THE SWORD AND INDIA 57admire the girl. Awed, he invited Bheemsi to his camp to congratulate
him, but once the regent was in his hands, captured him. Now, so the story
goes, Ala-ud-din demanded the girl in exchange for the regent Bheemsi.
Nobly, the girl complied and had herself drawn out to the sultan’s camp
accompanied by a hundred masked serving ladies drawn on a hundred
litters, each carried by six stout slaves. The serving ladies were, of course,
army officers, and the slaves had weapons concealed in the litters. Once
in the sultan’s camp, they created enough confusion for the royal couple
to escape. In reality, Chittur fell to the sultan in 1295 during a second
siege.
Yet another army, commanded by Malik Kafur, a Hindu renegade, pen-
etrated to the extreme south of the Indian peninsula, scattering the un-
warlike Dravidian races, stripping the Hindu temples, and sending large
quantities of gold and jewels to his master.
Ala-ud-din died in 1316 having brought the Deccan and Gujarat under
Muslim rule. His three successors reigned for only five years, the last falling
to a revolt headed by Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlak, the governor of the Punjab.
His short dynasty had added vast tracts to the Muslim control of India.
Ghiyas-ud-din is said to have been of Turkish origin. He and his son
reigned from 1325 to 1351. During his reign he moved the seat of gov-
ernment from Delhi to Deccan, forcing its inhabitants to move 700 miles
to Deogiri or Daulatabad. The next in the line was Feroz, who also moved
the capital, this time to a point a few miles north of Delhi. This attention
to the capital, however, resulted in the controls over the distant provinces
growing slack, and those same provinces began to throw off their Muslim
overlords. The independence of the Afghan kings of Bengal dates from
1336, when Muhammad Tughlak was on the throne.
The year 1398 was a year of devastation, as the Mongol Khan Timur
(or Tamerlane) raided into India. He encountered little organized resis-
tance, sacking Delhi and massacring its inhabitants. As destructive as the
Mongol foray was, it is fair to consider it a raid rather than an invasion.
Timur had interests closer to his heart than the vast subcontinent, and soon
he marched back to Samarkand via Kabul.
There followed a period when various families attempted to rule the
Moghul Empire, but their power was consistently interrupted by new
Mongol incursions. Mahmud Tughlak was one of these, and the Dayyid
dynasty another. After forty years, the Dayyids were replaced by Bahlol,
an Afghan of the Lodi tribe, and his successors moved the seat of gov-
ernment to Agra. In 1526, Babur, fifth in descent from Timur, and also
the fifth Muslim conqueror of India, invaded India at the instigation of