The earliest of the Mahommedan dynasties in the Deccan was that founded by Ala-ud-din in 1347, which has received the name of the Bahmani dynasty. The capital was first at Gulbarga, and was afterwards removed Bahmani Dynasty. to Bidar, both which places still possess magnificent palaces and mosques in ruins. Towards the close of the 14th century the Bahmani empire fell to pieces, and five independent kingdoms divided the Deccan among them. These were—(1) the Adil Shahi dynasty, with its capital at Bijapur, founded in 1490 by a Turk; (2) the Kutb Shahi dynasty, with its capital at Golconda, founded in 1512 by a Turkoman adventurer; (3) the Nizam Shahi dynasty, with its capital at Ahmednagar, founded in 1490 by a Brahman renegade; (4) the Imad Shahi dynasty of Berar, with its capital at Ellichpur, founded in 1484 also by a Hindu from Vijayanagar; (5) the Barid Shahi dynasty, with its capital at Bidar, founded about 1492 by one who is variously described as a Turk and a Georgian slave. It is, of course, impossible here to trace in detail the history of these several dynasties. In 1565 they combined against the Hindu raja of Vijayanagar, who was defeated and slain in the decisive battle of Talikota. But, though the city was sacked and the supremacy of Vijayanagar for ever destroyed, the Mahommedan victors did not themselves advance far into the south. The Naiks or feudatories of Vijayanagar everywhere asserted their independence. From them are descended the well-known Palegars of the south, and also the present raja of Mysore. One of the blood-royal of Vijayanagar fled to Chandragiri, and founded a line which exercised a prerogative of its former sovereignty by granting the site of Madras to the English in 1639. Another scion claiming the same high descent lingers to the present day near the ruins of Vijayanagar, and is known as the raja of Anagundi, a feudatory of the nizam of Hyderabad. Despite frequent internal strife, the sultans of the Deccan retained their independence until conquered by the Mogul emperor Aurangzeb in the latter half of the 17th century. To complete this sketch of India at the time of Baber’s invasion it remains to say that an independent Mahommedan dynasty reigned at Ahmedabad in Gujarat for nearly two centuries (from 1391 to 1573), until conquered by Akbar; and that Bengal was similarly independent, under a line of Afghan kings, with Gaur for their capital, from 1336 to 1573.
When, therefore, Baber invaded India in 1525, the greater part of the country was Mahommedan, but it did not recognize the authority of the Afghan sultan of the Lodi dynasty, who resided at Agra, and also ruled the historical The Mogul Dynasty. capital of Delhi. After having won the battle of Panipat (1526) Baber was no more acknowledged as emperor of India than his ancestor Timur had been. Baber, however, unlike Timur, had resolved to settle in the plains of Hindustan, and carve out for himself a new empire with the help of his Mogul followers. His first task was to repel an attack by the Rajputs of Chitor, who seem to have attempted to re-establish at this time a Hindu empire. The battle was fought at Sikri near Agra, and is memorable for the vow made by the easy-living Baber that he would never again touch wine. Baber was again victorious, but died shortly afterwards in 1530. He was succeeded by his son Humayun, who is chiefly known as being the father of Akbar. In Humayun’s reign the subject Afghans rose in revolt under Sher Shah, a native of Bengal, who for a short time established his authority over all Hindustan. Humayun was driven as an exile into Persia; and, while he was flying through the desert of Sind, his son Akbar was born to him in the petty fortress of Umarkot. But Sher Shah was killed at the storming of the rock-fortress of Kalinjar, and Humayun, after many vicissitudes, succeeded in re-establishing his authority at Lahore and Delhi.
Humayun died by an accident in 1556, leaving but a circumscribed kingdom, surrounded on every side by active foes, to his son Akbar, then a boy of only fourteen years. Akbar the Great, the real founder of the Mogul empire Akbar. as it existed for two centuries, was the contemporary of Queen Elizabeth of England. He was born in 1542, and his reign lasted from 1556 to 1605. When his father died he was absent in the Punjab, fighting the revolted Afghans, under the guardianship of Bairam Khan, a native of Badakshan, whose military skill largely contributed to recover the throne for the Mogul line. For the first seven years of his reign Akbar was perpetually engaged in warfare. His first task was to establish his authority in the Punjab, and in the country around Delhi and Agra. In 1567 he stormed the Rajput stronghold of Chitor, and conquered Ajmere. In 1570 he obtained possession of Oudh and Gwalior, In 1572 he marched in person into Gujarat, defeated the last of the independent sultans of Ahmedabad, and formed the province into a Mogul viceroyalty or subah. In the same year his generals drove out the Afghans from Bengal, and reunited the lower valley of the Ganges to Hindustan. Akbar was then the undisputed ruler of a larger portion of India than had ever before acknowledged the sway of one man. But he continued to extend his conquests throughout his lifetime. In 1578 Orissa was annexed to Bengal by his Hindu general Todar Mall, who forthwith organized a revenue survey of the whole province. Kabul submitted in 1581, Kashmir in 1587, Sind in 1592, and Kandahar in 1594. At last he turned his arms against the Mahommedan kings of the Deccan, and wrested from them Berar; but the permanent conquest of the south was reserved for Aurangzeb.
