"Sikandar Shah had ruled for twenty-nine years, full of glory and distinction. He was the greatest ruler of the Lodi dynasty, and far outshone both his father Bahlil and his son Ibrahim. During his reign he had retrieved the prestige of the Sultanate and extended its territories... As a king as well as a man, Sikandar Lodi has earned high praise at the hands of Muslim historians. According to them he was verging almost on the ideal. He was averse to pomp and show and rebuked those who wasted money on ostentation. To his sagacity were added a liberal, polite and charitable disposition.... Although a just monarch, Sikandar Lodi could not rise above his religious prejudices. Indeed he revived some of those instruments of tyranny which had lain dormant for many years past. After Timur’s departure the Sultanate had got busy in recapturing and consolidating its lost ground. Here and there a Hindu might have been harshly treated or a temple broken, but by and large the fifteenth century Sultans of Delhi had not indulged in any senseless persecution. During this period the Sultanate was not so powerful as to be able to oppress the Hindus. It could not also antagonise the Hindu population in the interest of its own survival. Sikandar Lodi had succeeded in re-establishing the authority of the Sultanate on quite a firm basis. He was thus in a position to deal with the Hindus in a stern manner, and he did so. Even as a youth he had expressed a desire to put an end to the Hindu bathing festival at Kurukshetra (Thanesar). Such a prince could not have made a tolerant king, and many incidents are related pointing to his uncompromising attitude. But they are mere incidents and they do not point to a definite and persistent policy of persecution. An instance is the oft-quoted case of Bodhan or Naudhan Brahman. Bodhan lived at Kaner, near Lakhnor in Sambhal. He had declared that “Islam was true, but his own religion was also true.’’ Considering his views the Brahman seems to have been a disciple of Kabir or Ramanand. When the assertion of Bodhan became public there were protests from the ’Ulama. The Sultan summoned Qazi Piyéraé and Shaikh Badr from Lakhnor and many other doctors from ‘“‘all directions’ to deliberate on Bodhan’s claim. The discussions must have been exceedingly interesting, but the details are not known to us. All the learned men, however, gave the stereotyped verdict that the Brahman should either embrace Islam or die. Bodhan chose death..."