~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 on good terms with the Emperor and generally also with his local representatives. The fifth Guru, Arjan (1581-1606), began the welding of the Sikhs into a body fit to play a part in secular politics. He compiled their sacred book, known as the _Granth Sahib_, and made Amritsar the permanent centre of their faith. The tenets of these early Gurus chimed in with the liberal sentiments of Akbar, and he treated them kindly. Arjan was accused of helping Khusru, Jahangir's rebellious son, and is alleged to have died after suffering cruel tortures.