Page:The Seven Cities of Delhi.djvu/267

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Delhi before the Moghal Conquest


He died in A.D. 1488, and was buried in his own garden, opposite the enclosure of Roshan Chiragh Delhi.

Nizam Khan, SIKANDER LODI, succeeded his father, but not without a fight, for the Afghan nobles did not approve of the fact that he was son of a Hindu lady, the daughter of a goldsmith, and therefore not of noble blood. His rival was his cousin, but he managed to defeat him,and generously forgave him. Many expeditions followed, so that Sikandar was not able to return to Delhi until 1490, and there he could only halt for three weeks before he had to march again, in order to repress insurrection. He then spent years in other places, and in 1504 took a dislike to Delhi, because of the great sickness which had followed the heat of the previous year.He appointed a small commission to proceed down the Jumna and select a site for a new city;in their report they recommended Agra, and there he founded a capital, which, in the following year, was destroyed by a violent earthquake. He did not, however, abandon Agra, but rebuilt it, and it remained the capital of Sikandar and of his successors until the days of Shah Jahan; no king, however, was considered properly crowned unless he ascended the throne at Delhi.

Sikandar died at Agra in 1518, but his body207