History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.s4.39

v3.c33.s4.39

We may at the outset state that this account, exaggerated as it must be, still more increased in the marvellous element in later writers who added imaginary stories to it, chiefly from a desire to heighten the religious greatness of Mahmud. The story, for instance,—a story told by even Gibbon—that immense treasure was concealed within the idol of Somnath, that Brahmins offered as ransom several crores of rupees to Mahmud which his generals advised him to accept and that Mahmud refused saying that he would like to be known on the judgment day as an idol-breaker and not as an idol-seller is a fabrication of some one, if not of Firishta himself. Wilson, as quoted by Elliot (II p. 476) commenting on this embellishment of the story of Somnath, observed "The earlier Mahomedan writers say nothing of the mutilation of the features of the idol, for in fact it had none; nor of treasures it contained, which, as it was solid, could not have been within it. Firishta invents the hidden treasure of rubies and pearls with quite as little warrant". This story is plainly absurd, as the linga of Somnath must have been a solid block of stone. Similarly the story that Mahmud was led into a waterless desert by a treacherous Hindu guide and that Mahmud eventually by prayer was able to find water, as also the story that Mahmud wished to remain in Gujarat as it was a fertile country possessing gold mines but was induced to give up this idea on the representation of ministers that Khorasan was the country inherited from his father and the best for him to live in, are incredible. The story of Dabshilim, a recluse and a relative of the fugitive king, being entrusted with the government of the country when Mahmud retired from it is strange and unbelievable, though it has been suggested that he was an uncle of Bhima the reigning monarch of Gujarat at this time, who had indeed retired and who lived on the bank of the Sarasvati as a recluse.