lidate 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