188 THE FALL OF THE MOGHUL EMPIRE

killed, Holkar and Sindhia left the field, and an awful butchery followed: Once more the plain of Panipat had witnessed a decisive battle in the history of India. The Marathas never recovered from the blow, though they had still a prominent part to play in the annals of Hindustan. For the present the scene of action was transferred from Delhi to Bengal and Bihar, where the new emperor, Shah Alam, was in- volved in the complicated difficulties that had sprung up between the nawab-vizir and the British. Here, however, the history of Mohammedan India closes, and the history of British India begins. The victory of Panipat swept the Marathas away only to make a clear path for the English. Less than four years afterwards the battle of Baxar (Baksar), on October 23, 1764, disposed of the power of the nawab, and the next day Shah Alam came into the British camp. The treaty then signed made the nawab-vizir a vassal of Calcutta and the Moghul emperor a pensioner of the East India Company. Such was the political tragedy of the famous House of Timur. The dynasty of Babar ended in nothingness, like all its many predecessors. The Mohammedan ascend- ency in Hindustan, rising from Mahmud's raids, spread- ing under the vigorous rule of a few of the Slave Kings and their great successor, Ala-ad-din, and attaining its widest scope and severest aspect under Aurangzib, only to fall rapidly to its decline in the weak hands of his descendants, left few traces of its long domina- tion. A new vernacular, compounded of the languages