Tempo:
84 1737-46.
Establish a fort at
Dalhwal on the
Ravi;
but are at last dis-
persed, (about) 1745-6,
HISTORY OF THE SIKHS
CHAP. IV
these efforts encouraged them to bolder attempts, and they began to visit Amritsar openly instead of in secrecy and disguise. The Sikh horseman, says a Muhammadan author, might be seen riding at full gaUop to pay his devotions at that holy shrine. Some rnight be slain, and some might be captured, but none were ever known to abjure their creed, when thus taken on their way to that sacred place. ^ Some Sikhs next succeeded in establishing a small fort at Dalhwal on the Ravi, and they were unknown or disregarded, until considerable numbers assembled and proceeded to levy contributions around Eminabad, which lies to the north of Lahore. The marauders were attacked, but the detachment of troops was repulsed and its leader slain. larger force pursued and defeated them; many prisoners were brought to Lahore, and the scene of their execution is now known as 'Shahid Ganj', or the place of martyrs.^ It is further marked by the tomb of Bhai Taru Singh, who was required to cut his hair and to renounce his faith; but the old companion of Guru Gobind would yield neither his conscience nor the symbol of his conviction, and his real or pretended answer is preserved to the present day. The hair, the scalp, and the skull, said he, have a mutual connexion; the head of man is linked with life, and he was prepared to yield his breath with cheer-
attended
A
fulness.
Ahmad Shah's first invasion of India, 1747-8.
The viceroyalty of Lahore was about this time contested between the two sons of Zakariya Khan, the successor of Abdus Samad, who defeated Banda. The younger. Shah Nawaz Khan, displaced the elder, and to strengthen himself in his usurpation, he opened a correspondence with Ahmad Shah Abdali, who became master of Afghanistan on the assassination of Nadir Shah, in June 1747. The Durrani king soon collected round his standard numbers of the hardy tribes of Central Asia, who delight in distant inroads and successful rapine. He necessarily looked to India as the most productive field of conquest or incursion, and he could cloak his ambition under the double pretext of the tendered allegiance of the governor of Lahore, and the 1st of October, so slow were the communications, and of so little importance ^yas Delhi to Englishmen, three generations (Wade's Chronological British History, p. 417.) ago. 1 The author is quoted, but not named by Malcolm, Sketch, p. 88.
2 Cf. Browne, India Tracts, ii. 13; Malcolm, Sketch, p. 86; and Murray's Ranjit Singh, by Prinsep, p. 4. Yahya Khan, the elder son of Zakariya Khan, was governor of the Punjab at
the time.
Establish a fort at
Dalhwal on the
Ravi;
but are at last dis-
persed, (about) 1745-6,
HISTORY OF THE SIKHS
CHAP. IV
these efforts encouraged them to bolder attempts, and they began to visit Amritsar openly instead of in secrecy and disguise. The Sikh horseman, says a Muhammadan author, might be seen riding at full gaUop to pay his devotions at that holy shrine. Some rnight be slain, and some might be captured, but none were ever known to abjure their creed, when thus taken on their way to that sacred place. ^ Some Sikhs next succeeded in establishing a small fort at Dalhwal on the Ravi, and they were unknown or disregarded, until considerable numbers assembled and proceeded to levy contributions around Eminabad, which lies to the north of Lahore. The marauders were attacked, but the detachment of troops was repulsed and its leader slain. larger force pursued and defeated them; many prisoners were brought to Lahore, and the scene of their execution is now known as 'Shahid Ganj', or the place of martyrs.^ It is further marked by the tomb of Bhai Taru Singh, who was required to cut his hair and to renounce his faith; but the old companion of Guru Gobind would yield neither his conscience nor the symbol of his conviction, and his real or pretended answer is preserved to the present day. The hair, the scalp, and the skull, said he, have a mutual connexion; the head of man is linked with life, and he was prepared to yield his breath with cheer-
attended
A
fulness.
Ahmad Shah's first invasion of India, 1747-8.
The viceroyalty of Lahore was about this time contested between the two sons of Zakariya Khan, the successor of Abdus Samad, who defeated Banda. The younger. Shah Nawaz Khan, displaced the elder, and to strengthen himself in his usurpation, he opened a correspondence with Ahmad Shah Abdali, who became master of Afghanistan on the assassination of Nadir Shah, in June 1747. The Durrani king soon collected round his standard numbers of the hardy tribes of Central Asia, who delight in distant inroads and successful rapine. He necessarily looked to India as the most productive field of conquest or incursion, and he could cloak his ambition under the double pretext of the tendered allegiance of the governor of Lahore, and the 1st of October, so slow were the communications, and of so little importance ^yas Delhi to Englishmen, three generations (Wade's Chronological British History, p. 417.) ago. 1 The author is quoted, but not named by Malcolm, Sketch, p. 88.
2 Cf. Browne, India Tracts, ii. 13; Malcolm, Sketch, p. 86; and Murray's Ranjit Singh, by Prinsep, p. 4. Yahya Khan, the elder son of Zakariya Khan, was governor of the Punjab at
the time.
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