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116 they had cleverly assigned the glory and danger of kingship, they had retained the substantial power in their own hands. They were the spiritual guides and the worldly advisers of the monarch; their authority overshadowed his; he reigned and they governed. So with the Muhammadans. For several hundred years, by invasion and conquest, they had ruled India as a military Empire; and although they were no more able to dispense with the inevitable Bráhman than the Hindu monarchs they superseded, yet Muhammadan Emperors were naturally served largely by officials of their own creed, who had either originally accompanied the army of invasion or had descended from its chiefs and officials; while the great majority of Hindu converts to Islam who obtained profitable employment were the most intelligent of the Hindu community, for to accept the creed of the conqueror is an obvious proof of exceptional astuteness.

Against the cultured intelligence of these races what had the poor Ját cultivator, as stupid as his own buffaloes, to oppose? Not to him the triumphs of diplomacy and the conflict of quick intellects in the atmosphere of a court. He could do no more than plough straight and fight. In an intellectual competition with Bráhmans and Muhammadans he was as a cart-horse matched against thoroughbreds. Mahárájá Ranjít Singh recognised this truth very early in his career. It was pressed on him, in 1807, by Sirdár Fateh Singh Kálianwala, before mentioned,