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 226 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Kanauj]) [Somnath. A.D. 1024] mayed by the inclemency of the seasons, the height of the mountains, the breadth of the rivers, the barrenness of the desert, the multitudes of the enemy, or the formidable array of their elephants of war.^ The sultan of Gazna surpassed the limits of the conquests of Alexander ; after a march of three months, over the hills of Cashmir and Thibet, he reached the famous city of Kinnoge,^ on the Upper Ganges ; and, in a naval combat on one of the branches of the Indus, he fought and vanquished four thousand boats of the natives. Delhi, Labor, and Multan were compelled to open their gates ; the fertile kingdom of Guzarat attracted his ambition and tempted his stay ; and his avarice indulged the fruitless project of discovering the golden and aromatic isles of the Soutliem Ocean. On the payment of a tribute, the rajahs preserved their dominions ; the people, their lives and fortimes ; but to the religion of Hindostan the zealous Musulman was cruel and inexorable ; many hundred temples, or pagodas, were levelled with the ground ; many thousand idols were demolished ; and the servants of the pro- phet were stimulated and rewarded by the precious materials of which they were composed. The pagoda of Sumnat was situated on the promontory of Guzarat, in the neighbourhood of Diu, one of the last remaining possessions of the Portuguese.^ It was endowed with the revenue of two thousand villages ; two thousand Brahmins were consecrated to the service of the Deity, whom they washed each morning and evening in water from the distant Ganges : the subordinate ministers consisted of three hundred musicians, three hundred barbers, and five hundred dancing girls, conspicuous for their birth and beauty. Three sides of the temple were protected by the ocean, the narrow isthmus ■'Ferishta (apud Dow, Hist, of Hindostan, vol. i. p. 49) mentions the report of ?i gun in the Indian army. But, as I am slow in believing this premature (A.D. 1008) use of artillery, I must desire to scrutinise first the texLand then the author- ity of Ferishta, who lived in the Mogul court in the last century. [Briggs [op. cit. vol. i. p. 47) translates, in the passage to which Gibbon refers, " naphtha-balls " and "arrows"; the original words being nupth and khuduiig. But in other Mss. the variants are formed : fope (a gun) and toofung (a musket). These readings must be due to interpolators. Probably Babar first introduced guns into Upper India in 1526. Cp. the note of Briggs.] fi Kmnoge or Canouge (the old Palimbothra) is marked in latitude 27° 3', longitude 80° 13'. See d'Anville (Antiquity de I'lnde, p. 60-62), corrected by the local knowledge of Major Rennell (in his excellent Memoir on his map of Hindo- stan, p. 37-43), 300 jewellers, 30,000 shops for the areca nut, 60,000 bands of musicians, &c. (Abulfed. Geograph. tab. xv. p. 274 ; Dow, vol. i. p. 16) will allow an ample deduction. [Palimbothra is supposed to be Patna.] 7 The idolaters of Europe, says Ferishta (Dow, vol. i. p. 66). Consult Abulfeda (p. 272) and Rennell's map of Hindostan,