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The title of this page was updated in October 2022 to more accurately reflect its contents. “A chronological list of South Asia’s ruling dynasties that encompasses the Ghurid; the Delhi Sultanate; governors/sultans of Bengal; sultans of Kashmir, Gujarat, Jaunpur, Malwa, and Mandura; rulers of Khandesh, Shahi, Arghun, Mughal, Awadh ...
- Overview
- First read: preview and skimming for gist
- Second read: key ideas and understanding content
- Third read: evaluating and corroborating
- South Asia 1450-1750
- A mosaic of identities
- The rise of the Mughal State
- The reign of Aurangzeb and fragmentation
From the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries, South Asia was a prosperous and diverse place. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, the Mughal Empire was one of the world’s largest empires, ruling large parts of the subcontinent. With ready access to silver, the Mughals built an ethnically and religiously pluralist state and established new administrative systems.
The article below uses “Three Close Reads”. If you want to learn more about this strategy, click here.
Before you read the article, you should skim it first. The skim should be very quick and give you the gist (general idea) of what the article is about. You should be looking at the title, author, headings, pictures, and opening sentences of paragraphs for the gist.
Now that you’ve skimmed the article, you should preview the questions you will be answering. These questions will help you get a better understanding of the concepts and arguments that are presented in the article. Keep in mind that when you read the article, it is a good idea to write down any vocab you see in the article that is unfamiliar to you.
By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:
1.The author suggests that we generally perceive South Asia as having a timeless conflict between Hindu and Muslim communities. To what degree is this an accurate depiction of the region in this period?
2.What were some factors in the success of the Mughal Empire?
3.Was Aurangzeb a tolerant or intolerant ruler? How do we know?
4.Why, according to the author, did the Mughal Empire fragment in the eighteenth century?
Finally, here are some questions that will help you focus on why this article matters and how it connects to other content you’ve studied.
At the end of the third read, you should be able to respond to these questions:
1.Using evidence from the article, describe how this article extends your understanding of how rulers used a variety of methods to legitimize and consolidate their power in land-based empires from 1450 to 1750.
2.What factors stand out to you as particularly distinct and important in how the Mughal Empire was ruled and organized? How does this compare to other regions you have studied for this era?
By Hannah Archambault
From the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries, South Asia was a prosperous and diverse place. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, the Mughal Empire was one of the world’s largest empires, ruling large parts of the subcontinent. With ready access to silver, the Mughals built an ethnically and religiously pluralist state and established new administrative systems.
Today, South Asia’s two largest communities—Hindu and Muslim—are often perceived as rival religions. This isn’t some timeless conflict, but rather a legacy of India’s more recent nineteenth century colonial past. Modern historians have begun to recognize that in precolonial South Asia, relationships between religious communities were far more layered and complex than previously assumed. In fact, what it meant to be Hindu or Muslim would have been understood quite differently in the fifteenth century. The very term Hindu might have been unfamiliar to many. Instead, people would have described themselves as followers of the god Vishnu (Vaishnavites) or Shiva (Shaivites), or perhaps as worshippers of one of the many goddesses (Shakti). Although a fifteenth-century Muslim would have certainly considered themselves Muslim, their affiliation as a Sunni or a Shi‘a, and whether they followed the teachings of a particular Sufi order, was also important. Most crucially, for both Muslims and Hindus, elements of an individual’s identity other than religion were often far more significant. Were they of noble family or of non-elite background? Which of India’s hundreds of regional languages and dialects did they speak? What region were they from?
This rich web of identities existed at the level of the state as well. Various Hindu and Muslim royal courts of fifteenth-century India encouraged people of every faith to come and serve in their courts. Rulers supported a range of artistic, architectural, and institutional traditions no matter their own religious beliefs. For example, the South Indian Hindu ruler Devaraja II (r. 1432–1446) of Vijayanagara brought hundreds of Muslim military experts into his service.1 He even built a special neighborhood in his capital city so Muslim migrants might live comfortably. In Muslim-ruled Bengal, Hindu temples and Muslim mosques were both constructed using familiar architectural features, making them comprehensible to both audiences. True, Hindu and Muslim-ruled states sometimes warred against each other, but wars between states of the same religion were just as common.
In 1526, a Central Asian ruler named Babur who had struggled in his early years to find a foothold in Central Asia, invaded northern India. Babur was well-supplied with strong horses and skilled cavalrymen from the Central Asian steppes, which allowed his armies to run circles around the much slower Afghan and Rajput forces of northern India, which relied on large infantry-based armies and war elephants. Babur established a new state, which would soon grow to become the Mughal Empire. However it was Babur’s grandson Akbar (r. 1556–1605) who would preside over the Mughal state’s expansion from its precarious beginnings to an expansive empire stretching from what is now Afghanistan, to Bengal in eastern India, and southwards to the central Indian Deccan.
