacing curvatures.” The pavement was made of white marble and on the sides of every court they delineated golden paintings shaded with lapis-lazuli. “Every one who saw this fabric took the finger of wonder into his mouth and said ‘Oh thou who hast beheld the mosque of Damascus and are maddened thereby and profess that no building like that is possible’ come and see the mosque of Ghazni.’” “In front there was an immense nave for great festivals and congregations in which six thousand servants might fulfil their duties.” “And he built near the precincts a college and supplied it with valuable books and rare volumes of theology and to these pure walls of instruction professors and Imams and students directed their course; and from the endowments of the college they received daily maintenance and necessaries and a salary monthly or yearly was paid to them. And during the reign of the Sultan the extent of Ghazni exceeded all cities in spacious buildings and solid edifices. And amongst other fabrics there were a thousand walled enclosures for elephants with their grooms, the suppliers of food etc. It was God who was the promoter of all this prosperity of the land.” (p. 468-469). Utbi probably finishes his narrative with a further description of the Sultan’s just rule and the rule of his younger brother in Khorasan where he was appointed by Mahmud but unfortunately where he died young.

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It is probably at this climax that Utbi ends his account which does not seem to have an abrupt end. But we at this time are unfortunately deprived of a reliable account of the subsequent doings of this great sovereign. Elliot mentions the battle of the Rahib as the thirteenth expedition and enumerates four more expeditions thereafter on the authority of Nizamuddin and Firishta. These do not mention their own authorities, yet it is probable that they had some reliable sources of information for their narrative, though we find that owing to distance of time and ignorance of localities they make many wrong statements. Utbi mentions state documents such as a register of expeditions and even memoirs written by Mahmud himself and it is probable that other contemporary writers such as Baihaki whose works are not available to us, supplied them with information. It is not, therefore, possible that these later writers give us imaginary stories though we must accept their accounts with caution and try to tally them with information available from Indian epigraphic evidence. Thus the statement of Nizamuddin that the Raja of Kanauj was killed by a Raja named Nanda for having submitted to the Sultan (Elliot II p. 63), a statement made by him from some contemporary Mahomedan writer, is borne out and supported by Chandella and Kachhapaghāta inscriptions.

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As will be related in Chandella history later on, a Chandella inscription states that Vidyādhara son of Ganda destroyed the king of Kānyakubja (E. I. I p. 222) and that in this he was assisted by Bhoja and the Kalachuri king. This combined force was led by a Kachhapaghāta king of Gwalior who was a feudatory of the Chandella king and another Kachhapaghāta chieftain of Dubhkund (in Gwalior territory) by name Arjuna is said in an inscription to have actually, when engaged in the service of king Vidyādhara, by his arrows in a great battle cut through the neck of Rājyapāla. This speaks volumes of the spirit of the Rajput kings of this time who did not like the action of Rājyapāla in submitting to a foreign king, the breaker of the idols of Mathura, and a combined army of Chandella, Paramāra, Kalachūri and Kachhapaghāta kings attacked Rājyapāla in Kanauj and killed him. Probably they returned without doing more and Trilochanapāla son of Rājyapāla succeeded him in due course at Kanauj.

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Though thus the account of Rājyapāla being killed is true, it seems to us that Nizamuddin is wrong in placing this event before the expedition of Mahmud against Rai Jaipal (Rājyapāla) and the battle of the Rahib described above and in misstating that the eight men who crossed the deep stream of the Rahib crossed the Jumna where further Puru Jaipal opposed Mahmud. Again, Nizamuddin states that the eight men advanced on Bari which is mentioned by no other writer (Elliot II p. 464). The advance and capture of Bāri must be correct as we know from Al-Beruni that Rājyapāla had made it his residence. It must have been after the battle on the Rahib that Rājyapāla must have submitted and consented to the payment of a tribute. It was after this that Rājyapāla must have been attacked by the Hindu confederacy led by the Chandella king and Mahmud on hearing of this must have thought it necessary to chastise both the Chandella and the Gwalior kings. Lastly Nizamuddin twice leads Mahmud against the Chandella king once after the capture of Bari and again in what Elliot calls the fifteenth expedition viz. that against Gwalior and Kalanjar on the authority of the same author. Utbi does not mention that Mahmud went against Chandrarai after the battle of the Rahib, for at that time Rājyapāla had not yet been killed. It seems probable that Chandrarai was only once attacked and not twice.

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Mahmud led in 1022 an expedition against Kirat, Nur, Lohkot and Lahore (reckoned as fourteenth by Elliot); the first two are identified with Swat and Bajaur where Hinduism still lingered and the people were worshippers of the lion which Elliot thinks means Śākya Sinha or Buddha. But though this district was a staunch Buddhist district in the days of Hiuen Tsang yet, we think, Buddhism was dead in the tenth and eleventh centuries throughout these territories. The lion refers to the man-lion Avatāra of Vishnu and we have shown in Volume I, that the worship of Narasinha was prevalent in the Panjab, Multan being known as Prahlādapura or the city of Prahlāda, devotee of Narasinha. Mahmud conquered this territory and converted the people to Mahomedanism. He then went to Lohkot the impregnable fortress of Kashmir and returned without effecting an entrance into that inaccessible country, after paying a visit to Lahore* which was now the capital of one of his Indian provinces. He must have learnt here of the events at Kanauj and determined to lead an expedition against Gwalior and Kalanjar next autumn.

