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So JOHN F. RICHARDS ©

The Mughal empire was one of the largest centralized states known in
pre-modern world history. It was founded in the early 1 500s and by the end of
the following century the Mughal emperor ruled almost the entire Indian
subcontinent with a population of between 100 and 150 millions. As well as
military success, the Mughal emperors displayed immense wealth and the
ceremonies, etiquette, music, poetry, and exquisitely executed paintings and
objects of the imperial court fused together to create a distinctive aristocratic
high culture.

In this volume, Professor John Richards traces the history of this magni-
ficent empire from its creation in 1526 to its breakup in 1720. He stresses the
dynamic quality of Mughal territorial expansion, their institutional innovation
in land revenue, coinage and military organization, ideological change, and the
relationship between the emperors and Islam. Professor Richards also analy-
zes institutions particular to the Mughal empire, such as the jagir system, and
explores Mughal India’s links with the early modern world.

The Mughal Empire offers a concise and up-to-date synthesis of this
spectacular period in the history of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It will be
widely read by students and specialists of South Asian history and civilization
and will be of interest to travellers wishing to know more about the
background to the great Mughal monuments.

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THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY
OF INDIA

The Mughal Empire

THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF INDIA

General editor GORDON JOHNSON

Director, Centre of South Asian Studies, University of
‘Cambridge, and Fellow of Selwyn College

Associate editors C. A. BAYLY
Professor of Modern Indian History, University of
‘Cambridge, and Fellow of St Catharine's College

and JouN F. RicHaRDS
Professor of History, Duke University

Although the original Cambridge History of India, published between 1922 and
1937) did much to formulate a chronology for Indian history and describe the
administrative structures of government in India, it has inevitably been overtaken
by the mass of new research published over the last fifty years.

Designed to take full account of recent scholarship and changing conceptions of
South Asia’s historical development, The New Cambridge History of India will be
published as a series of short, self-contained volumes, each dealing with a separate
theme and written by a single person, within an overall four-part structure. As
before, each will conclude with a substantial bibliographical essay designed to lead
non-specialists further into the literature.

The four parts are as follows:

I The Mughals and their Contemporaries.
II Indian States and the Transition to Colonialism.
III The Indian Empire and the Beginnings of Modern Society.
IV The Evolution of Contemporary South Asia.

A list of individual titles already published and in preparation will be found at the
end of the volume.

Extent of Mughalempire, 1530

WZZZZZA Extent of Mughal empire, 1605
Extent of Mughal empire, 1707

Babur's Afghan kingdom showing
‘attempted Mughal expansion

--—> Sun empire
Attempted Mughal expansion

ARABIAN BAY OF
BENGAL

ence

Frontispiece The Mughal empire, 1526 to 1707
Source: F. Robinson, Atlas of the Islamic World since 1500
(Oxford, 1982), p. 59.

THE NEW
CAMBRIDGE
HISTORY OF

INDIA

1-5
The Mughal Empire

JOHN F. RICHARDS

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, DUKE UNIVERSITY

a BRIDGE
‘© UNIVERSITY PRESS

PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK

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Ruiz de Alarcén 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain

Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa

http://www.cambridge.org
© Cambridge University Press 1995

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without

the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1993
Reprinted 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Richards, J. F
The Mughal Empire: John F, Richards.

p. cm. ~ (The New Cambridge history of India: I. 5)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0 521 25119 2
L Mogul Empire - History, I. Title. II. Series.
DS436.N47 1987 pt. 1. vol. 5
(DS461]
954.02'5-de20 92-3074 CIP

ISBN 0521 25119 2 hardback
ISBN 0 521 56603 7 paperback

Dedicated to the memory of my mother
ELLA HIGGINS RICHARDS
1908-1990

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CONTENTS

List of maps and tables page xii
General editor’s preface xiii
Preface xv
Introduction 1
1 Conquestand stability 6
2 Thenew empire 29
3 Autocratic centralism 58
4 Land revenue and rural society 79
5 Jahangir 1605-1627 94
6 Shah Jahan 1628-1658 119
7 The War of Succession 1st
8 Imperial expansion under Aurangzeb
1658-1689 165
9 The economy, societal change, and
international trade 185
10 Maratha insurgency and Mughal conquest
in the Deccan 205
11 The Deccan Wars 225
12 Imperial decline and collapse, 1707-1720 253
Conclusion 282
Glossary 298
Bibliographic essay 304
Index 311

MAPS AND TABLES

MAPS
The Mughal Empire, 1526-1707 frontispiece
1 The Mughal Empire, 1601 page 7
2 Northern Afghanistan 131
3 Assam 166
4 The Western Deccan in 1707 206
5 South India, 1707 226
TABLES

t Imperial revenue and expenditure, 1595-96 76
2 The imperial elite: nobles 2,500 zat and

above 144
3 Mansabdars above 500 zat, 1647-48 145

GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE

The New Cambridge History of India covers the period from the
beginning of the sixteenth century. In some respects it marks a radical
change in the style of Cambridge Histories, but in others the editors
feel that they are working firmly within an established academic
tradition.

During the summer of 1896, F. W. Maitland and Lord Acton
between them evolved the idea for a comprehensive modern history.
By the end of the year the Syndics of the University Press had
committed themselves to the Cambridge Modern History, and Lord
Acton had been put in charge of it. It was hoped that publication would
begin in 1899 and be completed by 1904, but the first volume in fact
came out in 1902 and the last in 1910, with additional volumes of tables
and maps in 1911 and 1912.

The History was a great success, and it was followed by a whole
series of distinctive Cambridge Histories covering English Litera-
ture, the Ancient World, India, British Foreign Policy, Economic
History, Medieval History, the British Empire, Africa, China and
Latin America; and even now other new series are being prepared.
Indeed, the various Histories have given the Press notable strength in
the publication of general reference books in the arts and social
sciences.

What has made the Cambridge Histories so distinctive is that they
have never been simply dictionaries or encyclopedias. The Histories
have, in H. A. L. Fisher’s words, always been “written by an army of
specialists concentrating the latest results of special study”. Yet as
Acton agreed with the Syndics in 1896, they have not been mere
compilations of existing material but original works. Undoubtedly
many of the Histories are uneven in quality, some have become out of
date very rapidly, but their virtue has been that they have consistently
done more than simply record an existing state of knowledge: they
have tended to focus interest on research and they have provided a
massive stimulus to further work. This has made their publication
doubly worthwhile and has distinguished them intellectually from

xiii

GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE

other sorts of reference book. The editors of the New Cambridge
History of India have acknowledged this in their work.

The original Cambridge History of India was published between
1922 and 1937. It was planned in six volumes, but of these, volume 2
dealing with the period between the first century a.pD. and the Muslim
invasion of India never appeared. Some of the material is still of value,
but in many respects it is now out of date. The last fifty years have seen
a great deal of new research on India, and a striking feature of recent
work has been to cast doubt on the validity of the quite arbitrary
chronological and categorical way in which Indian history has been
conventionally divided.

The editors decided that it would not be academically desirable to
prepare a new History of India using the traditional format. The
selective nature of research on Indian history over the past half-century
would doom such a project from the start and the whole of Indian
history could not be covered in an even or comprehensive manner.
They concluded that the best scheme would be to have a History
divided into four overlapping chronological volumes, each containing
about eight short books on individual themes or subjects. Although in
extent the work will therefore be equivalent to a dozen massive tomes
of the traditional sort, in form the New Cambridge History of India
will appear as a shelf full of separate but complementary parts.
Accordingly, the main divisions are between I. The Mughals and their
Contemporaries, Il. Indian States and the Transition to Colonialism,
Ill. The Indian Empire and the Beginnings of Modern Society, and IV.
The Evolution of Contemporary South Asia.

Just as the books within these volumes are complementary so too do
they intersect with each other, both thematically and chronologically.
As the books appear they are intended to give a view of the subject as it
now stands and to act as a stimulus to further research. We do not
expect the New Cambridge History of India to be the last word on the
subject but an essential voice in the continuing discussion about it.

PREFACE

The starting point for this volume is 1526, the date of Babur’s victory at
Panipat. The ending point is 1720, the date of Muhammad Shah’s
accession in Delhi. By the latter date the essential structure of
centralized empire was disintegrated beyond repair. Behind my choice
of 1720, rather than 1739, or 1761, or even 1803, is the belief that the
collapse of the centralized formal apparatus of the Mughal empire was
an important turning point in Indian history. Three decades of study
have convinced me that Mughal centralized power was a reality and
that its effect on Indian society was considerable. Whether this was
good or bad is a different question. After 1720 the Mughal empire
became a substantially different entity.

Within these dates I have tried to describe the construction of the
Mughal empire, its operation, and its destruction. One of my aims has
been to explain as clearly as possible the design and operation of the
imperial system. This is no small matter, for generations of scholars
have worked hard to try and decipher the intricacies of this enterprise.

Another goal has been to write a concise, coherent narrative history
from 1526 to 1720. The narrative is conventional in that I trace the large
public events, primarily political and military, that shaped imperial
history. Partly this is because I believe that we ought to take the
military history of the Mughal empire more seriously than is our
current custom. After all, war was the principal business of the Mughal
emperors, who committed by far the bulk of their resources to the
military. It is also difficult to understand the nature of the empire
without some knowledge of its dynamic growth in territory and
resources.

A third aim is to encourage further scholarly work on the Mughal
period. We simply do not know enough. The secondary literature on
the Mughals is thin despite its great importance in South Asian and
world history. Many more detailed local histories need doing. A host
of scholarly monographs and lengthy articles on various castes and
ethnic groups are waiting for their historian. New sources in different
genres and languages need to be identified, authenticated, collated, and

PREFACE

published in the original text and in translation. We need better
integration of the Indian and European sources by someone who reads
Rajasthani, Persian, French, and Dutch, for example. For such new
work our best hope lies in the originality of young historians from
India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Finally, my most important goal is to offer a one-volume synthesis
that will be comprehensible to the non-specialist. I hope that this book
can be read with profit by anyone interested in this most fascinating of
historical periods. If successful, the volume should create a context for
further reading and study.

In writing this volume I have become deeply conscious of my debt to
colleagues in this field. I am especially grateful to Irfan Habib, Ashin
Das Gupta, Satish Chandra, Tapan Raychaudhuri, and M. Athar Ali
for their inspired scholarship and leadership in Mughal history over the
past decades. Peter Hardy and Simon Digby have provided warm
support and encouragement for my work over the years. A more
immediate debt is to my two fellow editors, Gordon Johnson and
Christopher Bayly, for their patience and their criticism. I especially
wish to thank Muzaffar Alam for his incisive comments on an earlier
draft. I have also benefited from discussions with Catherine Asher,
Stewart Gordon, Bruce Lawrence, Om Prakash, Sanjay Subrahma-
nyam, and Ellen Smart. And, as always, I must thank my wife and
children for their continuing love and understanding.

INTRODUCTION

The Mughal empire was one of the largest centralized states known in
pre-modern world history. By the late 1600s the Mughal emperor held
supreme political authority over a population numbering between 100
and 150 millions and lands covering most of the Indian subcontinent
(3.2 million square kilometers). Timurid India far outstripped in sheer
size and resources its two rival early modern Islamic empires — Safavid
Persia and Ottoman Turkey. The Mughal emperor’s lands and subjects
were comparable only to those ruled by his contemporary, the Ming
emperor in early modern China.

The “Great Mughal’s” wealth and grandeur was proverbial. His
coffers housed the plundered treasure of dozens of conquered dynas-
ties; his regalia and throne displayed some of the most spectacular
precious stones ever mounted. Nearly all observers were impressed by
the opulence and sophistication of the Mughal empire. The ceremonies,
etiquette, music, poetry, and exquisitely executed paintings and objects
of the imperial court fused together to create a distinctive aristocratic
high culture. Mughal courtly culture retained its appeal and power
long after the empire itself had declined to a shell. Today the Mughal
style as represented in miniature paintings, or much-admired buildings
like the Taj Mahal, has an immediate and powerful attraction.

For nearly one hundred and seventy years (1556-1719) the Mughal
empire remained a dynamic, centralized, complex organization. The
emperor commanded cadres of officials and soldiers of proven loyalty
who carried out his orders in every province. Men, money, infor-
mation, and resources moved regularly and routinely throughout the
empire as official needs dictated. Mughal success was the product of
hard-driving, active rulership exercised by extremely capable rulers
who acted as their own chief executives. Military victory, territorial
expansion, and centralized control rested upon the management skills
and strategic vision of the emperors and their advisers.

The empire was more than a superficial canopy stretched over the
substantial social life lived in each region. It was an intrusive, centraliz-
ing system which unified the subcontinent. Imperial military power

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

imposed an unprecedented level of public order. The scale and level of
organized violence diminished perceptibly in the lands within its
borders. Imperial demands for revenue and tribute stimulated pro-
duction and encouraged market growth. The uniform practices and
ubiquitous presence of the Mughals left an imprint upon society in
every locality and region of the subcontinent. Few persons and
communities, if any, were left untouched by this massive edifice.

Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their
noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the dynasty and
the empire itself became indisputably Indian. The interests and futures
of all concerned were in India, not in ancestral homelands in the
Middle East or Central Asia. Furthermore, the Mughal empire
emerged from the Indian historical experience. It was the end product
of a millennium of Muslim conquest, colonization, and state-building
in the Indian subcontinent.

Muslim and Hindu-Buddhist warriors first clashed in the early
seventh century in Seistan on the border between Iran and Afghani-
stan. Century after century their descendants skirmished, raided, and
fought bloody battles along a slowly eastward-moving military
frontier. From the western edge of Afghanistan and the shores of
Makran and Sind, the area of Muslim political conquest reached Kabul
in the ninth century, Delhi in the early thirteenth century, and the
cities of the Deccan and South India in the fourteenth century. Behind
this frontier line Muslim generals built new states commanded by
Turkish, Persian, Afghan, and other foreign Muslim elites. For a few
decades in the mid-fourteenth century, the Sultans of Delhi ruled over
an empire extending over most of the subcontinent before it broke
apart. Thereafter, the locus of Indian Muslim political power reverted
to regional kingdoms.

Indo-Muslim rulers appealed regularly to Muslim militancy in the
jibad or holy war against the idolatrous Hindus of the subcontinent.
Indo-Muslim rulers relied heavily upon the support of the Islamic
religious establishment for legitimacy and political backing. In return
the state supplied money and administrative support for the essential
institutions of organized Islam. Theologians, preachers, and judges,
often employed by the state, actively sought to retain the orthodox
purity of the community in India against the absorptive power of
Hindu Brahminical religion. Sufi shaikhs, who were influential leaders
of the Muslim community and who also received royal largess, met a

INTRODUCTION

wide range of religious and social needs among lay adherents. The
implicit contract between ruler and religious leaders was an important
aspect of Islamic conquest and expansion.

By 1500 Hindu society in nearly every region of the subcontinent
save the extreme south was conditioned to accept the authority of an
Indo-Muslim ruler - whether of foreign or Indian origin. Generations
of Hindu kings, warriors, and priests, fought and lost, rebelled and
lost, and finally accepted service within the Muslim political order.
Rajput, Maratha, and Telugu and other warrior castes recognized the
legitimacy of Islamic political power in return for assurances of
continued dominance in the countryside. Men from various secretarial
castes, such as the Kayasths or the Khatris, adapted to the new order by
learning Persian and becoming experts in the administrative pro-
cedures required by Indo-Muslim states. Generation after generation
the process of political socialization continued. The Mughals were the
beneficiaries of that process when they began to construct their
overarching imperial system.

As heirs to the Indo-Muslim political tradition, the Mughals found
conditions favorable for political centralization. They could turn to
numerous precedents in their efforts to build a reliable yet flexible
political and administrative system. All earlier sultans had recruited
and maintained a nobility firmly bound to themselves and relatively
free of constraining local ties. If continually reinforced, bonds of fealty
and personal loyalty imposed open-ended obligations of service for
each grandee. Earlier regimes had induced local Hindu warrior-
aristocracies to maintain order and help levy taxes in the countryside.
Royal officials could obtain cooperation to the limits spelled out in
contractual arrangements. These were the ‘two essential joints in the
articulated structure of the Indo-Muslim state. Without a reliable
imperial elite, no ruler could function. Without cooperating local
aristocracies the countryside was lost. An unresolved question was the
extent to which powerful armed nobles could be transformed into
royal officials at the center and armed lords of the land be transformed
into royal officials in the countryside.

Another, often-ignored technological advance aided Indo-Muslim
rulers. The introduction and wide use of paper in the eleventh century
made the centralized administration of large, complex organizations
much easier. Rulers could exercise tighter control over people,
land, resources, and money by using paper documents and records.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Information flows became more copious and reliable. Enforcement of
standardized rules and regulations became more feasible.

The economy of the subcontinent responded buoyantly to new
markets and new demands under the Indo-Muslim states. By the
sixteenth century regional economies were linked together in a dense
overland and coastal trading network. Agriculture, industry and trade
could readily support the economic needs of a rising empire. The
wealth of Hind was proverbial in the relatively less fertile and sparsely
settled lands of the medieval Islamic world to the west.

In each region on the subcontinent, peasant cultivators living in
peasant villages grew dozens of varieties of foodgrains and specialized
crops for subsistence and for sale in a hierarchy of cash markets. Wells
and riverine irrigation helped to improve production and partially
offset years when the annual monsoon rains failed. Industrial pro-
duction was impressive — especially from the intricately organized
textile industry. Weavers, dyers, bleachers, and painters produced an
enormous range of cotton and silk cloth for sale in local, regional, and
international markets. Markets for commodities and labor were exten-
sive and efficient. Overland, coastal, and deep-water trade routes
linked local economies with the wider world. Indian trading communi-
ties in Gujarat, North India, and the south could scarcely be equalled
for the sophistication of their skills and resources. The Indian popu-
lation was long-accustomed to a money economy using gold, silver,
copper, and mixed silver and copper coinage. Meager domestic pro-
duction of gold and silver was augmented by large imports paid for by
India’s trade surplus.'

The subcontinent’s productivity ensured that it enjoyed a con-
tinuing favorable balance of trade. Apart from precious metals, India’s
only other unmet needs included large numbers of horses (primarily
for military use), black slaves and ivory from Africa, and other exotic
consumption goods. Exports included much sought-after Indian
cotton cloth bound for Southeast Asia, East Africa and the Middle East
as well as spices, narcotics, and other agricultural commodities.?

In the early decades of the sixteenth century, the compressed social
energy of western Europe began to have an impact upon the Indian
subcontinent. New ideologies, technologies, products, and markets

1 See Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib, eds., The Cambridge Economic History of India
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 1, Part 1, ¢. 1200-1500, pp. 45-162 for a
full description.

2 Simon Digby, “The Maritime Trade of India,” in Raychaudhuri and Habib, pp. 125-162.

INTRODUCTION

pressed upon the subcontinent. These forces traversed long-
established overland and sea routes through the Middle East and the
Mediterranean to reach northern and western India. In addition, under
the impetus of Iberian expansion, new maritime connections with
western Europe became the conduit for direct, unmediated transfers to
India. Many diffusions originated in Europe’s discoveries in the New
World. This new conjuncture stimulated growth in the economy of the
subcontinent and, indirectly, the growth and expansion of the Mughal
empire.

The direct maritime connection was established by the Portuguese,
who, sailing around the coast of Africa, entered the Indian Ocean
trading world for the first time in 1498. Portuguese round ships
equipped with numerous light cannon were far superior to indigenous
vessels.} In 1509 the first viceroy, de Almeida, destroyed an allied war
fleet sent by the Mamluk ruler of Egypt and the Sultan of Gujarat. For
the next century or more the Portuguese were the dominant naval
power in the Indian Ocean. From a command post on the western
coast of India, they administered a new, unprecedented political entity:
a maritime empire.

In 1510 Albuquerque occupied the estuarine island of Goa on the
Mandovi river and held it against a besieging army commanded by the
Sultan of Bijapur whose principal port Goa had been. Goa became the
seat of the viceroy and a council appointed by the Portuguese king in
Lisbon. Between Goa and Lisbon a new, formal, sea borne linkage was
established by which a European state exercised direct control over its
subsidiary realm in the east. Each year a flotilla of vessels armed and
equipped by the king sailed from Lisbon to Goa; each year a flotilla
returned from the Indies. Portuguese and their slaves, precious metals,
orders and correspondence, officials, supplies including firearms and
other commodities travelled out to India. Returning Portuguese,
spices, official dispatches and correspondence, and other commodities
made the return voyage. An aggressive early modern state in Europe
administered a direct political and economic connection between India
and Europe.

> Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977), pp. 214-219.

CHAPTER 1

CONQUEST AND STABILITY

The legacy of the Indo-Muslim frontier, the medieval Indian
economy, and new connections with Europe helped to create con-
ditions favorable to the rise of an imperial state in North India. These
conditions by no means assured that such a state would arise, or that it
would be ruled by the Timurids. The Mughal empire was the product
of a prolonged political struggle whose outcome was in large measure
due to the abilities and good fortune of its founders and builders, The
two founders of the Mughal empire, Babur and his son and successor,
Humayun, eventually won a bitter struggle with the Afghans for sup-
remacy in northern India. In this conflict the Mughals, although
kings, were scarcely to be viewed as emperors. They fought, some-
times against overwhelming odds, to create a Mughal domain in the
rich Indo-Gangetic plain of north India.

Their principal adversaries were Afghans who had supplanted
Turks and Persians to become the most powerful and widely dis-
persed foreign Muslim group in northern India. Under the Lodi
dynasty thousands of Afghan soldiers and traders had migrated from
the mountain valleys of Afghanistan to the plains of north India.
Many, like the founder of the Lodi dynasty, Buhlul Lodi, could trace
their origins to the overland horse trade. North Indian demands for
riding and battle horses created a ready market for the hardy horses of
the Central Asian steppe. By this point in time many of these Afghan
adventurers had settled on the land as local lords who controlled a
Hindu peasantry.

BABUR I§ 26-1530

The Mughal empire was founded by Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur,
a Chaghatai Turkish ruler, who invaded the Lodi-governed Punjab
several times from his capital at Kabul before winning a decisive
victory. The unexpected entry of Babur into the Indian scene added a
third party to the Afghan-Rajput struggle that had just begun. The
Mughal intrusion displaced the indigenous Hindu Rajputs and the

CONQUEST AND STABILITY

ARABIAN Nf
SEA BENGAL

ize Sauna of tughat orcs Sata , Satevid empire end Urbek khenete © Capital of the empire

=-=* Boundary

cia for iguana ea exes Cleo
Under Mughel suzereinty after 1608 and placed within supe Keahnit

cuzera
Under Mughal suzerainty after 1606 and pieced within suba Lahore
Annexed after 1605
Ketter tine of Mughal controlin Badakhshan, 1646-7
‘Sarkar Qendahar, (rts Setovice, 9609 38, ond telly in 1648
Fee ee eae 5

compre aft

Kingdom ‘pamatlyanrveced to Mughal errpire, 1595, but not destroyed until 1636

The Mughal empire, 1601
Source: I. Habib, An atlas of the Mughal Empire (Delhi, 1982), OA

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

long-domiciled Afghans by the foreign elite - Turks and Uzbeks from
Central Asia.

In 1526, at the battle of Panipat, only a few miles from Delhi,
Babur’s compact twelve thousand man army defeated a much larger
force under the command of Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, the Sultan of Delhi.
At Panipat Babur was equipped with both matchlockmen and field
cannon which he employed to good effect against the Afghan cavalry.
Like most Indian rulers the Lodis had not adopted firearms. Ibrahim
Lodi died in the battle along with dozens of other Afghan chiefs. After
occupying Delhi, the victor sent his son Humayun to Agra, the Lodi
capital, to seize the royal palaces and treasure. Shortly thereafter Babur
joined his son, distributed much of the enormous treasure to his
followers, and mounted his throne at Agra, which became his capital.!

The next year, at the battle of Kanua, Babur led his army to victory
over a confederacy of Rajput kings headed by Rana Sanga, ruler of the
state of Mewar in Rajasthan. Eighty thousand Rajput cavalrymen and
five hundred armored war elephants charged the much smaller Mughal
force. Babur’s guns and his long-practiced use of the enveloping tactics
of Central Asian cavalry proved to be as effective against the Rajputs as
the Afghans. The death of the Rana of Mewar and many other Rajput
leaders at Kanua shattered the possibility of a Rajput resurgence of
power in the north. In 1528 Babur marched to the great bastion of
Chandiri, the stronghold of a great Rajput chief feudatory to the Rana
of Mewar. The Mughal troops stormed the fort and slaughtered the
garrison.

These brisk victories, achieved over the dominant warrior coalitions
themselves struggling for control of Hindustan, gave Babur a base
from which to consolidate his rule in nothern India. He could have
treated these engagements as simply the culmination of a giant, and
highly successful, plundering raid into Hind and withdrawn to Kabul.
Many of his followers probably looked forward to this withdrawal.
Humayun had already been sent back to Kabul to defend that city and
its region against further Uzbek assaults. Instead, however, Babur
decided to stay and to strengthen his hold over the fertile lands and
wealthy cities of Hindustan.

In December, 1530 Babur died. His kingdom included Central
Asian territories, Kabul, the Punjab, Delhi, part of Bihar to the east,

* For further details see Rushbrook Williams, An Empire Builder of the Sixteenth Century
(Delhi: $. Chand, 1922).

CONQUEST AND STABILITY

and south to Gwalior. As yet it was a new conquest state with little
done to consolidate Mughal rule in the new Indian territories.

Babur bequeathed to his successors a distinguished lineage stretch-
ing back to the great Central Asian conqueror Timur, and also through
the Chaghatai Turks back to Chingiz Khan. Through Timur, the
Mughal dynasty claimed impeccable credentials as rulers and conquer-
ors of extraordinary luster. (Hence the term Timurid used synony-
mously for Mughal in this volume.) In addition Babur’s legacy
included Central Asian horsemanship and battle tactics, life lived
comfortably under canvas in tents, and the Turki language. He left a
persistent and abiding Sunni Islamic faith and a familial connection
with the orthodox Naqshbandi Sufi order which had originated in
Central Asia. His legacy included a sophisticated cultural style derived
from Timur’s patronage at Samarkhand and refined at the courts of his
successors in Central Asia. Finally, not least of Babur’s heritage were
his memoirs, written in Turki, which recounted his life adventures
from his early youth in the valley of Ferghana to his conquest of India.
Copied by distinguished calligraphers and illustrated by the finest
painters, manuscript copies of Babur’s remarkable journal became a
primary source for the familial pride of the Mughal or Timurid
dynasty.

HUMAYUN 1530-1556

The emperor Humayun (1530-1556) encountered massive difficulties
in his efforts to retain and expand Babur’s conquests in India. The
source of one of his major problems was another of Babur’s legacies. In
keeping with the appanage system of the Timurids, Humayun
distributed provinces to administer to each of his four brothers. In the
northwest Mirza Sulaiman obtained Badakhshan, and Kamran
governed Kabul and Qandahar. In India Askari and Hindal each were
given large districts to administer. Within a year, Kamran, with the
support of his brother Askari, occupied the Punjab and forcibly
removed Humayun’s governor. He then forced Humayun to agree to
his possession of the province. Humayun was thereby denied access
to the resources of both the Punjab and the Central Asian bases of the
Mughals.
2 Ishwari Prasad, The Life and Times of Humayun (Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1956)
PP. 44-45.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Humayun’s immediate concerns lay with the Afghans to the east
who looked to restore an heir to the Lodi throne. After an initial
victory over the Afghan forces in the east, Humayun retreated into
nearly a year of profound inactivity at Agra induced, it seems, by a
growing addiction to opium taken with wine. During this period two
powerful enemies consolidated their positions.

