Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/579

Rh GHA Singh for aid to recover the throne of Cabul, one of Ranjit’s stipulations was the restoration of the gates to Somnath, a circumstance which probably suggested the notion to the eccentric goveriior-geiieral. A still more remarkable fact (stated in a report by Capt. Claude Wade, dated 21st Nov. 1831) is that the sli.-th reminded the iiiaharaja of a prophecy that foreboded the downfall of the Sikh dominion on the removal of the Ghazni gates. The gates were removed to India in the end of 1842 ; and the Sikh kingdom practically collapsed with the death of Sher Singh in September 1843. Another relic of Sultan Maliiiii’id is the I;’ancl-z'—;S'ultcin, a great dam on the Ghazni river, some 12 miles above the city. Baber describes it as 80 or 100 feet in height, pro- bably along the slope, and about 600 feet long. It had lain ruined in his time since its destruction by Alauddin Jaliansoz, but Baber sent money to restore it. Vigne calls it only 25 feet in height. He found it much out of repair. It supplies irrigation to the plain west of Ghazni. There are many holy shrines about (lhazni surrounded by orchards and vineyards. Baber speaks of them, and tells how he detected and put a stop to the iniposture of a pre- tended miracle atone of them. These sanctuaries make Ghazni a place of Moslein pilgrimage, and it is said that at Constantinople nnicli respect is paid to those who have worshipped at the tomb of the great Gliazi’. To test the geiiuiiieiiess of the boast, professed pilgrims are called on to describe the chief -notabilia of the place, and are expected to name all those detailed in certain current Persian verses. The city is not mentioned by any narrator of Alexander’s expedi- tion, nor by any ancient author so as to admit of positive recogiii- tioii. But it is very possibly the Oaxaca which Ptolemy places among the ]’aroprmu's:al(r:, and this may not be inconsistent with Sir H. Itawlinson’s ideiitifieati'ni of it with Gases, an Indian city spoken of by two obscure Greek poets as an imprcgiiable place of war. The name is probably connected with the Persian and Sans- krit {/anj and ganja, a ti'easiiry (whence the Greek and Latin /}'a:a). 'c seem to have positive evidence of the existence of the city before the Mahonietan times (64~t)in the travels of the Chinese pilgriin, lIwcii T hsang, who speaks of IIO-si-mi (i.c., probably G/Lama) as one of the capitals of Tsaukuta or Arachosia, a place of great strength. In early Mahonictan times the country adjoiii- ing Gliaziii was called Zcibul. 'hen the Malioiiietans first invaded that region Ghazni was a wealthy entrepot of the Indian trade. Of the extent of this trade some idea is given by Ibn Haukal, who states that at Cabul, then a mart of the same trade, there was sold yearly indigo to the value of two million di'nz'irs (£1,000,000). The enterprise of IS1:lI11 underwent several ebbs and flows over this region. The provinces on the IIeliiiaiid and about Ghaziii were invaded as early as the caliphate of lIo:'iwia (662-680). The arms of Ya’ki'ib Leis swept over Cabul and Araehosia (Al-ltukliaj) about 871, and the people of the latter country were forcibly converted. Though the Hindu dynasty of Cabul held a part of the valley of Cabul river till the time of lIahmi'id, it is probably to the period just mentioned that we must refer the permanent Malioinetan occu- pation of Gliaziii. Indeed, the building of the fort and city is ascribed by a Mahometan historian to ’Ainri'i Leis, the brother and successor of Ya’ki'ib (d. 901), though the facts already stated dis- credit this. In the latter part of the 9th century the family of the Samzini, sprung from Sainarkaiid, reigned in splendour at Bok- Iiara. Alptigin, originally a Turkish slave, and high in the service of the dynasty, about the middle of the 10th century, losing the favour of the court, wrcstcd Ghazni from its chief (Who is styled Abu Bakr Lawik, wzili of Ghazni), and established himself there. His government was recognized from Bokhaia, and held till his death. In 977 another Turk slave, Sabuktigin, who had married the daughter of his master Alptigin, obtained rule in Ghazni. He made himself lord of nearly all the present territory of Afghanistan and of the Punjab. In 997 1Iahmi'id, son of Sabuktigin, succeeded to the government, and with his name Gliaziii and the Ghaznevid dynasty have become perpetually associated. Issuing forth year after year from that capital, llahini'id carried fully seventeen expe- ditions of devastation through northern India and Guzerat, as well as others to the north and west. From the borders of Kurdistan to Samarkand, from the Caspian to the Ganges, his authority was acknowledged. The wealth brought back to Ghazni was enornious, and contemporary historians give glowing descriptions of the magnificence of the capital, as well as of the eonqueror's munifieent support of literature. lIaliim'i(l died in 1030, and some fourteen kings of his house came after him; but though there was some i'cvival of importance niider Ibrahim (1059—1099), Z N I 561 the empire never reached anything like the same splendour and power. It was overshadowed by the Seljuks of Persia, and by the rising rivalry of GIIUR (r1. 