16 HINDO 
hammed, upon receiving this intelligence, haftened to 
Gazna, where he was crowned in form, and mounted the 
imperial throne. 
Being now informed of the death of Zireck, prince of 
Murve, Mohammed marched to the conqueft of that coun¬ 
try, advancing by the way of Charazm, where Tacafli, 
its governor, not able to oppofe him in the field, {hut 
himfelf up in the city. The king immediately befieged 
the place, but in a few days loilmany brave men. In the 
mean time news arrived that Aibeck, a general of the 
king of Tartary, and Ofman, king of Samarcand, were 
advancing with formidable armies to the relief of Charazm. 
Mohammed was fo unwilling to abandon his hopes of ta¬ 
king the city, that he lingered in its fuburbs till the allied 
armies arrived, when he was obliged to give them battle, 
in which he was totally defeated, lofing ail his elephants 
and treafure. He now retreated to the ftrong fort of Hin- 
dohood, where he was clofely befieged by the enemy; but 
upon paying a great ranfom to Ofman king of Samarcand, 
and furrendering up the place, he was permitted to return 
in fafety to his own dominions. 
Mohammed having retrieved his affairs, and recruited 
"his army, determined to make reprifals upon the Charaz- 
mian Tartars and Turks, and thus remove the difgrace of 
his former defeat. He conferred the government of Ba- 
mia upon his relation Baka ul Dien; with orders, that, 
when he himfelf fliould move towards Turkeftan, Dien 
fiiould march at an appointed time, with all the forces 
of thofe parts, and encamp on the banks of the Amu, 
where he would receive further orders; and at the fame 
time to throw a bridge over the river. The emperor, upon 
the fecond of Shabaan, having reached the banks of the 
Nilab, one of the five branches of the Indus, there formed 
his camp ; when twenty mountaineers, of the tribe called 
Gickers, who had loft fome of their relations in their wars 
with Mohammed, entered into a confpiracy againft his 
life, and fought an opportunity to put their infamous 
purpol'e in execution. The weather being fultry, the 
king had ordered the fcreens which furrounded the royal 
tents, to be ftruck, to give admilfion to the air. This af¬ 
forded the aflaffins an opportunity of afcertaining the 
king’s fleeping-tent. They cut their way through the 
fcreens in the night, and hid themfelves in a corner, 
while one of them advanced to the door; but being Itopt 
by one of the guards, who was going to feize him, he 
plunged his dagger in his breaft. The groans of the dying 
man, being heard within, alarmed the guards in the outer 
tent; who running haftily to learn the caufe of the diftur- 
bance, the other aft'affins took that opportunity of cutting 
their way through the hinder part of the king’s tent. 
They found him afleep, with two flaves fanning him; who 
ftood petrified with horror, when they beheld the aflaffins 
advancing towards the emperor with drawn daggers in 
their hands, which they inftantly plunged in his body. 
Thus prematurely fell the great Mohammed Gauri, in 
the year of the hegira 602, or A.D. 1205, alter a reign of 
thirty-two years from the commencement of his govern¬ 
ment over Gazna, and three from his acceffion to the whole 
empire, the honours and titles of which he nobly per¬ 
mitted his elder brother to enjoy during his life. The 
treafure he amafled is almoft incredible; he is laid to 
have poflefled, in diamonds alone, five hundred maunds; 
he had made nine expeditions into Hindooftan; returning 
almoft every time laden with immenfe wealth. 
Mahmud, the fecond Gauride king of Gazna and India, 
was the nephew of Mohammed Gauri ; but, being of a ti¬ 
mid and indolent difpofition, he chol'e to refide at his for¬ 
mer capital of Gaur, and continue Eldoze, or Tagedin- 
lldiz, as fome call him, who had been one of the favourite 
{hives of his uncle, in the government of Gazna, to which 
lie had been before appointed by Mohammed. He alfo 
continued the other much-favoured Have of his uncle, 
Cuttub, in his viceroyftiip of Delhi; content with receiv¬ 
ing from them, as well as from Naftereddin, governor of 
Sind and Moultan, a large annual tribute, towards the 
O S T A N. 
