CHAP. VIII. Turkish Pashas, unfettered by public opinion or conventional morality. Two grandees may be named as types of the class. Saádut Khan was a Persian adventurer, who had risen to the rank of Nawab of Oude. Chín Kulich Khan, better known as Nizam-ul-Mulk, was of Turkish or Tartar origin; he had seized the viceroyalty of the Dekhan, and was rapidly becoming an independent sovereign. These two men were princes in their respective provinces; at Delhi they were rival courtiers. Saádut Khan was a Shíah ; Nizam-ul-Mulk was a Sunní.

Mahratta inroads.

The Peishwas.

The Mahrattas were the pest of India; they plundered the country, regardless of the Moghul or his Viceroys, until they had established claims to blackmail. At intervals they were checked by generals like Saadut Khan or the Nizam; but otherwise their flying hordes infested the country like locusts. If driven out of a district one year, they came again the next with claims for arrears.

The nominal sovereign of the Mahrattas was Maharaja Sahu or Shao. He was the son of Sambhaji, who had been brought up in the seraglio of Aurangzeb; and his training unfitted him for the leadership of the Mahrattas. The real sovereign was the minister, a Mahratta Brahman known as the Peishwa. The minister was the founder of a hereditary line of Peishwas, who ultimately became the recognised sovereigns of the Mahratta empire, whilst the descendants of Sahu were kept as state prisoners at Satara. There were also Mahratta leaders, subordinate to the Peishwas, who were of lower caste than Brahmans, but founded principalities under the names of Sindia, Holkar, the Bhonsla, and the Gaek war. Their wars were those of brigands; they had nothing that can be

called history until they came in conflict with the CHAP. VIII. English. The Mahratta empire was thus a loose confederation of bandit generals, with a Brahman at the head. Sometimes they threatened to plunder Delhi, but in general they were kept quiet by titles, honours, and yearly tribute.

Nadir Shah,

In 1738 there was alarming danger on the north- Rise of west frontier. There had been a revolution in Persia. The Súfi dynasty of Persian Shahs had been overturned by an Afghan invasion. A robber chief came to the front under the name of Nadir Shah. He was a conqueror of the same stamp as Chenghiz Khan or Timúr; and he soon became master of all Persia from the Tigris to the Indus, from the frontier of the Turk to that of the Moghul.

Nadir Shah,

Nadir Shah, like new potentates in general, was Invasion of auxious to be recognised by contemporary sovereigns. 1738-39. With this view he sent ambassadors to Delhi. The Moghul court, in mingled ignorance and pride, treated the ambassadors with contempt. Nadir Shah, the conqueror of Persia and Afghanistan, was very angry. He marched from Kábul to Delhi without check or hindrance. There were no garrisons in the passes, no hill tribes to block out the Persian army. For years the subsidies granted for the purpose had all been appropriated by the Moghul Vizier at Delhi.

Both Saádut Khan and the Nizam were at Delhi. court rivalries. Their rivalry against each other overcame all other considerations. Saadut Khan went out with a large army to attack Nadir Shah; the Nizam out of jealousy refused to join him, and the result was that Saádut Khan was defeated and taken prisoner.

The Nizam was next sent to bribe Nadir Shah to Malicious return to Persia with a sum of about two millions

treason.

CHAP. VIII. sterling. Nadir Shah was ready to take the money. Saádut Khan, however, had a grievance against both Muhammad Shah and the Nizam; he had coveted the post and title of "Amir of Amirs," and these honours. had been conferred on the Nizam. Out of sheer malice Saádut Khan told Nadir Shah that the money offered was but a flea-bite to the riches of Delhi. Nadir Shah was thus persuaded to plunder Delhi. He summoned Muhammad Shah, the Moghul sovereign, to his camp. He then marched into the city of Delhi, accompanied by Muhammad Shah, and took up his quarters in the palace.

Massacres at
Delhi.

Sack and desolation.