If the history of Akbar were confined to this long list of conquests, his name would on their account alone find a high place among those which mankind delights to remember. But it is as a civil administrator that his reputation is cherished in India to the present day. With regard to the land revenue, the essence of his procedure was to fix the amount which the cultivators should pay at one-third of the gross produce, leaving it to their option to pay in money or in kind. The total land revenue received by Akbar amounted to about 16½ millions sterling. Comparing the area of his empire with the corresponding area now under the British, it has been calculated that Akbar, three hundred years ago, obtained 15½ millions where they obtain only 13½ millions—an amount representing not more than one-half the purchasing power of Akbar’s 15½ millions. The distinction between khalsa land, or the imperial demesne, and jagir lands, granted revenue free or at quit rent in reward for services, also dates from the time of Akbar. As regards his military system, Akbar invented a sort of feudal organization, by which every tributary raja took his place by the side of his own Mogul nobles. In theory it was an aristocracy based only upon military command; but practically it accomplished the object at which it aimed by incorporating the hereditary chiefships of Rajputana among the mushroom creations of a Mahommedan despotism. Mussulmans and Hindus were alike known only as mansabdars or commanders of so many horse, the highest title being that of amir, of which the plural is umrah or omrah. The third and last of Akbar’s characteristic measures were those connected with religious innovation, about which it is difficult to speak with precision. The necessity of conciliating the proud warriors of Rajputana had taught him toleration from his earliest days. His favourite wife was a Rajput princess, and another wife is said to have been a Christian. Out of four hundred and fifteen of his mansabdars whose names are recorded, as many as fifty-one were Hindus. Starting from the broad ground of general toleration, Akbar was gradually led on by the stimulus of cosmopolitan discussion to question the truth of his inherited faith. The counsels of his friend Abul Fazl, coinciding with that sense of superhuman omnipotence which is bred of despotic power, led him at last to promulgate a new state religion, based upon natural theology, and comprising the best practices of all known creeds. In this strange faith Akbar himself was the prophet, or rather the head of the church. Every morning he worshipped the sun in public, as being the representative of the divine soul that animates the universe, while he was himself worshipped by the ignorant multitude.
Akbar died in 1605, in his sixty-third year. He lies buried beneath a plain slab in the magnificent mausoleum which he had reared at Sikandra, near his capital of Agra. As his name is still cherished in India, so his tomb is still honoured, being covered by a cloth presented by Lord Northbrook when viceroy in 1873.
The reign of Jahangir, his son, extended from 1605 to 1627. It is chiefly remarkable for the influence exercised over the emperor by his favourite wife, surnamed Nur Jahan. The Jahangir. currency was struck in her name, and in her hands centred all the intrigues that made up the work of administration. She lies buried by the side of her husband at Lahore, whither the seat of government had been moved by Jahangir, just as Akbar had previously transferred it from Delhi to Agra. It was in the reign of Jahangir that the English first established themselves at Surat, and also sent their first embassy to the Mogul court.
Jahangir was succeeded by his son Shah Jahan, who had rebelled against his father, as Jahangir had rebelled against Akbar. Shah Jahan’s reign is generally regarded as the period when the Mogul empire attained its greatest Shah Jahan. magnificence, though not its greatest extent of territory. He founded the existing city of Delhi, which is still known to its Mahommedan inhabitants as Shahjahanabad. At Delhi also he erected the celebrated peacock throne; but his favourite place of residence was Agra, where his name will ever be associated with the marvel of Indian architecture, the Taj Mahal. That most chaste and most ornamental of buildings was erected by Shah Jahan as the mausoleum of his favourite wife Mumtäz Mahal, and he himself lies by her side (see [Agra]). Shah Jahan had four sons, whose fratricidal wars for the succession during their father’s lifetime it would be tedious to dwell upon. Suffice it to say that Aurangzeb, by mingled treachery and violence, supplanted or overthrew his brothers and proclaimed himself emperor in 1658, while Shah Jahan was yet alive.
Aurangzeb’s long reign, from 1658 to 1707, may be regarded as representing both the culminating point of Mogul power and the beginning of its decay. Unattractive as his character was, it contained at least some elements Aurangzeb. of greatness. None of his successors on the throne was any thing higher than a debauchee or a puppet. He was the first to conquer the independent sultans of the Deccan, and to extend his authority to the extreme south. But even during his lifetime two new Hindu nationalities were being formed in the Mahrattas and the Sikhs; while immediately after his death the nawabs of the Deccan, of Oudh, and of Bengal raised themselves to practical independence. Aurangzeb had indeed enlarged the empire, but he had not strengthened its foundations. During the reign of his father Shah Jahan he had been viceroy of the Deccan or rather of the northern portion only, which had been annexed to the Mogul empire since the reign of Akbar. His early ambition was to conquer the Mahommedan kings of Bijapur and Golconda, who, since the downfall of Vijayanagar, had been practically supreme over the south.