fupport of that luxury and voluptuoufnefs to which he 
was lb imprudently addifted. No legiftative improvement, 
or military exploit, is recorded of him;.all we know of 
his fate is, that having, contrary to his general conduft, 
engaged in.a difpute with Mohammed, fuitan of Charazm, 
that puiflant monarch marched an army into his territo¬ 
ries, and made himfelf matter of both Gaur and Gazna ; 
that afterwards, like his uncle, he periftied by the hands 
of aflaffins, who had privately entered his palace, and 
murdered him in his bed; thus putting an untimely end 
to the fliort dynafty of the houfe of Gaur, A.D. 1212. 
His remains were interred in the great mofque of Herat, 
which his father had begun, and which he himfelf had 
juft lived long enough to complete, as the only public 
monument to his memory. 
The CHARAZMIAN DYNASTY. 
The chiefs of this dynafty owed the origin of their 
power and fplendour to the fall of the Seljukian Turks, 
or kings of the Perfian Irak, wltofe viceroys they were for 
Tranfoxiana. By a feries of perfidious acts, aggravated 
by the blackeft ingratitude to their benefactors, they had 
exalted themfelves to their honours and their throne. 
Tacalh was the fixth of the Charazmian family, who rofe 
to a point of power and authority unrivalled at that time 
by any of the neighbouring princes of Afia; and dying, 
A.D. i2i2, his fon, furnamed Mohammed the Great, 
became the firft joint king of Charazm and weftern India, 
by feizing on the empire of the weak and pulillanimous 
Mahmud. 
Mohammed, on the deceafe of his father Tacafli, had 
commenced the conqueft of Iran, or Perfia at large ; for 
they poflefled before only that part called the Irak. He 
then fucceffively feized on Chorafan, Baftriana, Gazna, 
Gaur, and Lahore; and afterwards added to his immenfe 
domain, the whole region of Tranfoxiana ; fo that him¬ 
felf, and Gengis Khan, emperor of the Moguls, now di¬ 
vided almoft the whole continent of Afia between them. 
Mohammed, in his military concerns, is faid to have taken 
Alexander for his model; and afpired, like him, to be 
mafter of the world. In the pomp and magnificence of 
his court he lurpafled all other fovereigns; a remarkable 
inftance of which is given by Nifavi, who records, that 
every morning and evening, at the gates of his palace, the 
drums of ftate were beaten by twenty-feven khans, or l'ub- 
jedted fovereign princes, with drum-fticks of gold, richly 
inlaid with precious {tones. 
His dominions to the north and eaft were bounded by 
thofe of Gengis Khan; who, in the courfe of a no very 
extended period, had already fubjugated the innumerable 
tribes of Tartars diifufed over northern Afia, from the 
Volga to its molt eaftern extremities ; and he was now 
l'uppofed to menace fouthern Afia, which conftituted the 
dominions of Mohammed. See the articles Mogulstan, 
and Persia. 
Between two fuch mighty potentates as Mohammed the 
Great, and Gengis Khan, whofe dominions for fo confi- 
derable an extent abutted on each other, we cannot won¬ 
der that jealoufies and mutual enmities lhould arife. That 
this was the cale, is molt certain: but what the real fource 
of that implacable rupture was, which deluged the coun¬ 
try with blood, and fpread death and defolation over weft¬ 
ern Hindooftan, is not fatisfactorily afcertained. The fol¬ 
lowing, however, is the aggravating caufe, as given by the 
hiftorians of Gengis: Both of thele invincible monarchs 
had alike triumphed over their enemies; both had ceafed 
from the perils and the toils of war; and both were en¬ 
joying the bleffings of peace; when the emperor of the 
Moguls, defirous to cultivate a good underftanding with 
the Charazmian prince, fent ambafiadors to announce thefe 
friendly fentiments to him, accompanied with prefents of 
the riclieft kind. The ftern fufpicious nature of the fui¬ 
tan led him to confider thefe prefents as fnares, and the 
ambafiadors as fpies,. His haughty foul brooked not a ri¬ 
val, efpecially an infidel rival; and he fecretly meditated 
