If we might trust Ferishta's authority, Mah­múd, at this time marching into the mountains between the sources of the Ráví (Hydraotes) and Beyáh* (Hyphasis) rivers, captured the celebrated fortress of Nágrakót, then called the Fort of Bhím. It was not, however, till the fol­lowing

A.D. 1009.

year, Hij. 400, according to the Tabakát Akbarí and Habíbu-s-Sair, that this expedition was undertaken; and, as the hostile armies, prior to the last battle, had con­sumed three or four months in operations west of the Indus, it is not probable that Mahmúd could have marched into India at the com­mencement of the rainy season.* The fortress of Nágrakót had been for ages the object of Hindú veneration; and not far distant from it there are temples, near one of those extraordi­nary spectacles of nature, a burning fountain, for which the ignorant have a superstitious and idolatrous regard. The last is known by the name of Jwálá-Mukhí,* or “the effulgent countenance.”

Fifth Expedi­tion.

When Mahmúd invested Nágrakót, which was his fifth expedition, the temples were filled with wealth and jewels; the pious offer­ings, by rulers of the neighbouring kingdoms, that had been thus accumulating for many years. Such was the vast booty obtained, by this expedition, that the conqueror, on his return to Ghazní, prepared a magnificent festival; and, having caused his pavilion to be pitched without the city, exhibited, to the assembled multitude, a golden throne and other ensigns of luxury, which the spoils of Hindústán had enabled him to prepare.

As the Afgháns, inhabiting the mountains of Ghór, employed Mahmúd's attention in the suc­ceeding year, the war against the Hindús was for a time suspended. But another crusade against idolatry was, according to Ferishta, undertaken to Thánesar, near Dehlí, in Hij.

A.D. 1011.

402; though the Habíbu-s-Sair says, that, after the conquest of Nágrakót, the most urgent solicitations for peace were made by the paramount sovereign of the Hindús, who promised an annual supply of fifty elephants, and a remittance of tribute to the treasury at Ghazní. Mahmúd so far complied with the proposal, it is said, that the commercial inter­course between the subjects of the adverse powers was renewed. The account of this

Sixth Expedishy;tion.

expedition* to India is, that the king of Ghazní, hearing of Thánesar being held in equal veneration by the Hindús, as Mekka by the Mohammedans, resolved to march against it, and destroy the idol Jagsoma, which was worshipped there. As a treaty existed between Ananga Pál and Mahmúd, by which the former was bound not to molest the Mohammedans in their march through the country, the latter sent to the Rájá, according to Ferishtá's account, informing him of his intentions, and requesting that safeguards might be given to protect his towns and villages from the camp-followers. It is something new, indeed, in poli­tics, to find one of the parties to a treaty, entered into for mutual advantage, commanding to have that portion of it fulfilled which suits their wishes; whilst an open avowal is made, that there is no intention of abiding by the remainder. Such, however, is the statement of this affair by the author just quoted; and, as Ananga Pál is said to have prepared an enter­tainment for the king of Ghazní, this assertion casts suspicion on the narrative of the expedi­tion, which bears more the impress of fiction than of history.

Part of the two succeeding years was spent in sending an army into Jurján; and in politi­cal discussions with the Khalif of Baghdad, regarding the surrender of the Khorásán province, and the city of Samarkand, to the government

A.D. 1014.
Hij. 405.
Seventh Expe­dition.

of Ghazní. Another crusade against idolatry was at length resolved on; and Mahmúd led this, the seventh one, against Nárdain, the then boundary of India,* or the eastern part of the Hindú Kúsh; separating, as Ferishta says, the countries of Hindústán and Turkistán, and remarkable for its excel­lent fruits. The country into which the army of Ghazní marched appears to have been the same as that now called Káfiristán, where the inhabitants were, and still are, idolaters;* and are named the Siáh Púsh, or black-vested, by the Mohammedans of latter times. In Nárdain there was a temple, which the army of Ghazní destroyed; and brought from thence a stone covered with certain inscriptions, which were, according to the Hindús, of great antiquity.* Mahmúd, in returning to Ghazní, marched along the southern face of the mountains of Hindú Kúsh: till hearing that the ruler of Pansír, now called Panjshír,* was an infidel, and possessed some of those elephants called the elephants of Sulaimán, he advanced against this place, plun­dering and murdering the inhabitants.