354< Lieut. -Colonel Briggs on the Life and Writings ofFerishla. 



systematic mode of combat, as well as the discipline observed, evince the 

 state of perfection to which the military art had attained at that time in 

 Asia. Nor was the reign of Mahmud of Ghizni famous alone for his 

 military achievements : Firdousee, the greatest poet of his country, flourished 

 at his court, together with many other illustrious men of genius and of 

 science. 



Mahmud died in the year 1030. Before which event the Suljook Toork- 

 mans, issuing from the deserts of Scythia, pressed on his northern frontier. 

 His feeble successors not only discontinued all attacks on the Indians, but 

 were themselves compelled to defend Ghizni against those of the Toorkmans 

 alluded to ; who in the end established a powerful empire, extending from 

 Samarkand to the confines of Greece and Egypt. In their progress south- 

 ward and westward, whither they were attracted by the fertile plains of Asia 

 Minor, the territory in the immediate vicinity of Ghizni was permitted to 

 remain in the hands of a line of weak princes ; till their race was finally 

 extirpated by that of Ghor ; the last of the Ghiznevide princes meeting his 

 death in the year llGO. Of the conquests of Mahmud in India the 

 Punjab alone remained to his successors ; while the remaining provinces of 

 Hindoostan continued unmolested by Muhamedan invasion for the long 

 period of a century and a half. 



The Ghori empire was established on the ruins of tliat of Ghizni, in 

 the year 1145; nearly a century after the invasion of England by William 

 the Conqueror : up to which period India had not suffered from any irrup- 

 tion of the Muhamedans subsequently to the death of Mahmud the 

 Great. Despotisms of recent origin are always vigorous ; thus, not only 

 did the race of Ghizni fall beneath the power of Muhamed Ghori, but 

 India itself was destined again to feel the destructive effects of the Muha- 

 medan armies. 



It was in the reign of Henry II. of England, that Muhamed Ghori 

 led his hordes across the Punjab, and penetrated into the provinces of 

 Dehli and Ajmeer. Unlike his prototype, Mahmud of Ghizni, Muha- 

 med Ghori was not always victorious. On one occasion he sustained so 

 siscnal a defeat from the Hindoos, that he was himself left for dead on the 

 field of battle. He escaped however; and the Raja of Delhi being slain 

 in action, he was enabled to advance the seat of his government from 

 Lahore to that capital. Muhamed Gliori met his death from tlie hands 

 of a Hindu assassin, in the year 120G ; and the Ghiznevcde empire being 



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