~Banda.~--Before his death he had converted the Hindu ascetic Banda, and sent him forth on a mission of revenge. Banda defeated and slew the governor of Sirhind, Wazir Khan, and sacked the town. Doubtless he dreamed of making himself Guru. But he was really little more than a condottiere, and his orthodoxy was suspect. He was defeated and captured in 1715 at Gurdaspur. Many of his followers were executed and he himself was tortured to death at Delhi, where the members of an English mission saw a ghastly procession of Sikh prisoners with 2000 heads carried on poles. The blow was severe, and for a generation little was heard of the Sikhs. ~Invasions of Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah.~--The central power was weak, and a new era of invasions from the west began. Nadir Shah, the Turkman shepherd, who had made himself master of Persia, advanced through the Panjab. Zakaria Khan, the governor of Lahore, submitted and the town was saved from sack. A victory at Karnal left the road to Delhi open, and in March, 1738, the Persians occupied the capital. A shot fired at Nadir Shah in the Chandni Chauk led to the nine hours' massacre, when the Dariba ran with blood, and 100,000 citizens are said to have perished. The Persians retired laden with booty, including the peacock throne and the Kohinur diamond. The Sikhs harassed detachments of the army on its homeward march. Nadir Shah was murdered nine years later, and his power passed to the Afghan leader, the Durani Ahmad Shah. Between 1748 and 1767 this remarkable man, who could conquer but could not keep, invaded India eight times. Lahore was occupied in 1748, but at Sirhind the skill of Mir Mannu, called Muin ul Mulk, gave the advantage to the Moghals. Ahmad Shah retreated, and Muin ul Mulk was rewarded with the governorship of the Panjab. He was soon forced to cede to the Afghan the revenue of four districts. His failure to fulfil his compact led to a third invasion in 1752, and Muin ul Mulk, after a gallant defence of Lahore, had to submit. In 1755-56 Ahmad Shah plundered Delhi and then retired, leaving his son, Timur, to represent him at Lahore. Meanwhile the Sikhs had been gathering strength. Then, as now, they formed only a fraction of the population. But they were united by a strong hatred of Muhammadan rule, and in the disorganized state of the country even the loose organization described below made them formidable. Owing to the weakness of the government the Panjab became dotted over with forts, built by local chiefs, who undoubtedly lived largely by plunder. The spiritual organization under a Guru being gone, there gradually grew up a political and military organization into twelve _misls_, in which "a number of chiefs agreed, after a somewhat democratic and equal fashion, to fight under the general orders of some powerful leader" against the hated Muhammadans. The _misls_ often fought with one another for a change. In the third quarter of the eighteenth