The times, places, and numbers of Mahmúd's expeditions to India have offered great difficulties to those who have dealt with the history of that ferocious and insatiable conqueror. We look in vain for any enquiry on the subject from the native historians of this period, who, in their ignorance of Upper India, enter names and years without the scruples and hesitations which a better knowledge or a more critical spirit, would have induced.
It is only when European authors begin to discuss the matter that we are taught how many difficulties there are to solve, how many places to identify, how many names to restore. Those who have added most to our knowledge of this period, and have occasionally interspersed their narratives or notes with illustrative comments, and who will be quoted in the course of this Note, may be thus named in the order of their publications:—D'Herbelot,* De Guigues,* Hunt (?),* Dow,* De Sacy,* Mill,* Wilson,* Audiffret,* Rampoldi,* Briggs,* Wilken,* Ritter,* Bird,* Hammer-Purgstall,* Elphinstone,* and Reinaud.* It is needless to mention Gibbon, Malcolm, Conder, Gleig, Murray, and others, whose works, however useful, are mere copies and abstracts of others, and add nothing to our previous information.
It has been usual to consider the number of Mahmúd's expeditions to India to be twelve. The first authority for this number is Nizámu-d dín Ahmad in the Tabakát-i Akbarí; and as Dow has also numbered them as twelve, most English authors following him as the standard, have entertained the same persuasion. But it is curious to observe that, while Nizámu-d dín mentions that there were altogether twelve, in recording them seriatim, he enumerates no less than sixteen; and Dow, while he marginally notes twelve, records no less than fifteen different invasions. Even Elphinstone, though he notes twelve, records more. The Khulásatu-t Tawáríkh gives twelve, and confines itself to that number, or in reality only to eleven, as by some mistake an expedition to Kashmír and Kálinjar are placed in one year, and the tenth expedition is omitted. The Akhbár-i Muhabbat follows it in both errors. I will not attempt to maintain this established number of expeditions, but will consider them in the actual order of their occurrence.
First Expedition.—Frontier Towns. A.H. 390 (1000 A.D.)—Nizámu-d dín Ahmad and Firishta mention that about the year 390 H. Mahmúd marched in the direction of India, and, after taking many forts and provinces, and establishing his own governors in them, he returned to Ghazní. This rests solely on the authority of these two authors, and is not supported by the Táríkh Yamíní; but there is no improbability in the statement.
It was to have been expected that Mahmúd, after establishing himself on the throne of Ghazní, would have embraced the first opportunity of invading India; for, while yet a prince, he had seen how easily the hardy warriors of Zábulistán had overcome the more effeminate sons of India. His father Subuktigín is described in the Yamíní as making several attacks upon the country of Hind, independent of the three which are more specifically mentioned, the scene of which was Kusdár and Lamghán. Even during the fifteen years of Alptigín's reign, Subuktigín is represented by Firishta in an untranslated passage to have made frequent attacks upon India, and even to have penetrated as far as Sodra on the Chináb, where he demolished idols in celebration of Mahmúd's birth, which, as it occurred on the date of the prophet's birth, Subuktigín was anxious that it should be illustrated by an event similar to the destruction of the idols in the palace of the Persian king by an earthquake, on the day of the prophet's birth. In the words of the Bostán:—
<arabic>
Near the Lamghán valley two actions were fought, or more probably in the valley of Jalálabád, for as the plural, Lamghánát, is frequently used, there seems reason to believe that the valley to the south as well as the north of the Kábul river was included in that province. The first action fought in this neighbourhood was brought to a conclusion by the effect of the miraculous fountain or stream in the hill of Ghúzak, which emitted storms, thunder, and cold, whenever some impurity was cast into it. A more particular account of this will be found in the extracts from the Yamíní and the Jámi'u-l Hikáyát.*
What could have given rise to this extraordinary story is not easy to conceive, and no one has attempted an explanation. The most probable solution seems to be that a snow-storm came on, and not only harassed but alarmed the Hindús, who had never witnessed such a thing before; for it is quite compatible with probability that although the Lamghánát were then included in the country of Hind, yet that the soldiers, who, for the most part, came from the more eastern provinces, might never have seen a fall of snow. It is to be observed that the Tabakát-i Akbarí expressly says that Jaipál and the Hindús were unaccustomed to the cold, and that was the reason why they suffered more than the Musulmáns. It may fairly be surmised, then, that the snow and frost totally paralysed the Hindú warriors, and were felt as grievously by them as, nine centuries afterwards, by Indian and British troops combined, when they sustained the most grievous disaster that has ever befallen our nation. It is an extraordinary coincidence that the very scene of this first and last defeat of an Indian army was the same—what wonder if the cause also did not differ?
The minds of the natives of India would naturally have tried to account for such a supernatural phenomenon as a fall of snow, and superstition was at hand to render her assistance.
There was a stone, celebrated amongst the Turkish nations, which
had the peculiar property of causing rain, and hail, and snow, and
excessive cold, and violent tempests, if the possessor, after repeating
the name of God, and breathing upon it, threw it into the water.
This stone is called the “Yedeh,” or “Jedeh.” The first stone of
the kind was said to have been given to Japhet by Noah, to whom
the secret was disclosed by Gabriel. The stone came into the
possession of Turk, the eldest son of Japhet, and in an action which
was fought between him and his nephew, for the possession of the
stone, the latter was killed; and, as he was the father of the Turko-
In an action between the Mongols and Chinese, with respect to the latter, Rashídu-d dín says: “In consequence of the arts of the magician, the Chinese felt, in the middle of summer, a temperature which they had never experienced, even in winter, and were paralysed.” Bergman says that the stone used at present among the nomadic nations is the Bezoar. Marco Polo, also, speaking of a country not far from the confines of India, says:—“When the Carannas wish to overrun the country and rob it, they, by their enchantment and diabolical agency, cause the day to become dark, so that you can see to little or no distance.” In the mountains between Kashmír and Tibet, there is a lake, into which, if animal flesh is thrown, we are informed by Abú-l Fazl, that a storm of snow or rain will arise. There is said to be a similar one at Dámaghán, in Tabaristán, and Zakaríya Kazwíní mentions one near Ghazní, which is, no doubt, the one alluded to in Subuktigín's battle with Jaipál. Altogether, we may consider Jaipál's army to have been surprised and paralyzed by a snow-storm, and that superstition ascribed the unusual visitation to the “Yedeh” stone.*
Second Expedition.—Pesháwar—Waihind. A.H. 391-2.—Mahmúd left Ghazní in Shawwál, 391 H., and a severe action took place on the 8th of Muharram, 392, at Pesháwar, in which he was completely victorious, and Jaipál and fifteen of his principal chiefs and relations were taken prisoners, after the loss of 5000 men.
He is then represented by all the later authorities to have marched
from Pesháwar to Batinda, and invested it. Elphinstone observes
that Batinda is beyond the Sutlej, “and seems formerly to have
been a place of more consequence than its situation in a sort of
desert would promise. It is said by Colonel Tod to have been the
residence of the Rájá of Láhore, alternately with the capital, from
which he took this name. As the battle of Pesháwar was on the
27th of November, Mahmúd would reach Batinda towards the end
of the cold season, when the rivers of the Panjáb, though not all
fordable, would offer little obstruction to cavalry.” Dr. Bird also
speaks of Batinda as being in the most easterly and inaccessible part
of the Panjáb kingdom, and following the Tabakát-i Akbarí and
Firishta, says that Jaipál used to reside there. The latter indeed
says he resided there for the convenience of opposing the Muham-