Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/473

Rh order to induce them to steal rice from the fields of others to plant in their owner's land. Sacrifices are offered to them, and their powers are greatly increased if they have been stolen. (Cf. vol. vi., p. 196.) The figure is 6¼ inches high, and has the usual vertical hole in the top of the head. It is seated, and perfect, except that the portion of the legs between the knees and feet is missing.

following tales relating to the Mughal period in India were collected by Muhammad Husain Khān of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh, in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, India, from peasants in the Panjāb. They are very popular among the higher classes. I am not aware whether variants of them are current among the people of other parts of Northern India; but, as far as it has been possible to ascertain, they are found in much the same form throughout the whole of the Panjāb.

The Mughal period may be said to commence with the overthrow, in 1526, of the reigning king, Ibrahīm Lodi, by Bābar, a descendant of Genghis Khān and Timūrlang or Tamerlane. On his death in 1530 he was succeeded by his son Humāyūn, who was driven for a time from his throne by an adventurer of Afghan descent, Shīr Shāh. On his death in 1556 the crown passed to his son Akbar, whose long reign of 49 years covers the greatest period of the Mughal Empire. His son Jahāngīr was followed in 1628 by Shāh Jahān, to whom we are indebted for some of the finest architectural monuments of his dynasty—the new city of Delhi, the Tāj Mahal at Agra. The reign of his son Aurangzīb (1658-1707) marks the decadence of the Empire, largely due to the growth of the new Mahratta power in the Deccan.