xliv                                 PREFACE.

India had been too narrow-minded, too blind in their
self-conceit, duly to appreciate the danger threatening
from Ghazna, and too little politic in due time to unite
for a common defence and repulse of the enemy.
Single-handed Anandapala had had to fight it out, and
had succumbed ; but the others were to follow, each one
in his turn. All those who would not bear the yoke
of the mlecchas fled and took up their abode in the
neighbouring Hindu empires.

Kashmir was still independent, and was hermetically
sealed to all strangers (i. 206). Anandapala had fled
there. Mahmud had tried the conquest of the coun¬
try, but failed. About the time when Alberuni wrote,
the rule passed from the hands of Sahgramadeva,
A.D. 1007-1030, into those of Anantadeva, A.D. 1030-
1082.

Central and Lower Sindh were rarely meddled with
by Mahmud. The country seems to have been split
into minor principalities, ruled by petty Muslim
dynasties, like the Karmatian dynasty of Multan,
deposed by Mahmud.

In the conditions of the Gurjara empire, the capital of
which was Anhilvara or Pattan, the famous expedition
of Mahmud to Somanath, a.d. 1025, in some ways re¬
sembling that of Napoleon to Moscow, does not seem
to have produced any lasting changes. The country
was i*nder the sway of the Solanki dynasty, who in
a.d. 980 had taken the place of the Calukyas. King
Camunda fled before Mahmud, who raised another
prince of the same house, Devasarman, to the throne ;
but soon after we find a son of Camunda, Durlabha, as
king of Gurjara till a.d. 1037.

Malava was ruled by the Pramara dynasty, who,
like the kings of Kashmir, had afforded a refuge to a
fugitive prince of the Pala dynasty of Kabulistan.
Bhojadeva of Malava, ruling between a.d. 997 and
1053, ^^ mentioned by Alberuni.    His court at Dhar,