Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 1).djvu/192

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
172
HISTORY—THE MUHAMMADAN
[ch.

discord and weakness between Pesháwar and Delhi. Bábar, a descendant of Timúr, ruled a little kingdom there. In 1519 he advanced as far as Bhera. Five years later his troops burned the Lahore bazár, and sacked Dipálpur. The next winter saw Bábar back again, and this time Delhi was his goal. On the 21st of April, 1526, a great battle at Pánipat again decided the fate of India, and Bábar entered Delhi in triumph.

Akbar and his successors.—He soon bequeathed his Indian kingdom to his son Humáyun, who lost it, but recovered it shortly before his death by defeating Sikandar Sur at Sirhind. In 1556 Akbar succeeded at the age of 13, and in the same year Bahram Khán won for his master a great battle at Pánipat and seated the Moghals firmly on the throne. For the next century and a half, till their power declined after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, Kábul and Delhi were under one rule, and the Panjáb was held in a strong grasp. When it was disturbed the cause was rebellions of undutiful sons of the reigning Emperor, struggles between rival heirs on the Emperor's death, or attempts to check the growing power of the Sikh Gurus. The empire was divided into súbahs, and the area described in this book embraced súbahs Lahore and Multán, and parts of súbahs Delhi and Kábul. Kashmír and the trans-Indus tract were included in the last.

The Sultáns of Kashmír.—The Hindu rule in Kashmír had broken down by the middle of the twelfth century. A long line of Musalmán Sultáns followed. Two notable names emerge in the end of the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth century, Sikandar, the "Idol-breaker," who destroyed most of the Hindu temples and converted his people to Islam, and his wise and tolerant successor, Zain-ul-ábidín. Akbar conquered Kashmír in 1587.

Moghal Royal Progresses to Kashmír.—His successors often moved from Delhi by Lahore, Bhimbar, and the Pír