sovereignty stretching from Persia on the west, to far within the Punjab on the east. Having spent four years in consolidating his power in Afghánistán to the west of the Kháibar Pass, Mahmud led in 1001 a. d. the first of his seventeen invasions of India. Of these, thirteen were directed to the subjugation of the Western Punjab, one was an unsuccessful incursion into Kashmír, and the remaining three were short but furious raids against more distant cities,—Kanauj, Gwalior, and Somnáth. Jaipál, the Hindu frontier Chief of Lahore, was again defeated. According to Hindu custom, a twice-conquered prince was deemed unworthy to reign; and Jaipál, mounting a funeral pile, solemnly made over his kingdom to his son, and burned himself in his regal robes. Another local Chief, rather than yield himself to the victor, fell upon his own sword. In the sixth expedition (1008 a. d.), the Hindu ladies melted their ornaments, while the poorer women spun cotton, to support their husbands in the war. In one great battle the fate of the invaders hung in the balance. Mahmud, alarmed by a coalition of the Indian kings as far as Oudh and Málwá, entrenched himself near Pesháwar. A sortie which he made was driven back, and the wild Ghakkar tribe burst into the camp and slaughtered nearly 4000 Musalmáns.
The Sack of Somnáth, 1024.—But each expedition ended by further strengthening the Muhammadan foothold in India. Mahmud carried away enormous booty from the Hindu temples, such as Thaneswar and Nagarkot ; and his sixteenth and most famous expedition was directed against the temple of Somnath in Gujarát (1024 a. d.). After bloody repulses, he took the town. The Hindu garrison, at the end of their gallant defence, left 5000 of their warriors dead, and put out in boats to sea. The famous idol of Somnath was merely one of the twelve renowned lingas or phallic emblems of Siva-worship erected in various parts of India. But Mahmud, having taken the name of the ' Idol-Smasher,' the modern Persian historians gradually converted the plunder of Somnáth into a legend of his pious zeal. Forgetting the contemporary accounts of the idol. as a rude block of stone, Firishta tells how Mahmúd, on entering the temple, was offered an enormous ransom by the priests if he would spare the image. But Mahmud cried out that he would
