India Through the Ages Part 12

It found its apotheosis in the twelfth and last expedition to India, when Mahmud directed all his energy towards Som-nath, a temple renowned throughout India, set proudly on a peninsula in Guzerat, surrounded on all sides save one by the sea.

The intervening seven excursions were all marked by noteworthy incidents, all full to the brim of reckless romance, and each left India the more helpless, the more ready to let the invader pa.s.s to fresh, more southern conquests. Indeed, a certain suzerainty was acknowledged by many Hindu rajahs, and on one occasion Mahmud's march was ostensibly to the relief of a feudatory.

But it would take too long to follow in detail events which were in general so alike. Swift marching, utter unpreparedness, almost pitiful submission, and then "a halt at some sacred city, during which the town was plundered, the idols broken, the temples profaned, and the whole fired." Yet, as the ravaging raids touched Rajputana, resistance became more spirited. At one place the garrison rushed out through the breaches in true Kshatriya fashion to do or die, whilst the women and children burned themselves in silence in their houses. Not one, we are told, survived. This is the first mention in history of the _johar_, or great war-sacrifice of the Rajputs. It is not the last.

So let us turn to Som- or Soma-nath. Now "Soma" is the Moon-G.o.d, "Nath" is Lord. We have, therefore, a simple Temple to the Moon by name; but in reality Som-nath, or Som-eswara, is one of the forms of the G.o.d Siva--his self-existing form.

The crescent moon on the forehead with which the G.o.d always is portrayed alludes to this, and to the intimate relation between the phases of the planet as a measure of time, and the upright stone or lingam, which as all know is worshipped as a symbol of material Life.

It is customary to condemn this nature or phallic worship in India as unclean, almost obscene; it is not so, anyhow, in spirit.

Som-nath, then, was a shrine of Life. The idol in its holy of holies bore no semblance of created beings. It was the symbol of Creation itself, a tall, rounded, black monolith of stone, set six feet in the ground, rising ten feet above it. One of the twelve lingams believed by the Hindus to have descended from Heaven, it was unexpressedly holy, marvellously mighty in miracle. Small wonder, then, with a priesthood of clutching hands, that Som-nath stood renowned as the richest shrine in India.

It must have been fine to see this temple, with its fifty-six pillars set in rows, all carven and inlaid with gems, its gilded spires above the dark, unlit sanctuary, where the great bell swung on a solid gold chain which weighed some fifteen hundred pounds.

Steps led down from it to the sea--that sea which was a miracle in itself to the ignorant, up-country pilgrim, accustomed to parched deserts, unwitting of such natural phenomena as tides; for did it not bow, did it not rise and fall incessantly in constant adoration of the Great Lord of Life? So, at any rate, said the priests, and the pilgrim went back to his parched desert with empty pockets, to dream for the rest of his life of the solemn, ceaseless adoration of the sea. Aye!

even when it raged black with monsoon winds, and spat white with fury at the temple walls, yet still in subservience, still as a slave.

This was not a place to be yielded up of the Brahmans without a struggle. So we read of a three days' battle, of scaling ladders, of heavy reinforcements of the "idolatrous garrison," of an "idolatrous"--surely there is no better word in the language with which to fight a foe!--array in the field which withdrew Mahmud's personal attention. And then there is the crucial moment: Mahomedan troops beginning to waver, their leader leaping from his horse, prostrating himself on the ground before the Lord G.o.d of Battles, and imploring aid for the True Faith.

To speak trivially, it did the trick. One wild, cheering rush, and "the Moslems broke through the enemy's line and laid five thousand Hindus dead at their feet; so the rout became general." So general that the garrison of four thousand, abandoning the defence, escaped by the sea in boats.

Nothing left, then, but to enter the temple in pomp. A goodly procession of warriors! Mahmud, his sons, his n.o.bles; all, no doubt, spitting profusely, while keeping their weather eye open on the gems starring the heavy, carven pillars. Darker and darker! The pillars close in. No light now, save,--high up in the shadows--one pendent jewelled lamp, reflected in the glistening stones, showing dimly the huge, ma.s.sive golden chain, the swinging bronze bell.

