mission for himself; how much, his master rarely cared to inquire. As it was then in the Punjab so is it to-day in some of the Feudatory States of India. There were many vast estates granted to his courtiers by the late Mahárájá Sindhia, which were never visited by the assignees, who only asked that the rents should be regularly transmitted to Gwalior. On these distant properties every villainy and oppression was common: all financial and judicial control being in the hands of some greedy Bráhman or Baniyá on a nominal salary, who waxed rich on what he stole from his master and plundered from the people.
Mahárájá Ranjít Singh was a superstitious but not a religious man. His wild youth and stormy manhood had left him neither the leisure nor the inclination to master the metaphysical niceties of Guru Nának or to follow the complicated rules of conduct enjoined by Guru Govind Singh. He was an opportunist, to whom only those doctrines were agreeable which allowed him to rivet his authority more closely on the rude Játs he ruled. Thus he gave large gifts, on convenient occasions, to Sikh temples and priests; and several of the most influential of the religious leaders, Bábás and Bhais, found an honourable place at his court. Nor did these holy men, who were but half educated at the best, and who understood the mysticism of Nának as little as the Sikh priests of to-day, care much for orthodoxy so long as they were well paid for acquiescence in heterodoxy. The main idea of Sikhism
