"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 Timir’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).1*1 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 reli- gion was also true.’’182 Considering his views the Brahman seems to have been a disciple of Kabir or Ramanand.1¢3 When the asser- tion 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 inter- esting, 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 dic. Bodhan chose death... But some other acts of his, which are boasifully mentioned by Persian chroniclers, do defy justification. These are not given chronologically and we heve no context of circumstances to find an explanation for them. It is said that in Mathura “and other places” he turned temples into mosques, and established Muslim Sarais, colleges and bazirs in the Hindu places of worship.'*5 The author of the Tartkh-i-Daidi adds that idols were given to butchers who used them as meat-weights.1®* Mathura, one of the most venerable cities of the Hindus, associated with the life of Lord Krishna, had the strange fate of being situated between the two capitals of the Sultanate—Agra and Delhi. Time and again it suffered from the ravages of the iconoclasts right up to the time of Aurangzeb. That Sikandar’s bigotry found expression there is not surprising. But what were the ‘“‘other places’? Details given hint at ANahabad and Varanasi. It is mentioned that barbers were forbidden from shaving the Hindus at Mathura.'*? Even bathing at these holy places was discouraged... Indeed the few facts mentioned by the chroniclers about Si- kandar’s fanaticism are of the common type witnessed here and there throughout the Muslim rule in India.... Thus there does not seem to be anything extraordinary in the acts and policies of Sikandar Lodi.... in the last chapter. In such an atmosphere the few acts of intolerance on the part of Sikandar Lodi appeared to be so much out of tune with the spirit of the age that they shocked even the Persian chroniclers. In the fourteenth century, Sikandar Lodi’s attitude would have caused no surprise. He would have been considered one among the common run of monarchs. But in the fifteenth century his bigotry was particularly noticcable. Hence the assertion of the chroniclers."