Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/106

76 had owed its strength to the severe competitive trials in which each successor had proved his capacity for kingship. But as Aurangzib died at an advanced age, the contest had long been foreseen and deliberately prepared for. He left his dominions in confusion, with a formidable revolt spreading among the Marathas; his empire was unwieldy and overgrown; and this time the struggle among his heirs brought out no successor capable of holding together the ill-joined provinces and discordant races. The freebooting companies of the Maratha chiefs soon developed into roving armies that overran the central and western regions. The great viceroyalty of the southern provinces was converted into an independent principality under the Nizam. Bengal, the richest province of India, fell away under an Afghan adventurer; the Sikhs were rising in the Panjab; a powerful official was founding his dynasty in Oudh; and various usurpers were setting themselves up in the remoter districts.

A CORNER OF THE DIVAN-I-KHAS AT AMBER.

The dominion which had been planted in the sixteenth century by the vigour and audacity of Babar