Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/230

190 swarmed up, like locusts, from the south, and the Afghans came pouring down from the north through the mountain passes. Within fifty years after the death of Aurangzib, who was at least feared throughout the length and breadth of India, the Moghul emperor had become the shadow of a great name, a mere instrument and figurehead in the hand of treacherous ministers or ambitious usurpers. All the imperial deputies and vicegerents were carving out independencies for themselves, and striving to enlarge their borders at each other's expense.

We have seen that the Nizam, originally Viceroy of the Southern Provinces, had long since made himself de facto sovereign of a great domain. In the northwest, the vizir of the empire was strengthening himself east of the Ganges, and had already founded the kingdom of Oudh, which underwent many changes of frontier, but lasted a century. Rohilkhand had been appropriated by some daring adventurers known as Rohillas (or mountain men) from the Afghan hills; a sagacious and fortunate leader of the Hindu Jats was creating the State of Bhartpur across the Jumna River; Agra was held by one high officer of the ruined empire; Delhi, with the emperor's person, had been seized by another; the governors sent from the capital to the Panjab had to fight for possession with the deputies of the Afghan ruler from Kabul, and against the fanatic insurrection of the Sikhs.

These were, roughly speaking, the prominent and stronger competitors in the great scramble for power