In the south Bahadur Shah, ruler of the prosperous maritime state of
Gujarat, challenged Humayun by seizing control of the Sultanate of
Malwa. Bahadur Shah was busily negotiating Afghan support in the
northeast to try to eject the Mughals from North India. The Gujarat
court was the refuge of many Lodi exiles who urged Bahadur Shah to
action. Bahadur Shah had built up an extremely large army equipped
with the latest cannon. He employed an Ottoman Turkish engineer
and Portuguese gunners.>

In 1535 Humayun launched a campaign against the Gujarat ruler
who was then engaged in his own invasion of Rajasthan. The Mughals
defeated and drove back the Gujarat armies and captured the fortress of
Champanir in Gujarat in a very short time. But delay and indecision on
Humayun’s part, largely brought on by opium use, forced him to
withdraw from Gujarat without deposing Bahadur Shah or formally
annexing the kingdom. Further danger from Gujarat ended with the
untimely death of Bahadur Shah at the hands of the Portuguese.

While the Mughals were engaged on the seacoast, an extremely able
Afghan nobleman, Sher Khan Sur, had quietly gained control of the
military fief of his father in southern Bihar. During the five years
consumed by Humayun’s campaigns in the south, Sher Khan became
the acknowledged leader of the Afghan resistance against the Mughals
and a king in all but name. In 1537 Sher Khan invaded Bengal, defeated
Mahmud Shah, the ruler of Bengal, and besieged him at Gaur, his
capital. Fearing Sher Khan’s growing power, Humayun marched to the
east to relieve the Bengal Sultan. Unfortunately, Humayun’s ill-
advised attempt to take Chunar fort rather than pressing on to Gaur
permitted Sher Khan to capture Gaur and take control of Bengal.
Mahmud Sultan fled his lost kingdom to seek an insecure refuge with
Humayun at Chunar.

The fall of Chunar was followed by months of maneuvering which
left Sher Khan with strong Afghan support and Humayun in a
precarious position in the east. The Mughals and the Afghans met once
> Prasad, Humayun, p. 71.

CONQUEST AND STABILITY

again at Chausa, a river town on the Ganges. Three months of
inconclusive negotiations between Humayun and Sher Khan were
ended by an Afghan surprise attack in June, 1539. The battle became a
complete rout in which Humayun himself barely escaped alive. Sher
Khan, who had defeated the acknowledged ruler of Hindustan,
assumed the title of Sher Shah in a coronation ceremony after the
battle.

In May, 1540, the Mughal and Afghan armies met once again near
Kanauj. The demoralized Mughal army panicked, ran, and was but-
chered. Humayun fled to Agra and then on to Lahore with a few
followers. At Lahore a confused meeting with Kamran and his other
brothers produced no plan of action. Kamran refused to allow his
brother to take refuge in Kabul. The Timurids decamped from Lahore
just ahead of Sher Shah and left the Afghan leader unchallenged ruler of
northern India in 1540.

During the next fifteen years, Humayun remained a royal exile, a
refugee seeking a means to recover his throne in India. From Lahore he
and his much-depleted army rode to Sind, then back to Rajasthan and
to Sind again with varying responses from local chiefs and rulers. In
1544 he crossed the border to Herat and sought refuge with Shah
Tahmasp, the Safavid ruler in Iran. At the Safavid court, Humayun,
under extreme duress, accepted the Shia faith in order to keep himself
and several hundred followers alive. After this initial test, Shah
Tahmasp grew more friendly and eventually agreed to underwrite
Humayun’s attempt to regain power. With fresh troops and funds
Humayun led a combined Mughal-Persian force which seized Qanda-
har and then occupied Kabul. There followed an eight-year war
between Humayun and Kamran for dominance in Afghanistan.
Finally, in 1553, the royal exile reoccupied Kabul as its unchallenged
ruler. Kamran became his brother’s captive and was blinded to render
him incapable of rule.

From Kabul Humayun turned to duplicate his father’s conquest of
northern India. Sher Shar had only ruled at Agra for five years before
his death in 1545. During that brief period his energetic administration
forecast many of the centralizing measures in revenue assessment and
military organization that would be carried to completion by the
Mughals. The throne at Delhi passed to his son Islam Shah Sur, who in
the course of an eight-year reign was not able consolidate his father’s
administrative reforms or his own centralized rule. At Islam Shah’s

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

death in 1553 the Sur domains were divided by treaty into the Punjab;
Agra and Delhi; Bihar and the eastern region; and Bengal. Each was
ruled by a son or relative of Sher Shah Sur. Everywhere the Sur
administrative system was breaking up. Drought in preceding years
brought famine conditions by early 1555. Popular distress contributed
to Afghan demoralization as mortality from starvation and disease shot
up.

Humayun, now fully energized, led his army from Kabul back to the
northern Indian plain in late 1554. The Mughals met little resistance
until Sikandar Shah Sur, the ruler of the Punjab, assembled a large
Afghan army at the town of Sirhind. A hard-fought battle ended with
Mughal victory. Sikandar Shah Sur fled the battlefield and with him
went any hope of further Afghan resistance. Humayun entered Delhi
and restored Babur’s monarchy by mid-1555.

The Mughal restoration was complete. But Humayun had little time
left. Within seven months, in January, 1556, he met a fatal accident on
the steps of his library in the fortress at Delhi. Humayun’s nobles
concealed the fact of his death for seventeen days until they could
secure a stable arrangement for the succession. The agreement arrived
at permitted Humayun’s young son Akbar, then twelve years of age, to
be crowned under the title Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar.

AKBAR 15 56-1605

During his long reign Akbar made no emotional or political commit-
ment to a permanent capital. His court, household, chancery,
treasury, stables, and armories moved from one urban setting to
another to suit changing circumstances. When desired, the Timurid
ruler became readily mobile. The massive tents of the imperial
encampment, emplaced after the day’s march, retained the grandeur
and fixed spatial arrangements of a permanent city built of stone,
The emperor himself, rather than a physical site, was the capital of
the empire.

Akbar’s changing strategic foci are reflected in the four successive
sites — Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lahore, and Agra - adopted as royal
capitals. Each phase in his grand strategy is defined by increased
Mughal power, resources and territory as the precarious regime
inherited by the young Timurid prince grew into a multi-regional
empire.

CONQUEST AND STABILITY

BAIRAM KHAN AS REGENT

Bairam Khan, a dominant member of Humayun’s nobility, assumed
the role of protector or regent for the young Akbar. Several months
after Akbar’s enthronement, Hemu, a minister and general of one of
the presumptive heirs of Islam Shah Sur, marched with a huge army to
attack Delhi. Hemu, a Hindu Vaisya or member of a literate, mercan-
tile caste, who had risen from humble circumstances to be a general for
the Sur regime, claimed royal status by employing the ancient Sanskrit
title of Raja Vikramaditya. Had he succeeded this would have been a
remarkable reassertion of the Sanskritic/Brahminical monarchical
tradition in North India — long subservient to Muslim rulers. A much
smaller Mughal army assembled by Bairam Khan with Akbar at his
side met Hemu’s forces at Panipat, the site of the climactic Lodi-
Timurid battle three decades earlier. The Sur forces nearly over-
whelmed the Mughals but for a stray arrow that wounded Hemu and
brought him as a prisoner to the Mughal commanders. Together
Bairam Khan and his young protégé slew the helpless Sur general. The
dead commander’s troops, thoroughly demoralized, rapidly deserted
the battlefield to give the victory to the Mughals.

In the next six months the Mughals won another major battle against
Sikandar, one of the Sur princes, who then fled east to Bengal. Under
Bairam Khan’s direction Mughal armies occupied Lahore and seized
Multan in the Punjab. In 1558 they took possession of Ajmer, the
aperture to Rajasthan, after the flight of its Muslim ruler. Late in the
same year a Timurid commander defeated Ibrahim, the remaining Sur
prince, and annexed Jaunpur, capital of the former Sultanate of
Jaunpur in the eastern Gangetic valley. By early 1557 a Mughal force
besieged a Sur commander in control of Gwalior fort, the greatest
stronghold north of the Narmada river. After nearly two years the
beleaguered Afghan garrison surrendered in January, 1558.

This aggressive flurry of activity put the vital cities and strongholds
of a compact region between Lahore, Delhi, Agra, and Jaunpur under
Mughal control. This was Hindustan, the old heartland of Muslim
political and military power in North India. The Mughals, like their
predecessors, now tapped the immense agricultural productivity and
busy trade of the epicenter of the Indo-Gangetic plain. Lahore and
Delhi stood together as western and eastern redoubts ~ symbols of
Muslim victory and domination in Hindu north India.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

By the fourth regnal year Bairam Khan had launched a drive to the
south into Rajasthan and Malwa. At this juncture a new political
struggle put a temporary halt to expansion. Akbar, then turned
seventeen, chafed in adolescent rebellion against Bairam Khan’s stern
authority. Several clashes with the regent brought the young king to an
alliance with a dissident faction of the nobility. This clique consisted of
Adham Khan, Akbar’s Turani foster brother, the son of his wet-nurse,
and a group of his relatives. Hamida Begam, Akbar’s mother, actively
encouraged the planned coup. Ethnic and religious friction underlay
dissatisfaction with the all-powerful minister. The orthodox Sunni
Muslim Central Asian (Turani) nobles disliked deferring to a Persian
Shia like Bairam Khan. Their dislike intensified when Bairam Khan
appointed a fellow Shia theologian as religious minister (sadr) who
controlled state patronage in the form of gifts, grants and jobs.

In March, 1560, Akbar, who was at Delhi, demanded Bairam Khan’s
resignation as chief minister. Feeling the erosion of his position,
Bairam Khan complied. The disgraced minister could choose between
continued personal service at court (but not as regent), or temporary
exile in a pilgrimage to Mecca. Choosing the pilgrimage, the unfortu-
nate minister was assassinated on his journey by an Afghan with a
long-standing personal grievance, before he embarked for the sea
passage.

TOWARD AUTONOMOUS RULE

Between 1560 and 1571, the first period of his mature rule, Akbar
remained at Agra. For two years Maham Anaga, Akbar’s foster
mother, Adham Khan, and Shihab-ud-din, a cousin who served as
governor of Delhi, exercised nearly complete political and fiscal
powers.

The troika wasted little time in resuming military activity. A Mughal
field army under the command of Adham Khan and Pir Muhammad
Khan invaded the kingdom of Malwa. The Mughal army defeated Baz
Bahadur, the Sultan of Malwa, at the town of Sarangpur. The defeated
ruler fled to the Sultanate of Khandesh for refuge leaving his harem,
treasure, and war elephants. His principal queen, Rupamati, famed for
her beauty, took poison rather than lose her honor in captivity. This
tragic theme has inspired many poetic compositions since that date.

Despite its initial success the campaign proved a disaster from

CONQUEST AND STABILITY

Akbar’s point of view. Adham Khan retained virtually all the spoils.
The victorious commander then followed Central Asian practice by
wholesale slaughter of the surrendered garrison, their wives and
children, and many Muslim theologians and Sayyids (descendants of
the Prophet). The opprobrium this generated greatly upset Akbar. The
emperor rode in person to the army’s headquarters to confront Adham
Khan and relieve him of command. Akbar sent his other leading
general, Pir Muhammad Khan, in pursuit of Baz Bahadur deep into the
territory of the Deccan Muslim Sultanate of Khandesh. But the rulers
of Khandesh and Berar and the royal fugitive Baz Bahadur allied to
beat back the Mughal army.

Baz Bahadur temporarily regained control of Malwa until, in the
next year, another Mughal army invaded and firmly annexed the
kingdom. Malwa became a province embedded within the nascent
imperial administration of the Timurid regime. Baz Bahadur survived
as a refugee at various courts until, eight years later, in 1570, he took
service with his conqueror as a Mughal noble (amir).

Shortly after the return of the Mughal armies, in late 1561, Akbar’s
conflict with Adham Khan flared up again. Feeling slighted by the
appointment of another noble as chief minister (vakil), Adham Khan
attacked and killed the new minister in his own audience hall in the
palace. When the still armed Adham Khan confronted Akbar in the
harem, he was struck down by the outraged young emperor and
thrown from a terrace into the palace courtyard. Still alive, Adham
Khan was dragged up and thrown to the courtyard once again by
Akbar to ensure his death. This dramatic event is described in full detail
in the histories of the reign and graphically portrayed in miniature
paintings. The fate of Adham Khan became part of a growing corpus of
stories that together formed the legendary Akbar.

Akbar immediately assumed full executive powers as ruler. In place
of the office of chief minister he created four specialized ministerial
posts for financial, military, household, and religious affairs. In so
doing, he removed one focal point for noble rebellion and discontent.
No single member of the Mughal nobility would have unquestioned
preeminence and thereby attract dissident adherents. The threat of an
over-mighty chief minister had been diverted —at Jeast until the waning
days of the dynasty.

Beyond these measures the young ruler faced the problem of
political organization. Military victories were not enough; the new

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

regime required a coherent political statement. Somehow Akbar had to
interweave the strands of his inherited Timurid charisma and auth-
ority, of centralized authority inherited from the Surs and the Sultans
of Delhi, and the notion of Islamic legitimacy. If he failed to do so,
North India would undergo once again war between Mughals,
Afghans, Rajputs, and regional Muslim rulers which had disfigured the
previous three decades. Merely to survive as a ruler, he must win over
or break the power of two groups: the Muslim nobility with its armed
power and wealth, and the religious elites of Islam, the #/ema and Sufi
shaikhs, with their influence over the Muslim community in India.

NEW CONQUESTS

In 1561 Sher Khan Sur, son of Adil Shah Sur, still unsubdued, marched
from the great Afghan bastion at Chunar toward Jaunpur with a large
army. Two Mughal commanders, Zaman Khan and Bahadur Khan,
Central Asian Uzbek nobles, dealt a sharp defeat to the Afghans and
seized arms, treasure and war elephants. Zaman Khan duly reported
the victory to the emperor, but retained the battle plunder without
permission. Akbar was incensed at the violation of royal prerogatives —
especially in the case of the war elephants whose use was a royal
symbol in India. He marched in person to Kara and confronted the two
generals in person. They paid formal homage to him and dutifully
handed over the spoils of battle. The seizure of Chunar rounded out
the first phase of Mughal expansion in the east.

In the two years after the departure of Bairam Khan, the Mughal
ruler, still not past his twentieth birthday, displayed his true political
and organizational capabilities. He asserted his position as an absolu-
tist ruler demanding deference from all. Even victorious generals could
be brought to submission if prompt vigorous action were taken by the
emperor. Akbar became his own comander-in-chief and most capable
strategist and field commander.

As a symbol of his new-found autonomy and military prowess,
Akbar sent a mission to the Baghela Rajput ruler Ram Chand at
Kalinjar, his capital, to induce the famed singer-musician Tansen to
come to the Mughal court at Agra. Ram Chand, who had rejected
earlier overtures from the Surs, dared not refuse and sent Tansen with
his instruments and lavish presents to Akbar’s court. Akbar is said to
have given Tansen two hundred thousand rupees as a gift on the

CONQUEST AND STABILITY

occasion of his first performance at court. Acquisition of Tansen’s
services stimulated Akbar’s active patronage of music. Tansen, and
after him, his sons and other pupils actively cultivated what was to
become known as North Indian or Hindustani music.

After Malwa the first major target was the hilly, thinly populated
kingdom of Garha-Katanga, or Gondwana, famed for its herds of wild
elephants. A Mughal army under Asaf Khan, an Uzbek noble, invaded
the kingdom in 1564. The Rajput queen, Rani Durgavati of the Candela
lineage, died commanding her armies in a futile defense. The Mughals
swept aside the remaining Rajput defenders and marched on the capital
at Chauragarh. The young Candela prince Bir Narayan died in battle.
Most of his female relatives perished in the bloody rite of suicide and
immolation in flames reserved for noble Rajput women and their
attendants (jauhar). Garha-Katanga became a huge district (sarkar)
incorporated within the just acquired province of Malwa. As was the
case with all such imperial annexations the boundaries and internal
divisions of the kingdom remained unaltered.

THE UZBEK REVOLT

In 1564, trouble flared up with the Uzbek nobles, Khan Zaman and his
brother Bahadur Khan, who had defeated the Afghans at Chunar.
Although most of these nobles had returned with Humayun to India,
Uzbek allegiance to the Timurids was not as firm as it might have been.
The Uzbek nobles traced their lineage back to Shaiban, the Uzbek
ruler, who had been Babur’s nemesis a half century earlier and whose
descendants continued to rule in Central Asia. Accustomed to a more
egalitarian political tradition, these grandees resented Akbar’s imperi-
ous ruling style. Considerable friction existed also between the staunch
Sunni Muslim Uzbeks and the Shia Persian nobles employed in
Mughal service. Not surprisingly, the Uzbek dissidents determined to
test Akbar early while the young ruler was still solidifying his position.

In 1564 Abdullah Khan, governor of Malwa, went into open revolt.
Akbar marched with an army to Mandu and drove the rebel with his
followers to seek refuge in the still-independent Sultanate of Gujarat.
Early in 1565 Akbar’s attempt to recall the senior Uzbek officer in
Awadh, touched off a unified Uzbek rebellion. A confused series of
battles and negotiations ended in early 1566 with Akbar’s withdrawal
to Agra and the rebels still holding the eastern provinces.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Akbar also faced a potential challenge from his half-brother, Mirza
Muhammad Hakim, who governed Kabul and its surrounding dis-
tricts. Mirza Muhammad Hakim’s hold on Kabul was threatened by
the Timurid ruler of Badakhshan (whose kingdom had been restored to
him in 1530 by Babur). Despite Akbar’s assistance, the Badakhshani
armies were besieging Kabul in 1566. Muhammad Hakim left a
garrison in place and retreated with his army towards the Indus river in
the Punjab plain.

The still unreconciled Uzbek nobles, learning of these events,
invited Muhammad Hakim to invade India. They, in turn, proclaimed
him the legitimate Mughal ruler by having Muhammad Hakim’s name
read in the Friday prayers (the khutha) in the great mosque at Jaunpur.
Encouraged by this, Muhammad Hakim marched through the Punjab
and besieged Lahore. At this critical point, a group of Timurid nobles
bearing the title Mirza or prince also rebelled and tried to seize Delhi.
The elderly leader, Muhammad Sultan Mirza, was descended from
Timur’s second son (instead of Akbar’s descent from the third son). In
theory, at least, Muhammad Sultan, or his numerous sons and grand-
sons, could claim Akbar’s throne. This claim was strengthened by
intermarriage with Timurid princesses from Akbar’s line. Loyalist
commanders drove off the rebels and captured Muhammad Sultan
Mirza. The remaining Mirzas sought refuge and support from the Rana
of Mewar and other Rajput rulers in Rajasthan.

Akbar responded to this crisis by ignoring the Mirzas and marching
to confront his half-brother at Lahore. Mirza Muhammad Hakim
retreated to Kabul, now cleared of the Badakhshan army. Akbar chose
not to pursue him. For the next decade, Mirza Muhammad Hakim
acted as a sovereign ruler at Kabul and posed a continuing danger to
Akbar’s regime in India.

The emperor wheeled his army round and marched east to dislodge
the Uzbeks from the cities and fortresses they had seized. In June, in
the midst of the monsoon, the emperor reached Manikpur on the bank
of the rain-swollen Ganges. The Uzbeks were encamped across the
river and unaware that the royal army had arrived so quickly. Akbar
led a surprise night river crossing and attacked the rebels at dawn. In
the ensuing fracas Akbar’s troops killed or captured for execution the
Uzbek nobles who had opposed him. In the closing phase of the revolt,
the emperor drove the dispirited Mirzas and their followers south to
take refuge with the Sultan of Gujarat.

CONQUEST AND STABILITY

Somehow the young emperor survived one of the most dangerous
episodes in his career. Throughout this three-year period he relied as
much on negotiation and diplomacy as on force to deter the rebels. His
Timurid ancestry was an asset, but it alone could not ensure fidelity
from all his nobles. In the end, battle decided the issue.

THE NEW NOBILITY

The Uzbek revolt underscored Akbar’s vulnerability vis-a-vis his
nobles. These warrior-grandees drew upon inherited positions of
power, authority, and influence with their kinsmen. The amirs were
heirs to bellicose martial traditions that emphasized personal honor,
dignity, and bravery on the field of battle. Always armed themselves,
they commanded varying numbers of personal slaves, dependent
kinsmen, and paid retainers.

The small cadre of fifty-one nobles who returned to India with
Humayun in 1555 were nearly all foreign-born Muslims.* Twenty-
seven, or over half, were from Central Asia. These were high-status
chiefs from Chaghatai Turkish or Uzbek Central Asian lineages. By
this time members of both lineages could claim varying degrees of
blood relationship with Humayun. All were imbued with the egalita-
rian and divisive attitudes of the Central Asian Turkish tribes. And
they were well aware that Mirza Muhammad Hakim offered a legiti-
mate alternative to Akbar’s rule. A second group consisted of sixteen
Persian Shi'ite nobles, including Bairam Khan, who formed the
primary counterweight to the Turanis or Central Asian beks. The
Iranis were more willing to accede to the notion of an unchallenged pad
shah or emperor in the Persian imperial tradition.

Akbar recruited new nobles to serve the needs of his enlarging
empire. In the course of twenty-five years the imperial elite had grown
six-fold to 222 amirs. The emperor’s fixed goal was to reduce the
relative numbers and influence of his Central Asian nobles. To do so,
he vigorously recruited Persian entrants into the service. By 1580
Persians numbered forty-seven; Chaghatai and Uzbek Turanis forty-
eight.

Beyond this, however, the young leader recruited new men from
4 Iqtidar Alam Khan, “The Nobility Under Akbar and the Development of His Religious

Policy, 1560-1580,” Jonrnal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1968), pp. 29-36. Data on the
composition and numbers of nobles are taken from this source.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Indian, rather than foreign, racial, and religious backgrounds. Many
Indian Muslim warriors had become landed aristocrats as they put
down local roots and seized lands from Rajputs and other Hindu
groups in North India. Afghans, probably the most numerous body of
Indian Muslims, were necessarily excluded. Continuing bitterness and
resistance among Afghan grandees in the east meant that Afghan
recruitment was not a feasible option for the Timurids,

Other Muslims long resident in North India, but rarely favored with
access to political power at the court of the Delhi Sultans, were more
pliable. Such, for example, were the Sayyids of Baraha, invariably
referred to as brave warriors, whose names begin to appear in imperial
annals in the early 1560s. Their ancestor, claiming descent from the
Prophet Muhammad, had migrated from Iraq during the thirteenth
century and settled in Sirhind near Delhi. From this original settlement
numerous descendants proliferated and peopled other villages and
lands in the region. Proverbially loyal, the Sayyid leaders could muster
several thousand of their bellicose kinsmen for service under Akbar.
Other Indian Muslim nobles enlisted to the point that, by 1580,
forty-four men (16 percent) of the enlarged nobility were indigenous
Muslims.

More significant was Akbar’s recruitment of Hindu Rajput leaders
into the Mughal nobility. During the fifteenth century Indo-Muslim
rulers of regional kingdoms (but not the Sultans of Delhi) had accepted
unconverted Hindu warriors into their elite cadres. Even the Surs had
benefited from the services of Hemu, a Vaisya administrator and
general. Nevertheless, although scarcely unprecedented, this was a
major step for the Timurids. In 1561 , a minor Rajput chief, head of the
Kachhwaha clan of Amber, sought the emperor’s intervention in a bid
to keep his power against an unfriendly Mughal governor. Bharamall,
the Kachhwaha raja, had actively supported Humayun in the conflict
with the Surs. When Akbar was marching near Jaipur, the Rajput
suppliant offered one of his daughters in marriage to the young
monarch. Akbar agreed, the marriage was performed, and the emperor
accepted Bharamall, his son, and géandson as amirs in imperial service.
The Kachhwaha raja retained his seat at Amber.>

Over the next two decades, Akbar demonstrated the reality of
Mughal power by repeated campaigns in Rajasthan. Other Rajput

5 Kunwar Refagat Ali Khan, The Kachhwahas Under Akbar and Jahangir (New Delhi:
Kitab Publishing House, 1976).

CONQUEST AND STABILITY

chiefs negotiated entry into the imperial elite and offered their daugh-
ters as marriage partners for the Mughal emperor. By the sixteenth
century a diffuse political system based on the obligations of patrilineal
kinship and marriage alliances was ripe for political centralization.
Several generations of settlement and frontier expansion, driven in
large measure by Islamic conquest in the Gangetic valley, resulted in
increased productivity and population densities in Rajasthan. Akbar
generally recruited Rajput clan heads who either claimed royal blood,
or who were the scions of great noble houses. These thakurs or masters
were the aristocrats of Rajput society in contrast to the more obscure
bhumiya warriors who possessed only modest power, land and status.

By 1580, Rajputs (and a few other non-Rajput Hindus) numbered
forty-three members of the nobility. Each raja was awarded high rank,
pay and perquisities. His adult sons, and other close male relatives and
kinsmen, obtained lesser mansabdari rank as well. In conformity with
imperial regulations, Rajput noblemen organized their kinsmen and
non-kin retainers into cavalry contingents armed and equipped for
active military service. Rajputs were required to serve the emperor
personally wherever he might be sent. At court, Rajputs publicly
acknowledged the authority and supremacy of the emperor and
became conversant with Persian and imperial manners and etiquette. In
so doing they were assured that they could retain their beliefs, customs,
and honor as Hindu warriors.

In return for imperial rank and privileges the rajas conceded tight
Mughal domination over Rajasthan. By placing a tika or vermillion
mark on the new raja’s forehead in court, the emperor legitimized his
position. Simultaneously Akbar stipulated rank and precedence and
gave the new nobleman valuable ceremonial gifts. The new raja was
expected to offer a substantial tribute or pishkash as his part of this gift
exchange. The emperor conferred the ancestral lands (watan) of the
raja as his non-transferable holding. These lands were not subject to
tribute but their estimated revenues were applied to the pay expected
for imperial service. When Bharamall, the Kachhwaha raja, submitted
to Akbar, his domain lands consisted of the villages and towns of
Amber pargana in eastern Rajasthan.* The administration estimated
Amber’s annual revenues and applied them to the pay and perquisites
of the raja according to his rank as a Mughal nobleman. Revenues from

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

several additional parganas within and, in some cases, outside
Rajasthan, were assigned to Bharamall as a transferable salary assign-
ment. The number and location of these additional lands fluctuated as
the rank and pay of Bharamall and his successors varied. The net effect
was to secure the Kachhwaha ancestral lands in Amber from external
or internal threats and to make available revenues from other lands to
the raja. The intent was to thwart any attempt to enlarge the Amber
domains and create a larger state. The emperor made similar arrange-
ments with other Rajputs as they submitted to him.

Akbar clamped tight imperial control over the Rajputs and the new
province of Rajasthan. The Rajput lands did not become a set of
autonomously ruled tributary kingdoms. Instead, Mughal governance
of the province was very similar to other directly administered
provinces in the Gangetic plain. A Mughal governor with substantial
numbers of troops occupied a newly built imperial fortress at Ajmer,
which became the provincial capital. Only imperial currency could
circulate; only imperial tolls could be levied on the overland caravan
traffic to the Gujarat ports. The standard Mughal revenue system,
complete with detailed assessments, land survey and registration, and
cash payments for each village became the standard. Those areas not
held by Rajput amirs were routinely assigned as transferable revenue
producing areas to non-Rajput mansabdars. A mixed stratum com-
posed of Rajput bhumiyas, Jat and other dominant castes continued to
act as intermediaries between the imperial claimants and the producing
peasantry.