This object was not accomplished without many tedious campaigns, in which Sivaji, the founder of the Mahratta confederacy, first comes upon the scene. In name Sivaji was a feudatory of the house of Bijapur, on whose Rise of Mahratta power. behalf he held the rock-forts of his native Ghats; but in fact he found his opportunity in playing off the Mahommedan powers against one another, and in rivalling Aurangzeb himself in the art of treachery. In 1680 Sivaji died, and his son and successor, Sambhaji, was betrayed to Aurangzeb and put to death. The rising Mahratta power was thus for a time checked, and the Mogul armies were set free to operate in the eastern Deccan. In 1686 the city of Bijapur was taken by Aurangzeb in person, and in the following year Golconda also fell. No independent power then remained in the south, though the numerous local chieftains, known as palegars and naiks, never formally submitted to the Mogul empire. During the early years of his reign Aurangzeb had fixed his capital at Delhi, while he kept his dethroned father, Shah Jahan, in close confinement at Agra. In 1682 he set out with his army on his victorious march into the Deccan, and from that time until his death in 1707 he never again returned to Delhi. In this camp life Aurangzeb may be taken as representative of one aspect of the Mogul rule, which has been picturesquely described by European travellers of that day. They agree in depicting the emperor as a peripatetic sovereign, and the empire as held together by its military highways no less than by the strength of its armies. The Grand Trunk road running across the north of the peninsula, is generally attributed to the Afghan usurper, Sher Shah. The other roads branching out southward from Agra, to Surat and Burhanpur and Golconda, were undoubtedly the work of Mogul times. Each of these roads was laid out with avenues of trees, with wells of water, and with frequent saráis or rest-houses. Constant communication between the capital and remote cities was maintained by a system of foot-runners, whose aggregate speed is said to have surpassed that of a horse. Commerce was conducted by means of a caste of bullock-drivers, whose occupation in India is hardly yet extinct.
On the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the decline of the Mogul empire set in with extraordinary rapidity. Ten emperors after Aurangzeb are enumerated in the chronicles, but none of them has left any mark on history. His son Decline of Mogul Empire. and successor was Bahadur Shah, who reigned only five years. Then followed in order three sons of Bahadur Shah, whose united reigns occupy only five years more. In 1739 Nadir Shah of Persia, the sixth and last of the great Mahommedan conquerors of India, swept like a whirlwind over Hindustan, and sacked the imperial city of Delhi. Thenceforth the Great Mogul became a mere name, though the hereditary succession continued unbroken down to the time of the Mutiny. Real power had passed into the hands of Mahommedan courtiers and Mahratta generals, both of whom were then carving for themselves kingdoms out of the dismembered empire, until at last British authority placed itself supreme over all. From the time of Aurangzeb no Mussulman, however powerful, dared to assume the title of sultan or emperor, with the single exception of Tippoo’s brief paroxysm of madness. The name of nawáb, corrupted by Europeans into “nabob,” appears to be an invention of the Moguls to express delegated authority, and as such it is the highest title conferred upon Mahommedans at the present day, as maharaja is the highest title conferred upon Hindus. At first nawabs were only found in important cities, such as Surat and Dacca, with the special function of administering civil justice; criminal justice was in the hands of the kotwál. The corresponding officials at that time in a large tract of country were the subahdar and the faujdar. But the title of subahdar, or viceroy, gradually dropped into desuetude, as the paramount power was shaken off, and nawab became a territorial title with some distinguishing adjunct. During the troubled period of intrigue and assassination that followed on the death of Aurangzeb, two Mahommedan foreigners rose to high position as courtiers and generals, and succeeded in transmitting their power to their sons. The one was Chin Kulich Khan, also called Asaf Jah, and still more commonly Nizam-ul-Mulk, who was of Turkoman origin, and belonged to the Sunni sect. His independence at Hyderabad in the Deccan dates from 1712. The other was Saadat Ali Khan, a Persian, and therefore a Shiah, who was appointed subahdar or nawab of Oudh about 1720. Thenceforth these two important provinces paid no more tribute to Delhi, though their hereditary rulers continued to seek formal recognition from the emperor on their succession. The Mahrattas were in possession of the entire west and great part of the centre of the peninsula; while the rich and unwarlike province of Bengal, though governed by an hereditary line of nawabs founded by Murshid Kuli Khan in 1704, still continued to pour its wealth into the imperial treasury. The central authority never recovered from the invasion of Nadir Shah in 1739, who carried off plunder variously estimated at from 8 to 30 millions sterling. The Mahrattas closed round Delhi from the south, and the Afghans from the west. The victory of Panipat, won by Ahmad Shah Durani over the united Mahratta confederacy in 1761, gave the Mahommedans one more chance of rule. But Ahmad Shah had no ambition to found a dynasty of his own, nor were the British in Bengal yet ready for territorial conquest.