lley
in order to escape the summer heats. Bernier has given us a graphic
account of Aurangzeb's move to the hills in 1665. On that occasion his
total following was estimated to amount to 300,000 or 400,000 persons,
and the journey from Delhi to Lahore occupied two months. The burden
royal progresses on this scale must have imposed on the country is
inconceivable. Jahangir died in his beloved Kashmir. He planted the road
from Delhi to Lahore with trees, set up as milestones the _kos minars_,
some of which are still standing, and built fine _sarais_ at various
places.

~Prosperity of Lahore under Akbar, Jahangir, and Shahjahan.~--The reigns
of Akbar and of his son and grandson were the heyday of Lahore. It was
the halfway house between Delhi and Kashmir, and between Agra and Kabul.
The Moghal Court was often there. Akbar made the city his headquarters
from 1584 to 1598. Jahangir was buried and Shahjahan was born at Lahore.
The mausoleum of the former is at Shahdara, a mile or two from the city.
Shahjahan made the Shalimar garden, and Ali Mardan Khan's Canal, the
predecessor of our own Upper Bari Doab Canal, was partly designed to
water it. Lahore retained its importance under Aurangzeb, till he became
enmeshed in the endless Deccan wars, and his successor, Bahadur Shah,
died there in 1712.

~Baba Nanak, the first Guru.~--According to Sikh legend Babar in one of
his invasions had among his prisoners their first Guru, Baba Nanak, and
tried to make him a Musalman. Nanak was born in 1469 at Talwandi, now
known as Nankana Sahib, 30 miles to the south-west of Lahore, and died
twelve years after Babar's victory at Panipat. He journeyed all over
India, and, if legend speaks true, even visited Mecca. His propaganda
was a peaceful one. A man of the people himself, he had a message to
deliver to a peasantry naturally impatient of the shackles of orthodox
Hinduism. Sikhism is the most important of all the later dissents from
Brahmanism, which represent revolts against idolatry, priestly
domination, and the bondage of caste and ritual. These things Nanak
unhesitatingly condemned, and in the opening lines of his Japji, the
morning service which every true Sikh must know by heart, he asserted in
sublime language the unity of God.

[Illustration: Fig. 59. Baba Nanak and the Musician Mardana.]

~The Gurus between Nanak and Govind.~--The first three successors of Nanak
led the quiet lives of great eastern saints. They managed to keep o