20 RANJIT SINGHwhich the Maharaja of Patiala is the chief representative, with the closely allied families of Nabha, Jind Bhadour, Malod, Badrukan, Jiundan, Dialpura Landgharia, Rampur and Kot Dhuna, with the more distantly connected houses of Faridkot and Kythal.

The ancestors of the Malwa Sikhs were simple Hindu peasants, mostly of Rajput extraction, who about the middle of the sixteenth century emigrated from the neighbourhood of Jaisalmer, and settled as peaceful subjects of the Muhammadan rulers of Delhi. In the course of a hundred years, as the central authority grew weak, the power of the Jat settlers increased. They were malguzars or payers of revenue into the imperial treasury, and made no efforts to shake off a yoke which was in no way galling ; but they acquired large grants of land, founded villages, and became wealthy and of some social importance. But about the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Malwa chiefs abandoned Hinduism for the new faith which was then being preached by Govind, the last and the most influential of the Sikh Gurus. The hundred years that followed was a time of anarchy. The great Muhammadan Empire was, from inherent weakness, falling asunder, and the Sikhs day by day gained power and territory at the expense of their nominal masters, who persecuted the new faith but were unable to destroy it. Sikhism was then, as Muhammadanism in the seventh and eighth centuries, and Wahabeeism in the present, a religion of the sword, and the new converts appeared as ready to fight with