And what more? Only a roughly-polished, black marble, upright boulder, hung round, doubtless, as such lingams are to-day, with faded _champak_ chaplets and marigold wreaths.

Was it disappointment which made Mahmud strike at it with his mace?

One could imagine it so, but that he had had experience of the idle objects of which men make idols. Perhaps the backward swing of the mace-head hit the bell and sent its last hollow boom of appeal--which so many worshippers had raised--straight to the ears of the Lord of Life.

It is a rare picture this, of one faith defying another. It does not need the amplification which legend brings to it, in order to grip attention.

That legend runs thus. When Mahmud had ordered two fragments to be hewn off the idol, one for the threshold of the mosque at Ghuini, another for the threshold of his own palace, some of the two thousand priests of Baal in attendance offered untold gold to arrest further destruction; an offer viewed with favour by the king's sons, and the attendant n.o.bles. Smashing one idol out of millions was but mildly meritorious, whereas the money thus gained might be given to the poor But the Judas argument failed.

"The King"--to quote the text--"acknowledged there might be reason in what they said, but replied that if he should consent to such a measure his name would be handed down to posterity as 'Mahmud the idol-seller,' and he wished it to be 'Mahmud the idol-breaker.' He therefore directed the troops to proceed in their work. The next blow broke open the belly of Som-nath, which was hollow, and discovered a quant.i.ty of diamonds, rubies, and pearls of much greater value than the amount which the Brahmans had offered."

Very dramatic, no doubt, but, unfortunately, none of these lingams are hollow. It is possible, however, that the story found base in the discovery of sacred vaults.

Be that as it may, Mahmud, "having secured the wealth of Som-nath,"

apparently fell in love with the country round about it; so much so that he proposed remaining there and sending his son Masud back to reign at Ghuzni. It needed pressure on the part of his officers to induce him to stir; but after some difficulty in securing a Governor for Guzerat, he started to march direct towards Ghuzni by way of the desert.

This same difficulty gives us another picture.

Apparently there were two cousins Dabeshleems--fateful name, of what nationality or family absolutely uncertain--one a hermit, the other a rajah. The hermit was made governor, the prince became pretender.

Mahmud, ere leaving, reduced the latter, and handed him over prisoner to the former. To this the hermit objected. But one course, he said, was open to him, since by the tenets of his religion no king could be put to death; he must build a vault under his throne and place the unfortunate gentleman therein for life. This would be inconvenient, therefore he prayed the conqueror to carry the rajah back with him to Ghuzni.

So Mahmud, his army, and his vast loot, set out for the desert, set their faces for the last time away from the wealth and idolatry of India. Set them, as it turned out, very nearly away from all wealth, all faiths; for in the desert the whole army was misled for three days and three nights by a Hindu guide, "so that many of the troops died raving mad from the intolerable heat and thirst." A Hindu guide who, under torture, confessed exultantly that he was one of the priests of Som-nath, and so died, satisfied with his measure of revenge.

Mahmud, however, had only to prostrate himself once more, and lo! a guiding meteor, and after a long night-march, water! Water, even though it must have been the Great Salt Lake.

After this, time pa.s.sed in comparative uneventfulness, until on the 23rd of April A.D. 1030, in the sixty-third year of his age, "this great conqueror gave up his body to death and his soul to immortality amid the tears of his people."

One of his last recorded remarks was his exclamation when, in answer to his enquiry, the Lord High Treasurer told him that before becoming extinct, the last dynasty had acc.u.mulated seven pounds weight of precious stones. "Thanks be to Thee, All-Powerful Being!" cried Mahmud, prostrating himself yet once more. "Thou hast enabled me to collect more than a hundred pounds."

What did he do with all the vast wealth which in the course of his missionary work he managed to annex? We know that he built a magnificent mosque at Ghuzni called "The Celestial Bride"; but that could not have absorbed it all.

