The Mughal Empire
9. The Mughal Empire
9.1. Timeline
1498 AD: Vasco Da Gama arrives in Calicut
1497 AD: Babur, a ruler of Afghan, establishes the Mughal dynasty in India
1530 AD: Babur dies and his son Humayun succeeds as the next Mughal emperor
1540 AD: Babur's son Humayun loses the empire to Afghan Leader Sher Shah and goes into exile in Persia
1555 AD: Mughal king Humayun comes to fight Sher Shah and regains India
1556 AD: Humayun dies and his son Akbar becomes one of the greatest rulers of India
1605 AD: Akbar dies and is succeeded by his son Jahangir
1611 AD: East India Company is established in India by the British
1617 AD: Jahangir's son, Prince Khurram receives the title of Shah Jahan
1627 AD: Shivaji establishes the Maratha kingdom
1631 AD: Shah Jahan succeeds Jahangir and builds the world famous Taj Mahal
1658 AD: Shah Jahan's son Aurangzeb seizes power
1707 AD: Aurangzeb dies, destabilizing the Mughal Empire
1761 AD: Marathas rule over most of northern India
9.2. Sea Route to India
In 1498, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrived in Calicut, on the southwest coast of India, and became the first person to navigate a sea route from Europe to India, forever changing the world economy. Neither Vasco da Gama's proffered gifts nor his behavior (the Portuguese mistook the Hindus for Christians) impressed Calicut's leader, Saamoothirippadu (or Zamorin). He refused to sign a trade treaty with the explorer. However, da Gama's successful voyage established Lisbon as the center of Europe's spice trade, a position Portugal would dominate for almost a century. In 1510, the Portuguese gained control of Goa, 400 miles north of Cochin on India s west coast, and made it the hub of their maritime activities in the region.
9.3. The Mughal Empire (1526 - 1858)
Babur: Mughal rule began with Babur. From his base in Kabul, which he gained in 1504, Babur turned his attention to the south and launched five different incursions into northwest India. In 1526, he finally succeeded in toppling the Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi at the pivotal Battle of Panipat. In the following two years, Babur expanded his territory in northern India by defeating the region's other major power, the Hindu Rajput kings. He died unexpectedly in 1530 and his empire passed onto to his son, Humayun, and his grandson, Akbar At its height, the Mughal Empire included most of the Indian subcontinent and an estimated population of 100 million people.
Akbar: Akbar the Great became the third emperor of the Mughal Empire while just a teenager and ruled from 1556-1605. Spending half of his reign at war, he consolidated Mughal power and expanded the empire to Gujarat, Bengal and Kabul not since Ashoka's
reign nearly 2,000 years earlier was so much of India united under one ruler. Extensive land surveys and assessments enabled Akbar's territorial expansion and attempted to protect peasants from unfair taxes. Other administrative reforms included a system of military ranking that required nobles to raise troops for the military and increased loyalty to the emperor by making nobles directly responsible to him for their rank.
Akbar's reign saw lucrative trade with Europe, especially in cotton textiles, and word of his achievements and reputation spread to that continent. In 1585, Elizabeth I sent an ambassador to India bearing a personal letter to Akbar, who was on a military expedition and did not meet with the English emissary.
Akbar and his chief advisor, Abu'l Faz'l (who wrote Akbar-nama, a year-by-year account of Akbar's reign) linked kingship with divinity, redefining the ruler as a military, strategic, and spiritual leader. Recognizing that hatred among the various religious groups threatened to undermine the empire, Akbar, himself a Muslim, promoted racial tolerance and religious freedom under the policy of "universal tolerance" or "sulahkul." He appointed Hindus to high positions in his cabinet, married Hindu women and abolished taxes levied against both Hindus and non-Muslims. A student of comparative religion, he welcomed visitors of all faiths including Jains, Hindus and Zoroastrians to his court. Discussions with these visitors led him to develop his own religious teachings,
Din-i-Ilahi or "divine faith," that sought to transcend sectarian religion. Music, art and literature Flourished in Akbar'scosmopolitan court. Although he never learned to read and may have been dyslexic, he collected an imperial library of over 24,000 volumes and commissioned translations of many works, including the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Akbar's fort at Agra that included five hundred buildings and his city of Fatehpur Sikri illustrate the architectural style developed under his rule.
