1 -i.D. 1762. EXCESSES AGAINST THE SIKHS. 25
2 Malei* Kotila, who was ia the action, that the entire
3 killed and wounded of the Sikhs in this battle did not
4 exceed 12,000. The want of muster-rolls and the irregular
5 formation of Indian armies, which are always mere asso-
6 ciations of chiefs, all representing their force larger than
7 the reality, must necessarily make it difficult, if not impos-
8 sible, ever to ascertain the real loss sustained in action.
9 This disaster is however characterised in Sikh tradition,
10 as the Ghuloo-GIiara or bloody carnage. Ala Singh,
11 of Puteeala, chief of tlie Phool family, was made prisoner
12 at Buruala,' and carried by the Shah to Labor. There,
13 at the intercession of Shah Wl lee Khan the minister,
14 he was released upon an engagement to pay tribute,
15 and his manly conduct and demeanour having secured
16 him the Shah's favor, he was honored with the title of
17 Raja, and dismissed with a rich dress of state.
18 The Shah in irritation against the sect for the trouble
19 they had given him, not less than from bigotted zeal against
20 all idolaters and infidels, signalized his march through
21 Umritsur, by the demolition of the Sikh temple of Hur-
22 mundur and of the sacred reservoir. The first was blown
23 op with gun-powder, and the reservoir, besides being de-
24 faced and filled up as far as materials and time permit-
25 ted, was polluted with the blood and entrails of cows
26 and bullocks, a sacrilege even greater in the eyes of the
27 schismatic disciple of GooRoo GovixVD than of the
28 orthodox Brahminical Hindoo.
29 The Shahs attention was now turned towards Kash-
30 meer, where his Governor Sookh Jeewun had fur
31 nine years conducted the administration without remit-
32 ting any portion of the revenues to the Royal treasury,
33 D