Empire Historical Ending

Empire means different things in different historical periods and in different regions. For the Mughals, empire meant establishing a new dynasty in a region other than their homeland. The Mughal emperors were from Afghanistan, northwest of India. Their family came from somewhere else, and they spoke Turkish and Persian, not Indian languages. Even so, they stayed in India and built their power there. . . .

Empire broke up

Reigning from 1658 to 1707, Aurangzeb was a stern puritan and a religious bigot who sought to impose orthodox Islam on all of India. He dismissed Hindus from public service, reimposed tax on them, and destroyed their temples. Aurangzeb spent the latter half of the reign trying to conquer southern India. Although he brought the Mughal Empire to its greatest extent, his wars helped weld the Marathas into a powerful enemy and exhausted imperial resources. Although patronage declined after the reign of Shah Jehan, elaborate architectural projects were undertaken for later Mughal rulers. The Badshahi Mosque in Lahore and the Pearl Mosque in the Delhi fort are but two examples built for Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb chose to be buried in a simple open-air grave, but the tomb of his wife (Bibi-ka-Maqbara) at Aurangabad, is quite elaborate. Although small, the Pearl Mosque in particular, represents a continuation not only of the architectural vocabulary established during the reign of Shah Jehan but also of the use of expensive building materials such as white marble, though the elongated shape of domes and arches signals a change in taste.

Soon after Aurangzeb's death the empire broke up. The 19th. and last Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah II was deposed by the British in 1858.

The Mughal Legacy

The greatest flourishing of northern Indian culture, art, and imperial strength undoubtedly took place during the reign of the Mughal monarchs of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Mughals were Central Asian descendents of the great Mongol warriors Ghengis Khan and Timur (Tamerlane), whose hordes of cavalry swept across the Eurasian steppe in the 13th and 14th centuries, conquering everything between Beijing and Budapest. But by the turn of the 16th century, the great Mongol empire has splintered; the many royal descendents of Ghengis and Timur fought over the territorial scraps and did their best to hold on to their own minor sultanates. One of these sultans, Babur, not satisfied with his small kingdom of Ferghana (now in modern-day Kyrgystan and eastern Uzbekistan), and he tried and tried again to permanently reconquer Timur's greatest prize, Samarkand. He never succeeded. So instead, Babur turned his attention south to the sultanate of Delhi in northern India, which had been ruled successively by five dynasties of muslim warriors from Afghanistan since the late 12th century. As history would show, Babur's campaign against the Delhi sultanate catalyzed the foundation of one of the greatest dynasties in the history of south Asia: the Mughal Empire.

Architecture

Mughal architecture owes its origins to its religion, Islam, as a showpiece of prestige and power, for pleasure, and for death. These concepts are reflected in great mosques, forts, durbars and palaces, gardens and pools, and finally, tombs. Formally and artistically, Mughal architecture owes as much to its genealogical origins among the Safavids and Timurids, as it does to the syncretism of its patrons, notably Akbar and Shah Jahan. It is thus that impeccable Charbagh plans combine with indigenous detailing as in the tombs of Humayun and Akbar, and the forts at Agra, Delhi and Lahore. Such is the volume of building during this epoch that it would be impossible to detail every building in this series. We will however attempt to make the task easier by classifying the architecture into building types and then discussing the major examples of each. Mughal building can thus be divided into fort, palace and garden, mosque and finally tomb.

The Forerunner of the Red Cross

Among the Mughal Emperors Akbar was very tolerant. He saw much that was good in all religions. However, his successors Jahangir, Shahjehan and Aurangzeb were less tolerant of religions other than Islam. Aurangzeb wanted to change India into an Islamic country, The tragedy was that many Hindus were accepting this religious persecution as their fate. The Ahinsa (non-violence) of Budha and Mahanvira was taken to extremes. The people behaved like cowards: because they thought that killing, even a fly, was against their religion. The Guru thought that this state of affairs was most dreadful. The sacrifices made by Guru Arjan and Guru Tegh Bahadur in defence of freedom of belief for all, had attracted the attention of many people. So Guru Gobind Singh put before the people a new programme by creating the Khalsa Panth a community of saint-soldiers. The Mughals thought this a challenge to their power, ambition and religious principles.

War and decline

Mughal rule was never unchallenged, and through the 17th century large parts of central and western India (part of the so-called Maratha confederacy) were at war with the Mughals, depleting their resources and weakening their authority. Aurangzeb, who was to inherit the throne in 1658, remained on campaign with up to 500,000 troops for 26 years, and even when he became emperor, was confronted with rebellion in the Rajput kingdoms (in the west) and of the Sikhs (to the north of Delhi).
On Aurangzeb's death in 1707, the Empire began a slow and steady decline and broke up into smaller kingdoms owing only nominal loyalty to their Mughal overlords. By the 1850s the Mughal emperor's power was largely confined to Delhi and its environs.The Mughal Empire was formally abolished by the British only in 1857 with the exile of the last emperor, and the execution of his heirs.

Akbar's Tomb, Sikandra

The Mausoleum of Akbar at Sikandra near Agra was started by Akbar and completed by his son Jahangir in 1612 A.D. who changed the original design of his father. Designed on the model of a Buddhist Vihara, it is set in the centre of a square garden. The enclosure wall on each side has a gateway. The main gateway has four white marble minarets in the four corners. The Mausoleum has five terraces, rising from the basement, one above the other, diminishing in size as they ascend. The red sand-stone entrance gateway is the largest and is richly decorated with inlaid coloured stone work. With its charming proportions, it is by itself a work of art.