Shah Jahan: Emperor Shah Jahan (1627-58), fifth ruler of the Mughal Empire, became the greatest patron of Indian architecture under the empire, funding magnificent building projects that expressed and celebrated the grandeur of his rule. The Taj Mahal is the most famous of Shah Jahan's projects and was commissioned as a monument and tomb for his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1631 while giving birth to their 14th child. Completed in 1648 and modeled after a paradise garden, the Taj Mahal also includes the largest inscription project of its time, with 25 quotations from the Koran about the Day of Judgment, divine mercy, and paradise depicted on its gate,
mausoleum, and mosque. In 1983, the monument was named a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Among the magnificent works for which Shah Jahan is known, is the Peacock Throne constructed of gold and hundreds of rubies, emeralds, diamonds (including the famous Koh-i-Noor), and other precious stones. An extensive new capital city, constructed between 1639 and 1648, at Shajahanabad (present-day Old Delhi), included waterways, spacious squares, and bazaars. It was the site of a royal fortress, the Red Fort, and the largest mosque for its time, the Jama Masjid.
Shah Jahan's reign ended in a two-year fight for succession between his sons Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb that resulted in Shah Jahan's imprisonment, Dara's death by the orders of Aurangzeb, and Aurangzeb s assumption of the Mughal throne.
Aurangzeb: A deeply pious man, Aurangzeb practiced a much more orthodox form of Islam than his father, and was fundamentally intolerant of the Hindu religions. He ushered in a number of anti-Hindu policies, such as the jizya, a tax on non-Muslims, and imposed higher customs duties for Hindus than for Muslims. Worse still, hereversed the policies of Akbar the Great, demolishing many Hindu temples; he also persecuted the Sikhs. Aurangzeb expanded the Mughal Empire, conquering additional territories in southern India, but his policies created great unrest within his empire. He was continually forced to put down rebellions from a group of Hindu warrior clans called the Marathas, led by the charismatic Hindu leader Shivaji Bhosle, who practiced guerrilla tactics and eventually formed a new Hindu kingdom.After Aurangzeb's death in 1707 CE, the Marathan Kingdom continued to grow, ultimately forming the Marathan
Empire. Aurangzeb meanwhile had left four sons, who battled among themselves for power; the wars that he had fought left the treasury empty, which contributed to the Mughal Empire's slow decline, and eventually to its feeble capitulation to the British.
9.4. Shivaji-Also known as Chatrapati Shivaji Raje Bhosle, Shivaji (1630-1680) was a great Hindu patriot and war leader who founded the Maratha Empire in western India in 1654 and who has become a great hero in post-Independence India, especially in the western state of
Maharashtra. Today in Mumbai, India's commercial capital, both the main airport and the central railway station (the former Victoria Terminal) are named after him. Until recently, influenced by British imperial historiography, the Mughals have taken precedence in histories of 17th century India, but the Mughals even at their height only ruled northern India, and in recent years the importance of the Maratha state has been acknowledged. Shivaji was a great military leader who resisted the Mughals, a fortbuilder and state organizer who also promoted Sanskrit learning and the ethos of traditional Hindu religion and ethics as a bulwark against the Islamic culture of the Mughals.
Battles in the 1660s and 70s against the Mughals led to Shivaji's coronation in 1674 using ancient Hindu rituals toemphasize his allegiance to the Hindu past.Nevertheless, Shivaji was
tolerant of all religions (some estimate that thirty per cent of his army was Muslim) and was personally devoted to Sufi saints as well as to the Hindu pantheon.
Aurangzeb,his army,entourage and the royal court moved in mass to the Deccan to wage an all outwar for the completedestruction of Maratha power Hemarshaled the immense amount of resource available to the Mughal Empire and focused it toward the annihilation of the Maratha nation. And this marked the beginning of the 27 year war in which Aurangzeb failed to achieve a complete victory against the Marathas. The Marathas adapted very well to the huge but slow moving Mughal menace and fought Aurangzeb to a stalemate. And towards the end of the second decade, the Marathas gathered more strength and began to turn the tide of the war. The Mughal forces were dealt several serious body blows by able Maratha generals. They effectively employed lightning fast and highly mobile attacks, tactics initially developed and effectively used by Shivaji. Eventually a broken, defeated Aurangzeb retreated in sickness from the Deccan in 1705. The final Mughal withdrawal came two years later. He had spent most of his empire's treasury, other remaining resources and manpower trying to defeat the Marathas and ended up
significantly weakening the once mighty Mughal Empire. Aurangzeb's heirs never again challenged the Marathas and about seventy years after Shivaji's death, they were themselves finally overtaken and dominated by their formerly implacable enemy