Submission to the Timurid dynasty did not violate the Rajput
dharma or inherited code for moral conduct as set out in the bardic
literature of the period. The Mughal tie initially encouraged, rather
than disrupted, kinship solidarity. Each Rajput nobleman relied
heavily upon his kinsmen for military service and advice and counsel.
His immediate coterie was formed from his “brotherhood” (bhai-
bamdh) consisting of all males tracing shared patrilineal descent up to
six generations.” Each brotherhood formed a kinship unit holding
intrinsic power to rule its homelands won by colonization, conquest,
and settlement. The larger sphere for recruiting lay in the patrilineal
clan, composed of several brotherhoods of varying status and power

7 Norman P. Ziegler, “‘Some Notes on Rajput Loyalties During the Mughal Period” in J. F.
Richards, ed., Kingship and Authority in South Asia, (Madison Wisconsin, South Asian
Studies No. 3, 1978), pp. 231-232.

CONQUEST AND STABILITY

who together claimed descent from a common male eponymous
ancestor. The brotherhood and the clan rose in prestige and power as
warriors in Mughal service.

Rajput thakurs who offered their daughters for marriage created a
powerful bond between themselves and the Timurid house. The
second primary unit of recognition for each Rajput was the
brotherhood to which he gave daughters and from which he received
wives. Marriage created an alliance with his wife’s male relatives that
could be called upon at any time for support and assistance. Although
not reciprocal, since no women came from the Mughal side, marriage
became an important strand in the ties that bound the Rajputs to the
empire. For many thakurs, notably the Rana of Mewar, supplying
Rajput noblewomen for the emperor or princes was seen as a dis-
graceful submission. Those houses who offered brides had made the
critical gesture of subordination.

Mughal service was compatible with the ethos of the warrior in
service to a great master. Rajputs were enjoined to fight and die in
battle in the service of a master. A warrior’s service was expressed in
acts of complete self-sacrifice and devotion for the earthly master and
for god. Salvation for the warrior was the result of such devotion. The
Rajput master or thakur acquired his power to conquer and rule by
devotion to his god or goddess. The thakur then transmitted the
essence of his power and authority to lesser men, also thakurs, who
could rule smaller domains within his own. In accepting Akbar’s
service Rajput thakurs thereby accepted him as a Muslim Rajput who
possessed far greater power and sovereignty than even the greatest of
Rajput masters. The bardic traditions from this period often “equate
[Akbar] with Ram, the pre-eminent Ksatriya cultural hero of the
Hindu Rajput.”?

Both sides benefited by this arrangement. The Timurids won the
loyalty of thousands of Rajput warriors, generation after generation.
The publicly proclaimed devotion of these prestigious chiefs had its
impact on hundreds of lesser Rajput lineages who controlled localities
across northern and central India. Akbar preempted the possibility
of the rise of another Rajput coalition similar to that which his
grandfather had faced at Kanua in 1527. The Rajputs in turn placed
themselves within a much wider political arena. Instead of being caught
up in local internecine conflicts, they became imperial generals,
® Ibid. p. 224. Ibid., p.235.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

statesmen, and high administrators. Instead of being content with the
produce of the semi-arid lands of Rajasthan, they diverted streams of
wealth from the largess of the empire toward their homelands. Further
reinforced by a powerful dynastic appeal, Akbar forged a political
bond that would endure for nearly two centuries between Rajput and
Mughal.

RANKING

Akbar had created a complex, heterogeneous nobility with divergent
experience and cultural expectations. But how could he cope with this
diversity? The young emperor resorted to a system of honorific ranks
or mansabs derived from his Mongol background. These assigned a
numerical rank to each officer in imperial service. Each mansabdar or
“rank-holder’s” status, pay, range of official assignments, and titles
were defined by his personal (zat) rank. The emperor was the source
of all rankings and changes in rankings. As the ranking system evolved,
the graded ranks became a supple, powerful instrument to reward or to
punish military and civil officers in imperial service.

The decimal ranking order had its origins in the system employed by
the Mongols for military commanders. The latter were graded from
commanders of ten to those of a hundred, a thousand, and ten
thousand troops. The later Timurids continued to employ the termin-
ology although the actual number of troops was often less than the
nominal figure in the title. Even the Sur dynasty had employed a
similar rank order for its military commanders. From these precedents
Akbar created a comprehensive system in which every officer or
official was ranked.

In theory, personal rank could be any one of sixty-six even
numbered ranks from twenty to five thousand zat (or even ten
thousand for princes of the blood). In practice only thirty-three ranks
were actually in use. Soldiers and bureaucrats alike were mansabdars
although higher ranks tended to fall to military commanders rather
than financial or judicial specialists. Increases or decreases in rank
followed no set rules but were dependent upon royal favor. Especially
meritorious service — such as great courage and devotion in battle —
resulted often in large increases in rank. Emigré aristocrats from Persia,
Turan or elsewhere were given higher ranks as were Rajput chiefs and

other powerful local lords who enlisted with Akbar. But these ranks

CONQUEST AND STABILITY

did not transfer directly to sons and heirs. A mansabdar could see that
his son was enrolled in Mughal service, frequently as a member of his
own contingent, but the young aspirant obtained a modest rank in
relation to that of his father.

Later in the reign, by the 1590s a second decimal ranking came into
use. The sawar or “trooper” ranking denoted the number of armed
heavy cavalrymen each mansabdar was required to recruit, train,
command, and pay. In succeeding reigns virtually all mansabdars held
suwar ranks expressed in even numbers from as little as ten to as high as
five thousand. Numerical trooper rank determined the additional
funds paid the mansabdar to permit him to maintain his military
contingent. In Akbar’s time the trooper rank matched the number of
cavalry mustered. The latter varied from a small band of ten retainers
led by a petty officer to a field army of five thousand horsemen
organized by an amir or noble. All cavalry commanded by mansabdars
were at the disposal of the emperor. All had to meet strict imperial
standards.

This approach fell short of a centrally recruited and paid, bureau-
cratic, standing army. Instead, organization by military captains and
their followers shifted the burden of recruitment, pay, and command
to individual mansabdars. By imposing uniform royal standards,
Akbar secured the benefits of a large central army without the crushing
financial and administrative burden such an entity usually carried
with it.

CHITOR AND RANTHAMBOR

Rajput willingness to accept Mughal hegemony was not won without
force. In the early 1560s the most prestigious Rajput ruler, the Rana of
Mewar, remained defiant. Udai Singh (1540-1572) was descended from
the Sisodia ruler Rana Sanga who had died fighting Babur at the battle
of Kanua in 1527. As head of the Sisodia clan he possessed the highest
ritual status of all the Rajput rajas and chiefs scattered across the
landscape of North and Central India. Unless Udai Singh were reduced
to submission, the imperial authority of the Timurids would be
lessened in Rajput eyes. Akbar, at this early period, was still enthusias-
tically devoted to the cause of Islam and sought to impress the
superiority of his faith over the most prestigious warriors in Brahmini-
cal Hinduism.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Udai Singh’s son was in uneasy residence in Akbar’s court. When
asked by Akbar (in jest as Abul Faz! claims) as to whether he would
support his father or the emperor in a confrontation, the young Rajput
prince fled back to Mewar. Akbar was enraged and determined on war.
In September, 1567, the emperor led his armies in a holy war or jihad
toward Chitor, the capital of Mewar, a fortified city rising 200 meters
above the Rajasthan plain.'° As the imperial armies approached, Udai
Singh’s advisers in council concluded that the Sisodia army could not
face the Mughals in open battle. Instead, Udai Singh left a 5,000 man
garrison in Chitor with supplies to withstand a protracted siege and
retreated to a subordinate fortress in the hills. Within a month Akbar
laid his siege lines completely around Chitor. His raiding parties
devastated the countryside and captured Udaipur, the other leading
city.

After initial assaults on the walls failed, taking heavy casualties, the
besieging army set up three large batteries to bombard the fort.
Simultaneously, imperial sappers commenced digging tunnels for two
mines and an approach trench (sabat). The artillerymen cast a large
siege cannon on site to be used for breaching the walls when the sabat
reached its objective. At this point the garrison tried to negotiate a
surrender on terms; Akbar rejected this overture.

Fifty-eight days into the siege, the sappers had reached the walls and
exploded the first of the mines. When the second mine went off it killed
about 200 of the assault force caught in the breach. The defenders
sealed up the walls. Akbar then pushed ahead with his covered trench
to bring his siege cannon within range of the walls. On the night of 22
February, the Mughals made several breaches in the wall and began a
general assault. During the melee, Akbar killed Jaimal, the Rajput
commander of Chitor, with a well-aimed musket shot, whose death
broke the morale of the defenders. Rising pillars of smoke soon
signalled the rite of jauhar as the Rajputs killed their families and
prepared to die in a supreme sacrifice. In a day filled with hand-to-
hand struggles virtually all the defenders died. The Mughal troops
slaughtered another 20~25,000 ordinary persons, inhabitants of the
town and peasants from the surrounding area on the grounds that they
had actively helped in the resistance. Only an audacious body of one
thousand musketeers, men of Kalpi who had done much damage to the

19 Abul Fazl, The Akbar-Nama (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 3 vols., 1907, 1912,
1939), translated by H. Beveridge 11, 464-477.

CONQUEST AND STABILITY

Mughals in the siege, managed to escape Akbar’s wrath. They bound
their wives and children and marched them right through the imperial
lines as if they were Mughal troops carrying off prisoners.

Although the imperial armies found little treasure to seize, the
fortress was destroyed to the point that it remained deserted thereafter.
A victory proclamation (fath nama) issued in early March celebrates
the successful prosecution of the holy war against the polytheists by
the Timurid ruler.'! Udai Singh, however, remained at large, uncap-
tured by the Mughals until his death four years later. Akbar, for his
part, fulfilled an earlier vow by marching on foot to Ajmer in
pilgrimage to the shrine of Khwaja Muin-ud-din Chishti. There, during
the month of Ramazan, Akbar circumambulated the shrine, gave gifts
to the poor and pious, and after ten days returned to Agra.

The next year, in February, 1569, Akbar led his army to an assault on
the massive fortress at Ranthambor which, together with Chitor,
controlled the major trade corridor to the sea. Rai Surjan, of the Hada
lineage, held the fort and its territory as a vassal of Udai Singh. At
Ranthambor, the Mughals employed hundreds of bullocks and dozens
of elephants to drag fifteen massive siege guns to a hill overlooking the
fortress. When, after only a month, these guns started bombarding the
fortress and the covered way had reached the walls, the garrison
surrendered on terms. Rai Surjan accepted imperial service in return
for retention of his ancestral holdings.

The sieges of Chitor and Ranthambor were spectacular public
events. The fall of these great forts demonstrated the reality of Mughal
power for every warrior in North India. Outright defiance to the
Mughal emperor was not possible; submission or death was the only
choice.

IMPERIAL STRONGHOLDS

At the same time that he was demonstrating the inability of any
fortress, however strong, to defy his assaults, Akbar was busily
engaged in constructing his own strategic network of strongholds. His
first concern was to fortify his capital at Agra, “which by position is
the centre of Hindustan.” In 1565 after “lofty minded mathematicians
and able architects laid the foundations” the massive walls and four
gates of the fort began to rise on the banks of the Yamuna river:!?

1 K. A. Nizami, Akbar and Religion (Delhi, 1989), pp. 383-399. 2 Ibid., p. 372.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Every day 3 to 4,000 active builders and strong-armed labourers carried on the
work. From the foundations to the battlements, the fortress was composed of
hewn stones, each of which was polished like a world-revealing mirror, and was
ruddy as the cheek of fortune. And they were so joined together that the end of
a hair could not find a place between them. This sublime fortress ... was com-
pleted with its battlements, breastwork, and its loop-holes ... in the space of
eight years under the faithful superintendence of Musim Khan Mir Barr u Bahr.

The massive red fortress contained over five hundred buildings
when completed. Still standing today it “was to be stable like the
foundation of the domination of the sublime family and permanent like
the pillars of its fortunes.”3

Over the next two decades, Akbar, as part of his grand strategy,
erected two other huge palace fortresses. Allahabad (formerly the
Hindu city of Prayag), guarded the conjunction of the Ganges and
Yamuna rivers in the eastern Gangetic plain. Lahore, the capital of the
Punjab, was the first line of defense against an assault over the
northwest passes from Afghanistan or Central Asia — the classic
invasion route. These three large fortress and palace complexes,
defended by heavy cannon, were virtually impregnable to direct
assault. The emperor further anchored this defensive line by building a
strongly defended castle (begun 1570) at Ajmer, the gateway to the
Rajasthan corridor. He strengthened the strategically placed frontier
strongholds in the northwest at Attock and Rohtas on the Indus. In the
east the bastion of Rohtas in Bihar stood guard.

The Lahore, Agra, Allahabad, Ajmer quadrilateral formed a protec-
tive framework for Mughal imperial power. The great walls of these
bastions secured growing hoards of imperial treasure and massive
arsenals, and provided ultimate safety for the person of the emperor
and his court and household. Fortress commanders, who received their
appointments directly from the emperor, were responsible directly to
the imperial court. To ensure their autonomy the custom grew up of
assigning revenues from those villages and lands surrounding each
fortress to meet the needs of the garrison. The Mughals occupied and
garrisoned many other famous strongholds as they expanded, includ-
ing Gwalior, and the great forts of Rajasthan —- Chitor, Ranthambor
and Mirtha — as well as Asirgarh (near Burhanpur) and the massive hill
forts of the Deccan provinces. Nevertheless, imperial security rested
on the great strongholds in Hindustan — the very center of the empire.

» Ibid, p.372.

CHAPTER 2

THE NEW EMPIRE

In 1571 Akbar moved twenty-six miles from Agra to Fatehpur Sikri, a
newly built city that would be his capital until 1585. During his fifteen
year residence at Fatehpur Sikri Akbar directed major conquests and
surmounted his most dangerous political crisis. The new city was also
the site of significant organizational and administrative initiatives —
measures that put an indelible stamp upon the Mughal imperial system.
Brilliant innovations in land revenue, coinage, military organization,
and provincial administration emerged from the Fatehpur Sikri years.

Why Fatehpur Sikri in preference to the great Indo-Muslim political
capitals like Delhi, Agra, Lahore, and Jaunpur? Why remove to the
village of Sikri at a hard day’s march from Agra?! Agra and Fatehpur
Sikri were in reality joint capitals. For security the bulk of the imperial
treasure hoards as well as arsenals and other reserves were kept in Agra
fort. The court, harem, and treasury could be quickly removed to Agra
for safety.

The newly constructed city bore a similarity to the movable imperial
encampment also designed by Akbar. Fatehpur Sikri was an urban
form in transition between camp and imperial metropolis. Akbar
recreated his camp in stone within the boundaries of Fatehpur Sikri.
The facades of the buildings strongly resembled the great wood and
canvas structures erected in the imperial encampment. Like the camp,
the capital gave the Mughal emperor a disciplined, controlled
organism from which to write, rehearse, and play out the drama of
imperial rule.

Fatehpur Sikri was also a refuge, a courtly city whose architecture
and public spaces were very much an expression of the young ruler’s
passion for building and design. Here Akbar satisfied those creative,
aesthetic impulses typical of the Timurids. Music was already well
established under Tansen’s leadership. In addition painting, calligra-

‘ For a full treatment of Fatehpur Sikri see Michael Brand and Glenn D. Lowry, eds.,
Fatehpur Sikri (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1987).

2 Irfan Habib, “The Economic and Social Setting,” in Brand and Lowry, Fatehpur Sikri,
p. Bo.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

phy, poetry, history, comparative religion, architecture all flourished
in an urbane and sophisticated setting.

AN ISLAMIC CITY

Akbar employed the design and construction of Fatehpur Sikri to
symbolize, in those early years, the regime’s Islamic foundation. Two
nested sacred buildings dominated the city. The great congregational
mosque and the tomb (dargah) of a widely revered and worshipped
Sufi saint were the binary institutions of legal and mystic Indian Islam.
The elegant marble tomb housed the remains of Shaikh Salim Chishti
(d. 1571) from whom the young ruler frequently sought spiritual
advice. Shaikh Salim’s blessing and prophecy regarding the birth of
Akbar’s long-awaited male heir, Sultan Salim, caused the emperor to
locate his new capital at the village of Sikri. By placing Shaikh Salim’s
tomb inside the great mosque, Akbar was able to draw upon the
palpable sanctity adhering to it and assimilate this to his own authority.

The emperor encouraged the sons and grandsons of Shaikh Salim to
enlist as high-ranking officers in the imperial service rather than to
remain at the shrine as heirs to their familial tradition. Incorporation of
the Chishti mystical aura into Fatehpur Sikri and its eventual subordi-
nation to the Emperor was an essential part of the religiosity Akbar
claimed for the regime. It is important to keep in mind, however, that
Akbar made his appeal cloaked in the symbols of the broadest, most
appealing, form of Sufi devotionalism possible. The Chishtis were
esteemed for their austerity and rejection of secular power and
influence. It is noteworthy that the young emperor did not choose to
so identify himself with the Naqshbandis of Northern India despite his
family’s long association with that orthodox Central Asian order.

Akbar juxtaposed this appeal with an unambiguous affirmation of
the orthodox Muslim foundations of his regime. The great congre-
gational mosque at Fatehpur Sikri is the largest and certainly the
dominant building in the city. For nearly a decade after its erection the
emperor took an active interest in the operation of the mosque. His
devotional acts — under the tutelage of Shaikh Abdul Nabi, the chief
jurist of the empire — included sweeping the floor of the mosque and
acting as prayer leader.

During this period Akbar gave further evidence of Islamic piety by
actively organizing and sponsoring an official pilgrimage to Mecca

THE NEW EMPIRE

each year. After 1574 the conquest of Gujarat permitted direct access
to the Holy Cities from the west coast port of Surat across the Arabian
Sea to Jiddah. The emperor enlarged the pious trust (waqf) established
by the last Sultan of Gujarat which sent the revenues of several coastal
villages as donations to Mecca and Medina. In 1576 the first Mughal
pilgrim caravan, under the command of a specially appointed Mughal
officer known as the Mir Haj, left Agra for Surat port. There a special
pilgrim ship, the //ahi waited. All expenses were paid entirely by the
emperor who also sent large sums for charity and several thousand
honorific robes of honor for the pious. The first party included
Gulbadan Begam, Akbar’s aunt, the Empress Salima Sultan Begam
and other high-born women. Akbar himself was dissuaded from
travelling only by the pleas of Abul Fazl.3

The emperor further underscored his piety by travelling on foot
from Fatehpur Sikri on an annual royal pilgrimage to the tomb of
Khwaja Muin-ud-din Chishti at Ajmer. Regular visits to Ajmer, the
strategic site for imperial dominance over Rajasthan, served also to
remind the Rajputs of Timurid power. At the beginning of his
nineteenth regnal year:*
[Akbar] took the generous-hearted and noble minded prince Sultan Salim,
with himself for the circumambulation of the auspicious and heavenly
illuminated tomb at Ajmer. When the eye of that fortunate, God-gifted and
successful prince fell on the tomb of the great Khwaja, he, following the
example of his illustrious father, bowed with great humility to the noble tomb
and sacred threshold, and performed the ceremony of circumambulation, and
the duty of pilgrimage.
Immediately thereafter followed the ceremony of weighing both ruler
and prince against gold and silver and other precious commodities.

We cannot find a clearer statement of the spiritual reference point
sought by Akbar for his rule than in this episode. In addition to his
own prostration and public worship at the tomb the emperor pro-
claimed his son Salim’s devotion as well. These recurring ceremonies
acted out the same devotional message expressed in stone within
Fatehpur Sikri. Royal heirs, royal victory, and royal authority flowed
from devotion to the Chishti saints.

> N. R. Faroogi, “Mughal-Ottoman Relations: A Study of Political and Diplomatic
Relations Between Mughal India and the Ottoman Empire, 1556-1748,” unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation (University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1986), pp. 191-196.

4 Nizam-ud-din Ahmad, Tabagat-i Akbari, English translation by B. De and Baini Prashad,
(Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 3 vols., 1927-39) 11, 429.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

NEW CONQUESTS

Akbar’s new capital became headquarters for a new phase of expansion
southwest toward Gujarat and the Arabian Sea. The appeal of Gujarat
to Akbar, as it was to his father Humayun before him, is not difficult to
discern. The coastal region possessed areas of rich agricultural pro-
duction in its central plain; an impressive output of textiles and other
industrial goods; and the busiest seaports of the Indian subcontinent.
To link this maritime kingdom with the massive resources of the
Indo-Gangetic plain would greatly strengthen Akbar’s growing
empire.

Akbar could take advantage of Gujarat’s political troubles. A weak
king, Muzaffar Shah 11, had lost control of his kingdom to several
parties of Muslim nobles engaged in continuing conflict. The Timurid
Mirzas, having found refuge in Gujarat in the past several years, had
seized power in the southern portion of the kingdom. The opportunity
to put a final end to the sedition of these rebels was appealing. The
threat of Christian intervention by sea also existed. The Portuguese in
Goa, who already dominated sea traffic in the Arabian Sea, might try to
seize the west coast ports if political fragmentation continued. When a
Habshi (Abyssinian) noble who headed one of the losing factions
invited Akbar to intervene and annex the kingdom, the emperor did
not hesitate.

In July, 1572, Akbar occupied Ahmadabad, the capital, and other
northern cities and was proclaimed the lawful sovereign of Gujarat in
the Friday prayers. The puppet king, Muzaffar Shah, submitted readily
as did virtually all the Muslim nobles of the north. By January, 1573,
Akbar had driven out the Mirzas. who, after offering only token
resistance, fled to refuge in the Deccan. The emperor left the new
Mughal province in the hands of an imperial governor and returned to
Fatehpur Sikri.

Suddenly, within three months, the nobles of Gujarat, disgruntled
by their exclusion from imperial service, joined together in an attempt
to drive the Mughals out of the kingdom. Husain Mirza retook
Cambay, Broach, and Surat, the major ports. Afghan nobles supported
by the Rajput ruler of Idar were advancing on the Mughal governor at
Ahmadabad. Akbar responded immediately to this crisis by mustering
a stripped-down 3,000 man field army. Mounted on the swiftest female
camels he and his followers covered the 800 kilometers to Ahmadabad

THE NEW EMPIRE

in just eleven days — on a route that caravans required two months to
traverse. Akbar’s smaller imperial army crushed the rebellion by
soundly defeating 15,000 rebels in a bloody cavalry engagement. The
victorious emperor, reassured by the death or flight of the rebel
leaders, returned to Fatehpur Sikri forty-three days after his departure.
The reconquest of Gujarat was the most dramatic episode of Akbar’s
long career. Speed, decisiveness, and luck were with him. His repu-
tation for invincibility, already rising, swelled even further.

THE DRIVE TO THE EAST: BIHAR AND BENGAL

The Timurid ruler’s second major objective lay in Bihar and Bengal
where nominally tributary Afghan rulers and nobles still controlled the
riverine domains of northeastern India. Akbar could not afford to leave
his long-standing enemies, the Afghans, in power in an area so
productive and strategic. In 1574, the young Sultan of Bengal, Daud
Karrani, repudiated Akbar’s nominal sovereignty by having his own
name and titles read in the Friday prayers. After a Bengali raid into
Mughal territory, Akbar himself led his armies in a difficult siege and
assault of the Afghan-held fortress at Patna. The Afghan armies
retreated before the Mughal onslaught until Daud was forced to take
refuge in Orissa. Akbar returned to Fatehpur Sikri and left command
of his armies in the east to his celebrated confidant and revenue
minister, Todar Mal.

Todar Mal, commanding the Mughal army in the east, pursued the
Afghan king until he forced a battle at Tukarori, near Midnapur. A
ferocious elephant charge by the Afghans would have nearly destroyed
the Mughal army had not Todar Mal held firm and rallied the left wing.
This victory permitted Akbar to formally annex Bengal, Bihar, and
Orissa to the Mughal empire, but Daud remained at large, although
nominally a Mughal fief holder with lands in Orissa. When the Mughal
troops stationed in Bengal suffered epidemic disease and retreated
from Bengal, Daud reasserted his control. In 1576 a relief force sent
under the command of Khan Jahan, governor of the Punjab, forced a
decisive battle at Rajmahal where the Afghans were routed. Daud was
finally captured and killed.

Continuing warfare and reverses followed the hard-won Mughal
victory in 1576. Bengal remained a region controlled by Afghan nobles
and Hindu rajas who deeply resented the Mughal military occupation.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Dwindling numbers of bitter Afghan commanders fought rear-guard
actions against the superior Mughal armies. Finally, by the late 1580s
virtually all overt resistance ended. Akbar sent Raja Man Singh, one of
his most capable Rajput nobles, to set up a regular system of imperial
administration in Bengal and Orissa.

CHANGING ROYAL ATTITUDES

The overall cultural and religious climate of sixteenth century India
was more open and tolerant of change. Mughal expansion occurred as
Indian society and culture was experiencing a richly creative phase.
Several centuries of dominant Indo-Muslim power had forced Hindu
institutions to adapt to that reality by strengthening popular devotional
expression. Generations of Muslim life in north India and the Deccan
had gradually shaped accommodation and sympathy to Indian society
and even to Hinduism.

In both Hinduism and Islam many mystics, scholars, intellectuals,
and more ordinary folk were actively seeking some form of synthesis.
Kabir and other poet-saints in the popular devotional bhakti tradition
of Hinduism offered a middle ground where Ram/Rahim could be
worshipped freely in a rejection of the formalism of both religions.
Others such as Daud Dayal (1544-1603) shared devotional beliefs and
practices with sympathetic Sufis. An avowedly synthetic movement
led by Guru Nanak (1469-1539) began in the Punjab. In folk culture
there was substantial sharing of customs, ceremonies, and beliefs
between ordinary Muslims and Hindus. Such practices as the worship
of the smallpox goddess Sitla were often practiced as ardently by
Muslims as Hindus in the countryside.

Throughout his residence in Fatehpur Sikri, Akbar engaged in a
systematic study and discussion of comparative theology and religion.
In 1575, he constructed a large hall to house debates in religion and
theology. His personal inquiry into religion grew out of his own
disquiet and ongoing spiritual quest. The emperor suffered from a
recurring spiritual and personal crisis. At times he was subject to
trances which were probably a mild form of epilepsy. Signs of chronic
depression were also reported by observers close to him.

At first the debates were confined to issues of Islamic theology, but
later, after 1579, participants included learned Jains, Hindu saints, and

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Parsi priests. In 1580 the emperor enrolled two Jesuit priests, Aquaviva
and Monserrate, who had travelled from Goa at Akbar’s invitation to
instruct him and his entourage in Christianity.

Akbar’s active intellectual role is the more remarkable because he
was illiterate. Although brought up in a highly literate family culture,
at least four tutors tried and failed to teach the young prince to read.
His son Salim, later Jahangir, commented:>

My father always associated with the learned of every creed and religion,
especially with the Pandits and the learned of India, and although he was
illiterate, so much became clear to him through constant intercourse with the
learned and wise ... that no one knew him to be illiterate, and he was so
acquainted with the niceties of verse and prose compositions that his defi-
ciency was not thought of.

A recent analysis suggests that Akbar was probably dyslexic and thus
physically unable to read. Because he was deeply interested in the
contents of manuscripts, Akbar developed the practice of having
himself read to daily. Possibly because of his affliction he possessed a
truly remarkable memory.

Father Monserrate gives a vivid picture of a series of bitter dispu-
tations with the ulema at the Mughal court. On these occasions, from
the Jesuit viewpoint at least, Akbar was noticeably sympathetic to the
Christian point of view and impatient with the inability of the Muslim
theologians to argue effectively against them.” As his inquiries pro-
ceeded Akbar seems to have become less and less enchanted with
orthodox Islam and its defenders. His own religious views matured as
he interrogated holy men; listened to heated religious disputes; and
learned the doctrines of each sect. Increasingly, Akbar moved away
from his former devotion to Islam and toward a self-conceived eclectic
form of worship focused on light and the sun. In so doing he became
more tolerant of non-Muslim practices and less inclined to insist on
rigorous enforcement of discriminatory practices aimed at non-
Muslims.

