Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/240

 INDIAN ARMOUR. CHAPTER VIII THE COMING OF THE MOGHULS 1 THE EMPEROR BABAR 1451-1530 A.D. THE Moslems of India had grown effete. The old hardy vigour which had enabled the hi 11 men to trample upon the rich and ancient civilization of the Hindus was extinct. A race of conquerors had become a squabbling crowd, jostling each other for the luxuries 1 Moghul more accurately Mughal is the Arabic spelling of Mongol, and is specially applied to the emperors of India descended from Babar and sometimes called in Europe the Babarids. They were however of mixed race ; Babar himself was a Turk on his father's side, though a Mongol on his mother's, and he abhorred the very name of Moghul. His descendants introduced a strong Rajput strain by their marriages with Hindu princesses. The term Moghul is also applied to the followers of the Moghul emperors, and came to mean any fair man from Central Asia or Afghanistan, as distinguished from the darker native Indians. The various foreign invaders, or governing Moslem class, Turks, Afghans, Pathans, and Moghuls, eventually became so mixed that all were indifferently termed Moghuls. 194