Bánda.—Before his death he had converted the Hindu ascetic Bánda, and sent him forth on a mission of revenge. Bánda defeated and slew the governor of Sirhind, Wazír Khán, and sacked the town. Doubtless he dreamed of making himself Guru. But he was really little more than a condottiere, and his orthodoxy was suspect. He was defeated and captured in 1715 at Gurdáspur. Many of his followers were executed and he himself was tortured to death at Delhi, where the members of an English mission saw a ghastly procession of Sikh prisoners with 2000 heads carried on poles. The blow was severe, and for a generation little was heard of the Sikhs.
Invasions of Nádir Sháh and Ahmad Sháh.—The central power was weak, and a new era of invasions from the west began. Nádir Sháh, the Turkman shepherd, who had made himself master of Persia, advanced through the Panjáb. Zakaria Khán, the governor of Lahore, submitted and the town was saved from sack. A victory at Karnál left the road to Delhi open, and in March, 1738, the Persians occupied the capital. A shot fired at Nádir Sháh in the Chándní Chauk led to the nine hours' massacre, when the Daríba ran with blood, and 100,000 citizens are said to have perished. The Persians retired laden with booty, including the peacock throne and the Kohinur diamond. The Sikhs harassed detachments of the army on its homeward march. Nádir Sháh was murdered nine years later, and his power passed to the Afghán leader, the Durání Ahmad Sháh.
Between 1748 and 1767 this remarkable man, who could conquer but could not keep, invaded India eight times. Lahore was occupied in 1748, but at Sirhind the skill of Mír Mannu, called Muín ul Mulk, gave the advantage to the Moghals. Ahmad Sháh retreated, and Muín ul Mulk was rewarded with the governorship of the Panjáb. He was soon forced to cede to the Afghán the revenue of four districts. His failure to fulfil his compact led to a third invasion in 1752, and Muín ul Mulk, after a gallant defence of Lahore, had to submit. In 1755-56 Ahmad Sháh plundered Delhi and then retired, leaving his son, Timúr, to represent him at Lahore. Meanwhile the Sikhs had been gathering strength. Then, as now, they formed only a fraction of the population. But they were united by a strong hatred of Muhammadan rule, and in the disorganized state of the country even the loose organization described below made them formidable. Owing to the weakness of the government the Panjáb became dotted over with forts, built by local chiefs, who undoubtedly lived largely by plunder. The spiritual organization under a Guru being gone, there gradually grew up a political and military organization into twelve misls, in which "a number of chiefs agreed, after a somewhat democratic and equal fashion, to fight under the general orders of some powerful leader" against the hated Muhammadans. The misls often fought with one another for a change. In the third quarter of the eighteenth century Sardár Jassa Singh of Kapúrthala, head of the Ahluwália misl, was the leading man among the Sikhs. Timúr having defiled the tank at Amritsar, Jassa Singh avenged the insult by occupying Lahore in 1756, and the Afghán prince withdrew across the Indus. Adína Beg, the governor of the Jalandhar Doáb, called in the Mahrattas, who drove the Sikhs out in 1758. Ahmad Sháh's fifth invasion in 1761 was rendered memorable by his great victory over the Mahratta confederacy at Pánipat. When he returned to Kábul, the Sikhs besieged his governor, Zín Khán, in Sirhind. Next year Ahmad Sháh returned, and repaid their audacity by a crushing defeat near Barnála.
They soon rallied, and, in 1763, under Jassa Singh Ahluwália and Rája Ala Singh of Patiála razed Sirhind to the ground. After the sack the Sikh horsemen rode over the plains between Sirhind and Karnál, each man claiming for his own any village into which in passing he had thrown some portion of his garments. This was the origin of the numerous petty chiefships and confederacies of horsemen, which, along with the Phulkian States, the British Government took under its protection in 1808. In 1764 the chiefs of the Bhangí misl occupied Lahore.
CHAPTER XIX
HISTORY (continued). THE SIKH PERIOD, 1764-1849 A.D.
Rise of Ranjít Singh.—The Bhangís held Lahore with brief intervals for 25 years. In 1799, Ranjít Singh, basing his claim on a grant from Sháh Zamán, the grandson of Ahmad Sháh, drove them out, and inaugurated the remarkable career which ended with his death in 1839. When he took Lahore the future Mahárája was only nineteen years of age. He was the head of the Sukarchakia misl, which had its headquarters at Gujránwála. Mean in appearance, his face marked and one eye closed by the ravages of smallpox, he was the one man of genius the Jat tribe has produced. A splendid horseman, a bold leader, a cool thinker untroubled with scruples, an unerring judge of character, he was bound to rise in such times. He set himself to put down every Sikh rival and to profit by the waning of the Durání power to make himself master of their possessions in the Panjáb. Pluck, patience, and guile broke down all opposition among the Mánjha Sikhs. The Sikh chiefs to the south of the Sutlej were only saved from the same fate by throwing themselves in 1808 on the protection of the English, who six years earlier had occupied Delhi, and by taking under their protection the blind old Emperor, Sháh Álam, had virtually proclaimed themselves the paramount power in India. For 44 years he had been only a piece in the game played by Mahrattas, Rohillas, and the English in alliance with the Nawáb Wazír of Oudh.
