Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/820

796 796 INDIA [HISTORY. emperors after Aurangzeb are enumerated in the chronicles, but none of them has left any mark on history. His sou and successor was Bahadur Shah, who reigned only five years. Then followed in order three sons of Bahadur Shah, whose united reigns occupy only five years more. In 1739 Nadir Shah of Persia, the sixth and last of the great Mahometan conquerors of India, swept like a whirl wind over Hindustan, and sacked the imperial city of Delhi. Thenceforth the Great Mughal (Mogul) became a mere name, though the hereditary succession continued unbroken down to our own day Heal power had passed into the hands of Mahometan courtiers and Marhatta generals, both of whom were then carving for themselves kingdoms out of the dismembered empire, until at last Bi itish authority placed itself supreme over all. From the time of Aurangzeb no Musalman, however powerful, dared to assume the title of sultan or emperor, with the single ex ception of Tipii s brief paroxysm of madness. The name of nawdb, corrupted by Europeans into &quot; nabob,&quot; appears to be an invention of the Mughals to express delegated autho rity, and as such it is the highest title conferred upon Mahometans at the present day, as mahdrdjd is the highest title conferred upon Hindus. At first nawabs were only found in important cities, such as Surat and Dacca, with the special function of administering civil justice; criminal justice was in the hands of the kotivdl. The corresponding officials at that time in a large tract of country were the subahddr and the fanjddr. But the title of subahdar, or viceroy, gradually dropped into desuetude, as the paramount power was shaken oft&quot;, and nawab became a territorial title with some distinguishing adjunct. During the troubled period of intrigue and assassination that followed on the death of Aurangzeb, two Mahometan foreigners rose to high position as courtiers and generals, and succeeded in transmitting their power to their sons The one was Chin Kulich Khan, also called Asof Jali, and still mare commonly Nizam-ul-Mulk, who was of Turkoman origin, and belonged to the Sunni sect. His independence at Hyderabad in the Deccan dates from 1712. The other was Saadat All Khan, a Persian, and therefore a Shia, who was appointed subahdar or nawab of Oudh in 1720. Thenceforth these two important pro vinces paid no more tribute to Delhi, though their heredi tary rulers continued to seek formal recognition from the ernperor on their succession, The Marhattas were in pos session of the entire west and great part of the centre of the peninsula ; while the rich and unwarlike province of Bengal, though governed by an hereditary line of nawabs founded by Murshid Kuli Khan in 1704, still continued to pour its wealth into the imperial treasury. The central authority never recovered from the invasion of Nadir Shah in 1739, who carried off plunder variously estimated at from 8 to 30 millions .sterling The Marhattas closed round Delhi from the south, and the Afghans from the west. The victory of Panipat, won by Ahmad Shah Durani over the united Marhatta confederacy in 1761, give the Mahometans ono more chance of rule. But Ahm.id Shah had no ambition to found a dynasty of his own, nor were the British in Bengal yet ready for territorial conquest. Shah Alain, the lineal heir of the Mughal line, was thus permitted to ascend the throne of Delhi, where he lived during the great part of a long life as a puppet in the hands of Mahadaji Sindhia He was succeeded by Akbar II., who lived similarly under the shadow of British End of protection. Last of all came Bahadur Shah, who atoned f or hi s association with the mutineers in 1857 by banish ment to Burmah. Thus ended the Mughal line, after a history which covers three hundred and thirty years. Mahometan rule remodelled the revenue system, and has left behind forty millions of Musalmans in British India. . line. Early European Settlements. Mahometan invaders have always entered India from the north-west. Her new conquerors approached from the sea and from the south. From the time of Alexander to that of Vasco da Gama, Europe had enjoyed little direct inter course with the East. An occasional traveller brought back stories of powerful kingdoms and of untold wealth ; but the passage by sea was unthought of, and by land many wide deserts and warlike tribes lay between. Com merce, indeed, never ceased entirely, being carried on chiefly by the Italian cities on the Mediterranean, which traded to the ports of the Levant. But to the Europeans of the 15th century India was practically an unknown land, which powerfully attracted the imagination of spirits stimu lated by the Renaissance, and ardent for discovery. All the learning on this subject has been collected by I)r Bird wood in his admirable Report on the Old Records of the India Office (1879), from which the present section is largely borrowed. In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail under the Spanish flag to seek India beyond the Atlantic, bearing with him a letter to the great khan of Tartary. The expedi- 1 tion under Vasco da Guma started from Lisbon five years ^ later, and, doubling the Cape of Good Hope, cast anchor off the city of Calicut on the 20th May 1498, after a pro longed voyage of nearly eleven &quot;months. From the first Da Gama encountered hostility from the &quot; Moors,&quot; or rather Arabs, who monopolized the sea-borne trade ; but he seems to have found favour with the zamorin, or Hindu raj4 of Malabar. It may be worth while to recall the contem porary condition of India at that epoch. An Afghan of the Lodi dynasty was on the throne of Delhi, and another Afghan king was ruling over Bengal. Ahmadabad in Guzerat, Gulbargah, Bijapur, Ahmad nagar, and Ellichpur in the Deccan were each the capital of an independent Mahometan kingdom ; while the Hindu raja of Vijayanagar was recognized as paramount over the entire south, and was perhaps the most powerful monarch to be found at that time in all India. Neither Mughal nor Marhatta had yet appeared above the political horizon. After staying nearly six months on the Malabar coast, Da Gama returned to Europe by the same route as he had come, bearing with him the following letter from the zamorin to the king of Portugal : &quot; Vasco da Gama, a nobleman of your household, has visited my kingdom and has given me great pleasure. In my kingdom there is abundance of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, and precious stones. What I seek from thy country is gold, silver, coral, and scarlet.&quot; The arrival of Da Gama at Lisbon was celebrated with national rejoicings scarcely less enthusiastic than had greeted the return of Columbus. If the West Indies belonged to Spain by priority of discovery, Portugal might claim the East Indies by the same right Territorial ambition conspired with the spirit of proselytism and with tho greed of commerce to fill all Portuguese minds with the dream of a mighty Oriental empire. The early p, Portuguese discoverers were not traders or private adven-pi turers, but admirals with a royal commission to conquer I 1 territory and promote the spread of Christianity A second expedition, consisting of thirteen ships and twelve hundred soldiers, under the command of Cabral, was despatched in 1500. &quot;The sum of his instructions was to begin with preaching, and, if that failed, to proceed to the sharp determination of the sword.&quot; On his outward voyage Cabral was driven by stress of weather to the coast of Brazil. Ultimately he reached Calicut, and established factories both there and at Cochin, in the face of active hostility from the natives. In 1502 the king of Portugal obtained from Pope Alexander VI, a bull constituting him &quot;lord of the navigation, conquests, and trade of Ethiopia,