THE SWORD AND INDIA 55if the Hindus were reluctant to attack the defensive positions, then so much
the better. The sultan well understood that such a vast and unwieldy array
must attack quickly or be swept aside by disunity, suspicion, and the
logistics of attempting to feed such a large force. Eventually Anangpal’s
forces did attack, wasting their strength on Mahmud’s powerful defensive
position. When the Hindu prince’s elephant was frightened by a fireball,
the Muslims launched their own counterattack, and the vast enemy horde
was brushed aside. This was a notable display of military prowess.
The most famous of Mahmud’s invasions of India ran from 1025 to
1026 and was against Gujarat. The goal of this invasion was the fabulously
wealthy temple dedicated to Shiva at Somnath. Tradition tells that Mah-
mud marched through Ajmere to avoid the Sind desert. He encountered
the Hindu army gathered on the neck of the peninsula of Somnath in
defense of their holy city. The battle lasted for two days, but in the end
the Rajput warriors fled to their boats and the Brahman priests withdrew
into the innermost shrine. Mahmud’s forces surrounded the shrine and
rejected the pleas of the Brahman priests to spare their idol as well as their
offers of ransom. When the temple was taken he smote it with his club
and, as the story goes, a stream of precious gems gushed out. Mahmud’s
club would be preserved, along with the wooden doors of Somnath, at his
tomb until the British invasion of Afghanistan in 1839. The club has
disappeared, and the gates were returned to India. Sadly, the redeemed
gates were subsequently recognized as a clumsy forgery.
The Ghazni dynasty was a short one. Military governments imposed by
a tiny feudal class tend to be unstable. The Afghans of Ghor rose and
brushed the Ghaznis aside.
An early leader of this new dynasty, Muhammad Ghori, or Shahub-ad-
din, was the second great Muslim conqueror of India. In 1175 he took
Multan and Uchch. In 1186 he conquered Lahore, and in 1191 he was
repulsed in a desperate battle at Tiruri, near Delhi.
Some details of his 1191 Battle of Tiruri against the Rajputs remain,
and they make a remarkable record of the fighting of the day. The Muslim
tactic was to charge upon their enemy, shoot arrows, and then withdraw
as another line of horsemen repeated the tactic. When the enemy was worn
down, the mounted troops would ride right over them. The Hindu tactic
was to accept enemy action in the center, but to outflank on both wings
hoping to surround the foe. On the day of Tiruri, the Hindus were closing
on the Muslim rear, and Muhammad raced at them with his household
guards, temporarily restoring the situation. But the Rajput prince also
intervened on his great elephant, and the two came to blows. Muhammad,
realizing that he could not stand against the huge beast, charged in, twirled