5 Jahangir, Tuzuk-i Jabangiri (Delhi, 2 vols. in one, reprint edition, 1968), translated by
‘A. Rogers and edited by H. Beveridge, 1, 33.

7 Monserrate, Antonio, The Commentary of Father Monserrate, S. J., On his Journey to the
Court of Akbar (London: Oxford University Press, 1922), translated by j. S. Hoyland;
annotated by S. N, Banerjee, pp. 50-51.

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CROWN VERSUS ULEMA

The young Timurid monarch presided over a predominantly non-
Muslim society. By the mid-sixteenth century it was clear that no
reasonable prospect existed for large-scale conversion of large numbers
of Hindus to Islam. Already deeply immersed in his own speculative
inquiries, Akbar faced a familiar political problem: how could he
maintain his status as a Muslim ruler worthy of support by the faithful
without engaging in such harsh and repressive measures against his
Hindu subjects that they were disaffected and rebellious? More
importantly, how to elicit active, as opposed to merely passive,
political support from non-Muslims? Was the test for full political
participation in the imperial system to be the Islamic profession of
faith, or could Akbar open a broader, more flexible, notion of the
political community of early modern India?

As Akbar’s piety and reverence for the leading imperial jurists of the
day declined, tension between him and the men learned in the sacred
law of Islam, the ulema, grew into a full-blown political conflict. Partly
as a result of this struggle, Akbar formulated a new, broad-based
political appeal centered on a radically new dynastic ideology. At
Fatehpur Sikri the free-thinking emperor and his clutch of radical
advisers devised a coherent political doctrine for the empire.

Conflict between the ulema and Akbar fell into several areas. First,
the learned men of Islam looked to the Timurid prince to display those
qualities of piety and devotion that would serve as a model for the rest
of his subjects. Akbar must do all in his power to ensure that Muslims
could live a godly life in conformity with the Sharia in a land that could
truly be called the Dar-al Islam. The piety and zealousness of the ruler,
whose every statement and action was scrutinized and reported daily,
determined the behavior of his officers and set the tone of the
relationship between Islam and the state in Mughal India.

Linked with the above was the question of active leadership and
patronage. Would Akbar furnish Muslim theologians and jurists with
jobs and grants? The ulema depended upon the state to fund, organize,
and manage the mosques, charitable trusts, and seminaries as well as
the annual pilgrimage to the Holy Cities. The state relied upon the
ulema to staff its law courts and to exercise social and moral leadership
in local Islamic communities.

The young emperor became increasingly unsympathetic toward

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worldly ulema. Most Mughal theologians and jurists were neither
speculative intellectuals nor serious religious thinkers. Many were
corrupt and worldly. Maulana Abdullah, the chief patronage officer
(sadr) of the empire, possessed a large estate near Lahore. He avoided
paying the one-fortieth obligatory charitable tax on property levied
on Muslims each year (zakat) by the device of assigning the estates to
his wife’s ownership for a part of each year when the tax came due.
When Akbar discovered this deception he was unimpressed by the
piety or sincerity of one of his leading ulema.

As his inquiries progressed, Akbar discovered that Muslim learned
men held a large proportion of the lands of the empire as tax-exempt
religious grants. Many grants were obtained illegally or fraudulently.
Large numbers of these holdings, originally dispensed for the lifetime of
the beneficiary, had been allowed to transfer illegally to heirs. Further-
more, a sizable number of pious grant-holders were Afghans who had
obtained their holdings from the Sur or the Lodi rulers. This was especi-
ally true in the Punjab where they formed a majority of grant-holders.

By 1578 Akbar was confident enough to undertake a series of
sweeping reforms. He ordered a wholesale inspection and verification
of titles for all pious land grants. All those that could not be
authenticated were immediately resumed. Thereafter he sharply con-
stricted the area and number of grants and strictly prohibited the
practice of unchallenged inheritance. Heirs had to apply for the
benefice; their request might be granted or more likely not. But the
most bitter blow was to dispense pious grants of land to learned and
religious men of all religions — not just Islam. Yogis living in mon-
asteries (maths) received lands. Zoroastrian divines (Parsis) obtained
lands. Even Brahmin priests enjoyed Akbar’s largess.

A second set of issues emerged from tension between freethinking
and orthodoxy in medieval Islamic India. The most narrowly funda-
mental of Islamic orthodox leaders in Akbar’s reign shared the view
that the Sharia must be rigorously enforced. Flexibility or concessions
were weaknesses to be avoided. All those who might be suspected of
heresy were to be brutally suppressed. For example, many Sufis or
mystics tended to express views in their trances or later recollections of
these states that were close to, if not, monist. Most Sufi masters were
therefore suspect. Heterodox Shia, whether of the Persian brahch or
the Ismailis found in the coastal cities of Gujarat, were targets for
persecution.

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Muslims in India were subject to rising chiliastic emotions as the
Islamic millennium — the thousandth year of the Hijra beginning
September 27, 1592 —drew closer. A tradition attributed to the Prophet
Muhammad that he would only remain in his grave a thousand years
and return as the Mahdi gained currency. During the fifteenth century
a heretical sect based on this tradition emerged. The founder, Sayyid
Muhammad Jaunpur (b. 1443) who claimed to be the Mahdi, won large
numbers of disciples and followers during his lifetime. Mahdawis, as
they were known, were especially strong in Gujarat and western India
and seemed to have a special appeal to Afghans of varying stations in
life. Sayyid Muhammad rejected the legalism and formalism of the
contemporary ulema and of the four schools of law. Instead he
prescribed ardent devotion, renunciation, and meditation for his
followers. Despite recurring persecution by orthodox ulema, Sayyid
Muhammad and his sons and other successors continued to preach and
found new circles of followers in Gujarat, Sind, and northern India.®

Akbar, who came in direct contact with Mahdawis after his conquest
of Gujarat, did not persecute either leaders or followers of this heretical
sect. Instead he permitted the Mahdawi saints to explain and defend
their doctrines in religious discussions held at court in Fatehpur Sikri.

Third, citing Sharia provisions for treatment of dhimmis, the ulema
expected to exert direct influence over official policies toward the
non-Muslim majority. Faced with the plasticity and resilience of
Hinduism, the Mughal ulema rightly feared blurring of boundaries and
loss of the community’s identity and strength. Therefore, doctrinal
purity demanded harsh treatment for idolaters in all spheres of life.

Akbar’s conflicts on this question with the Muslim religious estab-
lishment began early. In 1563 the young emperor abolished the
practice of collecting a heavy tax from Hindu pilgrims when they
gathered on festival occasions. In contravention of the Sharia, the
emperor also granted non-Muslims permission to repair aging temples
or to build new structures. In another controversial measure orders
were issued that former Hindus who had been forcibly converted to
Islam should be allowed to apostasize and escape the death penalty of
the Sharia. He prohibited enslavement of war captives and the common
practice of involuntary conversion of non-Muslim slaves.

* S.S, A. Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements in Northern India in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth centuries (Agra, 1965), pp. 68-134. See also K. A. Nizami, Akbar and
Religion (Delhi, 1989), pp. 42-51.

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The most sweeping policy change, which had a direct impact on
nearly all Hindus, occurred in 1579.9 Akbar abolished the graduated
property tax levied exclusively on non-Muslims, the jiziya. This was an
annual tax imposed on the property of individual non-Muslims, who
were legally classified as dhimmis or client groups tolerated and
protected by Muslim rulers. State officers, usually ulema, collected
sums based upon the wealth or possessions of the individual rate-
payer. Only the indigent were exempted from payment. The regressive
scale placed a real burden on the poorest taxpayers who paid an annual
sum equivalent to a month’s wages for an unskilled urban laborer.

The symbolic value of this measure was very great. The jiziya
defined the status and public obligations of non-Muslims protected by
the Islamic community. Payment entitled dhimmis to a peaceful
existence under state protection and exempted them from military
service. Terminating this tax implied that the unequal compact
between Muslims and non-Muslims was also abolished — hence
Akbar’s action was bitterly resented by orthodox Muslims.

Other symbolic statements aimed at the political inclusion of
non-Muslims. Emperor and courtiers celebrated the most important
Hindu festivals such as Diwali, the festival of lights. The emperor
adopted the Hindu custom of giving alms to the poor by having
himself weighed against gold, silver, grains, and other commodities.
Once or twice a year on auspicious dates the proceeds of these
ceremonies were distributed to the destitute and needy. An especially
dramatic political statement was employment of Rajputs and other
high-caste Hindus in critical military/administrative roles (see above).
Actions such as these touched some of the deepest sensibilities of
members of the Muslim community.

Strains in the relationship between Akbar and the Muslim religious
elite came to the fore in 1578. In that year the chief imperial qazi,
Abdul Nabi, tried a Brahmin accused of insulting the name of
Muhammad ~ a capital offense under the Sharia. Finding him guilty,
the imperial qazi sentenced the priest to death. Abdul Nabi carried out
the sentence even in the face of Akbar’s express disapproval.

Finally, in 1579, Akbar assumed sweeping powers in matters of
Islamic doctrine. An imperial edict publicly stated the Mughal emper-
or’s prerogative to be the supreme arbiter of religious affairs within his

° Nizami, Akbar and Religion, pp. 107-108. Nizami concludes that mention of abolition of
the jiziya earlier in 1364 by Abul Fazl in the Akbar-Nama is erroneous.

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realm — above the body of Muslim religious scholars and jurists. In this
edict Akbar stated that if leading scholars disagreed on a point of
religious law, the Timurid ruler would decide which opinion would be
authoritative and binding upon all Muslims. The edict also sought to
claim for Akbar authority as Khalifa in preference to the Ottoman
Sultan who had claimed that title since seizing control of the Holy
Cities in 1517.!9 Under heavy pressure from the throne, the chief
judge, the imperial sadr, and several other eminent scholars signed the
document before it was published. The only person who signed
willingly was Shaikh Mubarak, a distinguished liberal theologian. The
declaration was a stunning defeat for the powerful religious hierarchy
of the empire.

THE REVOLT OF 1579-1580

Embittered and humiliated, the imperial qazi and sadr took sanctuary
in a mosque, and claimed publicly that they had been coerced into
signing. Simultaneously a truculent group of imperial officers stationed
in the eastern provinces of Bihar and Bengal went into rebellion. Never
all that happy with Mughal domination, these fiercely orthodox
officers, who counted many Afghans among them, were upset by the
recent decree. They were also provoked by tightening administrative
controls over the army. A new order commanded that all cavalrymen
bring to the muster mounts meeting imperial specifications for size and
quality. Once inspected and approved the mounts were to be certified
by branding with an imperial mark. This would mean a considerable
expense for those commanders whose mounts were deficient.

Mughal nobles of the Central Asian Qaqshals, a Turkish tribal
group, led the Bengal rebels. They crossed the Ganges, joined with the
Bihar nobles, and defeated the remaining Mughal loyalists in open
battle. They captured and killed Shah Muzaffar, the governor of
Bengal. The rebel leaders then arranged for a prayer leader to pro-
nounce the name of Mirza Muhammad Hakim of Kabul as the
legitimate Muslim ruler of the empire in the Friday congregational
prayers. At the same time, the Islamic judge in the city of Jaunpur in
the eastern Gangetic plain issued a ruling (fatwa) requested by the
nobles that enjoined all good Muslims to rise in revolt against Akbar.
According to this judgment, the emperor had become an infidel who
was hostile to orthodox Islam and should be deposed in favor of his

10 Nizami, Akbar and Religion, pp. 177-178.

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half-brother, the king of Kabul. The Afghan aristocracy of Bengal
seized this opportunity to join the rebels and fight the Timurid
conqueror. Their ongoing resistance thus fused with and gained a new
impetus from the revolt of the imperial officers in the east.

Akbar sent a relief army to Bihar under the command of Raja Todar
Mal, the imperial financier. The loyalist forces retook Bihar’s major
forts and cities. He himself brought a large well-equipped army to
Kabul and deposed his half-brother. This effectively ended the threat
posed by Mirza Muhammad Hakim’s claim to the throne. Harsh
punitive measures against the Muslim jurists and theologians who had
supported the rebels quieted the ideological challenge. Nevertheless,
five years elapsed before Mughal field generals were able to reassert
their control over west Bengal and put the remaining rebels and their
Afghan allies into flight.

At Agra the emperor put a definitive end to further religious
opposition by appointing Shaikh Abdul Nabi and Malauna Abdulla as
joint leaders of the Haj caravan for 1579. They were to remain in exile
at Mecca in order to oversee the orderly distribution of Timurid largess
every year. One additional caravan set out for the Hijaz in 1580, but
thereafter Akbar, despite a written promise to the Sharif of Mecca, sent
no further caravans from India. In this area, as in many others, Akbar’s
ardent profession of orthodoxy had waned.

AKBAR AS MILITARY COMMANDER

Assigned to tutor Prince Murad, Akbar’s second son, the Jesuit priest,
Father Antonio Monserrate became a part of the imperial household
after his arrival. Present during the lengthy march to Kabul in 1581 he
had an unusual opportunity to observe the emperor during a crisis.!" In
his extended Latin report sent back to Rome, Monserrate described
and evaluated Akbar’s qualities as a war leader.

When news arrived of the revolt in the east and his brother’s invasion
of the Punjab, Akbar left his mother in charge at Fatehpur Sikri with a
garrison of 12,000 cavalry. He sent Raja Todar Mal at the head of a
large army to quell the rebellion in Bihar and Bengal. In February, 1581
the emperor “gave instructions for a great quantity of gold and silver
and of other stores” to be loaded on camels and elephants, selected a

5 Monserrate, Antonio, The Commentary of Father Monserrate, S.J. On his Journey to the
Court of Akbar (London: Oxford University Press, 1922), translated by J. S. Hoyland;
annotated by S. N. Banerjee, p. 99.

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few of his principal wives and his other daughters, and moved to his
“immense white pavilion” in the great camp set up four miles outside
the city.!2 The symmetry and disciplined order of the massive encamp-
ment “made in the traditional Mongol style” thoroughly impressed
Monserrate:'3

The ancient custom is that the royal pavilion . .. should be placed in a pleasant
open space, if such can be found. On the right are the tents of the King’s eldest
son and his attendant nobles; these are placed next to the royal pavilion. On
the left are those of the second son and his attendants. ... the most important
nobles .. . have their quarters to the right and left in the second line, next to the
King’s pavilion. Behind these come the rest of the troops in tents clustered as
closely as possible round their own officers, To avoid crowding and confusion
they are divided into messes, each with its own location. A separate bazaar is
established for the King and each of the princes and the great nobles, ... Those
of the King and the princes are very large and very well-stocked, not only with
stores of grain and other provisions, but also with all sorts of merchandise, so
that these bazaars seem to belong to some wealthy city instead of to a camp.
They are always made on one plan, so that anyone who has spent a few days in
camp knows his way about the bazaars as well as he does the streets of his own
city ... During the advance for a campaign the artillery is grouped together in
front of the camp, opposite the entrance to the royal quarters, in the broadest
part of the open ground.

At the center of this great assemblage “every night a flaming torch
[was] erected on the top of a tall mast, to act as a guide for stragglers.”"'4
Despite its size the Mughal encampment was designed to be trans-
ported with the entire army on march. The emperor possessed two
identical pavilions “which are employed for alternate marches, one
being carried on ahead, while he occupies the other.”

Similar descriptions of the Great Mughal’s encampment became a
staple for later observers.!6 Estimates of the size of the imperial camp
frequently went as high as 100,000 persons. Precisely replicated at site
after site, this huge movable city was visible testimony to the authority
and power of the emperor. In this fashion at least, the Turco-Mongol
heritage continued to wield a powerful influence over Akbar and his
successors.

The discipline and organization of the Mughal army was as
2 Ibid. p. 75.1 Ibid., pp. 75-76. Ibid.,p. 76. *5 Ibid., p. 77.

16 M. A. Ansari, “The Encampment of the Great Mughals” in Islamic Culture, 37 (1963),

15-24. N. Manucci, Storia do Mogor or Mogul India (Calcutta, 4 vols., 1907-8), translated
by William Irvine, 11, 62-80.

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impressive as that of the imperial camp. For this campaign Akbar had
mustered 50,000 cavalry, 500 war elephants, and “‘an almost countless
number of infantry.”!7 The Jesuit was quick to notice the hetero-
geneity of the cavalry. Mughal horsemen ranged from Rajputs who
typically dismounted their small horses to fight, to Central Asian
Turks and Persians who “are most dangerous when they seem to be
flying in headlong riot [retreat].”!® His artillery consisted only of
twenty-eight field guns too small for siege work. These were always
parked in front of the king’s pavilion at each stop.

Marching in a crescent formation with the emperor at the head, the
army soon “extended over the breadth of a mile and a half, covering the
fields and filling the woods.””'? Despite its size this vast assemblage was
kept well supplied and watered. Akbar directed the army toward the
foot of the mountains to best afford access to streams for water.
Monserrate “was astonished by the cheapness of grain amongst so
great a multitude.” Royal agents combed the countryside to purchase
provisions and to encourage traders to come to the travelling bazaars.
Beyond the imperial boundary the emperor sent “heralds” to the petty
chiefs and kings along the route with publicly proclaimed promises and
threats. If they did not take up arms against the Mughals they would
suffer no harm and would be amply rewarded when he returned from
his certain victory. If they brought supplies to the camp these could be
sold freely, without paying taxes. However, if these local rulers
disobeyed him they would be severely punished. Overawed by the size
of the army and gratified by Akbar’s generosity, all obeyed the
emperor “out of self-interest.”

Beyond the imperial frontier Akbar sent out 300 scouts who were
posted at a distance of eighteen miles from the army in every direction.
When approaching narrow defiles the emperor sent out outposts “all
around.” Consequently, “the army, when on the march, spread itself
as freely abroad, in the search for shade and water, and slept as securely
at night, as if it had been in its own country.”?! Sappers and miners
went on ahead to level roads and to build temporary boat bridges for
river crossings. Strict rules forced men and animals to cross the bridges
in single file to prevent disaster in mid-span.

Monserrate illustrates Akbar’s command of his troops by describing
his reaction to an order disobeyed. An officer was sent north along the

” Tbid.,p.83. Ibid p.85. Ibid, p. 79. 2° Ibid, p. fo.
21 Tbid., p, 82.

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Indus river bank to a particular spot to see if the river could be forded
by cavalry. After travelling twenty-five miles, but not reaching the spot
named, the officer was told by the local inhabitants that no such ford
existed. He returned to report that a bridge must be built across the
Indus. When the emperor learned that his scout had stopped short of
his destination :??

the King ordered him to be seized, dragged to the place which he had told him
to go to, bound prostrate on an inflated bag of ox-hide, and launched upon the
river. When the report of this was spread through the camp, almost the whole
army flocked to the river-side to see this strange sight. The officer was being
carried hither and thither in the middle of the river at the mercy of the current.
He was weeping, imploring pardon with miserable cries, and trying to move
the King to mercy. As he was carried past the royal pavilion, the King gave
orders for him to be rescued from the river, entered in the inventories as royal
property, exposed for sale in all the bazaars, and finally auctioned as a slave.

The bedraggled offender was bought by one of his friends for eighty
pieces of gold and Akbar thereafter pardoned him. Monserrate com-
ments Akbar “showed by this example how much store he set by
military discipline and obedience.”?) At the same time, Akbar did not
indulge in gratuitous cruelty in this incident. The dramatic impact of
this incident was sufficient to make his point.

DYNASTIC IDEOLOGY

From his early youth Akbar displayed an extraordinarily appealing
personality. He possessed all the desired qualities of the warrior-hero.
He was brave, athletic, generous, and likable. He combined powerful
charismatic qualities with exceptionally acute organizational and
strategic abilities. Akbar’s persona was imposing and attractive beyond
the usual hagiography and image-making clinging to any ruler or
leader. One of his greatest admirers, his eldest son, Salim, later
Jahangir, described his father’s appearance in the following terms:?4

In his august personal appearance he was of middle height, but inclining to be
tall; he was of the hue of wheat; his eyes and eyebrows were black, and his
complexion rather dark than fair; he was lion bodied [i.e. thin-flanked], with a
broad chest, and his hands and arms long. On the left side of his nose he had a
fleshy mole, very agreeable in appearance, of the size of half a pea. ... His

2 Ibid.,p. 82-83. Ibid.,p. 83. Jahangir, Tuzuk,1, 35.

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august voice was very loud, and in speaking and explaining had a peculiar
richness. In his actions and movements he was not like the people of the world,
and the Glory of God manifested itself in him.

Other contemporary descriptions are similar. Monserrate, who first
met Akbar when the emperor was thirty-eight, mentioned that “His
forehead is bright and open, his eyes so bright and flashing that they
seem like a sea shimmering in the sunlight.”?5 Monserrate noted that
Akbar generally wore uncut hair bound in an Indian turban “as a
concession to Indian usages and to please his Indian subjects.”26 The
Jesuits were also struck by Akbar’s openness:

It is hard to exaggerate how accessible [Akbar] makes himself to all who wish
audience of him. For he creates an opportunity almost every day for any of the
common people or of the nobles to see him and converse with him; and he
endeavors to show himself pleasant spoken and affable rather than severe
toward all who come to speak with him.

Akbar’s personal qualities enabled him to be as successful as he had
been in politics and war. However, in the latter half of his reign, new
advisers, themselves attracted to Akbar’s persona, began to build a
larger ideological structure centered on their master.

In the Fatehpur Sikri years, Abul Fazl’s breadth of vision and
political acuity brought him to prominence as the leading Timurid
ideologue and propagandist. In his new capacity, Akbar’s intellectual
began to erect a scaffolding for a Timurid dynastic ideology ~ an edifice
aimed at establishing a new legitimacy for Akbar and his successors. In
discussions at court, in a wide-ranging official and private correspon-
dence, and in eulogistic poetry Abul Faz! and his brother, the poet
Faizi, began to assert Akbar’s divinely illumined right to rule lesser
human beings.?” The most systematic expression of this doctrine is
found in the Akbar-Nama, the voluminous annual recounting of
events for forty-seven years of Akbar’s reign, with the bulky Ain-i
Akbari appended as a manual. At the core of this work, permeating
every passage, Abul Fazl embedded ultimate legitimacy for Akbar that
transcended the accidents of conquest, coup, or succession.

The Akbar-Nama portrays Akbar as a superior being, existing closer
to God, to true reality. Akbar was the recipient of the hidden light

25 Monserrate, Commentary, p.196. _ Ibid., p. 197.

27 The discussion following is based upon J. F. Richards, “The Formulation of Imperial
Authority Under Akbar and Jahangir” in J. F. Richards, ed., Kingship and Authority in
South Asia (Madison Wisconsin, South Asian Studies No. 3, 1978), pp. 260-267.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

whose ineffable radiance emanating from his brow was perceptible
only to superior men. Only an elect group could pierce the veil which
guarded the outpouring of light from the Timurid brow. Akbar had
esoteric knowledge and authority greater than the recognized inter-
preters of the Sharia, the Mujtahid of the Age, than the most saintly of
Sufi masters (Pirs) or the eagerly anticipated charismatic savior (Mahdi).
The more than fifty paintings illustrating the manuscript now in the
Victoria and Albert museum in London (probably the original pre-
sented at court) contrast the divine order, harmony, and self-control of
the emperor’s person with the turgid, struggling disorder of those
unwieldy masses of men and beasts surrounding him. The emperor’s
will calmed and directed the energies of his subjects and all of mankind.
The illuminationist theme is borrowed directly from the Eastern
school of Persian Neoplatonic philosophy found in the teachings of
Shihabuddin Suhrawardi Maqtul (d. 1191). Suhrawardi argues that all
life is given existence by the constant blinding illumination from the
East of the Light of Lights or God. All men possess a divine spark, but
only the highest of three grades of men are the true theosophists or
masters of the age — men such as Suhrawardi himself, Plato, or in Abul
Fazl’s interpretation, Akbar. A chain of dazzling angels was the means
for revealing God’s illumination to man. At their head was the Angel
Gabriel, identified with the true spirit of the Prophet Muhammad.
Abul Fazl explicitly states the central provisions of this ideology in
the introductory passages describing Akbar’s ancestry. Beginning with
Adam, the ancestor of all men, the eulogist follows the passage of the
hidden divine refulgence until it reaches and illumines the spirit and
intelligence of Akbar in 1556. From Adam through the Biblical
prophets, Abul Faz! traces this illumined descent through the Biblical
prophets to Joseph who fathered Turk, ruler of Turkestan. Turk’s son
Mughal Khan was the first of nine generations of Turco-Mongol kings.
The last ruler in the line was defeated and dispersed by an enemy.
The ruler and his tribe retreated in confusion to Mughalistan where
they remained in obscurity and seclusion for two millennia. Finally, in
a mountain valley far to the east, a most important event occurred:
Alanquwa, a Mughal queen married to the king of Mughalistan,
became a childless widow when her husband died prematurely. But
Alanquwa was a woman of the utmost purity from whose brow the
divine light shone. As she lay sleeping in her tent one night, a ray of
light miraculously entered her body and impregnated her.

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The three brothers, triplets, born of this event were called the
Nairun or “light-produced.” From the eldest the hidden light passed
through nine Turco-Mongol rulers including Chingiz Khan to ulti-
mately reach Amir Timur Gurgan, the great fourteenth-century con-
queror. Formal legitimacy for the Timurids began when in April, 1370,
Amir Timur crowned himself in Samarkhand. The long narrative
descent passes through four generations to Babur, Humayun, and then
to Akbar. Humayun was granted a majestic night vision which assured
him that “an illustrious successor whose greatness shone from his
forelock” would be bestowed upon him. Akbar would be the recepta-
cle for this hidden illumination that had passed from generation to
generation.

DISCIPLES AND MANSABDARS

Drawing upon the newly articulated imperial idiom, Akbar and his
advisers devised an esoteric means to bind leading nobles to him. In
part this appeal emerged naturally from Akbar’s own intense spiritual
quest that found its fullest expression at Fatehpur Sikri. In the early
1580s the emperor began openly to worship the sun by a set of rituals
of his own invention. Four times a day he faced the east and prostrated
himself before a sacred fire. Simultaneously, Akbar engaged in absti-
nence from excessive meat-eating, sexual intercourse, and alcohol
consumption. These were all rites and practices much in evidence in the
daily world of Hinduism in north India. Worship of the sun and moon
with its images of light was easily compatible with the myths of origin
and descent central to the ethos of his Rajput nobles.

Shortly thereafter the emperor began to enlist selected members of
the nobility as his disciples in association with the worship of sun and
light. At noon on Sundays before the sacred fire the emperor presided
over an initiation ceremony. Groups of twelve neophytes entered the
body of disciples on these occasions. Each initiate swore to accept
four degrees of devotion to Akbar: the unhesitating willingness to
sacrifice one’s life (jan), property (mal), religion (din), and honor
(namus) in the service of the Master, i.e. Akbar. Muslim initiates signed
a declaration agreeing to repudiate the bonds of orthodox Islam and to
worship Allah directly, without intermediaries. Throughout the cere-
mony the neophyte placed his head on Akbar’s feet in an extreme
form of prostration known as sijdah. At the close of the ceremony

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Akbar raised up each supplicant, placed a new turban upon his head,
and gave him a symbolic representation of the sun embossed on a
medallion. Each new disciple also received a tiny portrait of Akbar to
wear upon his turban as well as a set of pearl earrings crafted for the
occasion.