Nadir Shah posted guards in different quarters of the city. The people of Delhi looked with disgust on the strangers. Next day it was reported that Nadir Shah was dead. The people fired upon the Persians from the roofs and windows of their houses, and carried on the work of slaughter far into the night. Next morning at daybreak Nadir Shah rode into the city, and saw his soldiers lying dead in the streets. Stones, arrows, and bullets were flying around him. One of his own officers was shot dead by his side. In his wrath he ordered a general massacre. The slaughter raged throughout the day. Nadir Shah watched the butchery in gloomy silence from a little mosque in the bazar, which is shown to this day.

At evening time Nadir Shah stopped the massacre. It is useless to guess at the numbers of the slain. Hindu and Muhammadan corpses were thrown into heaps with the timber of fallen houses, and burnt together in one vast holocaust. The imperial palace was sacked of all its treasures; and so were the mansions of the grandees. Contributions were forced from all classes; they were especially demanded from the

governors of provinces. Nadir Shah married his son to a Moghul princess. He placed Muhammad Shah upon the throne, and ordered all men to obey him. under pain of punishment hereafter. He then marched back to Persia with gold and jewels to the value of many millions sterling.

CHAP. VIII.

Delhi had suffered the fate of Nineveh and Babylon, Anarchy. but her inhabitants were not carried away captive. Slowly they awoke out of their lethargy and returned to their daily labour. Once more there was life in the streets and bazars. But the Moghul empire was doomed; it lingered on for a few years under the shadow of a name until it was engulfed in anarchy.

the provinces.

After the departure of Nadir Shah, the Mahrattas Disaffection in broke out worse than ever. They affected to be faithful servants of the Moghul; but no yearly tribute was forthcoming to bribe them to keep the peace ; and they began to ravage and collect chout in every quarter of the empire. The Moghul Viceroys of the provinces struggled against the Mahrattas with varied success. They ceased to obey the Moghul; they became hereditary princes under the old names of Nawab and Nizam. Whenever a Viceroy died, his sons or kinsmen fought one another for the throne; and when the war was over, the conqueror sent presents and bribes to Delhi to secure letters of investiture from the Emperor. It was by taking opposite sides in these wars in the Peninsula that English and French were engaged in hostilities in India. The English eventually triumphed, and rapidly became a sovereign

power.

Abdali, the

Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1747. Had he left Ahmed Shah religious matters alone, after the manner of Chenghiz Afghan. Khan, he might have founded a permanent dynasty

CHAP. VIII. in Persia.

Conclusion,

But he thought to create an empire which should uniformly follow the Sunní faith. With this view he tried to turn the Persians into Sunnís; and in so doing he excited that blind zeal which brought him to a violent end. After his death the new Persian empire became broken into different kingdoms. Afghanistan fell to the lot of a warrior named. Ahmad Shah Abdali. He conquered the Punjab, and converted the Moghul into a puppet and a vassal.

Muhammad Shah died in 1748; so did the Nizam of the Dekhan; so did Sahu, the last Maháraja of the Mahrattas who wielded the semblance of power. Henceforth there were puppet kings and sovereign ministers at Poona and Delhi. In 1757, the year that Clive gained the victory at Plassy in Bengal, the successor of Muhammad Shah was murdered by his minister; the Vizier fled away into obscurity; the son of the dead Moghul was a fugitive in Bengal, proclaiming himself Emperor under the high-sounding title of Shah Alam. Ahmad Shah Abdali advanced to Delhi and began a struggle with the Mahratta powers. In 1761 he gained the battle of Paniput, which crushed the Mahrattas for a while, and established the Afghans as the arbiters of the fate of Hindustan.

SUPPLEMENT: HINDU ANNALS.

No Hindu his- THE foregoing history speaks of Moghul courts and

tory in Moghul aunals.

sovereigns, but tells little of the Hindu people. It furnishes glimpses of Rajpút Rajas, the vassals of the Moghul empire; but it reveals nothing of their inner life and forms of government. Above all, it is silent as regards the Rajas of the south, who lived