Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/375

 FALL OF DELHI AND KANAUJ 331 tween Thanesar and Karnal, which forced them to retire beyond the Indus. Two years later, in 1193, Shihab-ud-din, having returned with a fresh force, again encountered Prithivi Raja, who was in command of an immense host, swollen by contingents from numer- ous confederate princes. A vigorous charge by twelve thousand well-armed Mussulman horsemen repeated the lesson given by Alexander long ages before, and demon- strated the incapacity of a mob of Indian militia to stand the onset of trained cavalry. To use the graphic language of the Mohammedan historian, " this pro- digious army, once shaken, like a great building, tot- tered to its fall, and was lost in its own ruins." Pri- thivi Kaja, who was taken prisoner, was executed in cold blood, and the wretched inhabitants of his capital, Ajmir, were either put to the sword or sold into slavery. In the same year, 1193 A. D. (A. H. 589), Delhi fell, and Shihab-ud-din marched against Kanauj and took that city, which had been for several centuries the most splendid of the cities of Northern India. The raja, Jayachchandra, retired toward Benares, but was over- taken by his adversary, routed, and slain. The holy citadel of Hinduism fell into the hands of the victors, who could now feel assured that the triumph of Islam was secure. The surrender of Gwalior by its Parihar raja in 1196, the capture of Nahrwalah in 1197, and the capit- ulation of Kalinjar in 1203 completed the reduction of Upper India, and when Shihab-ud-din died in 1206, Elphinstone says he " held, in different degrees of