two invasions of so inaccessible a country should СНАР. have been attended with so few disasters. III. of Trans These insignificant transactions were succeeded Conquest by an expedition which, as it extended Mahmúd's oxiana. dominions to the Caspian sea, may be reckoned among the most important of his reign. E'lik Khán was now dead, and his successor, Toghán Khán, was engaged in a desperate struggle with the Khitan Tartars which chiefly raged to the east of Imaus. The opening thus left in Transoxiana did not escape Mahmúd, nor was he so absorbed in his Indian wars as to neglect so great an acquisition. * Samarcand and Bokhárá seem to have been occupied without opposition; and the resistance which was offered in Khárizm did not long delay the conquest of that country. † The great scale of these operations seems to have enlarged Mahmúd's views, even in his designs on India; for, quitting the Panjáb, which had hitherto * From A.D. 1012 to 1025. (De Guignes, vol. ii. p. 31.) No previous expedition in the direction of the Oxus is mentioned by any historian after the battle with E'lik Khán in A. D. 1006; and Ferishta ascribes this invasion to the resentment of Mahmud at the murder of the king of Khárizm, who was married to his daughter; bu: D'Herbelot (art. Mahmoud) and De Guignes (who quotes Abulfedha, vol. ii. p. 166.) assert as positively that it was to put down a rebellion; and as Ferishta himself alludes to an application to the calif for an order for the surrender of Samarcand in A. D. 1012, it is not improbable that Mahmud may have employed that year in the conquest of Transoxiana, especially as there is no mention of his being then personally engaged in any other expedition. A.D. 1016, A. H. 407. Ninth ex pedition to India. V. A.D. 1017, Canouj. been his ordinary field of action, he resolved on his next campaign to move direct to the Ganges, and open a way for himself or his successors into the heart of Hindostan. His preparations were commensurate to his design. He assembled an army which Ferishta reckons at 100,000 horse, and 20,000 foot, and which was drawn from all parts of his dominions, more especially from those recently conquered; a prudent policy, whereby he at once removed the soldiery which might have been dangerous if left behind, and attached it to his service by a share of the plunder of India. He had to undertake a march of three months, across seven great rivers, and into a country hitherto unexplored; and he seems to have concerted his expedition with his usual judgment and information. He set out from Pésháwer, and, passing near Cashmír, kept close to the mountains, where the rivers are most easily crossed, until he had passed the Jamna, when he turned towards the south, and unexpectedly presented himself before the great capital of Canouj. It is difficult to conjecture the local or other circumstances which tended so greatly to enrich and embellish this city. The dominions of the rája were not more extensive than those of his neighbours, nor does he exhibit any superiority of power in their recorded wars or alliances; yet Hindú and Mahometan writers vie with each other in extolling the splendour of his court, and the magnificence of his capital; and the impression made by its stately appearance on the army of CHAP. Mahmud is particularly noticed by Ferishta.* The rája was taken entirely unprepared, and was so conscious of his helpless situation, that he came out with his family, and gave himself up to Mahmud. The friendship thus inauspiciously commenced appears to have been sincere and permanent the Sultan left Canouj uninjured at the end of three days, and returned, some years after, in the hope of assisting the rája, against a confederacy which had been formed to punish his alliance with the common enemy of his nation. No such clemency was shown to Mattra, one of the most celebrated seats of the Hindú religion. During a halt of twenty days, the city was given up to plunder, the idols were broken, and the temples profaned. The excesses of the troops led to a fire in the city, and the effects of this conflagration were added to its other calamities. It is said, by some, that Mahmúd was unable to destroy the temples on account of their solidity. Less zealous Mahometans relate that he spared them on account of their beauty. All agree that he was struck with the highest admiration of the * A Hindú writer, among other extravagant praises (Colonel Tod, vol. ii. p. 7.), says the walls were thirty miles round; a Mussulman (Major Rennell, p. 54.) asserts that it contained 30,000 shops for the sale of bítel leaf. Some Mahometan writers pay the rája the usual compliment of supposing him emperor of all India; and Ebn Haukal, a century before Mahmúd, mentions Canouj as the chief city of India. (Ouseley's Ebn Haukal, p. 9.) III. V. BOOK buildings which he saw at Mattra, and it is not improbable that the impression they made on him gave the first impulse to his own undertakings of the same nature.* This expedition was attended with some circumstances more than usually tragical. At Maháwan, near Mattra, the rája had submitted, and had been favourably received; when a quarrel accidentally breaking out between the soldiers of the two parties, the Hindús were massacred and driven into the river, and the rája, conceiving himself betrayed, destroyed his wife and children, and then made away with himself. At Munj, after a desperate resistance, part of the Rájpút garrison rushed out through the breaches on the enemy, while the rest dashed themselves to pieces from the works, or burned themselves with their wives and children in their houses; so that not one of the whole body survived. Various other towns were reduced, and much country laid waste; and the king returned to Ghazni, loaded with spoil and accompanied by 5300 prisoners. Having *The following extract has been preserved of a letter from Mahmud to the Governor of Ghazni: — "Here there are a thousand edifices as firm as the faith of the faithful, most of them of marble, besides innumerable temples; nor is it likely that this city has attained its present condition but at the expense of many millions of deenars; nor could such another be constructed under a period of two centuries." (Briggs's Ferishta, vol. i. p. 58.) The whole of this expedition is indistinctly related by Ferishta. He copies the Persian writers, who, adverting to the CHAP. III. Tenth and peditions. eleventh ex now learned the way into the interior, Mahmúd made two subsequent marches into India at long intervals from the present: the first was to the relief of the rája of Canouj, who had been cut off before the Sultan arrived, by the rája of Cálinjer in Bundélcand, against whom Mahmúd next turned his arms, but made no permanent impression, either A.D. 1025, in this or a subsequent campaign. A. D. 1022, A. H. 413. A.H. 414. occupation On the first of these expeditions an event oc- Permanent curred which had more permanent effects than all of the the Sultan's great victories. Jeipál II., who had Panjáb. succeeded Anangpál in the government of Láhór, seems, after some misunderstandings at the time of his accession, to have lived on good terms with Mahmúd. On this occasion, his ill destiny led him to oppose that prince's march to Canouj. The results were, the annexation of Láhór and its territory to Ghazni: the first instance of a permanent garrison on the east of the Indus, and It seasons in their own country, make Mahmúd begin his march |