The story of Siva-ji has already been told. His early decease, while it did not materially check the rising flood of Mahratta power, certainly left the invading West a freer hand along the shores of India from Bombay to Calicut.
For Siva-ji seems to have had a genius for sea, as well as for land warfare. It was his unerring eye which, seizing on an island along the coast overlooked hitherto by both Portuguese and English, had it fortified for use as a point d'appui, whence he could control the shipping north and south. Indeed, having in view the fact that he was the only person who managed in any way to harass English fleets, it seems not unlikely that, had he lived longer, British commerce would have been longer, also, in finding firm foothold in India.
But he died, and his son Samba-ji died also, meanly, miserably. That, however, only delayed the inevitable for a short time. The Mahratta star was in the ascendant, that of the Moghuls was sinking fast, and the death of Aurungzebe accelerated both ascent and descent.
To begin with, it ended what may be called the Râjput acquiescence in empire; that is to say, their acceptance of "Akbar's Dream" as an ideal, which by good fortune might become real. It was an ideal absolutely foreign to the whole Râjput spirit, the whole Râjput theory of life. In their State-Politic, one chieftain had as independent a position as any other chieftain, and even amongst the followers of those chieftains none was really before or after the other. Every Râjput owed equal fealty to his race, was equally free to defend his own rights as he chose. Yet side by side with this curious individual independence ran what, for want of a better word, we may call a feudal bond betwixt follower and chieftain, between chieftain and suzerain. Akbar's Dream of Empire had been antagonistic to this, yet they had accepted that Dream at his hands, and at his death the mere fact of his heir Jahângir being half a Râjput by birth, had helped them to forget what they had given up to the dead man's genius. Shâhjahân was still more Râjput. In his veins there flowed but one-fourth of the hated Mahomedan blood, so they bore with him. But with Aurungzebe it was different. Born of a Mahomedan mother, the old race intolerance showed in him early, and from the moment he set his foot on the throne, alienation of loyalty began actively, passively, so that by the time the bigot's reign of fifty years was over, every Râjput in India was ripe for revolt; a fact which naturally was in favour of the Mahrattas, since it weakened the power of the Moghuls. It was still more favourable to the advancement of the West, since with India engaged in internecine strife, attention was withdrawn from many a seemingly slight advance which yet was the first step to final conquest. Naturally, after Aurungzebe's anxious efforts to settle the succession by means of a last will and testament, his sons immediately came to blows over the business; in which quarrel the best claimant appears to have gone to the wall, for Azim, the second son, was defeated and killed near Agra by his elder brother, Shâh-Alam, and Kambaksh, the youngest, shortly afterwards drew death down on himself by a desperate defiance near Hyderabâd. Thus Shâh-Alam was left to face the situation for five years under the title of Bahâdur-Shâh. It is worthy of note that he, the first puppet-emperor of Delhi, had thus the same name as the last, the old man Bahâdur-Shâh, who, after dallying with disgrace and deceit in 1857 went to end his miserable life in the Andaman Islands.
Bahâdur-Shâh the First found his hands full. Having pursued Kambaksh to the very confines of the Dekkan, it was necessary ere returning northward to settle the Râjput rebellion (which was becoming daily less restrained), and to temporise in some way with the Mahrattas. And here a piece of diplomacy on the part of the dead brother, Azim, served Bahâdur's turn well. The former, when advancing to dispute the crown, had sought to strengthen his position and protect his rear by giving back to the Mahrattas the rightful heir to Siva-ji's throne in the person of his grandson Sâho, who had been kept in captivity by the Moghuls ever since his father Samba-ji had paid the penalty for blasphemy amongst the Mahomedans, and so been made a martyr by the Mahrattas. It was a wily move, for during the young claimant's long incarceration, another pretender to Siva-ji's crown had arisen. Azim-Shâh, therefore, had deliberately started a successional dispute in the hopes of being thereby freed for a time of troublesome neighbours.
The ruse succeeded, and Bahâdur-Shâh, by ratifying his brother's promise of favourable peace should the young pretender succeed in establishing his claim, managed to keep the Mahrattas quiet for some years.
He was less fortunate with the Râjput confederacy, though he was prepared to give up all things but the mere name of Empire. In the case of Oudipur (Chitore) he went so far as to restore all annexations, to release it from the obligation of furnishing a contingent, to abolish the infidel capitation tax, or jizyia, and to re-establish religious toleration as it had existed in the time of Akbar. He could not well have done more; but for once--almost for the only time in Indian history--a faint political feeling is here to be traced. For even the removal of the hated jizyia was not enough for the Râjput; he wanted, and he meant to have, independence. This is--or seems to be--the only occasion in all the long centuries of Indian history which gives us a hint of any recognition on the part of the people of political rights, and as such it is peculiarly interesting. Unfortunately, it is so mixed up with the religious motive that it is impossible to say if it really gives ground for supposing that we have here a faint realisation of the rights of the individual.
While Bahâdur-Shâh was engaged in pacifying the Râjputs by the relinquishment of everything, he was suddenly called to the Punjâb by an insurrection amongst the Sikhs.
Nânuk, their original founder, had lived in Akbar's time; a time peculiarly productive of religious enthusiasms all over the world. And Nânuk was a religious enthusiast pure and simple. Of the soldier caste, the son of a grain merchant, he was devote from childhood. Much travel and mature manhood turned him into an almost inspired preacher of the Theistic doctrines of Kâbir, who in his turn was a disciple of the great Ramanuja. Concerning this same Kâbir there is a curious legend, the recital of which may serve to impress the memory with the most salient feature of his teaching--his tolerance.
The tale runs that at his death the Mahomedans claimed the right to bury the saint, the Hindus to burn him; in consequence of which there was a free fight over the corpse, in the midst of which the still, white-shrouded form lay, mutely appealing for peace. And lo! when blood had been uselessly spilt, and a compromise effected, it was found that beneath the white sheet was no dead man, only where his holy head had lain grew a sweet basil plant, sacred to the God Vishnu, only where his holy feet had touched, a perfumed rehan bush, green as the green of the Prophet's turban!