The number of disciples grew rapidly - to perhaps a majority of the
Mughal amirs. Discipleship was an extremely effective means to
assimilate a heterogeneous body of nobles and bind them to the throne.
Akbar’s own charismatic personality and the solemnities of the oaths
taken were designed to create a new identity for Mughal amirs. The
master-disciple relationship thus established bridged kinship, ethnic,
and religious distinctions among the nobles. Oaths bound the disciples
to their fellows and committed them to cast aside their former enmities
and factional conflict. Even religious beliefs were to be directed to the
service and worship of the emperor.

Akbar drew upon several widely accepted institutions for his notion
of discipleship and membership in an order. For centuries military
slavery in Islamic India, Central Asia, and the Middle East had
developed its own norms of behavior. The slave soldier owed obedient
submission and profound loyalty to his military commander as long as
the latter met minimal standards of good treatment and sympathy for
his men. Military slaves in direct service to a royal master felt these
obligations even more keenly.

Another model for imperial discipleship was that of the Sufi master
(pir or Shaikh) with his devotees. The specific terms of this relationship
varied from order to order. In general, however, devotees placed the
responsibility for their physical and spiritual well-being completely in
the hands of their chosen Sufi Shaikh. The latter was to lead them along
the upward stages of the mystical path (tariga) to true knowledge of
God. As a symbol of complete devotion to their master Sufi disciples
put their heads on his feet in exactly the same prostration (sijdah)
adopted by Akbar. This latter form of submission to a fellow human
being was seen as blasphemous by pious Muslims. Akbar, without
question, was deeply influenced by his earlier devotion to the
now-dead Shaikh Salim, the famed Chishti saint. The emperor had cast
himself in the role of an ardent disciple whenever he made the long
pilgrimage to the rocky hillock at Fatehpur Sikri where Salim lived.

Finally, ready at hand was the Indo-Persian model of courtly
behavior and submission to the monarch by the nobility. Court ritual

THE NEW EMPIRE

with its rigid protocol was designed to evoke feelings of awe,
unworthiness, and to emphasize the distance between ruler and even
the grandest of his subjects. The discipline of movement, speech, and
etiquette demanded in public audiences reinforced obedience to the
royal will. Rigid assignment of place — whether closer or further from
the throne — graphically demonstrated royal preferment. Command
appearances before the throne demanded presentation of a suitable gift.
These ranged from 100 gold coins to more valuable jeweled objects or
even elephants. Court ritual culminated in the symbolic incorporation
of the servant in the body of his royal master. Thus the Mughals,
following long precedent, used the device of elaborately ornamented
robes of honor, brocaded in gold and silver, as a staple reward for
valuable service. The ruler first placed the robes on his own body and
then personally draped them on the recipient. The person so favored
responded with a ritual gift — usually of gold or silver coin. By these
devices the notion of one body in service to the state — ruler and nobles
— was promulgated.

LAHORE

In 1585 Akbar transferred his capital to Lahore in the Punjab at the
death of his half-brother, Mirza Muhammad Hakim, at Kabul. The
Uzbek ruler, Abdullah Khan, who had annexed Badakhshan in 1584,
was a possible threat to Kabul. The Uzbeks were subsidizing the
Afghan tribes in their continuing defiance of the Mughal regime at
Kabul. Akbar immediately sent an army under Raja Man Singh to
occupy Kabul and then brought the city and its surrounding districts
under direct imperial administration. This task completed, Akbar
stayed on in Lahore for thirteen years in a successful effort to clamp
imperial Mughal power over the entire northwest.

At Lahore the emperor kept a border watch on Abdullah Khan
Uzbek. In 1586 Akbar and the Uzbek Khan negotiated a pact in which
Akbar agreed to remain neutral during the Uzbek invasion of Safavid-
held Khurasan. In return, Abdullah Khan agreed to refrain from
supporting, subsidizing, or offering refuge to the Afghan tribes. Thus
freed, Akbar began a series of pacification campaigns directed against
the Yusufzais and other tribal rebels. He was also free to round out the
empire by annexing Kashmir and Sind, the two remaining kingdoms
not fully incorporated into the empire.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

An important consideration in this period was the busy overland
caravan trade. The overland route from Kabul through the Khyber
Pass and Peshawar fed the markets of Lahore with horses from Central
Asia, fruits, silks and porcelain (from China), precious metals, and
many other valuable commodities. Indian spices, textiles, and other
goods travelled outward in a lucrative commerce that sent Indian
merchants into the markets of Central Asia and Iran. The Punjab was a
major industrial center in which thousands of weavers produced
specialized cotton cloth for various markets in Central Asia, the
Middle East, and beyond. The scale of this traffic may be judged by the
effect of a single accidental fire in Peshawar fort in 1586. The disaster
destroyed one thousand camel loads of merchandise belonging to the
merchants who had sheltered there when the route was temporarily
obstructed.?8

The caravan trade was vulnerable to banditry or even complete
blockage by the Afghan tribes. Keeping trade flowing was a perennial
concern for rulers on both sides of the passes. In recent years the
powerful Yusufzai tribal group had seized control of Swat and Bajaur
and threatened to move further south. The Yusufzai had gained control
of the Khyber routes and frequently blocked the roads and plundered
caravans.

In late 1585 Akbar marched from Lahore to Attock fort (built by

. him in 1581). From Attock he sent an army under Zain Khan Koka to
subdue the Yusufzai tribal confederation in the valleys of Swat and
Bajaur. The emperor pitted Mughal centralized state power against the
Yusufzai, the most aggressive and powerful tribal confederation in
northern Afghanistan. The Mughals estimated that the confederation
numbered 100,000 households in which every male member was armed
and battle-ready. Their tribal chiefs had not offered formal submission
to the Mughals since Babur received a Yusufzai daughter into his
harem in 1519.

The Mughal army forced the submission of many Yusufzai chiefs in
Swat and Bajaur. But a relief force on its way to Swat through the
difficult mountain terrain met disaster. Split command between a royal
favorite, Raja Bir Bar, the court wit, and Zain Khan Koka, an ordinary
field general, weakened the usually careful deployment of Akbar’s
armies. A reckless attack on the Yusufzais exposed the royal army to
ambush in the mountain passes. About 8,000 imperial soldiers, includ-
28 Ahmad, Tabagak-i Akbar: (Eng. trans.), 11, 602.

THE NEW EMPIRE

ing Raja Bir Bar, were killed in the greatest disaster to Mughal arms in
Akbar’s reign.

Akbar immediately fielded two new armies to reinvade the Yusufzai
lands. Over the next six years, the Mughals contained the Yusufzai in
their mountain valleys. The imperialists built and occupied a dozen
forts to secure the country and protect the caravan trade. Tribal levies
could not withstand Mughal cavalry in the open field; they could not
protect their crops or their villages from destruction; nor could the
Afghans hold their forts against determined imperial assaults. Akbar’s
demonstrated ability to clamp firm military control over the turbulent
Afghan tribes is an impressive testimonial to the reach of his empire.

In 1585 Akbar dispatched an army north to invade Kashmir when
Ali Shah, the current ruler of the Chak dynasty, refused to send his son
to the Mughal court. The Kashmiri ruler surrendered immediately, but
his son, Yaqub, crowned himself and led a dogged resistance to the
imperial armies. Finally, in June, 1589, Akbar himself travelled from
Lahore to Srinagar to receive the surrender of Yaqub and his rebel
forces. The emperor’s visit began the Timurid interest in the beauties
of Kashmir and the construction of the numerous royal gardens laid
out in that mountain kingdom.

In 1586 Akbar turned his attention to the lower Indus valley. The
imperial governor of Multan had failed to secure the capitulation of
Jani Bek, the ruler of Thatta (Sind). Akbar responded by sending
another large Mughal field army to besiege Sehwan, the river capital on
the Indus, Jani Bek mustered a large army and numerous armed river
boats to resist. The outnumbered Mughal general defeated the Sind
forces in a hard-fought battle on the river. After suffering further
defeats, the Sind ruler surrendered and, in 1593, paid homage to Akbar
at court in Lahore in person. Jani Bek became a Mughal mansabdar,
accepted discipleship under Akbar and was appointed to the gover-
norship of Multan. His former kingdom became the Mughal province
of Thatta, divided into three districts under an imperial governor.

The conquest of Sind strengthened Akbar’s resolve to retake Qanda-
har fort and town which had long been in Safavid hands. In 1595 the
Persian commandant of Qandahar, having fallen into disgrace with
Shah Abbas, defected to the Mughals and surrendered the fortress to a
Mughal force. But Shah Abbas chose not to go to war over this
provocation.

When the death of Abdullah Khan Uzbek in 1598 eased the threat of

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

invasion from that quarter, Akbar moved his capital once again to Agra
—not to Fatehpur Sikri. From Agra he could devote his energies to that
most intractable and difficult frontier: the Deccan.

Why did the emperor not return to the delights of Fatehpur Sikri
rather than Agra? One reason lay in the increasingly difficult problem
posed by his son Salim’s rebelliousness. Residence in Agra’s more
defensible citadel might well have been preferable to the insecurity of
Fatehpur Sikri. Relative to the annual income of the empire, the cost of
building Fatehpur Sikri, estimated recently at 3.5 million silver rupees,
was not consequential. Akbar’s desert city was in fact a disposable
capital in view of his immense wealth.”

These are partial answers, but for a fuller explanation we must look
to ideology. Abruptly in 1585 the pilgrimages to Ajmer and veneration
of the Chishti saints ended. The emperor did not engage in any public
worship at other Sufi tombs. The royal weighing ceremonies were
detached from pilgrimage. The silence of the chronicles suggests that
Akbar ceased regular worship in the congregational mosque at either
Lahore or Agra. He was no longer anxious to display his Islamic piety
in public. At Fatehpur Sikri royal heirs, royal victory, and Timurid
authority flowed from devotion to Chishti saints properly enclosed
within the framework of orthodox Islamic institutions. After 1585,
Agra, rather than Fatehpur Sikri was the proper urban setting for the
new imperial court.3°

RETURN TO AGRA

The remaining external frontier lay in the Deccan, the domain of
centuries of epic Muslim wars against the infidel. The Deccan land-
scape, although less hospitable to large-scale military operations than
the Indo-Gangetic plain, was certainly less daunting than the moun-
tains of the northwest or the riverine jungles of Assam. Moreover, the
existence of large Muslim-ruled kingdoms encouraged the thought of
conquest. What the Sultans of Delhi had accomplished surely their
heirs, the Timurids, could surpass. Here were five Muslim Sultanates
to be ground down and either conquered and annexed or brought
under Mughal hegemony: Khandesh, under the Farruqi dynasty;
Abmadnagar, under the Nizam Shahs; Berar under the Imad Shah

29 Habib, “Economic and Social Setting,” p. 74, in Brand and Lowry, eds., Fatehpur Sikri.
30 Richards, “The Imperial Capital”, p. 72.

§2

THE NEW EMPIRE

dynasty; Bijapur, under the Adil Shah rulers, and Golconda, under the
Qutb Shahs. (See map 1). Apart from the Sultan of Khandesh, who
intermittently paid tribute, none had submitted to the Mughals.

The social landscape, however, was less propitious to Mughal
aggression than it might seem. Over the two centuries since the
break-up of the Delhi Sultanate, a distinctive Deccan Muslim political
culture had evolved in this region. The Muslim elites in each state were
predominantly either Shia Persian nobles or Sunni Afghans along with
less powerful Indian Muslim converts. Neither of these groups was
especially fond of the Timurids — the Afghans least of all.

A further complication lay in the composition of the regional landed
aristocracies. Below Khandesh, Rajput domination over the land came
to ahalt. Instead, in the western Deccan, Marathi-speaking members of
the Maratha caste were the heirs of the Yadavas and earlier Hindu
kingdoms defeated by the Muslims. In the east, Telugu warriors
controlled rural society. The latter could look back to centuries of
successful resistance to the Muslims by their forbears in Vijayanagar
and its successor states. Gradually, these aristocrats had assimilated to
the imposed political order of the Deccan Sultanates. In each case,
whether Maratha or Telugu, it is reasonably certain that the thinly
populated, largely urban, Muslim elites depended heavily upon an
alliance with these rural aristocracies to rule effectively.

The Deccan Sultans imposed few restrictions on the expression of
local religious and cultural life. Rarely, if ever, had they demanded
conversion to Islam as a condition of high rank in the state. Indeed,
Ibrahim Qutb Shah (15 50-1580) of Golconda and Ibrahim Adil Shah
11 (1580-1626) of Bijapur, both engaged in broad-ranging attempts to
reduce barriers between Hinduism and Islam within their states in
much the same fashion as Akbar in the Mughal dominions. Akbar’s
new policies and ideological stance might well appeal to the landed
aristocracies of both halves of the Deccan, but this linkage was
something that would have to be created and sustained by careful
statesmanship and administration. The Mughals did not easily or
readily obtain the allegiance of either Maratha or Telugu chiefs.

In 1591 Akbar sent embassies to each of the Deccan Sultans to
demand submission to Mughal overlordship. On this occasion the
ruler of Khandesh sent his daughter to be married to Prince Salim and
the Sultans of Bijapur and Golconda sent gifts, but rejected the
emperor’s demand for formal submission. Burhan Nizam Shah un,

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

the ruler of Ahmadnagar, treated the Mughal envoys with studied
brusqueness.

In 1595, while still at Lahore, Akbar ordered an invasion of
Ahmadnagar Sultanate - then undergoing a succession crisis after the
death of Burhan Nizam Shah 1. A large imperial force jointly com-
manded by Prince Murad (Akbar’s second son) and the Khan Khanan,
son of Bairam Khan, besieged Ahmadnagar, the royal capital. The
Mughals coerced reluctant participation in the imperial army by Raja
Ali Khan the ruler of Khandesh. The defending ruler was Chand
Sultan, sister of the deceased Sultan and guardian of the infant heir to
the throne. The princess held the fortress until a relief army sent by the
Sultans of Bijapur and Golconda threatened the imperial armies. A
negotiated truce resulted in Mughal withdrawal from Ahmadnagar in
return for cession of the province of Berar (the former kingdom
annexed earlier by Ahmadnagar) to the Mughal emperor. In 1586 Berar
became the first of the Deccan provinces to be brought under direct
imperial administration.

Continuing tension and intermittent battles between the Mughals
and the defiant Deccan Sultanates marked the next several years. Even
the Sultan of Khandesh withdrew to his massive hill fortress at
Burhanpur and refused to assist the Mughals. In 1599, Prince Murad, in
command of the Mughal Deccan armies, died prematurely from
alcoholism. Akbar turned over command in the Deccan to his third
son, Daniyal. But in September, 1599, the emperor left Agra at the head
of an 80,000 man army for the Deccan to direct operations in person.

Under the emperor’s energetic command, Mughal forces stormed
the fortress of Ahmadnagar in August, 1600. The Nizam Shahi princess
Chand Sultan died at the hands of a dissident mob before the fort fell.
Akbar himself led a Mughal army marching into Khandesh. Bahadur,
the Sultan of Khandesh, had repudiated his allegiance to the Mughals
and had taken refuge in the massive hill fortress of Asirgarh near
Burhanpur, capital city of the kingdom. In the last major military
command of his life, Akbar directed the siege from his camp at
Burhanpur. Relentless Mughal pressure drove Bahadur into face-to-
face negotiations with Akbar from which he was not allowed to return
to the fortress. Finally, the fort defenders, faced with Mughal capture
of two of Asirgarh’s outlying citadels, surrendered in early January,
1601.

Khandesh and a large portion of Ahmadnagar joined Berar as new

THE NEW EMPIRE

imperial provinces in the Deccan. Akbar assigned the three provinces
to Prince Daniyal to administer as the viceroy of the Deccan. On April
11, 1601, the emperor left Burhanpur on the return journey to Agra.

REBELLION OF SALIM

When Akbar departed for the Deccan, he left his eldest son in charge of
the capital. In July, 1600, Salim tried unsuccessfully to seize control of
Agra fort,>! and appointed his own officers in the province. There he
remained in defiance of his father’s orders sent from the Deccan. When
Akbar arrived at Agra, Salim marched on the capital with a force of
30,000 horsemen. Akbar sent a stiff letter to him ordering the prince to
halt and return to the east where he offered Salim the governorship of
Bengal and Orissa. Salim brushed aside this offer, but did return to
Allahabad. In May, 1602, he had his name read in the Friday prayers
and had coins struck as emperor in his own name.

Akbar recalled his trusted adviser, Abul Fazl, from the Deccan in
order to send him to deal with Salim. Fearing the stern presence of
Abul Fazl, Salim commissioned Bir Singh, the Bundela raja of Orchha,
to intercept Abul Fazl on his return journey. The Bundela raja
overpowered the minister’s small escort, killed Abul Fazl, and brought
his severed head to Allahabad.

The grief-stricken emperor finally was reconciled to his son by his
wife Salima Sultan Begam who, along with several of the other
noblewomen, acted as peacemaker between the two. Salim appeared at
court, with proper deference, was embraced by Akbar, and designated
heir-apparent. Thereafter, he returned to Allahabad against his father’s
wishes and indulged in a period of excessive intake of opium and wine
as well as in public displays of cruelty. After the death from alcoholism
of Daniyal, Akbar’s third son, in 1604, Salim returned to court. In part
he was worried by the maneuvering of the partisans of his own son
Prince Khusrau. The powerful Raja Man Singh, among others, urged
Akbar to set aside Salim’s claims in favor of his grandson. After Salim
submitted to the emperor, he was confined briefly in the palace in the
final episode of this rebellion.

Just under a year later, Akbar fell ill with dysentery, weakened and
lay dying. Salim escaped the plots of his enemies in the nobility and

51 Fort garrisons were under the command of independent officers appointed directly by the
emperor and would be unlikely to submit to even a royal prince without express orders.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

visited his father who placed the imperial turban on the prince’s head
and gave him Humayun’s sword as heir. During the night of October
25, 1605, Akbar died and was taken to be buried in the mausoleum
which he had built for himself at Sikandra, near Agra.

CONCLUSION

When the emperor died in 1645, his legacy was a multi-regional
empire, which, in the course of his half-century of rule, had become the
dominant power on the Indian subcontinent. Beginning in his ado-
lescent years, Akbar directed a continuing series of remarkable military
campaigns in which Mughal armies won victory after victory on the
field of battle. No single kingdom or coalition of regional kingdoms
could stand against the Mughal armies. Each victory added money,
men, and weapons to the imperial armies. Each campaign, battle, and
siege was a public event, widely reported and discussed throughout the
subcontinent. Year after year, as the Timurid armies proved invincible
and as revolts and resistance failed, Akbar’s reputation soared. He and
his immediate confidants became figures of enormous popular interest.
Folk tales about him based on well-known incidents in his life began to
circulate. The Mughal emperor acquired an aura of near-divinity and
mystery which further reinforced popular perceptions of Mughal
infallibility.

After conquest followed annexation. Once-proud rulers were
deposed and killed or accepted personal service with the Mughal
emperor. Once-independent kingdoms became provinces of the
expanding empire. Akbar forcibly unified the collection of regional
states in North India into a single, centralized political system. Within
this system the Mughal emperor was the single source of political
legitimacy and authority. No sultan, raja, or other ruler could devolve
legitimate authority without reference to the emperor. All became
“landholders” (zamindars) in the emperor’s eyes, who relied upon a
patent of office (sanad) to secure their hereditary seats. Military power
permitted him to impose a stringent degree of administrative control
over each new territory as it came into the empire - and to retain this
control despite resistance. The Mughals imposed a new level of public
order on the tumultuous society of India.

Akbar deployed overwhelming numbers of heavy cavalry, armored
men and horses with bow, lance, and sword, war elephants,

THE NEW EMPIRE

musketeers, and artillery. In his many battles and campaigns the
Mughal ruler made effective use of the new gunpowder weaponry —
more so than his opponents. But gunpowder had become widely
available by the mid-sixteenth century. Akbar’s string of victories
depended upon organizational prowess, not technology. In tracing the
sequence of these campaigns, it is important to realize that the Mughal
emperor met determined enemies who commanded substantial, well-
equipped, well-motivated armies. Most battles were desperate and
bloody; the sieges difficult and lengthy. On numerous occasions,
Akbar could have been wounded or killed when leading his troopers in
battle. Luck and his military skills saved him. The builder of the
Mughal empire was undoubtedly a superb military commander in a
generally bellicose society.

CHAPTER 3

AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM

Buoyed by conquest and plunder, Akbar and his advisers built a
centralizing administration capable of steady expansion as new
provinces were added to the empire. The Mughal emperor presided
over a system that moved money, commodities, men, and information
freely throughout the empire. The emperor and his advisers were
vigorous managers who creatively adapted and'responded to changing
circumstances. Building on this foundation, Akbar’s successors
oversaw steady growth in imperial effectiveness, power, and resources
throughout the seventeenth century.

Akbar drew upon the rich Persian-derived administrative tradition
of the Indo-Muslim states and the hard-edged, extraction-oriented,
organizational tradition of the Turkic-Mongol conquest empires from
the steppe. Within this context the emperor shaped a vertebrate
structure characterized by centralized, hierarchical, bureaucratic
offices. Filling these offices were technically qualified officials, func-
tioning within standardized rules and procedures, who generated
copious written orders and records. At the apex of this system the
emperor acted as a vigorous and informed chief executive.

The first critical step occurred when Akbar allowed the position of
chief minister or vakil to lapse and gathered all executive power in his
hands. Thereafter he appointed four nearly co-equal central ministers.
These officers occasionally came together as an advisory body, but
they were in fact independent of each other within their own spheres.
Their responsibilities were divided according to the most basic
administrative functions as perceived by the emperor: finance and
revenue; army and intelligence; the judiciary and religious patronage;
and the royal household, with its central workshops, and buildings,
and roads, and canals throughout the empire. Any omitted functions
were left to the emperor and specially appointed officers. Thus,
diplomacy and external affairs, often placed under a minister in charge
of the chancery or official correspondence in earlier Muslim states,
stayed under the emperor’s personal control. These ministers and their
higher-ranking assistants and specialized officers were drawn from the

AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM

body of imperial servants or mansabdars. Each branch maintained a
large support staff of clerks, accountants, auditors, messengers, and
other functionaries.

The division of functions established at the center was duplicated in
the provinces. At each provincial capital a governor, responsible
directly to the emperor, shared power with a fiscal officer or diwan
reporting to the wazir; military paymaster and intelligence officer or
bakhshi, reporting to the central inspector general of the army; and a
sadr reporting to the minister for religious and charitable patronage.
The governor was responsible for the overall peace, security, and
tranquillity of his province. In this capacity he supervised the military
intendants or faujdars and the commanders of military check points
(thanas) who were deployed with contingents of heavy cavalry and
musketeers throughout each province. The provincial diwan managed
imperial revenues, expenditures, and the provincial treasuries. The
separation of powers between the governor and diwan was an
especially significant operating principle for imperial administration.

THE MUGHAL NOBILITY

Cutting across this bureaucratic structure was another, more diffuse
institution. The emperor commanded the services of a body of
warrior-aristocrats comprised of the mature royal princes and several
hundred amirs (nobles) and higher ranking mansabdars. These officers
served as provincial governors or filled other higher administrative
positions throughout the empire. Alternatively they were employed as
military commanders for armies in the field or as part of the central
military. In their military capacity amirs or mansabdars also served as
commanders of strategic fortresses reporting directly to the emperor.
Paid lavishly, these grandees headed households and troop con-
tingents ranging in size from several hundred to several thousand
persons. When transferred from one posting to another, their estab-
lishments moved with them. The imperial system depended heavily
upon the martial qualities, administrative skills and political and
entrepreneurial strengths of this body. From this perspective one
might well term the empire a “patrimonial—bureaucratic” system.!
Members of this cadre and their privately employed officers and

1 Stephen P. Blake, “The Patrimonial-Bureaucratic Empire of the Mughals”, Journal of
‘Asian Studies, 39 (November, 1979), 77-94.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

servants carried out other major administrative tasks. Acting as mili-
tary commanders the nobles recruited, trained, and equipped the bulk
of the heavy cavalry which formed the main striking arm of the
Timurid armies. They employed bodies of skilled musketeers both
mounted and on foot. At its core each military contingent relied on a
body of closely related kinsmen and more distantly related lineage
mates. Additional manpower was readily recruited by turning to the
vast military labor market in northern India and the Deccan. Well
trained, professional cavalrymen, infantry, and gunners were available
for employers prepared to offer cash.

As recipients of jagirs or salary assignments on the land revenue the
nobles filled a critical role in tax collection from the countryside. Amirs
and upper mansabdars employed their own staffs to collect the greater
part of the massive land tax. Some of this went to pay their own
generous salaries, but the greater share went to pay cash salaries to their
troopers. The organization of that considerable effort was left up to the
nobles themselves. The role of the central administration was confined
to inspection, monitoring, and auditing.

As we have seen, Akbar took pains to recruit his nobility from
diverse sources, The Mughal nobility became and remained a hetero-
geneous body of free men, not slaves, who rose as their talents and the
emperor’s favor permitted. Rajputs, Afghans, Indian Muslims, Arabs,
Persians, Uzbeks, Chaghatais were some of the ethnic groups repre-
sented. Some nobles were natives of India; many were not. Most were
Sunni Muslims; many were either Shi'ite or Hindu in religion. This
flow of new recruits helped to prevent the growth of dissident cliques
and factions within the nobility. No single ethnic or sectarian group
was large enough to challenge the emperor. Instead much of the
dynamism of the empire can be traced to newly recruited, capable,
energetic men who sought the power, wealth, and high reputation
possible in service to the Timurid dynasty in India. The service
nobility’s entrepreneurial drive and spirit was of inestimable value to
Akbar and his successors.

Rewards and incentives rather than force and coercion were Akbar’s
preferred approach. Mansabdars were free men who enlisted volunta-
rily in the emperor’s service. Most servants, craftsmen, soldiers,
professionals, and lesser imperial officers were also free workers who
were well-paid for their services. Numerous domestic and personal
slaves were employed, but they were outnumbered by free employees.

AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM

Apart from harem guards no military slaves served the emperor. The
system offered generous money rewards as well as lavish honors and
preferments to those who performed well at all levels.

Possessing great wealth and power, these grandees were highly
visible public figures. Their personalities, habits, and movements were
the topic of endless rumor and speculation. The greatest amirs were
objects of empire-wide attention. News of royal favor or disfavor, of
illnesses, heirs, marriages, postings, and other information formed the
stuff of countless reports that flashed across the empire. Lesser nobles
were the objects of local and regional scrutiny. At the upper reaches of
imperial society merchants and rival nobles employed spies and agents
to obtain reliable information from the entourages of the great men. At
the lower levels, in the bazaars and coffee houses of urban India, stories
and gossip, often extremely accurate, chronicled the lives of these
celebrities. Sexual habits and scandalous behavior were obviously
staple fare. Those nobles known to be avaricious, capricious, and cruel
were widely condemned for these traits; those known to be muni-
ficent, responsible, and humane were praised.

Wherever they were posted, whether at court or in the provinces, the
patrimonial households of the nobles were a focal point for aristocratic
life and culture. To the extent his resources permitted, each nobleman
emulated the style, etiquette, and opulence of the emperor. Each held
near-daily audiences or durbars, essentially public events, seated on his
elevated cushion in the royal style, in which all manner of business was
conducted. Officers and staff were publicly commended or rebuked
for their performance. Supplicants and visitors, who surmounted the
barriers imposed by the nobleman’s officers, appeared in front of the
great man to seek his favors or good will. As great men do who dispose
of vast resources, nobles turned their attention to patronage. Artists
and craftsmen found lucrative employment and presented their pro-
ducts to their patron in his audience hall. Noble households were the
setting for lavish banquets and other gatherings where the male guests
were offered a wide variety of music, dance, poetry, or other enter-
tainments. For some nobles such occasions were the venue for poetry
recitations; for some wine and opium were the main attractions.

