The empire of Ghazna, which had been brought to ra pid and unnatural maturity by the talents and successes of Mahmoud, contained within itself the seeds of its own de cay and destruction : his successors were occupied, either with petty warfare at home, or in the defence of their dis tant provinces, with various success. Thirteen monarchs of the dynasty of Sebectaghin reigned at Ghazna. Khosru Shah was the last ; lie was deposed and imprisoned in A. D 1158, the western and largest part of his empire being seized on by the family of the Gaurides : the provinces contiguous to both shores of the Indus remained to the old dynasty till the year 1184, when the Gaurides also gained them. The new dynasty established permanently the Mahomedan belief on the throne of Delhi, which they fixed upon as their capital in India. The father of Has sanben Hassan owed his advancement to the throne of Gaur to the seventh sultan of the Sebectaghin dynasty ; and Hassan, taking advantage of the distracted and enfee bled state of the empire of Ghazna during the reign of the twelfth sovereign of that dynasty, invaded it, and, after various success, accomplished his object, and, as has been already mentioned, deposed and imprisoned Khosru Shah. Previous to the final conquest of Ghazna, Hassan, on what pretence or with what object does not appear, invaded the dominions of the Selueidx, when he was taken pri soner; but he ingratiated himself so completely with the reigning monarch, by his talents for poetry, that the con queror sent him back laden with his gifts to his own capi tal. He died either in the same year in which he took Khosru Shah prisoner, or in the year immediately suc ceeding.
Hassan was succeeded by his son Mahomed Seifcd dein ; no event of moment occurred during his reign, but the joint reigns of Giathodien Abulffutteh and Shahabo dien Abul AIuzzuffur, which lasted 40 years, and the pe riod of four years, during which the latter survived his brother, fixed the Mahomedan empire within India pro per on the throne of Delhi. The history of the immedi ate cause of the revolution which overturned the ancient Hindoo monarchy of India, Patti, or Delhi, is among the most romantic that even the annals of the East present.
" Jya Chandra, emperor of India, whose capital was Ca noge, was not in truth the legitimate sovereign of the country : that title belonged to the young hero Pithaura, king of Delhi, whose noble character and unhappy fate are the theme of both Mussulman and Hindoo writers; the two monarchs appear, however, to have lived for some years in good intelligence, till, upon occasion of a solemn sacrifice at the capital of Jya Chandra, where the lunc tions of officiating priests were to be performed by s reign princes, Pithaura, not choosing to perform an nfe rior part, while his rank as superior lord should have made him high priest, absented himself from the cere mony, and thus incurred the enmity and persecution of the monarch of Canoge. Shortly afterwards a more ro mantic adventure terminated, not only in the destruction of Pithaura, but in his own Milli. Jya Chandra had adopt ed as his daughter a beautiful and accomplished damsel, whom the king of Sinhala Uwipa, or Ceylon, had present ed to him, during an excursion he had nude to that island under pretence of a pilgrimage, but in reality to extract tribute from the kings of the southern provinces. 'Phis damsel he had promised in marriage to a neighbouring monarch ; but she, being enamoured of the noble and va lorous Pithaura, refused her consent. Pithaura being at
that time at Delhi, and hearing of her affection, disguised himself, his brother, and attendants, as the servants of a bard whom he sent to the court of Jya Chandra ; and hav ing by this means obtained an interview with the fair pig soner,--for such she had been since her avowal of her af fection for Pithaura,—he carried her off in safety to Delhi, during a species of tournament held by Jya Chandra, though not without a combat, which deprived him of some of his bravest warriors. The king of Canoge, in order to revenge himself more completely for this insult, implored the assistance of Shahabodien, who accordingly marched with a powerful army against Pithaura, who roused himself from the delights of his capital, and the indulgence of his love, to meet the Mussulmans in the plains of Thanessar, where he was defeated and slain, A. D. 1194. His capital immediately fell, and Shahabodien fixed in it the first and greatest of the Mahomedan monarchies in India ; and very shortly afterwards overthrew Jya Chandra himself, and thus obtained the most extensive and richest provinces of Shahabodien was succeeded by Mahomed Gori, who reigned seven years. lie fell a victim to the indignation excited by his treachery in betraying the young prince Ali Shah into the hands of his rival on the throne of Khouarcsm, Mohammed Shah, being murdered in his bed, A. D. 1212. He appears to have been an active and en terprising prince, and extended his territory considerably. He perpetrated in Benarcs the same cruel intolerance as Mahmoud Sebcctaghin had done at Nagore Cote, and Sou menat. He also carried his arms to the south of the river Jumnah, and took the fortress of Gwalior. lie likewise reduced the eastern it of Ajmeer.
The death of this emperor occasioned a new division of the Ghaznian kingdom. The- Persian part became sub ject to Eldoze, and the Indian part to Cuttub, who found ed the Patan or Afghan dynasty in Ilindostan. The latter was a native of Afghanistan, and originally a slave. Ilc had been purchased by the emperor, whose notice he soon attracted by his talents and fidelity. As soon as he ascend ed the throne, he changed the seat of government from Lahore to Delhi, which was nearer the centre of the new conquests. The object of his immediate ambition seems to have been the reduction and annexation to his domi nions of Mahar and Bengal ; hut his premature death sav ed them for a short period. The emperor Altmush, who ascended the throne of Delhi, A. D. 1210, was more for tunate, as he completed the conquest of the greatest part of Ilindostan. Ile appears to have been the first Maho medan who reduced Bengal under his power ; the govern ment of which was from this period bestowed on one of the reigning emperor's sons. In A. D. 1215, he had near ly subdued all the kingdoms and principalities in Hindos tan proper ; his empire extending from the mountains of Tibet to that part of the Decan which lies in the latitude of 20° North, and from the Indus to the Ganges. He ap pears to have been a spirited as well as a judicious prince; and it is surprising, if we consider the principles and spi rit of the Mahomedan religion, and the conduct of his predecessors, that there is no proof of his having perse cuted the Brahmins, or destroyed the llindoo temples.