1 16 A Short History of the Sikhs.
2 Tughlak kings * embraced nearly the whole of India,
3 was greatly diminished both in size and strength.
4 The terrible effects of Timur's invasion in 1398 had
5 not passed away ; and though the Lodi emperors,
6 the last of the Afghan rulers, boasted that their
7 territories extended from the Indus to Bengal, their
8 authority was practically confined to the country
9 between and immediately around the cities of Delhi
10 and Agra. To the south of the Sutlej the Rajputs,
11 though hemmed in on every side by Muhammadan
12 powers, still maintained their ancient independence ;
13 indeed at this time their princes, under the leader-
14 ship of Rana Sanga, the renowned chieftain of
15 Chitor, constituted the most formidable power in
16 the whole of India. To the south and south-west
17 of Rajpiitana lay the Muhammadan kingdoms of
18 Malwa and Gujarat. In the Deccan, the Bahmini
19 kingdom, founded in 1347 by one of Muhammad
20 Tughlak's Afghan generals, extended from the Tapti
21 to the Kistna, and the remainder of the peninsula,
22 from the Kistna to Cape Comorin, was occupied by
23 the famous Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar. Of the
24 lesser states, Khandesh, Jaunpur, and Bengal were
25 in the hands of Afghan sultans ; Gondwana was
26 tributary to the Bahmini sultan ; Kashmir and Sind
27 were under Moslem rule ; while Orissa still main-
28 tained its independence as a Hindu state.
29 It will thus be seen that, with the exception of
30 1 The Tughlak dynasty, founded in 1320 by Ghiyas-ud-din
31 Tughlak, and firmly established by his son and successor, Muham-
32 mad Tughlak, lasted till 1414. The Sayads ruled from 1414 to
33 1450, and were followed by the Lodis, the last of whom, Ibrahim
34 Lodi, was defeated by Babar at the first battle of Panipat, 1526.
35 (1,841)