Noble households were divided into the external, more public areas
dominated by men and the interior, secluded space reserved for
women. Behind the stone screens of the harem quarters was a domestic
world with its celebration of births, marriages, and deaths, religious

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

festivals, and social occasions. The wives, concubines, and female
relatives of the master were ranked by seniority, blood ties, and favor
in a strictly prescribed hierarchy. Hundreds of female maidservants,
often slaves, were employed. The harem was an ordered community
with its own decorum and gentility. Ideally, the harem provided a
respite, a retreat for the nobleman and his closest male relatives — a
retreat of grace, beauty, and order designed to refresh the males of the
household.

The Mughal household was also a world of domestic slavery.
Numerous male and female slaves were maintained. Their status and
tasks varied from the most mundane to those requiring skill, tact, and
intelligence. Younger slaves of both sexes were available for discreet
sexual services to their masters or mistresses. Slave-eunuchs, usually
obtained as castrated young boys from the slave markets of Bengal,
moved between the external and internal life of the household. They
acted as guards, servants, and often as business agents for high-born
women immured in the harem. Mughal noblemen also employed
slave-eunuchs as personal confidants and assistants. These favored
slave-eunuchs held the utmost confidence of their masters. Not
infrequently, despite official and public disapproval, such relationships
involved a sexual relationship between master and slave.

In Agra, Delhi, Lahore, Burhanpur, and other major cities, the
morphology of urban life was determined by the settlement patterns of
the Mughal nobility. The mansions of the higher nobles were the foci
for urban quarters as lesser staff and troops built houses and straw huts
nearby and vendors of goods and services clustered around a dependa-
ble market. Architects and builders found permanent employment in
noble entourages. Mughal officers, and, frequently, their women-folk
spent large sums of money for the construction of mosques, sarais, and
other buildings. Stone bridges and wells were also favorite projects. In
nearly every urban center such constructions served as testimonial to
the wealth and charitable impulses of these grandees.

The origins of dozens of new towns and villages throughout north
India can be traced to investment by Mughal nobles in the facilities for
local markets. Seen as an act of public spirit and religious merit, these
emporia also served the needs of each nobleman’s entourage and
increased his earnings from his jagir lands. In a less benign mode, less
scrupulous princes or nobles ignored imperial regulations and inter-
vened forcefully in local markets under their jurisdiction. Using the

AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM

weight of state power they were able to buy up goods at distress prices
and sell them at exorbitant monopoly rates. More entrepreneurial
nobles invested their money in commercial ventures: financing traders
in the long-distance trades overland or by sea. Increasingly nobles
began to lease or buy mercantile vessels and try their hand at the
highest level of overseas trade.

THE CORPS OF MANSABDARS

All nobles held mansabs; but all mansabdars were not nobles. Gen-
erally officers bearing personal decimal ranks of 500 zat or above
ranked as nobles during Akbar’s reign. By the seventeenth century
nobles were officers with personal ranks of 1,000 zat and higher.
Nobles and lesser-ranked officers or mansabdars filled a variety of
posts, but all were required on occasion to act in a military capacity. All
maintained a contingent of mounted armored troopers specified by
their suwar rank. In 1595, a total of 1,823 men held mansabs and
commanded a minimum of 141,053 followers serving as heavy cavalry
with their own horses and equipment.? Nobles were also required to
support a specified number of war horses, war elephants, and transport
animals and carts on a formula based upon their personal rank.> This
obligation was separate from that specified for their troopers. Toward
the end of the reign mansabdars and their followers consumed 82
percent of the total annual budget (81 millions from a total budget of 99
million rupees) of the empire for their pay and allowances.

In their military role mansabdars fell under the jurisdiction of the
army minister or mir bakhshi. Akbar structured the duties of the office
so that the army minister was not chief commander of the Mughal
armies. Instead he himself directed overall strategy and assigned field
commanders for specific campaigns. The chief bakhshi was responsible
for recruitment, recommendations for proper rank and assignment of
correct pay and allowances (in cash or assignments on the revenues) for
all mansabdars appointed.

The imperial bakhshi stood in open court at the right hand of the
emperor. He presented all candidates for appointment, promotion or

2 Shireen Moosvi, The Economy of the Mughal Empire c. 1595 (Delhi, 1987), pp. 214-219.
Her estimate of the minimum cavalry is given in Appendix 12A. The maximum is 188,070.
> K.K. Trivedi, “The Share of Mansabdars in State Revenue Resources: A Study of the
Maintenance of Animals”, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 24 (1987),

4linq2t

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

commendation in the higher ranks of the mansabdars. The imperial
bakhshi’s office prepared and recorded written orders of appointment
and transfer bearing his ink-stamp imprint which were signed by the
emperor. The bakhshi was responsible for inspections of the mansab-
dars and their troopers, mounts and equipment. His certification was
necessary to release cash payments or jagir assignments. Failure to pass
inspection meant loss of pay and allowances for any mansabdar.

Each amir headed a cluster of kinsmen, salaried troops, and even
slaves. Often, the private officers of higher-ranking mansabdars,
although not members of the imperial cadre, held responsible, well-
paid, military and administrative positions. Some of the men attached
to a nobleman, especially his close relatives, bore ranks and titles as
mansabdars obtained directly from the emperor. They, in turn, com-
manded their own, smaller, clusters of officers and troops. Generally,
his entire entourage accompanied the nobleman from post to post.
Stripped of dependents and servants they formed one unit of any army
in the field.

All cavalry and musketeers commanded by mansabdars were at the
disposal of the emperor. All had to meet strict imperial standards. Each
officer was required to ensure that his troopers were properly equip-
ped with weapons and chain-link armor. Mounts were to be larger
horses of standard Central Asian or Persian breeds ~ not the scrub
mounts of most of the subcontinent. A specified number of the
commander’s troopers had to bring an additional horse to the muster
to serve as a remount. Horses found acceptable were branded on the
flank by the imperial mark (dagh).

Each mansabdar was free to recruit men of his own ethnicity and
religion. Later regulations tended to codify this by stipulating that
commanders might not employ more than a fixed proportion of men
outside their own group (e.g. Rajputs were to primarily employ
Rajputs; Indian Muslims to employ their fellows). Apart from
kinsmen, each commander found experienced and proficient troops,
whether mounted or foot, available for hire in any sizable town or city.
It was up to the mansabdar to negotiate pay and conditions with these
men. Salary payments for horsemen were usually stated and paid in
cash, The imperial administration calculated the average rate of pay for
each horseman at twenty silver rupees per month.‘ But the actual salary

+ Moosvi, Economy of the Mughal Empire, p. 216.

AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM

received by the horseman varied according to the bargain struck with
his employer.

The dual zat and suwar numerical ranking system formally
expressed the uniformity, discipline, and cohesiveness of the corps of
mansabdars. In the historical chronicles of the time nobles and
higher-ranking mansabdars are invariably identified by their titles and
their two-part numerical rank. Ranked nobles became reliable instru-
ments of the imperial will. The emperor personally reviewed all
changes in rank, titles, and official postings for all save the lowest
ranked officers. Changes in rank could come at any time — without
reference to procedure or rules. The sole criterion remained the
emperor's favor. Whenever possible, high-ranking officers appeared in
person to express submission to the emperor in the public audience hall
of palace or camp. Petty mansabdars received written orders in the
name of the emperor, relayed through the office of the mir bakhshi.
Only the emperor could confer and change rank; and no other person
held the loyalty of this corporate body.

Written rules and procedures applied to all parts of the empire and to
all servants — unless exempted for some special reason. Especially
effective was the discipline of daily life at the imperial court, whether at
the capital or in the mobile encampment. As that careful observer
Antonio Monserrate noticed:5

(1Jn order to prevent the great nobles becoming insolent through the unchall-
enged enjoyment of power, the King summons {them] to court .., and gives
them many imperious commands, as though they were his slaves - commands,
moreover, obedience to which ill suits their exalted rank and dignity.

Rigid rituals of submission were acted out daily as the body of imperial
officers stood in rows by rank-order in the public audience hall before
the seated emperor. Forms of address, titles, and carefully circums-
cribed speech at court ~ even in less formal circumstances — constantly
conditioned noble behavior. Nobles resident at court shared the
responsibility for night and day guard of the emperor and his house-
hold. Each week a noble mounted guard in person with troops from his
own contingent at the palace or in the encampment. Whether at court
or on distant service, all mansabdars worried about their rank, their
jagirs, and their favor with the emperor.

5 Monserrate, Commentary.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

All officers were subject to assignment in any part of the empire.
Akbar’s nobles and mansabdars grew accustomed to frequent assign-
ments to far distant provinces punctuated by periods of residence at the
capital or at the imperial camp. The Timurid monarch aimed to divorce
his imperial elite from local or regional power as much as possible. This
was considerably easier to accomplish with the heterogeneous body of
foreign recruits to Mughal service. Persian, Arab, Turkish, or Central
Asian nobles were necessarily cut off from their native societies. They
banded together with fellow countrymen, but had no direct access to
home territory. Rajputs, Indian Muslims, and even Afghans (in small,
but growing numbers) were a different matter. These men had multiple
connections with kinsmen who controlled local domains as zamindars
in the provinces. For them a policy that stressed active service outside
their native regions was absolutely essential.

SALARY ASSIGNMENTS

The Mughal jagir traces its institutional lineage back to the medieval
Islamic igta or fief in India. Conquering Turkish rulers parcelled out
tracts of land of varying size — some as large as a province — to be
administered by their nobles and generals as the need arose. These
igtadars were responsible for maintaining ordér and collecting taxes
within their domains. After meeting necessary expenses any surplus
funds were to be returned to the central treasury. In theory the
igtadars held their fiefs at the pleasure of the ruler. In practice the
dynastic shifts and political turmoil permitted iqtas to remain with
their holders over generations. Under the Lodis, and to a lesser extent,
the Surs, the Afghan nobility held fiefs that permitted them local
residence, local resources, and local identities.

Akbar’s innovations reversed this trend. Unlike the iqta the jagir of
the Mughals separated political and administrative responsibility from
rights of tax collection. A mansabdar receiving lands in a salary
assignment obtained only the right to collect the taxes assessed on that
stipulated area. A jagir might consist of fields in a portion of a village;
the entire lands of one or more named villages; or as much as one or
even more subdistricts (parganas). The diwan-i tan (minister for
salaries) matched assessed taxes with the specified salary and allow-
ances of the mansabdar and issued an official jagir document in
multiple copies.

AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM

Only mansabdars could hold jagirs. All other imperial staff were
paid in cash. Receipt of a written assignment permitted a mansabdar to
collect the taxes assessed on his lands in quarterly installments each
year. Most save the lowest-ranking mansabdars sent personal agents to
carry out this task on their behalf.

A jagir-holder possessed only fiscal rights stripped of rights of
land-ownership, occupancy, or residence. This was not a fief. It was
purely a fiscal instrument designed to meet a narrowly defined end.
Only Rajput mansabdars were given more extensive rights of residence
and local power within their homelands in Rajasthan. By special
dispensation they received patrimonial (termed watan) lands as a part
of the jagirs assigned them.

In theory the location of a jagir bore little relationship to the official
posting or service of the holder. In practice, however, the mature
system tended to assign jagirs either within or adjacent to the province
of posting. Jagirdars frequently held more than one jagir. These were
not necessarily contiguous. For example an amir of high rank might
receive as many as two dozen separate jagir assignments scattered over
several provinces.

The financial ministry further diluted ties between imperial officers
and their assigned lands by means of frequent transfers. Deaths,
transfers, promotions, and demotions in the imperial cadres necessi-
tated continuing transfer of jagirs. Assigned lands could be transferred
from one serving officer to another as often as every two to three years.
But the higher ranked jagirdars tended to obtain and hold entire
parganas for ten years or even more before transfer.

The financial ministry exerted strict controls over methods and
levels of tax collection. Officers of the provincial diwan obtained
information from the local intelligence-writer who sent near-daily
reports to the provincial capital. They also relied upon complaints and
petitions from aggrieved subjects to identify brutal or excessive
collection of the revenues. Obviously imperfect, this system did
prevent the worst abuses and kept a generally uniform standard for
revenue collection in the areas under the regulation system.

The mature system of tax collection and salary payments was one of
flexibility and efficiency. Some of the largest tasks of the imperial
administration were thereby placed in the hands of the mansabdars
themselves who were forced to become capable managers on their own
behalf. The system also relied upon private agency in the form of

6&7

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

assistance from local moneylenders and currency dealers (sarrafs) who
often advanced money to mansabdars pending arrival of funds from
their jagirs. Local bankers also assisted jagirdars’ agents to remit
collections by means of private bills of exchange rather than cash
shipments. The vast empire of the Timurids rested upon active central
control over an essentially decentralized fiscal structure.

THE CENTRAL ARMY

The chief bakhshi generally remained in personal attendance on the
emperor. He arranged for the security of the emperor’s person, the
imperial household, and the palace-fortress. Under Akbar, royal guard
troops included over twelve thousand musketeers and several thousand
more swordsmen and archers. Four to five thousand gentlemen
troopers (ahadis) acted as household cavalry for the emperor. The
bakhshi was responsible for the system by which nobles on week-long
rotation personally commanded their troops on twenty-four hour
guard at the emperor’s palace or tents in camp.

The bakhshi and his assistants organized the sizable military units
directly employed by the emperor. These included artillery men
serving the central artillery park; companies of pioneers and sappers;
infantry armed with matchlocks; companies of archers; handlers of
war elephants and various laborers and porters. Artillery and infantry
posted as permanent garrisons to strategic fortresses scattered around
the empire were also the responsibility of the bakhshi. All central
troops received cash salaries direct from the treasury. The army
minister advanced funds against anticipated expenses to nobles desig-
nated as field commanders by the emperor. The bakhshi, in concert
with the imperial fiscal minister, arranged to send treasure when
needed to armies on campaign.

Provincial bakhshis, who were generally higher-ranked, but not
noble, officers, conducted inspections to certify fitness for mansabdars
and their contingents on duty in that province. Inadequacies turning
up in the muster were penalized by partial deductions of pay and
allowances, or in the case of jagirs, by claims imposed by the provincial
diwan against the delinquent commander’s treasury accounts.

The chief bakhshi supervised the corps of public newswriters who
sent near-daily reports to provincial bakhshis from every sizable town
in the empire. Secret observers reported clandestinely to the provincial

AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM

bakhshis who forwarded their observations to the center as well. News
reports and important official documents travelled rapidly by imperial
post. Relays of foot-runners, posted at intervals along the main roads,
carried papers rolled up in bamboo containers at a rapid pace around
the clock. The emperor received reports from even distant provincial
capitals within a few days. The most important news reports were read
out daily in the public audience hall. Agents of nobles posted outside
the capital or Rajput princes and tributary rulers all assiduously copied
these announcements and sent their contents by messenger back to
their masters. The empire was connected by a surprisingly rapid
information loop for public news.

IMPERIAL FISCAL ADMINISTRATION

Rapid imperial expansion meant that growing revenues from plunder,
tribute and taxation poured into the imperial treasuries every year. The
imperial finance minister, the wazir or diwan-i kul, was responsible for
all revenues, the treasury system, the mints and currency, and, directly
or indirectly, all expenditures. The first wazir under Akbar was
Muzaffar Khan, who had been serving as chief fiscal officer of the
imperial household when he became imperial diwan. Towards the latter
part of Muzaffar Khan’s eight-year term a small group of extra-
ordinarily talented financial officers emerged at Akbar’s court. Khwaja
Shah Mansur, Mir Fathullah Shirazi, and one Hindu of great ability,
Raja Todar Mal, became dominant figures in the Mughal fiscal system.
Each served as imperial finance minister for one or more periods, but,
more importantly, worked closely with the others to find creative
solutions to problems encountered.

When Mir Fathullah Shirazi died Abul Fazl recorded the emperor’s
mourning for his servant:®

[Akbar] grieved at the departure of this memorial of former sages. He often
said that the Mir was his vakil, philosopher, physician, and astronomer, and
that no one could understand the amount of his grief for him. “Had he fallen
into the hands of the Franks, and they had demanded all my treasures in
exchange for him, I should gladly have entered into such a profitable traffic,
and have bought that precious jewel cheap.”

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

This utterance reflects more than conventional panegyric. The emper-
or’s lamentation suggests the intensity with which he and his closest
advisers collaborated. It suggests also the high degree of intimacy and
emotional ihvolvement between Akbar and his most valued officers at
court. We can sense only dimly the exhilaration produced among the
architects of the new empire. Much of this intense organizational work
occurred in the Fatehpur Sikri years (1571-1584).

Under these men the Indo-Muslim fiscal system inherited by Akbar
became a powerful, flexible instrument. Mounting burdens on the
central ministry encouraged division of labor in the office. The finance
minister himself assumed direct responsibility for the operation and
staffing of the central, provincial, and local treasuries. (In his capacity
as administrator of the central treasury and mints the minister of the
imperial household or mir saman reported to the diwan.) Three
principal officers served as his direct assistants, The minister of crown
revenues (diwan-i khalisa) took responsibility for all lands and tax-
producing entities whose revenues were reserved for direct deposit in
the central treasury. The minister for compensation (diwan-i tan) was
responsible for all salary drafts or jagir assignments. Finally, the
auditor general commanded a body of auditors who continually
monitored and reviewed the records of fiscal transactions.

Akbar’s finance ministers took great pains to develop a smoothly
functioning pyramidal treasury system. The base was formed by
treasuries at the leading towns of larger parganas. At the next level
treasuries were located in each provincial capital, and finally central
treasuries at the apex of the pyramid. At each level salaried officials —
treasurers, accountants, cashkeepers, clerks — presided. The treasuries
were more than safety deposit vaults for currency or other valuables.
They were vital nodes for the intake, reporting, transfer, and disbur-
sement of funds. Akbar tapped ample reserves and moved funds
quickly from his chain of treasuries to support his field armies. On
more than one occasion swift dispatch of treasure gave his armies the
means and morale for victory. Mughal treasure, effectively deployed,
was one of the most potent weapons the emperor possessed. Imperial
field commanders were virtually invulnerable to bribery or purchase.

The Mughal system imposed strict accountability on its officials.
Treasurers reported their balances in writing every fifteen days and
gave written receipts for deposits and demanded written receipts for
disbursements. The regime made firm distinctions between private and

7°

AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM

state funds for all save the emperor. Access to imperial funds was only
by written authorization — even for royal princes. Mansabdars
obtained cash advances from treasuries, but they had to clear their
balances and at times pay interest under the terms of a complicated set
of regulations. Their accounts were rigorously audited at death and
monies owed the treasury were seized.

The financial administration was run by a cadre of technically
proficient officials and clerks. By the sixteenth century Hindu service
castes — Khatris, Kayasths, Brahmins, and others — had learned Persian
and become indispensable in the operation of government. These caste
and family networks came to monopolize the subordinate, but lucra-
tive, positions in all ministries save that of the Muslim sadr. They
supplied young recruits to serve as apprentices who already, through
training in the family, had been schooled in official Persian termin-
ology, accounting, and reporting methods as well as the difficult
chancery script. Generally these Hindu clerks and secretaries were
efficient, reliable and loyal.”

These family groups, anxious to retain their prosperous circum-
stances, were the primary means by which the newly forged adminis-
trative traditions of the finance ministry were transmitted and refined
over time. As the empire added territory, members of these groups
formed the cadres that set up regulation fiscal administrations in the
conquered kingdoms.

IMPERIAL COINAGE

In 1556 Bairam Khan, acting for his young Timurid charge, struck new
Mughal coin in the Indian silver and copper types favored by the
defeated Sur dynasty. Bairam Khan adopted the monetary policies of
the Surs instead of the Central Asian traditional Timurid style of
coinage. By the early 1560s the new regime possessed a fully function-
ing trimetallic currency: silver, copper, and gold.

Akbar’s first silver rupees, similar to the thousands of Sur rupees still
in circulation, issued from central mints at Lahore, Delhi and Agra.
The new Timurid rupees bore the title “Jalal-ud-din Muhammad
Akbar Badshah, Ghazi” on the reverse. The front displayed the Islamic

7 See John F. Richards, “Norms of Comportment among Imperial Mughal Officials” in
Barbara Daly Metcalf ed., Moral Conduct and Authority (Berkeley, California: UC
Berkeley Press, 1984), pp. 267-281 for a description of Bhimsen, a prominent member of
such a service family.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

statement of faith “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his
Messenger” bordered by the names of the four Companions of the
Prophet. The legends were struck only in Arabic script, not in the dual
Devanagari and Arabic style employed by the Surs.* In the public
display of his coinage, the young Akbar presented a conservative,
Muslim profile.

Akbar’s moneyers decided to continue the 21 gram copper paisa
coins of the Surs, now called dams, as the primary issue for ordinary
transactions. These coins, bearing only the date of issue and mint name
in Persian, were struck at the imperial capital, at mints adjacent to
copper mines in Rajasthan or at several towns serving as entrepots for
the overland Nepal trade in copper.? Shortly after he had asserted his
independent rule, in 1562, Akbar revived a gold issue, called a mubr,
weighing 10.9 grams, based upon the old Delhi Sultanate standard.
This marked the first issue of gold coins in Hindustan since the
mid-fifteenth century.!°

In the late 1570s Akbar undertook monetary reforms coinciding
with his revenue reforms. In 1577-78 the emperor appointed the
mintmaster at Fatehpur Sikri executive officer in charge of all the
imperial mints. The well-known calligrapher, Khwaja Abud-us Samad,
assumed these new responsibilities.!! Gold and silver issues were
confined to the Fatehpur mint and mints in Punjab, eastern UP, Bihar,
Bengal, and Gujarat, to which senior financial officers were sent as
mintmasters. For a brief period the emperor and his moneyers flirted
with a dramatic style of square coins in a tradition indigenous to
western India. In 1580-81 the number of mints striking gold and silver
coin was further reduced to two: the mint at Ahmadabad in Gujarat
and the Urdu or mint of the imperial camp — the seat of the sovereign.
Copper issues continued uninterruptedly from several mint-towns
located next to the source of supply of the metal. The intent of these
measures was to consolidate imperial control over the minting process.

In 1584 Akbar ordered a new coinage to reflect the ideological and
political changes underway in his reign. The new coins bore the single
legend: “God is great, splendid is His Glory” (Allabu akbar jalla
jalalubu) with the ambiguous play on the emperor’s name and titles.
The date was stamped with solar, Ilahi years under the new era with the

# John S. Deyell, “The Development of Akbar’s Currency System and Monetary Integration
of the Conquered Kingdoms” in John F. Richards, ed., The Imperial Monetary System of
Mughal India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987) p. 19.

9 Ibid.,p.22. ° Ibid.,p.23. "Ibid. p. 30.

AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM

old Persian names of the months added. Calligraphy, dies, and
stamping all improved visibly on the new coin. Floral decorative
touches appeared on the borders. Special issues with portraits of
wildlife were struck.'? In short, the coinage ceased to be indisputably
Islamic in its design. The new Ilahi coins, however, remained conserva-
tive in reverting to the round shape and customary weights.

Throughout these changes Akbar’s minters were careful to maintain
a high-quality coinage in each of the three metals. Gold was nearly
pure; silver never dropped below 96 percent pure and copper coins
remained of high purity. This was a free or open minting system in
which anyone willing to pay the prescribed mint charges could bring
metal or old or foreign coin to the mint and have it struck. Mints were
widely distributed. In 1595 four mints produced gold coins, fourteen
produced rupees and forty-two copper coin.

Millions of coin were produced by this system. Minting expenses
determined the premium by which coin was valued over bullion -
ranging from a high of 10.77 percent for copper to a low of 5.63 percent
for silver bullion.!3 Newly minted rupees (sikka) circulated at an
additional premium of 5 percent over older rupees. Mughal treasuries
willingly accepted out-of-date Suri and other coin in payment of taxes,
but at a discounted rate that pushed its value down to that of bullion.
As a result the huge corpus of Afghan coinage flowed into Akbar’s
mints, was demonetized, melted down, and reissued as new Timurid
coin.

During Akbar’s reign the heavy copper dam was the coin of ordinary
exchange and the preferred metal in the trimetallic system. Copper
coins were issued in enormous quantities. The regime set its land
revenue demand in terms of copper dams. Purchasers when acquiring
zamindari rights paid for them in copper coin. Prices for ordinary
commodities in city markets and wages for laborers, soldiers, and
artisans were expressed in copper coin.'*

Extension of the uniform coinage accompanied imperial conquest.
Some newly conquered kingdoms did not immediately adhere to the
new standards. Some anomalies were permitted for a transitional
12 Ibid., pp. 36-37.

‘3 Marie Martin, “The Reforms of the Sixteenth Century and Akbar’s Administration:

Metrological and Monetary Considerations” in J. F. Richards, ed., The Impenal Mone-

tary System of Mughal India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 71.

4 Irfan Habib, “The Economic and Social Setting” in Michael Brand and Glenn D. Lowry,
eds., Fatehpur Sikrs (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1987), pp. 144-147.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

period. But the imperial financiers insisted on a centralized, uniform,
monetary system. For any particular type of coin, the design, weight
standard, and fabric was identical from one end of the empire to the
other. Moreover imperial coins travelled from one end of the empire to
the other in rapid fashion. Copper coin found in coin hoards circulated
from the heartland of the empire to the frontier in the year of their
manufacture. In John Deyell’s apt phrase “Mughal currency had
currency”.15

Throughout his reign Akbar seized older silver and gold coin found
in the treasure hoards of dozens of Indian dynasties. Mughal mintmas-
ters thereby had ample supplies necessary to expand silver and gold
currency in normal types. They also cast giant coins and ingots for
Akbar’s fast-swelling monetary reserve — his central treasure described
above.

Paradoxically, although it did not lack for stocks of gold and silver,
India produced only minimal amounts of gold from alluvial sources in
the northeast. The silver mines of Mewar found in the early sixteenth
century were rapidly exhausted. In spite of this disability, unlike
contemporary rulers in other parts of the world, Akbar did not have to
worry about a trade deficit or bullion famines. Quite the contrary, for
the strength of the Indian economy drew a steady stream of precious
metals to pay for Indian industrial and agricultural exports. In the
medieval and early modern worlds, whatever the available sources of
gold and silver, India was the ultimate sink for these metals. When
minted, Mughal silver and gold coin did not circulate beyond the
Indian subcontinent — not because of inferior quality, but because
foreign traders needed Indian coin to pay for exports.

By the latter years of the sixteenth century surging imports of New
World silver offered new sources of supply for the Timurid mints. The
copper price of silver rose from 48 dams to the rupee early in the reign
to as high as 35 dams to the rupee in the late 1580s.'© The copper price
of silver continued to rise throughout the early seventeenth century as
new industrial uses for copper in bronze cannon and brass utensils
increased its value as well. In succeeding reigns the silver rupee,
supported by new fractional anna (sixteenth part) coins, replaced the
copper dam as a common medium of circulation for most of the
empire.

5 Deyell, “Akbar’s Currency System, p. 45.
16 Habib, “Economic and Social Setting,” p. 141.

AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM

THE BUDGET OF THE EMPIRE

Akbar’s advisers did not have to overcome budget deficits. The
imperial reserves of the Mughals — in currency, precious metals, and set
and unset gems — swelled during Akbar’s half century. In 1605, the
imperial treasuries contained gold, silver, copper coin, and uncoined
bullion valued at between 139 million to 166 million silver rupees.'”
The mass of set and unset precious stones in the treasury and other
precious objects was probably as valuable.

