FALL OF BIJAPUR

159 cence, was trampled under the foot of the puritan em- peror, and fell to rise no more. Golkonda soon felt the loss of its protecting sister. It had always pushed forward its neighbour as a buffer to deaden the shock of the Moghul assaults. It had THE GREAT MOSQUE OF BIJAPUB. secretly subsidized Bijapur to enable it to defend itself against the Moghuls, and at the same time bribed the imperial officers to attack Bijapur rather than itself. In spite of its ingenuity, Golkonda had been forced to bow the knee before Aurangzib in 1656, and had been growing more and more demoralized in the quarter of a century which had rolled by uneasily since that year.