from Bijapur.  His proceedings attracted the attention of Aurangzib, who, however, did not immediately realise how dangerous the Maratta was to become.  Himself occupied in other parts of the empire, Aurangzib left lieutenants to deal with Sivaji; and since he never trusted a lieutenant, the forces at their disposal were insufficient or were divided under commanders who were engaged as much in thwarting each other as in endeavouring to crush the common foe.  Hence the vigorous Sivaji was enabled persistently to consolidate his organisation.

At the same time Aurangzib was departing from the traditions of his house and acting as a bigoted champion of Islam; differentiating between his Mussulman subjects and the Hindus so as completely to destroy that national unity which it had been the aim of his predecessors to establish.  The result was a Rajput revolt and the permanent alienation of the Rajputs from the Mogul Government.

In spite of these difficulties Aurangzib renewed operations against Sivaji, to which the Maratta retorted by raiding expeditions in Hindustan; whereby he hoped to impress on the Mogul the advisability of leaving him alone; his object being to organise a great dominion in the Deckan—­a dominion largely based on his championship of Hinduism as against Mahometanism.  When Sivaji died, in 1680, his son Sambaji proved a much less competent successor; but the Maratta power was already established.  Aurangzib directed his arms not so much against the Marattas as to the overthrow of the great kingdoms of the Deckan.  When he turned against the Marattas, they met his operations by the adoption of guerrilla tactics, to which the Maratta country was eminently adapted.  Most of Aurangzib’s last years were occupied in these campaigns.  The now aged emperor’s industry and determination were indefatigable, but he was hopelessly hampered by his constitutional inability to trust in the most loyal of his servants.  He had deposed his own father and lived in dread that his son Moazzim would treat him in the same fashion.  He died in 1707 in the eighty-ninth year of his life and the fiftieth of his reign.  In the eyes of Mahometans this fanatical Mahometan was the greatest of his house.  But his rule, in fact, initiated the disintegration of the Mogul Empire.  He had failed to consolidate the Mogul supremacy in the Deckan, and he had revived the old religious antagonism between Mahometans and Hindus.

Prince Moazzim succeeded under the title of Bahadur Shah.  Dissensions among the Marattas enabled him to leave the Deckan in comparative peace to the charge of Daud Khan.  He hastened also to make peace with the Rajputs; but he was obliged to move against a new power which had arisen in the northwest, that of the Sikhs.  Primarily a sort of reformed sect of the Hindus the Sikhs were converted by persecution into a sort of religious and military brotherhood under their Guru or prophet, Govind.  They were too few to make head against the power of the empire,