1 The grandces of the
2 empire.
3 The emperor resigns
4 himself to pleasurable
5 pursuits.
6 Distracted state of
7 the empire.
8 The rise of Nadir
9 Shah. bd
10 Birth and parentage
11 of Nadir Kuli, after-
12 wards known as Nadir
13 Shah.
14 194 a HISTORY. OF THE PANJAB.
15 already manifesting signs of decay. Amin Khan, the Turrani-noble, was
16 made wazir; Kamr-ud-din obtained the household, and Mir Hyder Khan, a
17 military adventurer of the Chughattai race, and Hyder Kuli Khan, important
18 commands in the military department. :
19 The emperor, freed from the thraldom of the Sayad brothers, resigned
20 himself to ease and pleasure. His favourite counsellors were dissolute young
21 men like Amir Khan, who was created Umdat-ul-mulk, and some other
22 young nobles of lively temper and disposed to good fellowship. His mistress,
23 named Cowki, daughter of Shah Jén Muhammad, a darvish, had such an as-
24 cendancy over him that he put her in charge of his private signet, which
25 she used at her discretion. She also signed, “ by order,’ answers to petitions
26 on State affairs, which she carried within the seraglio, Disgusted with these
27 proceedings, and finding himself overlooked, Asif Jah (the nizdm), who had
28 assumed the office of wazir on the demise of Amin Khan, withdrew from
29 the court, as also did the Persian immigrant, Saddat Khan. Public busi-
30 ness was neglected, and disorders multiplied. The Mahrattas had overrun
31 the whole country between Ajmere and Gwalior, and, pushing forward to the
32 very gates of Agra, struck terror into the hearts of the populace. Mean-
33 while, a formidable riot took place in the imperial capital, which was not
34 suppressed until the Wazfr Kamr-ud-din Khan, by his personal exertions, dis-
35 lodged the riotous Hindus from the cathedral mosque which they had
36 seized, using rockets against them. Again, a great pestilence broke out and
37 ravaged the country from Patna to Lahore. It was in the midst of these
38 troubles that another storm, by far the severest that had ever been experil-
39 enced in India since its invasion by Tamerlane and Babar, burst upon the
40 country, now reduced to a state of hopeless wreck and decay. The Persian
41 conqueror, Nddir Shah, a prince of the same stamp as the Tartar Changez
42 Khan, or the Chughattai Tym, having made himself master of the whole
43 country from the Tigris to the Indus, invaded Hindostd4n under circumstances
44 which will form the subject of a separate chapter.
45 CHAPTER XXII.
46 THE INVASION OF NADIR SHAH.
47 Bee proceeding with our narrative of the events connected with the
48 invasion of India by this great Asiatic conqueror, it may be interesting
49 to give here a brief sketch of his life.
50 Nddir Kuli belonged to the Afshars,* a Turkomdn tribe, and was born,
51 in December 1688, in the castle of Dastgarh, fifty miles north of Mashhad, the
52 capital of Khorasdn. From a petty freebooter and highway robber, he
53 became the greatest warrior and conqueror Persia has ever produced, the deli-
54 verer of his country, and the terror of the whole of Asia. His father, Imdm
55 Kili, was chief of the Afshar tribe, and governor of the fortress above-
56 * The Afshar are a clan of the Tartar tribe, who had formerly removed from the Trans-Oxus
57 provinces to avoid the oppression of the Moghals, their time being divided between war and
58 pastoral work. Like the nomadic Arabs, they changed their quarters as frequently as circum-
59 stances demanded. Nadir was of humble origin. Mirza Mahdi his private secretary and
60 biographer, makes an apology for the obscurity of his extraction by saying, “he was a precious
61 pearl which owed its excellence and brightness to its own intrinsic value, and not to the river
62 which gave it birth.” ;
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