1-,), the hostility of which it had repeatedly provoked. Bahram Sh:'1h(1118—1152), put to death I{ut- buddin, one of the princes of Ghur, called king of the Jibal or Hill country, who had withdrawn to Gliazni. This priuce’s brother, Saifuddiii S1'iri, came to take vengeance, and drove out Bahrani. But the latter recapturing the place (1149) paraded Saifuddin and his vizier igiioiiiiiiiously about the city, and then lialiged them on the bridge. Ala.-uddiii of Ghiir, younger brother of the two slain princes, then gathered a great host, and came against Bahrain, who met him on the Heliiiaiid. The Ghi'iri prince, after repeated vic- tories, stormcd Gliaziii, and gave it over to tire and sword. The dead kings of the house of Mahnnid, except the conqueror himself and two others, were torn from their graves and burnt, whilst the bodies of the princes of Gln'ir were solemnly disinterred and carried to the distant tombs of their ancestors. It seems certain that Ghazui never recovered the s ilcndour that perished then (1152). Alz'i—uddi'n, who from this ccd became known in history as Julian-so: (Brz7lc- monde), returned to Gln'ir, and Bahrain reocciipied Ghazni ; he died in 1157. In the time of his son Kliusru Shah, Ghazni was taken by the Turkish tribes called Gliuzz (generally believed to have been what are now called Turkoiiians). The king fled to Lahore, and the dynasty ended with his son. In 1173 the Gliiizz were expelled by Gliiyaissiiildiii Sultan of Ghiir (nephew of Ala-uddin Jaliaiiséz), who made Ghazni over to his brother Mufzuddin. This famous prince whom the later historians call, it is not clear why, Slzalzdb-mlda'n Ghiiri, shortly afterwards (117-1-5) invaded India, taking Multan and Uehh. '1‘liis was the ﬁrst of many successive inroads on w(-stern and northern India, in one of which Lahore was wrcstcd from Khusri'i Malik, the last of lIalimi'id’s house, who died a captive in the hills of Ghur. In 1192 l’rithvi Rai or Pithora (as the Moslcm writers call him) the Clioliaii king of Ajinir, being defeated and slain near '1'hanesai', the whole country from the Hiinalaya to Ajmir became subject to the Ghi'iri king of Gliazni. On the death of his brother Gliiy:'1ssuddi'n, with whose power he had been con- stantly associated, and of whose conquests he had been the chief instrument, Muizuddin became sole sovereign over Glnir and Gliaziii, aml the latter place was then again for a brief period the seat of an empire nearly as extensive as that of lIahm1'id the son of Sabuktigi'n. Miiiziiddin crossed the Indus once more to put down a rebellion of the Kliokars in the Punjab, and on his way back was murdered by a band of them, or, as some say, by one of the 1|! uldlzidah or Assassins. The slave lieutenants of Muizuddiii carried on the conquest of India, and as the rapidly succeeding events broke their dependence on any master, they established at Delhi that monarchy of which, after it had endured through many dynasties, and had culminated with the Mogliul house of Baber, the shadow perished in 1857. The death of Muizuddin was fol- lowed by struggle and anarchy, ending for a time in the annexation of Ghazni to the empire of Khwarazni by Maliommcd Shah, who conferred it on his famous son, Jalaluildiii, and Gliazni became the headquarters of the latter. After Jengliiz Khan had extinguished the power of his family in Turkestaii, J alaliiddin defeated the army sent against him by the Mongol at Parwzin, north of Cabul. J cnghiz thcn advanced and drove J alaluddin across the Indus, after which he sent Okkodai his son to besiegc Gliazni. Heiiceforward Ghazni is much less prominent in Asiatic history. It continued subject to the Mongols, sometimes to the house of Hulakii in Persia, and sometimes to that of Cliaghatai in Tiirkestan. In 1326, after a battle between Amir Husain, the viceroy of the former house in Kliorasan, aml Tarinashirin, the reigning khan of Chaghatai, the former entered Ghazni and once more subjected it to devastation, and this time the tomb of Maliniiid to desecration. The statement in a recent book on Afghanistan, that a new Gliori dynasty reigned at Giza:-ni from 1336 to 1383, is erroneous. Ibn Batuta (c. 1332) says the greater part of the city was in ruins, and only a small part continued to be a town. Timur seems never to have visited Gliaziii, but we find him in 1401 bestowing the govern- ment of Cabul, Kandahar, and Gliazni on Pir Maliomined, the son of his son J ah:'ingii°. In the end of the century it was still in the hands of a descendant of Timur, Ulugh Beg Mirza, who was king of Cabul and Ghazni. The illustrious nephew of this prince, Baber, got peaceful possession of both cities in 1504, and has left notes on both in his own inimitable Memoirs. His account of Gliaziii indicates how far it had now fallen. “ It is,” he says, “ but a poor mean place, andl have always wondered how its princes, who possessed also Hindustan and Khorasan could have chosen such a wretched conntr_v for the seat of their government, in preference to Khorasan.” He commends the fruit of its gardens, which still contribizte largely to the markets of Cabul. Ghazni remained in the hands of _|iabei"'s descendants, reigning at Delhi and Agra, till the invasion of i'adir Shah (1738), and became after Xadii—’s death a part of the new king- dom of the AfghansunderAlimed Shah Diii'i'-ani. 'e know of but two modern travellers who have recorded visits to the place prrvious_ to the war of 1839. George Forster passed as a disguised travelli r with a kafila in 1783. “ Its slender existence,” he says, “is now main- ..—71