The Mughals had an innovative system of governance, but much of their success can also be attributed to having arrived on the scene just in time to benefit from a new resource in the global economy: silver. It was mined in South America, then transported back on merchant ships to Europe and onwards to Asia. Emperor Akbar’s use of the silver rupee coin is prominent in his legacy since the coin, with its high degree of metallic purity, was so widely trusted. Under Mughal rule, distant marketplaces became more closely connected thanks to increased security and to a shared currency. Mughal India was an economically and socially dynamic place, as old hierarchies were challenged by newly successful groups, and people from distant parts of the subcontinent came into contact with one another for the first time.
Akbar also reformed military and tax administration, as well as cultural policy. He put in place new and more efficient ways of paying for the Mughal state’s military expenses, and for organizing the growing ranks of nobility who pledged loyalty to the Mughal throne. Together, these policies ensured that noblemen received regular pay and employment, but also were restrained from becoming powerful enough to challenge the emperor.
The Mughals quickly built durable alliances, notably amongst the Hindu Rajputs. By taking as brides the daughters of powerful Rajput households, Akbar—and later his sons and grandsons—gave them a stake in the empire and reason to support it. The Mughals wooed defeated enemies and vulnerable neighbors alike by negotiating treaties and extending offers of protection. By the end of Akbar’s reign, Mughal nobility included Turks and Iranis, Indian Muslims, Afghans, Rajputs, Kayasths, Bundelas. Under later emperors, they also included Marathas and South Indians. Akbar also formalized sulh-i kul or “universal toleration”. Though it had often been practiced unofficially, this policy now mandated that non-Muslim subjects be accorded the same rights as Muslims under the Mughal system.
In the latter half of the seventeenth century, Shahjahan’s son Aurangzeb (r. 1657–1707) presided over the largest expansion of the empire since Akbar. Compared to his forefathers Jahangir and Shahjahan, Aurangzeb had more ambitious military goals—for he set his sights on conquering all of southern India. He sought to present his personal authority in unprecedented ways. Whereas earlier emperors had represented themselves to their subjects as quasi-divine—“the Shadow of God on Earth”—Aurangzeb presented himself as a pious, even saintly, Muslim and Sufi.
Today, Aurangzeb is often blamed for replacing Akbar’s legacy of religious tolerance with a bigoted, anti-Hindu stance. Proponents of this position argue that Aurangzeb ordered Hindu temples be destroyed. They also point to his long-running military conflict with the Hindu Maratha leader Shivaji. Finally, they claim that Aurangzeb was so religious that he banned music at court.
Other historians disagree. They point out that under Aurangzeb, the number of Hindu nobility at court actually grew to its highest level, and that his destruction of some temples seems to have been a political move to punish enemies and rebels, not an act of religious intolerance. In places controlled by his supporters, Aurangzeb paid for the construction and upkeep of Hindu temples. Also, although Aurangzeb himself may have stopped listening to music, his Mughal family members and nobles remained patrons and listeners of music. Indeed, during Aurangzeb’s reign, there was a major uptick in books written about music—so it stands to reason that melodies could be played, heard and enjoyed throughout Mughal India. Aurangzeb holds a central place in South Asians’ understanding of their past, evidenced by today’s continued arguments among Indians and Pakistanis when discussing his legacy.
However, after Aurangzeb’s death in 1707, it only took a few years for the empire to fragment into many smaller states. While many of these emerging “successor states” continued to claim allegiance to the Mughal court, most were pretty independent by the middle of the eighteenth century. Why did the empire disintegrate so quickly? As we have seen, the Mughals’ success went hand-in-hand with growing economic strength. Yet some of the biggest winners had been local elites in the provinces—groups like the Jats in northwestern India, whose new-found prosperity allowed them to flex their muscles. As these local groups and regional rulers appointed by the Mughals struggled against each other, the power of the imperial center weakened. It was, arguably, the Mughal state’s own success that brought about its eventual downfall.
[Notes]
Author bio
Jun 9, 2021 · List of Rulers: Date range for dynasties and the list of rulers of the various dynasties active during a particular time period. Organized by region. Geographic Map: Geographic map created by Joseph Schwartzberg for A Historical Atlas of South Asia (1978), outlining the geographic demarcations of each of the dynasties active during a particular ...
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List of Rulers. Date range for dynasties and the rulers of the various dynasties active during a particular time period. Organized by region. Geographic Map. Geographic map created by Joseph Schwartzberg for A Historical Atlas of South Asia (1978), outlining the geographic demarcations of each of the dynasties active during a particular time ...
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Hindu. empire at Vijayanagar. The arrival of the Portuguese marks the beginning of. European influence. in the subcontinent, which will culminate in British rule in subsequent centuries. Key Events. Citation. “A period of great change for the South Asian subcontinent.
The gold coin above shows Chandragupta II — one of the earliest and most successful Gupta rulers — who reigned from c. 380 C.E. to 415 C.E. Chandragupta is regally dressed, as is his horse, and he holds a bow as his sash flies behind him.