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∗ Elliot II p. 466; this contradicts the statement in the Lahore Gazetteer that Mahmud did not visit Lahore at all which seems incredible.

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In 404 H (1023 A. D.) he led this expedition and he must not have crossed the Jumna at all as he had first to chastise the king of Gwalior. This king submitted without fighting and as he was merely a feudatory of Kalanjar, Mahmud did not wait here long but proceeded against Ganda, called Nanda wrongly by Mahomedan writers. Some European writers doubt the truth of this expedition and Elliot could not explain the inclusion of Gwalior in it (Elliot II p. 467); but when we know from inscriptions that both Gwalior and Kalanjar had together attacked Rājyapāla, we may not only grant the necessity and truth of this expedition but see why Gwalior was first attacked and humbled. Nizamuddin detailing this expedition says that Mahmud again attacked Kalanjar which as we have seen is a repetition. In reality this was the first expedition against Chandrarai of Kalanjar (perhaps the second if we take into account the first invasion of Kalpi after Kanauj and Mathura were taken in 1018 A. D.). Ganda at this time retired to Kalanjar which Mahmud invested. Nizamuddin writes that "this fort was unparalleled in the whole of Hindustan for strength. Nanda presented three hundred elephants and sued for peace." "He also sent a few Hindi verses in praise of the Sultan which were shown to learned men of the country and court-poets who bestowed high praise upon them; the Sultan was pleased and sending some presents bestowed upon Nanda fifteen fortresses." It seems that Mahmud was prudent enough not to waste his power upon the reduction of such fortresses as Kalanjar and Gwalior, and contented himself with accepting their submission, and their non-interference with the king of Kanauj paying him a tribute. It is natural that Trilochanapāla who had succeeded Rājyapāla must have consented to pay a yearly tribute as covenanted by his father.

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NOTE:—It seems to us that Sir Vincent Smith implicitly following Nizamuddin has given a different and probably mistaken account of these events in his article on the Chandellas in Indian Antiquary XXXVII (p. 142). He observes "In the course of the 12th expedition in Jan. 1019 Rājyapāla submitted and promised an indemnity of one million dirhems and 30 elephants. For this submission Rājyapāla was killed by Ganda's son in May 1019. Mahmud invaded again and an ally of Ganda whose identity is obscured by the imperfection of the Persian alphabet but who was almost certainly Trilochanapāla son of Rājyapāla opposed Mahmud's passage of the Jumna but failed. Mahmud crossed the river and captured and sacked the town of Bari and then marched southwards to chastise Ganda in his own territory. He collected a force in accordance with the usual Hindu custom comprising 36,000 horse, 115000 foot and 640 elephants. The Sultan felt uneasy and reconnitred the army from an eminence In the night Ganda fled. The Sultan carefully attacked the deserted camp lest there might be a ruse and got immense booty. The cowardice and the immense plunder again induced the Sultan to invade his territory via Gwalior in 1023 A. D. Mahmud invested Kalanjar. Ganda gave him 300 elephants and immense presents and accepted back Kalanjar and 15 forts from Mahmud. Notwithstanding the success gained so easily by Mahmud, the Chandel kingdom was not again attacked by Mahomedans until 180 years had elapsed and Ganda's successors were left free to manage their own affairs". This account is full of apparent incongruities owing to Smith's following Nizamuddin implicitly as stated above. Nizamuddin gives two expeditions against Kalanjar instead of one and places both after the defeat and death of Rājyapāla at the hands of the Chandellas. In this case the second expedition becomes an unnecessary expedition as undertaken merely for plunder and via Gwalior for no reason. Secondly, Ganda's running away at night when he had such an overwhelming force is on the face of it unbelievable. Utbi never describes such scenes; but later Mahomedan writers are tempted to imagine such encounters wherein overwhelming forces are assigned to the Hindu king and he is shown to have run away without fighting. Even Utbi has described Ganda as an independent king full of pride and courage. This is a plainly imaginary scene invented by Nizamuddin. For even on his own showing, if this expedition had been undertaken by Mahmud to punish Kalanjar for killing Rājyapāla, there was no necessity to cross the Jumna and go against Kanauj. It does not seem likely that Trilochanapāla would oppose Mahmud to whom his father had submitted. Lastly Utbi does not relate that Mahmud went against Nanda after the battle of the Rahib where the eight men crossed the turbulent river in face of opposition as stated by Nizamuddin himself. The proper explanation is that Nizamuddin is wrong in describing the march against Nanda at this time and also placing the event of the Raja of Kanauj being attacked and killed by Nanda before the battle of the Rahib. The course of event, according to our view was this. In the 12th expedition against Kanauj (1019) Rājyapāla did not submit but fled to Bari. In the 13th expedition Mahmud led an army against Rājyapāla and Bari and conquering him in the battle of the Rahib accepted his submission on condition of payment of tribute (1021 March). In May Rājyapāla was attacked and killed by Nanda assisted by Gwalior which Mahmud learnt at Lahore in 1022 March and he led an expedition in 1022 Dec, against Gwalior and Kalanjar and exacted submission from both in Jan. 1023. In this view Ganda does not appear to be craven-hearted as he is made to appear.

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