Continued territorial expansion and good management ensured that
revenues exceeded expenditures. Plunder from victory swelled the
imperial reserves. In 1556 the Mughals at Panipat seized dozens of
elephants laden with gold as the wife of the defeated general Hemu
tried to flee the battlefield. This was just the first of many such
treasures that more than repaid the costs of military conquest. There-
after additional taxes levied within a more rigorous imperial assessment
brought fresh revenue streams into the imperial treasuries. Shireen
Moosvi’s recent estimate of Akbar’s revenues for 1595-96 puts the
total at just under four billion copper coins (dams) or the equivalent of
99 million silver rupees per year.'8

Certain features of this financial reconstruction are immediately
apparent. First, an annual surplus of between four and five million
rupees was generated late in the reign. Second, expenditures made
directly by the emperor were relatively small. The annual expense of
the imperial household with its conspicuous display and thousands of
dependents was less than five percent of the total budget. The central
military establishment, including stables and artillery, as well as the
corps of musketeers and ahadis consumed less than ro percent of the
total. Lastly, by far the largest item of expenditure, 81 million rupees,
was allotted to the mansabdars. Of this just over half of imperial
expenditures, 51 million rupees, supported the cavalry and musketeer
contingents of the mansabdars. In other words by far the greater part
of this budget was devoted to supporting a massive military estab-
lishment.

17 Moosvi, Economy of the Mughal Empire, pp. 198-200.

1 Moosvi, Economy of the Mughal Empire, p. 195. This is the jama from the Ain-i Akbari
revised downward to reflect revenue-free land grants and areas whose revenues were listed
but not fully subjugated at this date. It also adjusts for costs of revenue collection to arrive
at net revenue realization.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Table 119 Imperial revenue and expenditure, 1595-96

Income Millions Millions
dams rupees
Effective jama 1595-96 3960.3 99.01
Expenditure: salary bill of mansabdars
Zat salaries 827.5 20.69
Animal allowance 371.4 9.29
Suwar payment 2038.9 50.97
Total 3237.8 80.95
Central military establishment
Cavalry and foot 142.9 3-57
Animals/stables 194.0 4.85
Arsenal and armor 22.1 S$
Total 359.0 8.97
Imperial household (including harem/building construction)
Total 187.4 4.69
Total expenditures 3784.2 94.6
Balance 176.1 4-41
Grand total 3960.3 99.01

IMPERIAL CROWNLANDS

Crownlands (khalisa) under the direct administration of the imperial
finance minister generated funds that flowed directly to the central
treasury. Revenues from these crownlands as well as from a pool of
temporarily unassigned jagir lands referred to as paibagi were the
mainstay of the center. From these returns the emperor defrayed the
costs of his central household, military, diplomacy, and the cash
salaries of the lesser mansabdars. Plunder, ceremonial gifts, and
escheat from estates of deceased nobles constituted substantial, but
irregular, alternative sources of income for the central treasury. A
recent estimate for the latter years of Akbar’s reign puts khalisa
revenues at between 24 and 33 percent of the total assessed revenues.?°

1 Adapted from Moosvi, Economy of the Mughal Empire, Table 11.5, p. 270.
2 Moosvi, Economy of the Mughal Empire, p. 197.

AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM

All remaining revenues were shunted directly to the holders of salary
assignments.

The minister of crownlands (diwan-i khalisa) presided over a
sophisticated fiscal device. No specific lands adjacent to the capital
were demarcated for the khalisa. The Mughal khalisa was instead a
fiscal mechanism, a pool of sequestered revenues, that set aside tax
collections from designated villages or parganas scattered throughout
the empire. Khalisa tracts, usually designated in fertile and untroubled
areas, were found in nearly every province of the empire. Cadres of
salaried revenue officers directly employed by the minister of crown-
lands collected crown revenues. The proportion of revenues placed in
the crown treasury accounts varied according to the perceived needs of
the central treasury. In effect the emperor was awarded a set of jagir
assignments, larger than, but comparable to those given great nobles.
The emperor’s own agents were sent to make collections just as the
jagirdars did from their jagirs.

By 1605 Akbar and his advisers had created an autocratic and centra-
lized system. A half-century long territorial build-up brought
resources to the center far greater than those available to any regional
ruler or provincial governor. The emperor routinely deployed tens of
thousands of men, millions of silver rupees, and vast quantities of
material throughout his domains. Orders from the emperor or his
immediate subordinates flowed outward from the center; written and
verbal reports regularly flowed in to the imperial capital. Akbar, the
epicenter, actively absorbed reports and issued orders on a daily basis.
Relatively quick official communications were essential to centralized
power.

Although clearly centered on Akbar, to an outside observer the
imperial structures and procedures were complex and confusing. From
one perspective the Mughal empire appeared to be a properly bureau-
cratic system, fully centralized and run by technically proficient
bureaucrats moving vast amounts of paper in well-regulated trans-
actions. From another perspective, however, the empire appeared as a
series of great patrimonial households dominated at its apex by the
massive establishments of the emperor. Akbar drew upon vast revenue
to build up his treasure and to support his lavish expenditures on
luxurious display. It is equally clear, however, that the great amirs of
the empire absorbed a huge proportion of official revenues — monies

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

which were directed, but not directly received by the center. To an
unprecedented degree the centralized, autocratic system created by
Akbar relied upon private organizational skill, entrepreneurial spirit
and energy to carry out the vital tasks of ruling a multi-regional
empire. The Timurid empire was both centralized and decentralized,
both bureaucratic and patrimonial in its structure and operation.

CHAPTER 4

LAND REVENUE AND RURAL SOCIETY

Despite centuries of Muslim dominance in the Indo-Gangetic plain,
Akbar’s officials found consolidation of state power incomplete. In the
second half of the sixteenth century both force and diplomacy were
needed to subdue and pacify rural society. Even within the zone of
direct administration, in the most fertile hinterlands of the towns,
supposedly inhabited by subjects regulated by a tax system, the
Mughals confronted only partially subdued local polities. In more
distant regions were barely tributary areas that had been recently
settled and colonized by Hindu and Muslim armed warrior-pioneers.
Extension of centralized administrative control over these areas would
be unprecedented.

In one pargana after another armed, potentially hostile, warrior
lineages —Rajputs, Jats, and other locally rooted caste elites — ruled the
cultivating peasantry. These local aristocratic lineages and their lineage
heads or chiefs dominated individual parganas, or segments of parga-
nas by virtue of conquest, migration and colonization. Parganas in the
north were miniature kingdoms containing from as few as twenty to as
many as two hundred contiguous villages. These were the primary
building blocks of political control in Indian rural society — not
individual villages.'

Local elites had performed a key role in organizing, financing, and
leading peasant-cultivators in a process of jungle-clearing and settle-
ment. Often this expansion required armed battle with indigenous
“tribals” or non-Hindu groups who cultivated and settled much less
intensively than the newcomers. This same militance that drove
agricultural expansion also drove lineage leaders into bloody, treacher-
ous episodes of local warfare. The question for the state was how to
channel energies for expansion that would yield increased revenues
without permitting internecine warfare in the countryside.

The boundaries of most parganas defined the limits of domination

* See Richard Fox, “Rajput ‘Clans’ and Urban Centers in Northern India,” in Richard G.
Fox, ed., Urban India: Society, Space and Image, and Richard G. Fox, Kin, Clan, Raja and
Rude, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971).

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

for each Rajput, Jat, Indian Muslim, or even Afghan lineage. At the
center lay a larger village or smallish town in which resided the lineage
head. Often this was the original settlement when the lineage forbears
had colonized the area. The chief’s town found protection behind
scrub jungle, bamboo hedges, ditches, mud or stone walls. Within
these defenses, the chief or lineage heads built their residences, held
miniature court in a rustic aristocratic style and maintained armories,
treasuries and lineage temples. The town itself served as a central
market place for the pargana. Other lesser towns served as similar
headquarters for subordinate chiefs and dependent kinsmen of the
petty raja or lineage head.

These chiefs or zamindars as the Mughals called them, maintained
substantial military forces. A small raja might have under his immedi-
ate command a mixed body of several hundred armed kinsmen, slaves,
and free, paid retainers. He could also call upon his subordinate lineage
mates for troops in an emergency to defend the subdistrict or lineage
interests. Zamindari contingents were almost entirely infantry for most
local lords could afford few horses or elephants. They were also
deficient in artillery. Muskets were available, but the Mughals made
every effort to discourage gun-casting or procurement of artillery by
local aristocrats.

Zamindars claimed the hereditary right to collect a share of the
harvest. They cultivated private land holdings using tenants or laborers
in their employ. Generally such lands were exempt from the normal
state revenue demand. In addition these chiefs exercised claims to a
whole series of taxes and cesses on the peasants, craftsmen and
merchants within the pargana. A multitude of market taxes, poll taxes,
feudal taxes on production (e.g. an implement or weapon each year
from a blacksmith) flowed into their coffers and storehouses each year.
Some payments were in coined money; some in kind. Within tradi-
tional limits forced labor could be demanded from lesser castes in the
pargana.

The Rajput, Jat, Gujar lineage heads and their kinsmen or Afghans
or other Indian Muslim lineages retained power partly by weight of
numbers, partly by armed belligerence, and partly by the inertia of
long custom. In the majority of villages the most powerful and
wealthiest peasants were members of the same caste and shared lineage
ties with the lineage head at the headquarters town. These village elites
cultivated the largest and most fertile tracts within the village.

LAND REVENUE AND RURAL SOCIETY

Untouchable landless laborers, craftsmen, traders, and priests served
the dominant caste in an intricate network of hereditary service and
exchange relationships.

From the Mughal perspective in 1560 the rural landscape of North
India was dotted with principalities of varying size and in varying
degrees of subordination and control to the center. Some parganas
adjacent to cities were inhabited by peasants lacking strong lineage
organization and could be administered on a village by village basis.
Most of rural society in North India lay under the tight control of
zamindars. By the sixteenth century rural pacification had progressed
to the point that no single zamindar or coalition of rural chiefs could
withstand the full power of the Muslim state. Preceding Indo-Muslim
regimes had begun to fix the boundaries of these tiny kingdoms and to
limit internecine warfare among them. Indo-Muslim rulers had begun
to determine successions to office by issuing official documents
written in Persian and the local language which recognized favored
heirs. Only in intervals of political disarray did local lineage elites or
petty rajas freely engage in internecine warfare and conquest. Such was
the case during the Afghan—-Mughal conflicts between 1530 and 1560.

Rarely did local aristocrats engage in larger political ventures. By
and large these men, subservient for generations to Indo-Muslim state
power, retained foreshortened political horizons. Men like Sher Khan
Sur were exceptional. Most local chieftains, whether Hindu or Muslim,
did not conceive of or aspire to large-scale state-building.

Nevertheless the relationship between Mughals and their new
subjects in the 1560s resembled tribute rather more than taxation.
Preceding states had identified and negotiated service agreements with
leading lineage members or rajas in each pargana. These local officers,
called chaudburis in the north and deshmukhs in the Deccan, retained
much of their long-standing powers within the pargana in return for
making regular monetary payments to central revenue officials.
Pargana headmen received a fixed percentage, usually 5 percent, of the
total revenues obtained from their subdistrict each year. They also
controlled lands exempt from any form of taxation. Lifetime contracts
executed in writing as sanads between the local chief and the Indo-
Muslim ruler spelled out the terms of this relationship. Each recipient
of a grant executed a written bond (muchalka) as a guarantee of good
performance and paid a fee (pishkash) of six and one-half years’
allowances on the revenue in installments to secure this appointment.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

At the death of a chaudhuri his son and heir normally obtained a new
patent of office from the ruler. The state could, however, depose a
pargana headman at any time and replace him with a more satisfactory
candidate — usually another kinsman from the dominant lineage and
caste in the subdistrict.

The Indo-Muslim state depended upon a local fiscal officer to serve
as a counterpart to the chaudhuri. The ganungo was a record keeper or
accountant whose task was to keep records of villages, land in
production and taxes paid each year. He was appointed on terms
similar to that of the pargana headmen except that his allowance on the
revenue was usually 3 instead of 5 percent and his tax-free lands a
smaller allotment than those given the chaudhuri. Qanungos were
generally recruited from Hindu higher castes, often Brahmins,
especially in the Deccan, but also Khatris, the north Indian trading
caste, and Kayasths, the most prominent Hindu secretarial caste in
service to Indo-Muslim states. Indian Muslims also assumed this role
as they did that of the pargana headman. Occasionally appointments as
qanungos or chaudhuri were shared between two or more individuals.

These two positions together constituted a locking device between
state and pargana. Through these hybrid offices the ruler extracted
revenues, obtained information, and mobilized support from North
Indian rural society. In the mid-sixteenth century, however, state
access to these miniature polities was limited. By and large these were
still tributary relations rather than assessment and collection of taxes.
Save for easily accessible parganas the state did not attempt a careful
inventory of lands in order to measure agricultural productivity.
Instead the annual revenue figure emerged from a bargaining process in
which payment only crudely reflected the resources of the pargana.
The negotiating skills, truculence, location, and natural defenses of
each lineage determined annual payments of revenue.

The state did not penetrate far below the surface of the average
parganas prior to the mid-sixteenth century. Strong Muslim sultans
managed to freeze pargana boundaries; to reduce the political preten-
sions of the Hindu zamindars and to restrain inter-lineage warfare and
aggression. But in most localities they had little to do with individual
village headmen and village elites.

Penetration of the defenses of rural society was the great task for the
Mughal administration in the post-1560 period. Imperial admini-
strators worked tirelessly to crack into these hard-shelled structures.

LAND REVENUE AND RURAL SOCIETY

To obtain accurate information and the fullest possible revenues in
taxes, rather than negotiated tribute, the empire had to come to terms
with armed rural aristocracies. The zamindars were gradually reshaped
into a quasi-official service class in the countryside - or they were
destroyed.

THE NEW REVENUE SYSTEM

Sher Shah Sur had demonstrated the basic approach that would enable
the state to pull greater resources from agricultural production. The
Afghan ruler drew upon his personal experience as the revenue
administrator of a pargana under the Lodis, and upon the accumulated
knowledge of generations of Indo-Muslim revenue collectors dealing
with the dense fabric of rural society in North India. In his short-lived
package of revenue reforms we find: demand for cash payment from
the peasants — not produce rent; cadastral surveys of agricultural land;
surveys of crops grown; assessment of land revenue by expected
yields; conversion of those anticipated harvest rates to cash values
keyed to prevailing market conditions. All data were to be gathered
carefully, systematically, and checked at intervals.

Sher Shah perceived that the state in its own interest should assume
greater responsibility for encouraging productivity.? Those cultivators
who reclaimed land from the forest or scrub woodlands for production
should be favored with exemptions or reduced tax burdens in the first
few years of production on the new lands. Similar incentives should be
given for those who sunk wells and increased the cultivable area.
Collections should be made systematically and firmly. Measures
needed to be taken to ensure reliable handling of funds and strict
accountability on the part of officials. A reliable, standardized, high
quality coinage must be available. These measures were backed up by
flexible armed force effectively deployed. The whole in turn rested
upon the ruler’s willingness and ability to invest in a major administra-
tive effort in the countryside.

In practice, however, the Sur revenue measures were flawed by
excessive uniformity. When Afghan officials tried to fix near-uniform
rates of assessment on the harvest across the entire Sur domain, they
2 See Iqtidar Husain Siddiqi, “The Agrarian System of the Afghans” in Seudies in Islam, 11

(January, 1965), 229-253, and Iqtidar Husain Siddiqi, Afghan Despotism in India (Aligarh:
Three Men Publication, 1969), pp. 136-168.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

generated considerable resistance. Converting harvest rates into cash
with a single schedule for a large portion of North India simply was
impracticable and created enormous inequities. Even within the mono-
tonous reaches of the North Indian plain great differences existed in
fertility between localities.

Todar Mal, Akbar’s famed Hindu revenue minister, understood and
addressed this problem. When he began revamping the Mughal agrar-
ian system in the early 1560s, Todar Mal first pressed to obtain more
complete area and production statistics from the subdistrict account-
ants (qanungos). Officials under his command began to compile lists of
minimum and maximum market prices. At the same time Akbar
enforced standardization of highly variable customary weights and
measures. The imperial yard (gaz) set at the equivalent of 31.92 inches
helped to establish a uniform unit of land area. The customary bigah
was fixed at a unit 60 gaz square equivalent (about three-fifths of an
acre). The unit of weight for measuring yields, the man, was stan-
dardized at 51.63 Ibs. avoirdupois.

Despite these measures continuing problems remained. Zamindars
protested vigorously when imperial officers or mansabdars tried to
collect what in their view were exorbitant assessments. The critically
important system of salary assignments (jagirs) was faltering. In 1580
Todar Mal began a drastic experiment designed to completely restruc-
ture the Mughal agrarian revenue system. The emperor resumed all
jagirs or salary assignments for his officers in the North Indian
provinces. All lands now fell under the control of treasury officials
who would administer them directly.

Todar Mal proceeded to group contiguous subdistricts into revenue
circles with similar, shared climate and soil fertility. He placed a
revenue officer (karuri) in charge of each circle. Under this officer’s
direction surveying parties moved steadily from pargana to pargana
and village to village. They used new bamboo rods with iron joints
marked for the imperial yard rather than older hempen ropes that
stretched with varying moisture. In the course of five years these
survey parties measured and recorded the fields and land holdings of
nearly all villages located within that revenue circle.

Other officials, travelling with the survey parties, collected detailed
data on average yields and harvests by cultivator and village for the past
ten years. They also collected local market prices for all crops, for both
the spring and fall harvests, over the same ten year period.

LAND REVENUE AND RURAL SOCIETY

With land measurements, yield and price data in hand the karuri in
charge of the revenue circle compiled long, detailed, tables of data.
From these tables he was able to calculate a standard assessment for that
revenue circle for each crop. This meant that the revenue ministry could
demand its appropriate share of each harvest from each field, cultivator,
and village in that revenue circle. This demand could be expressed in
money terms that bore a realistic relationship to prices paid in local
markets. The final assessment was an average struck on the ten-year
record of yields and prices for each field and crop. Rice, millets, and
wheats were generally assessed at a one-third equivalent of the harvest.
Other, more valuable, crops were assessed more lightly, e.g. as low as
one-fifth or less for cash crops such as indigo or sugar. Imperial officers
assessed fruit trees at so much per tree and cattle at so much per head.

The revenue ministry under Todar Mal established a fresh, accurate
revenue assessment to be placed against each village, pargana, revenue
circle, district, and province. The new system allowed for variations in
agricultural yield between regions. The assessed demand was firmly
linked to past average yields and prices. This was, moreover, a cash
nexus. The state expressed its demand in copper coin (dams) and
expected to be paid in coin. The peasants had to enter the market and
sell their produce in order to pay the assessed revenue demand. In
future years, revenue officers simply referred to written tables that set
out a standard assessment for each crop per bigah or unit of cultivation
for that locality. The total assessment for each peasant, village, or
pargana could be determined by multiplying the crop rate against the
area under cultivation each year.

In the areas of the new “regulation” (zabt) assessment imperial
officers imposed written demands for tax payment and obtained
written acceptances in turn from the village headmen and dominant
peasants in each village. The village community remained liable for the
entire annual tax assessment and for its prompt payment in four
installments. After the initial rigorous survey and establishment of the
new system, revenue assessments in North India were only obliquely
linked to actual harvests and market prices. In some localities, imperial
officers actually sent out survey parties to measure the area under
cultivation in various crops twice a year. In others, revenue officers
used the established ten-year average with any estimated additions to
arrive at the area under cultivation. Whether measured by actual
survey or based upon the previous year’s total, they multiplied the

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

cropped area by the standard rate per crop to calculate current revenue
demand.

After initial establishment of the zabt system pargana accountants
annually assembled current data on cultivated area, yields, and prices
from the village accountants and their own records. These data were
listed as the most recent entry in a register showing returns for the past
ten years. The record also showed actual collections for each field,
village and the pargana as a whole, Revenue collectors (amins) obtained
these data to collate with their own records kept at the office of the
provincial revenue officer, the diwan. Periodically, the revenue minis-
try used these ten-year-average data series to revise and update the
revenue assessment. Only occasionally, at twenty, thirty year or more
intervals, would a systematic land survey and reassessment of a
province be judged necessary.

After five years of direct administration and experimentation Akbar
was able once again to place the lands of North India with the mansab-
dars. The jagir system was reestablished with a more accurate base. The
state achieved its end. Akbar’s treasuries obtained augmented revenues
derived from the new assessment (in those lands kept directly under
control of the central revenue ministry). His nobles could count on
increased revenues to meet their expenses. State revenue demand acted
like a giant pump to draw foodgrains and other crops out of the
countryside into the towns and cities by a market mechanism. Sale of
these foodgrains transferred coin back to the moneylenders and grain-
dealers at a descending series of markets. This supplied funds to offer
credit to the peasantry for the next year’s cultivation. Obviously, the
new system encouraged rapid expansion of the rural to urban grain
trade. Graindealers and moneylenders became much more active and
visible in the countryside. The Mughal state came much closer than its
predecessors to making good its claim for a massive share of rural
productivity. A claim of one-third of all foodgrain production and
perhaps one-fifth of other crops represented a massive expropriation of
rural savings and profits. Much of this sum was collected at the expense
of the older claims and perquisites of the zamindars.

A NEWLY DEFINED SOCIAL CLASS

Timurid centralization and rationalization of the land tax system,
while certainly impressive, did not inaugurate a full-blown system of

LAND REVENUE AND RURAL SOCIETY

direct rural taxation. The new Mughal administration was unable to
carry out those drastic measures necessary to place itself in a direct,
unimpeded relationship with each producing peasant in the country-
side. In order to do so, Mughal forces would have been forced to
disarm the dominant chiefs and leading Rajput, Jat, Indian Muslim,
Afghan, and other lineages who controlled the land. Effective control
might have called for deportation, enslavement, or imprisonment of
many of the most determined leaders of local society in North India.
These men would have to be replaced by more compliant lineage-
mates, or by new cadres imported by the administration. Disarming
and subduing regional aristocracies, or converting them into officials
was a formidable task that was rarely accomplished by early modern
states. The Timurids were not prepared to execute policies more
reminiscent of various Ottoman efforts than those characteristic of
Indo-Muslim regimes.

Nevertheless, imposition of the zabt system made it possible for the
Mughal administration to launch a long-term strategy aimed at eventu-
ally reconstituting the rural aristocracy. Under the zabt system, the
Mughals cracked the hard cyst of the countryside — the pargana.
Imperial revenue officers or agents of mansabdars no longer dealt only
with the pargana headmen, or select numbers of village headmen. For
the first time a majority of villages included within the Mughal zabt
system were placed in direct relationship with revenue officers of the
state. The pargana was changing from a miniature tributary kingdom
to a petty revenue and administrative unit existing at the convenience
of the Mughal empire.

If backed by sufficient force, over time the new regulation system
would gradually convert the zamindars to a service class of quasi-
officials, dependent upon the state. The new order forcefully appro-
priated the right to determine that share of his produce to be given up
by each peasant. Local lords formerly had paid a species of tribute to
the state, when forced to do so, and levied their customary heavy cesses
in goods and labor on the peasant. Under the new system they were
reduced to receipt of a fixed allowance, usually 10 percent, of the total
revenue collected each year. The state more firmly arrogated to itself
the right to determine legitimate holders of zamindar’s rights. Like the
chaudhuri individual zamindars received a written patent of office
from the provincial fiscal officer (the diwan). Like the chaudhuri they
paid an appointment fee and signed a bond for performance. They were

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

enjoined to increase cultivation and to hand over the stipulated revenue
in the required installments for the area under their jurisdiction.

In the refined zabt system, ancient rights of landed dominance
obtained by previous generations who colonized, conquered and
settled, were transformed into the right to a share of agricultural
production. Only those constricted “homelands” personally occupied
by the zamindar remained of the unfettered domain held before. These
zamindari rights became a form of private property, which, when
ratified by the state, could be passed on to heirs and alienated to others.
Inheritance recognized by the state conformed to the provisions of
both Islamic and Hindu personal law which provided for equal shares
to heirs of the same sex. Only chiefs in tributary relationship to the
emperor were permitted to keep their patrimonies intact for a single
heir. In this attenuated form of property, zamindari claims could be
sold or leased to other kinsmen or even to outsiders. Surviving sale and
lease documents testify to widespread adoption of the practice -
although not to its true intensity or frequency.

Prising open the defenses of local society in the parganas of North
India required forceful determination. Armed warrior elites scarcely
looked with a kindly eye upon petty revenue officers and survey
parties entering their villages. Only the promise of overwhelming
force, ruthlessly applied, curbed violent resistance. Imperial faujdars at
the head of several hundred mailed cavalry were posted at intervals
throughout each province to ensure that the reality of imperial power
was not overlooked by those zamindars who might be reluctant to
hand over the stipulated revenue proceeds each season.

However necessary, force alone was inadequate. A stable agrarian
order required some recognition of the zamindar’s interests under a
generally accepted notion of legitimate royal authority. Akbar recog-
nized this fact early in his reign and set about trying to elicit the willing
cooperation of leading chiefs, lineage elites and other zamindars. The
general tone of the new imperial administration was critical. Would
compliance be rewarded, or was the new order to be unrelievedly
harsh?

Some evidence for the latter approach exists in the detailed archives
of the Jat clan (khap) Baliyan in Muzaffarnagar District near Delhi.
Migrating from the Punjab in the twelfth century, the founders of this
clan established the hereditary seat of the clan headman (chaudhuri) at
Sisauli village. From this headquarters “territorial expansion, conquest

LAND REVENUE AND RURAL SOCIETY

and colonization” of the clan continued until the first decades of the
sixteenth century. But “expansion stopped at the establishment of
Mughal rule, when law and order were more effectively imposed on
northern India.” By the late sixteenth century clan members ruled
pargana Sisauli numbering the traditional eighty-four villages through
their own system of headmen and councils.* They were linked to other
Jat and non-Jat Hindu lineage groups who met periodically in regional
councils (sarv-khap).

The record of resolutions preserved in the clan archives shows a
pattern of remarkable collective action by a coalition of castes and
clans. When state power at Delhi faltered, the allied clan council raised
a large militia to mount a defense against banditry. When the Delhi
regime was strong, the clan council met to insist on recognition of the
legitimate autonomy of the clan councils and to protest excessive and
discriminatory taxation such as levies imposed on pilgrims and the
jiziya. If relief were not forthcoming, the Jat clans and their allies
mustered their militia and threatened outright revolt. In 1490, Sikandar
Lodi’s administrators chose not to test these resolutions and failed to
press their demands according to the clan records.’ In 1527, when the
possibility of resurgent Rajput power was at hand, the allied council
sent 25,000 soldiers under the command of the Raja of Dholpur to fight
the Mughals. At the battle of Kanua several thousand soldiers from
this force were killed.6

Suddenly, under Akbar’s regime, the tension and conflict found in
the allied clan council resolutions stretching across nearly four cen-
turies abated:7

A sarv-khap panchayat meeting was held in Shoron [khap Baliyan] in 1631 s.B.
[a.p. 1574] under the presidentship of Rao Landey Rai of Sisauli village, to
consider the changed political conditions in the country resulting from the
advent of Mughal rule. Akbar’s recent royal proclamation had given full
freedom to religious faith and to the khap panchayats.

The thousands of persons assembled ratified a series of resolutions
which called for royal recognition of each of the eighteen constituent
clan councils represented, for freedom to conduct religious affairs, and

3 M.C. Pradhan, The Political System of the Jats of Northern India (Bombay, 1966), p.95.
4 Pradhan, Political System, Appendix 3, p. 251 lists these villages.

5 Pradhan, Political System, Case 45, pp. 256-257.

7 Pradhan, Political System, Appendix 4, Case 48, pp. 257-258.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

for the right to have clan officers make revenue collections within the
clan areas.

