inherent weakness of the position ; and by incorporating the Hindus into his government, to put a curb alike on Muhammadan invaders from without, and on too powerful Muhammadan subjects within.
Materials for Reference.
The Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone's History of India (Cowell's Edition) is still the standard popular work for the whole Muhammadan period; Sir Henry Elliot's eight volumes, entitled The History of India as told by its own Historians, i.e. the Arab and Persian travellers and chroniclers (Dowson's edition), are the main original sources; also Edward Thomas' Chronicles of the Pathán Kings of Delhi (especially from 1193 to 1554); Blochmann's Aln-i-Akbari (Calcutta, 1873) and Gladwin's older translation (1800) ; Stewarts History of Bengal from the first Muhammadan Invasion to 1757 (Calcutta, 1847); and Briggs' Firishta (subject to correction from Sir Henry Elliot's eight volumes). The District Gazetteers or Statistical Surveys of Northern India contain a mine of still unexhausted historical materials, which have, so far as permitted by the space allowed, been condensed in Hunter's Imperial Gazetteer of India (Second Edition) and his Indian Empire.
