Conquest of Sind · Part 4

Abu ( ). After this defeat Ghori changed the course of his expedition, consolidating his position in Sind and the Punjab. Prithviraj Chauhan Ghori attacked the fortress of Tabarhinda (Bhatinda), a strategic point for the Chauhans of Ajmer. The ruler of Ajmer Prithviraj Chauhan marched to Tabarhinda and faced the invader in the First Battle of Tarain ( ). Prithviraj scored a brilliant victory in this battle but failed to consolidate his position believing this battle to be a frontier fight, and did not expect the Ghurids to make regular attacks. Ghori was wounded and carried away by a horseman to safety. Contrary to the expectations of Muhammad Ghori (modern representation) details or viewpoints found in Arab chronicles. Such plundering raids were economic and iconoclastic in nature, and communal character was attributed to them later. They represented the kinds of disasters that were inseparable from contemporary warfare and the usual plundering nature of rulers of the medieval period. The history of the Ghaznavid dynasty after the death of Mahmud is a story of endless clashes over succession between brothers, cousins, and uncles. There were, however, exceptions like Sultan Ibrahim who ruled for over forty-two years and his son Masud who ruled for seventeen years. The ever-hanging threat from Ghuris from the north and the Seljuq Turks from the west proved to be disastrous for the kingdom. The later rulers of Ghaznavid dynasty could exercise their authority only in the Lahore region and even this lasted only for three decades. In Ghuri prince Muizz-ud-din Muhammad invaded Punjab and seized Lahore. The last ruler Khurav Shah was imprisoned and murdered in . With his death the Ghaznavid house of Mahmud came to an end. Somnath Temple Al-Beruni, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, and historian, came to India along with Mahmud of Ghazni. He learned Sanskrit, studied religious and philosophical texts before composing his work Kitab Ul Hind . He also translated the Greek work of Euclid into Sanskrit. He transmitted Aryabhata’s magnum opus Aryabattiyam (the thesis that earth’s rotation around its axis creates day and night) to the West. He was the inter-civilizational connect between