Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/313

Rh against fresh invaders; they also cut off the channels of supply between Central Asia and the Mohammedan powers to the south of the Sutlaj, who were, moreover, kept in constant alarm by this actively aggressive Hindu community on their northern frontier.

The effect was to maintain among the fighting powers in Northern India an equilibrium that was of signal advantage to the English by preserving their northwest frontier unmolested during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a critical period when they were fully occupied with Mysore and the western Marathas. The barrier of Oudh set up by Hastings, although it had been sufficiently effective against the predatory Maratha hordes, would have been of little use for withstanding the much heavier metal of attacks from Central Asia. But the fierce enmity of the Sikhs kept out the foreign Mohammedan, and prevented the resuscitation of any fresh Islamite dynasty upon the ruins of the old empire at Delhi or Lahore. By the time that the Sikh power had become consolidated under Ranjit Singh, in the first years of the nineteenth century, the English had met and overcome their southern rivals, and could then turn their forces northward without fear of any serious diversion on their flanks or rear.

The position of the Sikhs on both sides of the Sutlaj was also useful at this period in setting bounds to the encroachments of the Marathas, who were now again pushing northward under Sindhia. This ambitious and able chief was endeavouring to carve out for himself an independent principality in the upper provinces. He