Indeed we know much of it was still in the treasury; for two days before his death he ordered all the gold and the caskets of precious stones to be brought before him, and "having seen them, he wept with regret, ordering them to be carried back, without exhibiting his generosity at that time to anybody."

Gold had evidently gripped at the heart and soul of this middle-aged, well-shaped, ugly man, who was strongly pitted with the smallpox. His was not a lovable personality in any way. Gifted with a touch of genius, gifted above all things with that marvellous vitality which is always as magic to the Indian, he was just, curiously callous, and absolutely sceptical.

He openly doubted if he was really the son of his father, and scoffed at the idea of a future state. Certainly annihilation would be a kinder fate than the one which the poet Sa'adi gives to him in the Gulistan, and which may be paraphrased thus:--

"The King of Khurasan saw in a dream Mahmud the son of Subaktigeen, Dead for this hundred years or more, His head and his heart, his arms and his thighs Dissolved to dust, and only his eyes Moved in their sockets and saw His gold, his empire, everything He loved in the hands of another King."

CAMPAIGNS OF THE CRESCENT

A.D. 1001 TO A.D. 1200

Part II

The Great Raider Mahmud being now put past, the Campaigns of the Crescent continued in feebler fashion. In truth, for a few years Mahomed and Masud, the dead king's twin sons, were occupied in settling the succession. Mahomed, the elder by some hours, mild, tractable, was his father's nominee and on the spot; Masud, on the other hand, was a great warrior, bold, independent, and promptly claimed as his right those provinces which he had won by his sword. So they came to blows.

At the outset Mahomed's piety failed him; for having decorously halted his host during the whole of the Month of Fasting--Ramzan--Masud thereinafter fell upon him, armed at all points, defeated him, and put out his eyes after he had reigned a short five months.

Masud, the new king, appears to have been a man of considerable character and grim humour, for one of the first acts of his reign was in cold blood to hang an unfortunate gentleman who once, long years before, when the question of succession was the subject of conversation, had been heard to say crudely that if Masud ever came to the throne he would suffer himself to be hanged.

So he suffered.

But in truth, as we read the story of this Ghuznevide dynasty, and of the Ghori dynasty which followed it, we rub our eyes and wonder how many centuries we have gone back. For these big, bold, burly men are fairly savages in comparison with the cultured Hindu whom they harried. And Masud, though by repute an affable gentleman, generous even to prodigality, and of uncommon personal strength and courage, was as turbulent as a king as he had been as a prince.

His favourite maxim was, "Dominion follows the longest sword." His was not only long, but heavy. No other man of his court could wield it, and an arrow from his bow would pierce the hide of a mailed elephant.

During the ten years of his reign he entered India with an army three times. But the first of these raids was followed, A.D. 1033, by a terrible famine, a still more terrible outbreak of plague, from which in one month, more than forty thousand people died in Isphahan alone.

This was in its turn followed by a severe defeat of the Ghuznevide arms by the Turkomans on the north-east frontier; for it must not be forgotten that though these dynasties of which we are treating are counted as of India, they have in reality but little to do with it.

They were but t.i.tular suzerains, and very often not that, of the more northerly provinces of Hindustan.

Apparently as a salve to resentment and shame at this defeat, Masud began to build a fine palace at Ghuzni, over which he must have spent some of his father's treasures, for a golden chain and a golden crown of incredible weight appears as a canopy in the Hall of Audience.

It must have been this depletion of the royal treasures which led to his last and most successful campaign against the kingdom of Sivalak, where he is said to have found enormous wealth; and so on to Sonput, ancient Hindu shrine and city to the north of Delhi, whence he made a Mahmud-like return laden with loot.

A quaint old city is Sonput, and a curious authenticity of its h.o.a.r antiquity turned up not long ago, when some cultivators were digging a well. This was a small clay image of the Sun-G.o.d, a deity to which there is now in India but one single shrine.