Abraham Eraly - The Age of Wrath - A History of the Delhi Sultanate

Because of all this, it was only very rarely that Indian kings formed alliances to fight an invader. There are in fact only two recorded instances of rajas rallying together against the Ghaznavids, and both these were in support of the Hindu Shahi rajas of Punjab, Jayapala and his son Anandapala. According to Ferishta, in 1008, when Mahmud invaded Punjab, several Hindu rajas sent contingents in support of Anandapala. There was indeed something akin to a national response against this invasion. ‘The Hindu females on this occasion sold their jewels, and sent the proceeds from distant parts to their husbands, so that they, being supplied with all the necessaries of the march, might be earnest in the war,’ records Ferishta. ‘Those who were poor contributed from their earnings by spinning cotton, and other labour.’ But this concerted action, it should be noted, was not because Mahmud was an alien and a Muslim, but because he posed a threat to the power of all the local rajas and to the life and property of the common people.

But even these allied forces, despite their vast numbers, were not able to defeat the Ghaznavids. None of the Indian kings ever, not even once, prevailed over Mahmud in the innumerable battles he fought in India. This universal rout of Indian kings by Mahmud was primarily because of the lack of regimental discipline in Indian armies, and by their inability to make tactical innovations. Indian military strategies and political attitudes were shackled to moribund traditions, not dynamically related to evolving historical realities. There was thus no way that Indian armies could succeed against the well-trained and well-disciplined Ghaznavid army, which was capable of rapid, coordinated manoeuvres and decisive tactical innovations.

A much vaunted heroic act of Indian kings was to perform, when faced with certain defeat in battle, the fearsome rite of jauhar, ritual mass suicide, in which they killed their women and children, or consigned them into a mass funeral pyre, and then rushed out of their fort into the enemy lines to kill and be killed. The objective of Indian kings in executing jauhar was not to defeat the enemy but to get themselves killed — it was an entirely defeatist and futile act, even if viewed as an act of honour, to avoid the ignominy of defeat. There was nothing heroic or honourable about slaughtering helpless women and children, or in committing mass suicide.

On all this, however, we have only the accounts of Muslim chroniclers, and these have to be taken with some scepticism, especially as their stories are often confusing and contradictory. We cannot be therefore certain that Mahmud was always victorious in his battles as the chroniclers claim. There are no references at all in Indian texts to Mahmud’s raids.

MAHMUD’S FIRST INCURSION into India, probably in 1000 CE, seems to have been just a border raid, perhaps to test the field. His first major campaign was against his immediate eastern neighbour, the king Jayapala of Punjab, with whom Sabuktigin had earlier clashed. In September 1001 Mahmud, heading a 15,000-strong cavalry force, swooped down from the mountains and swept towards Peshawar. There he was confronted by Jayapala with an army of 12,000 cavalry, 30,000 infantry and 300 elephants. In the ensuing battle, which lasted just a few hours, Mahmud overwhelmed Jayapala by the sheer ferocity of his cavalry charge. Some 15,000 Indian soldiers were killed in the battle, and the raja, along with some princes, were captured by Mahmud. The raja and the princes were later released by Mahmud on payment of substantial ransoms. And on their release they were, according to Al-Utbi, sped on their way with contemptuous ‘smacks on their buttocks’ by the Turks.

Returning to his kingdom, Jayapala, out of the humiliation of the repeated defeats he had suffered at the hands of the Ghaznavids, committed ritual suicide by mounting a funeral pyre. He was then succeeded by his son Anandapala, and under him also the conflict between the two kingdoms continued. Mahmud, we are told by Al-Utbi, ‘stretched upon him (Anandapala) the hand of slaughter, imprisonment, pillage, depopulation, and fire, and hunted him from ambush to ambush, over hill and dale, over soft and hard ground of his territory, and his followers either became a feast to rapacious wild beasts of the passes and plains, or fled away in distraction.’

The conflict between the Ghaznavids and the Hindu Shahis went on intermittently for another two decades — altogether for some four decades, from the time of Sabuktigin — till around 1020, when Punjab was annexed by Mahmud. ‘The Hindu Shahi dynasty is now extinct, and of the whole house there is no longer the slightest remnant in existence,’ reports Al-Biruni. ‘We must say that, in all their grandeur, they never slackened in their ardent desire for doing that which is good and right, that they were men of noble sentiment and noble bearing.’

Beyond Punjab, the campaigns of Mahmud took him deep into the Indo-Gangetic Plain, as far as Kanauj on the Ganga. On the way to Kanauj, Mahmud raided Mathura, an ancient sacred city of Hindus and the reputed birthplace of Krishna, a divine incarnation. The city had many splendid temples, and Mahmud, we are told by Al-Utbi, was awed by their grandeur, particularly by the main temple there. ‘If anyone should wish to construct a building equal to this, he would not be able to do it without expending a hundred thousand red dinars, and it would occupy two hundred years, even though the most experienced and able workmen were employed,’ he is reported to have remarked. But this admiration did not prevent Mahmud from ordering the demolition of the temple. ‘All the temples [in Mathura] should be burnt with naphtha and fire, and levelled to the ground,’ he ordered. The city was pillaged for twenty days by the Turks, till they glutted themselves with plunder.

THE MOST CELEBRATED campaign of Mahmud was against the temple city of Somnath on the seashore in Gujarat, and it was also his last important Indian campaign. Mahmud set out from Ghazni on this campaign in October 1024, leading a huge army of 30,000 cavalry, and accompanied by a multitude of volunteers who joined him on the way, drawn by the lure of booty. He reached Multan in November and headed for Gujarat through the desert of Rajasthan, characteristically making meticulous preparations for the journey through the desert, loading several hundreds of camels with water and provisions, and requiring each soldier to carry with him fodder, water and food sufficient for several days.

Mahmud reached Somnath in January 1025. In medieval chronicles there are several different descriptions of Somnath, and of Mahmud’s exploits there. Of these, the most colourful account is in the thirteenth century Arabic chronicle by Kazwini. ‘Among the wonders of that place was the temple in which was placed the idol called Somnath,’ he writes. ‘This idol was in the middle of the temple without anything to support it from below, or to suspend it from above. It was held in the highest honour among Hindus, and whoever beheld it floating in the air was struck with amazement, whether he was a Muslim or an infidel. Hindus used to go on pilgrimage to it whenever there was an eclipse of the moon, and would then assemble there to the number of more than a hundred thousand … Everything that was most precious was brought there as offerings, and the temple was endowed with more than 10,000 villages.’ It was a fabulously rich temple, bursting with the treasures it had accumulated over many centuries. Water from the holy river Ganga, some 1200 kilometres away, was brought every day to Somnath to wash the temple. ‘A thousand Brahmins were employed there for worshipping the idol and for attending on pilgrims, and 500 damsels sang and danced at its door.’ There were 300 barbers there, for tonsuring pilgrims.