A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej.

CHAP. nII SIKHISM UNDER GOBIND

75

and Akbar completed with a few Tartars their personal 1675-1708.
followers. The Mughals had even a less firm hold of empire
than the Achaemenides or the Carlovingians; the devoted
clansmen of Babar were not numerous, his son was driven
from his throne, and Akbar became the master of India as Akbar.
much by political sagacity, and the generous sympathy of
his nature, as by military enterprise and the courage of his
partisans. He perceived the want of the times, and his
commanding genius enabled him to reconcile the conflicting
interests and prejudices of Muhammadans and Hindus, of
Rajpuits, Turks, and Pathans. At the end of fifty years he
left his heir a broad and well-regulated dominion; yet one
son of Jahangir contested the empire with his father, and
Shah Jahan first saw his children waging war with one
another for the possession of the crown which he himself
still wore, and at length became the prisoner of the ablest
and most successful of the combatants. Aurangzeb ever Aurangzeb.
feared the influence of his own example: his temper was
cold; his policy towards Muhammadans was one of suspicion, while his bigotry and persecutions rendered him
hateful to his Hindu subjects. In his old age his wearied
spirit could find no solace; no tribe of brave and confiding
men gathered round him: yet his vigorous intellect kept
him an emperor to the last, and the hollowness of his sway
was not apparent to the careless observer until he was laid
in his grave. The empire of the Mughals wanted political
fusion, and its fair degree of administrative order and
subordination was vitiated by the doubt which hung about
the succession.l It comprised a number of petty states
which rendered an unwilling obedience to the sovereign
power; it was also studded over with feudal retainers, and
all these hereditary princes and mercenary ' Jagirdars ' were
1 Notwithstanding this defect, the English themselves have yet to
do much before they can establish a system which shall last so long
and work so well as Akbar's organization of Pargana Chaudris and
Qanungos, who may be likened to hereditary county sheriffs, and
registers of landed property and holdings. The objectionable hereditary law was modified in practice by the adoption of the most able
or the most upright as the representative of the family. [A somewhat
pessimistic statement viewing the way in which modern administrators have dealt with the land question.-ED.]