Six years later another allied council meeting passed a resolution to
express its appreciation for a recent edict from the Mughal emperor
which granted religious freedom and internal autonomy to the clans.
The order, preserved in the Baliyan archive, reads:®

By the present firman ..., certain community councils in India which during
the reign of the Muslim sultans, before my reign, were charged certain taxes,
are now being excused. Each community council has my permission and is free
to carry on its traditional functions, in my reign. Both Hindus and Muslims
are one in my eyes, so I give freedom [of action] to these councils. They are
exempt from the payment of jazia [religious tax] and other taxes.

Issued in the reign of emperor of India, Emperor Akbar, 11th Ramzan, 989
Hijri [a.p. 1580]. Mandate issued by grand wazirs, Abul-Fazel and Raja Todar
Mal.

Another edict, issued two years earlier, makes similar statements, and
is addressed specifically to the two Jat clan chaudhuris of clan Baliyan.?

As these exchanges reveal, Akbar made several concessions to the
local clans of the upper Doab region between Ganges and Jumna. The
councils were to carry on as before without interference. Imposts that
the Jats had resisted for centuries were to be waived. In return,
however, the clan councils accepted the new revenue system. Measured
lands are recorded for all sub-districts in the imperial district of
Saharanput which included the lands of the Baliyan and their allied Jat
and Gujar clans.!° They asked for local agency in collection, but did
not quarrel with its implementation. In this region at least, imperial
policy relied both upon force and conciliation.

In forcing its agrarian system upon the variegated aristocracy of the
North Indian plain, the Mughals began to compress and shape a new
social class. The latter, despite resistance, found itself becoming more

* Pradhan, Political System, p.97. The royal order is reproduced as Mandate No. 1 inset of
plates between pages 96 and 97. Although the seal is indecipherable, the text is accurately
translated by the author.

9 Ibid. The text seems to have been addressed in general to four Jat khaps and one Gujar
Ithap, but the copy preserved is addressed to “Chaudhury Pacchu Mal, Shoron, and
Chaudhury Lad Singh, Sisauli

10 These figures are recorded in the Ain-i Akbari tables under Delhi province. Abul Fazl
Allami, The Ain-i Akbari, translated by H.S. Jarrett, second edition, corrected and
annotated by Jadunath Sarkar (Calcutta, 1949), pp. 296-97.

LAND REVENUE AND RURAL SOCIETY

dependent upon the state for its prosperity and for an essential aspect
of its identity,

GENTRY AND TAX-FREE LAND GRANTS

Mughal success in the countryside relied upon the services of numer-
ous local members of what may be termed a gentry class whose
interests and activities were both rural and urban. That is, these were
men who filled specialized niches in the local economy and administra-
tion and whose skills were absolutely essential to the Mughal agrarian
order. Among them were members of the literate, trading castes of
Hindu India, or in a minority, Muslim traders. These mahajans bought
grain and other agricultural products for cash from the villages, carried
their goods to the nearest market or pargana town, and from there to
larger urban markets. Rural traders advanced loans against the harvest
to the peasant farmers. In the larger towns various groups of traders
were organized into markets whose headman was recognized by the
state, These functionaries made regular reports on prices, scarcities,
and other relevant market information.

Another source of rural credit was the body of Hindu moneylenders
and moneychangers who were active throughout the market towns and
larger villages. In addition to lending and converting currencies, they
issued discounted bills of exchange for the transfer of funds or for
short-term commercial credit. Men drawn from these castes occupied
positions as clerks, agents, collectors, and managers at all levels of the
local and provincial revenue system. They served as amins or collectors
for sub-districts; as clerks for treasuries; as agents for jagirdars; or as
qanungos. In this capacity their roles intersected with local Muslim
secretarial and trading groups who were their competitors for official
posts of this type.

As the imperial revenue system took hold and expanded its reach,
the fortunes of this gentry class improved. Although only the outlines
of these processes can be discerned, the numbers and resources of the
town-based gentry grew steadily in tandem with the prospering
market towns. Other forms of imperial patronage contributed to the
rise of the gentry class and urban prosperity in this period.

Early on, in Muzaffar Khan’s administration, distinction was estab-
lished between revenue-paying lands and assets and alienated revenue
lands and assets. The latter were a means of offering patronage or

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

paying for services by allocating the normal revenues to privileged
recipients. Lands given as revenue grants (madad-i ma’ash) were often
those for which the ruler permitted pious and worthy persons to collect
the state’s tax revenues for their own support. Previous Indo-Muslim
rulers and their nobles had conferred benefits on a primary Muslim
clientele of Sufi masters and devotees and worthy and pious members
of the ulema. The praises uttered daily for the ruler by this “Army of
Prayer” was one of immeasurable, but significant, sources of political
support for any ruler in medieval India. Administration of these grants
was the primary obligation of the chief ecclesiastical officer, the sadr.

When Akbar began his revenue reforms in the 1570s he discovered
many abuses and many grants held by Afghans who were inimical to
his regime — especially in the Punjab. The emperor abrogated grants
lapsed illegally into hereditary holdings and resumed others that were
gained fraudulently. The new policy forced grantees to shift their
holdings to selected parganas and districts within the central provinces
of North India where these tax-free grants could be better managed
and controlled. This new policy was one of the sources of the
discontent which culminated in the revolt of 1579 discussed earlier.

Another sore point was Akbar’s inclusion of non-Muslim grantees
as objects of state largess. More than any previous Indo-Muslim ruler,
Akbar conferred madad-i ma’ash grants on many saintly individuals
and institutions. Two surviving documents preserved in the Saivite
shrine at Jakhbar, sixteen miles from Patankot in the Punjab, confirm
this new departure. In the late sixteenth century, as it is today, this
institution was the seat of a ruling Mahant (Master) of the Kanphatha
sect of Saivite Jogis. A copy of an imperial farman issued in 1581
added fifty bigahs of tax-free land to the parcel of madad-i ma’ash lands
obtained ten years earlier in order to compensate for the loss of lands
inundated and made useless. Since the Jogi Udant Nath had been
“honored with admittance to the imperial court,” he obtained con-
firmation of the earlier largess and the additional lands. In return he
was to “remain occupied with praying for the permanence of the
Conquering Dynasty while sustaining himself year after year with the
entire produce from that (land).”!! The revenue collectors of the
treasury or the jagirdars of that pargana were enjoined to hand over the
stipulated lands without hindrance.

11 B, N. Goswamy and J. S, Grewal, The Mughals and the Jogis of Jakbbar (Simla, Indian
Institute of Advanced Study, 1967), pp. 1-52.

LAND REVENUE AND RURAL SOCIETY

A second, later, document is an original farman bearing the stamp of
Akbar’s iron seal (listing his ancestors back to Timur) dated the
forty-first regnal year. This order confirms the grant once again, but
reduces the amount by eighty bigahs.!? The same injunctions and
formulas to local officers were repeated in this order. The personal
attendance of the Jogi leader at the imperial court is consistent with
Akbar’s interest in interviewing noted spiritual leaders.

In absolute terms such grants provided a living to a substantial
number of Muslim and non-Muslim gentry. Moosvi estimates that the
overall total largess for twelve provinces amounted at a minimum to 2.2
million rupees each year or the equivalent of 2.38 percent of the total
revenues.'? Moreover the political effect was accentuated by con-
centration. Outlying provinces — Bengal and Orissa to the east, Kabul
and Kashmir to the northwest — did not receive any grants. Over half of
the grants were located in the four heartland provinces: Agra, Delhi,
Awadh, and Allahabad. And certain parganas within these provinces
were favored. The highest percentage of grants seems to have come in
four blocks of territory in which there was a high concentration of
bigger towns.'*

The structures created by Akbar and his administration survived with
surprisingly little change until the early years of the eighteenth
century. Operating jointly, the regulation revenue system and the
system of jagirs had a powerful impact on rural society in North India.
Imposed and backed by overwhelming Mughal power, this structure
intruded beneath the tough defenses of rural life and reshaped the
economy, culture, and society of Mughal India.

12 Goswamy and Grewal, The Mughals and the Jogis, pp. 59-63.

13 Shireen Moosvi, Economy of the Mughal Empire, c.1595 (New Delhi: Oxford University

Press, 1987), p.159 and Appendix 1.A.
44 Ibid. 162-165.

CHAPTER 5

JAHANGIR 1605-1627

As Akbar lay ill and dying in 1605, Jahangir, then Prince Salim, nearly
lost the throne to Khusrau, his seventeen-year-old eldest son. Raja
Man Singh Kachhwaha of Amber and Mirza Aziz Koka (whose
daughter was married to the young prince) failed to persuade a
majority of the nobles to support this coup. Instead, an opposition
party, led by the Sayyids of Baraha, brought Salim safely to the dying
emperor, who, before he succumbed, invested the heir with a turban,
robes, and Akbar’s own dagger. After a week of mourning, Salim
mounted the throne in Agra fort, placed the throne on his own head,
and took the title Nur-ud-din Jahangir Padshah Ghazi. A confront-
ation had occurred, but not a war for the succession.

Apparently reconciled to the new regime, Man Singh went to Bengal
as the governor, while Khusrau, seemingly restored to favor, resided
under semi-confinement at Agra fort. Six months later in April, 1606,
Khusrau, on the pretext of visiting Akbar’s tomb, fled toward the
Punjab with several hundred followers. Quickly assembling an army
of 12,000 (paid for from 100,000 rupees seized from an imperial
treasure caravan), Khusrau besieged the governor of the Punjab at
Lahore. Jahangir, attempted negotiations with his son failing, sent a
relief army which engaged the prince outside the city. The short,
bloody, battle ended in a rout. Khusrau tried to flee toward Kabul, but
the whole countryside was alerted for him through the network of
pargana headmen and city provosts. He and his officers were captured
when they tried to seize a ferry to cross the Chenab river.

Jahangir, freshly arrived in Lahore, sentenced most of Khusrau’s
captured followers to impalement before the eyes of their erstwhile
leader. The nobles who had led the successful campaign against the
rebels obtained increases in rank and new jagirs. To every pargana
headman in the lands between the Jhelum and Chenab rivers went
tax-free lands for their loyalty in suppressing this revolt.

When Jahangir moved north to Kabul to direct the defense of
Qandahar fortress against the Safavids, Khusrau, left under arrest in
Lahore, engaged in a plot to kill his father. Four hundred young

JAHANGIR 1605-1627

noblemen and mansabdars swore personal fealty to the prince and
received the badge of discipleship in return. An informer revealed the
plot to the emperor who swiftly executed several ringleaders and
ordered the blinding of his son (who, somewhat later, was able to have
his sight partially restored), The maimed Khusrau’s more rigorous
imprisonment put an end to this succession struggle.

CONSOLIDATION ON THE INTERNAL
FRONTIER

Within the formal boundaries of the empire, tightening and deepening
imperial domination resumed. For Jahangir, the most irksome internal
problem was that of the Rana of Mewar, head of the Sisodia clan of
Rajputs at Udaipur who had successfully defied Akbar.!

The real point was that as Rana Amar Singh and his fathers, proud in the
strength of their hilly country and their abodes, had never seen or obeyed any
of the kings of Hindustan.

One of Jahangir’s earliest acts was to send his son Prince Parwaz on
campaign against Mewar. This failed in the face of the evasive tactics of
the Sisodia ruler as did nearly annual campaigns thereafter. In 1613,
Jahangir himself moved from Agra to Ajmer. Equipping his son Prince
Khurram with a new army the emperor sent him into the hills of
Rajasthan. Khurram set up a series of military checkpoints in the hills
at points thought inaccessible by Mughal commanders; sent one after
the other columns of cavalry to harry the Rana and his commanders;
and made hostages of the families of the most prominent Sisodias.
Finally, unable to discourage the grimly determined Mughal prince,
Amar Singh capitulated.

The Rana “chose obedience and loyalty” and Jahangir, who
“forgave the Rana’s offences, and gave a gracious farman ... impressed
with the mark of my auspicious palm.”? Amar Singh presented himself
in person to Khurram and formally submitted. Pleading old age, he
asked that his son and heir Karan travel to Jahangir’s court and be
enrolled as an imperial amir in his place. Delighted by this victory,
Jahangir agreed and Khurram returned to a great celebration in Ajmer.
The emperor set about wooing his new servant: “As it was necessary to

1 Jahangir, Tuzuk-t Jahangir: (Delhi, 2 vols. in one, reprint edition, 1968) translated by
‘A. Rogers, edited by H. Beveridge, 1, 274.
2 Ibid,

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

win the heart of Karan, who was of a wild nature and had never seen
assemblies and had lived among the hills, I every day showed him some
fresh favour.”? The emperor did indeed lavish expensive gifts, includ-
ing five elephants, upon the young Sisodia prince; permitted him a
private audience in the women’s apartments; and even took him on a
tiger shoot. Enriched and undoubtedly bedazzled, Karan returned to
Mewar with the rank of 5,000 zat 5,000 suwar. In further celebration
Jahangir ordered his stone cutters to carve life-sized figures of Amar
Singh and Karan Singh. These were placed outside the viewing window
of Agra fort where the emperor displayed himself publicly every
morning.*

The capitulation of the Rana of Mewar signalled that resistance to
the Mughal was futile. No mountainous or desert refuge was safe.
Proud Rajas such as the Jam of Kathiawar, the remote peninsula in
Gujarat, who had never appeared in person at the court of the Sultans
of Gujarat or of Akbar, prudently decided to prostrate themselves
before Jahangir. No powerful chief could claim long-standing pre-
scriptive rights without a written patent or sanad from the emperor and
expect to remain unchallenged.

In hundreds of localities rajas or lineage heads who had experienced
only sporadic encounters with Indo-Muslim rulers now found them-
selves faced by forcible demands for ritual submission and payment of
annual tribute. Long-tributary zamindars coped with greater political
and economic pressures from imperial officials. If tensions grew too
great, various forms of resistance or even outright rebellion occurred.
Some negotiation was always possible, but if compromise failed, the
outcome was harsh: a punitive expedition in massive force. If fortu-
nate, the offending ruler might retain his life and title; if unfortunate,
another claimant to the local gaddi would occupy the throne. Or,
outright annexation was always an option. With annexation came
administration by the usual cadres of imperial officials. Formerly
dominant rajas became mere zamindars within their former domains.

SIKH-MUGHAL CONFLICT

During Khusrau’s ill-fated coup in 1605, the rebel prince had a brief
encounter with Arjun, the fifth Sikh Guru. At Goindwal, one of the
2 Ibid. p.277. ¢ Ibid., p. 332.

JAHANGIR 1605-1627

prosperous Sikh towns in the Punjab, Arjun made the mistake of
offering his blessing to Khusrau. Jahangir seems to have been consist-
ently hostile to popularly venerated religious figures. In the emperor’s
memoir he comments:5

In Gobindwal, which is on the river Biyah (Beas), there was a Hindu named
Arjun, in the garments of sainthood and sanctity, so much so that he had
captivated many of the simple-hearted of the Hindus, and even of the ignorant
and foolish followers of Islam, by his ways and manners, and they had loudly
sounded the drum of his holiness. They called him Guru and from all sides
stupid people crowded to worship and manifest complete faith in him. For
three or four generations (of spiritual successors) they had kept this shop
warm. Many times it had occurred to me to put a stop to this vain affair or to
bring him into the assembly of the people of Islam.

Simply by making a finger-mark of saffron on Khusrau’s brow as an
auspicious sign, Arjun suffered a fate similar to most of Khusrau’s
followers. Jahangir “ordered them to produce him [Arjun] and handed
over his houses, dwelling places, and children to Murtaza Khan, and
having confiscated his property commanded that he should be put to
death,”¢ Arjun thereby became the first Sikh martyr to fall before the
Mughals.

Arjun’s young son, Hargobind, survived to assume his father’s role
as the sixth Sikh Guru. Partly in reaction to Arjun’s persecution, the
adolescent Hargobind adopted a new quasi-regal style. He wore two
swords, held court, hunted with his retainers and built a fort at
Amritsar as if he were a raja or prince. Jahangir, apprised of this, moved
to squash the young Sikh leader’s pretensions by arresting and
imprisoning him in the state prison at Gwalior fort for two years
(1609-1611).

Upon his release, Hargobind shifted his household and the central
institutions of Sikhism north to the Himalayan foothills. Here, at
Bilaspur on the marchlands of Mughal power, the young Sikh leader
established his court as a zamindar in circumstances similar to those
Rajput rulers who had survived in the hills. A network of supporters
continued to send offerings from the plains. The retreat to the hills
ended further Mughal persecution of the Guru and his followers in
Jahangir’s reign.

5 Jahangir, Tuzwk, 1,72. Ibid., p. 73.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

RELIGION AND POLITICS

The harshness with which Jahangir treated the Sikh Guru appears to
have stemmed more from Arjun’s perceived political threat than from
hostility to his religious doctrines as such. Religious leaders who
cultivated large popular followings suffered persecution; their quietist
colleagues did not. Like Akbar, Jahangir sought out eminent holy men
like the widely venerated Vaishnava ascetic, Gosain Jadrup of Ujain,
whom Akbar had also visited. Several invitations to the imperial court
at Agra failed. Finally, in 1616, Jahangir visited the saint at his
residence, a hole dug in the side of a hill near Ujain. Emperor and holy
man talked for several hours and the emperor returned for later visits
over the years. Of his last interview in 1620 Jahangir commented:”

On Monday, the 12th, my desire to see Gosain Jadrup again increased and
hastening to his hut, without ceremony, I enjoyed his society. Sublime words
were spoken to between us. God Almighty has granted him an unusual grace, a
lofty understanding, and excellent nature, and sharp intellectual powers, with
a God-given knowledge and a heart free from the attachments of the world, so
that putting behind his back the world and all that is in it, he sits content in the
corner of solitude and without wants.

Jahangir’s meetings with Gosain Jadrup were frequently portrayed by
court painters who found the juxtaposition of worldly magnificence
and holy renunciation a powerful theme.

A widely-known Muslim religious figure, Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi
did not fare so well with Jahangir. Although he was a dominant figure
in the orthodox Naqshbandi Sufi order, which stressed obedience to
the Sharia, Sirhindi had adopted a radical, some might even say
heretical posture. In what came perilously close to heresy, Sirhindi,
while admitting that prophecy had come to an end with Muhammad,
the Seal of the Prophets, claimed that certain believers with prophetic
proficiency continued to have direct experience of divine inspiration.
Sirhindi asserted that he was a present-day manifestation of the
Companions of the Prophet who shared in the prophetic qualities of
Muhammad. He had direct access without prophetic mediation to

7 Tuzuk-i Jahangiri, translated in Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements in Northern India in
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Agra, 1965), p. 328.

* Yohanan Friedmann, Shaykh Abmad Sirbindi: An Outline of His Thought and a Study of
His Image in the Eyes of Posterity (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1971),
P. 40.

JAHANGIR 1605-1627

divine inspiration. Sirhindi could therefore offer guidance to the
Islamic community. His numerous letters and treatises claimed that in
the second millennium of Islam, begun in 1592-93, he would be the
“Renewer of the Second Millennium” (mujaddid-i alf-i thani). In the
second millennium he could help to reverse the downward descent of
Islam and the growing separation of the Prophet Muhammad from his
community.

Sirhindi wrote hundreds of letters to lay disciples, fellow Naqshban-
dis, and, on occasion, to Mughal nobles and the emperor. Those letters
addressed to Mughal amirs often denounced the participation of
Hindus in the regime. Several years of service as a protégé of Abul Fazl
at Akbar’s court had convinced Sirhindi that the emperor was opposed
to the true path of Islam. He hoped for reversal of Akbar’s policies and
a change in tone under Jahangir. In a few letters Sirhindi called for the
humiliation of Hindus and their false religion. Sirhindi vented his deep
frustration and anger in bitter comments on the execution of the Guru
Arjun — seen as a Hindu — by Jahangir:?

These days the accursed infidel of Goindwal was very fortunately killed. Itis a
cause of great defeat for the reprobate Hindus. With whatever intention and
purpose they are killed, the humiliation of infidels is for the Muslims life itself.

Sirhindi was expressing anger shared by many Muslim learned men.
Those theologians, judges, Sufis, and others who relied on state
patronage were especially troubled by Akbar’s policies. At this point in
time a substantial, vocal gentry class of ulema was entrenched in the
towns of northern India. Such men were in fact extremely numerous in
Shaikh Ahmad’s home of Sirhind in the Punjab. Fears for material loss
were intermixed with fears for spiritual loss and the weakening of the
community of Indian Muslims. There is no question that Shaikh
Ahmad articulated and responded to these concerns.

Not all theologians supported Shaikh Ahmad, however. Abd-al Haq
Dihlawi, the most respected Muslim scholar of his time, directly
challenged Sirhindi’s views. In a surviving letter Abd-al Haq den-
ounced Shaikh Ahmad’s pridefulness and his claim to “share in the
wealth” of the Companions of the Prophet.'° To claim that no
mediation was required between himself and God was disrespectful to
the Prophet and heretical.

° Translation and text given in Friedmann, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhinds, p. 75.
‘9 Friedmann, Shaykh Abmad Sirhindi, pp. 88-89.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

In 1619 Shaikh Ahmad’s growing notoriety and popular following
attracted the attention of Jahangir who summoned him to an imperial
audience. In his memoirs Jahangir commented that Sirhindi “had
spread the net of hypocrisy and deceit,” enlisted disciples, and was
leading Muslims to false belief and heresy. The emperor was especially
incensed by Sirhindi’s claim to have surpassed the spiritual stage
attained by the rightly-guided Companions of the Prophet.'! At the
audience Shaikh Ahmad was “extremely proud and self-satisfied with
all his ignorance.””!? Shaikh Ahmad’s arrogance earned him imprison-
ment in the state prison at Gwalior fort to permit his own confusion
and “the excitement of the people” to subside.'3 Released after a year
and restored to favor, Shaikh Ahmad travelled with the imperial
encampment on Jahangir’s tour to the Deccan.

Sirhindi’s impact on Indian Islam is controversial. His letters,
compiled in three volumes by disciples, continued to be widely read in
Mughal and post-Mughal India. After his death in 1624 his followers
composed a hagiographic literature that glorified Sirhindi’s role as a
persecuted champion of Islam. He is portrayed as a leader in the
struggle to return the Timurid regime to its proper conduct of the
Sharia. His concern for Islamic revivalism and his anti-Hindu senti-
ments undoubtedly contributed to the sharpening division between the
Islamic community and the Hindu community in the seventeenth
century.

ENRICHING IMPERIAL CULTURE

Unlike his father, Jahangir was not a great general, a great organizer, or
a great builder. Much of his energy was devoted to the courtly culture
of the Mughals. The court with its great palace and household and the
satellite palaces of the great nobles were glittering ornaments of life in
the capital. Court ceremonial and conspicuous display served to
impress all those in submission to the Timurid ruler. However, in
Jahangir’s reign and thereafter, ossifying ceremonial immobilized the
principal actors. The emperor especially was encased in a daily round
of ceremony. The muffling effect of court life made it more difficult for
Jahangir to engage in decisive action in person and more likely that he

4 Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements, p. 287 gives a full translation of this passage.
2 Ibid.
» Ibid.

100

JAHANGIR 1605-1627

would delegate active military command. As he lost dynamism,
however, the emperor gained in sacral qualities. The aura surrounding
his person became more pronounced.

Jahangir did not build a new capital but treated Agra as the imperial
center. For extended periods to meet urgent strategic concerns, he
moved from Agra to Kabul, Ajmer, or Mandu and the great encamp-
ment became temporary imperial headquarters. Jahangir’s one attempt
to establish a new city near the hills along the Ganges ended because of
his illness.'* Instead the emperor devoted his creative energies to a
number of building projects indelibly stamped by his own pronounced
aesthetic sensibility.

Notable among these were the great imperial _gardens of North India
and Kashmir. Charmed by the coolness and ambience of Kashmir,
Jahangir made several trips to that mountain valley during the hot
seasons on the plains. His urges toward building were consumed in
planning and laying out four magnificent outdoor gardens — Shalimar
Bagh, Achabal, Vernag, and Nishat Bagh — whose attenuated remains
can still be seen today.'5 The use of watercourses, pools, summer
pavilions, shade trees and plantings of flowers and shrubs created
patterns and designs, which, despite their scale, even today display an
appealing delicacy and order.

Jahangir regularly withdrew from the public face of rulership to a
more private, circumscribed, arena created by his lavish patronage and
inspired connoisseurship. In miniature painting he found a congenial
aesthetic form. The emperor was a demanding critic who obtained bold
innovation from his painters in techniques of modelling and spatial
depth. The talented artists of the imperial workshops painted a wide
range of subjects at Jahangir’s direction. Studies of animals, flowers,
and other natural motifs were painted because of their intrinsic interest
to the patron and his immediate circle. Under Jahangir naturalist trends
in Mughal painting reached their apogee.'*

Certainly, for Jahangir, as for Akbar, painting remained a political
weapon. Numerous examples of political iconography focused upon
the emperor survive. Many paintings from this period ~ such as that by
Abul Hassan showing Jahangir embracing a diminutive Shah Abbas,
14 Beni Prasad, History of Jabangir (London: Oxford University Press, 1922), p. 32
45 Sylvia Crowe, et al., The Gardens of Mughul India (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House

Pvt Ltd, 1972), pp. 90-120.

16 Milo Cleveland Beach, The Grand Mogul: Imperial Painting in India 1600-1660
(Williamstown, Massachusetts: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1978), p. 25.

Ior

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

the Safavid ruler, over a globe — display the public face of painting.”
Nevertheless, Jahangir as patron seems to have been more stimulated
by connoisseurship.

Frequent withdrawal to a private sphere of life was partly a reflection
of Jahangir’s indolence, brought on by his increasing addiction to a
potent daily dosage of opium and wine. In a strange, somewhat
paradoxical way, Jahangir’s passivity strengthened two interfolded
motifs within Timurid political culture: the familial claim of the
Timurids and especially the descendants of Babur, Humayun, and
Akbar to the Mughal throne; and the increasing inviolability of the
person of the ruler. Together these two motifs placed a crushing weight
upon any challenger or usurper — Timurid or not.

THE ASCENDANCY OF NUR JAHAN

In 1611 Jahangir met, wooed, and married the young widow of a
Mughal officer slain in Bengal. Mehrunissa, who was serving in the
entourage of one of Akbar’s widows, was a classic Persian beauty,
thirty years of age. Her father, titled Itimad-ud-daulah, was a high-
ranking nobleman at Jahangir’s court. The new queen rapidly became
Jahangir’s favored wife (from among a total of twenty) under the title
Nur Jahan or “Light of the World.” Nur Jahan’s beauty, her great love
for the emperor, her strong personality, and her abilities which ranged
from fashion design to hunting gave her unusual influence over
Jahangir. Her father became the imperial diwan or chief minister. Her
brother, Asaf Khan, rose quickly in rank to become one of the leading
noblemen at court.

Nur Jahan formed an alliance with Jahangir’s second son, Khurram,
who, as heir-apparent, held the jagir of Hissar pargana in the Punjab
and the right to pitch crimson tents. In 1612 Khurram married
Arjumand Banu, later Mumtaz Mahal, the daughter of Asaf Khan.
After this marriage, celebrated both by the prince and by Asaf Khan
with ostentatious splendor, the alliance was sealed.

Together these four persons — Nur Jahan, her father, Itimad-ud-
daulah, her brother, Asaf Khan, and Khurram, the Timurid prince —
exerted enormous influence over Jahangir. Imperial rescripts were
sometimes issued in Nur Jahan’s name. Most startling, however, are
the silver rupees minted bearing Jahangir’s titles on the obverse and the

17 Bamber Gascoigne, The Great Moghuls (London: Jonathan Cape, 1971), p. 130.

102

JAHANGIR 1605-1627

legend “‘struck in the name of the Queen Begam, Nur Jahan” on the
reverse.'® By adding her name to his coins, Jahangir publicly pro-
claimed Nur Jahan’s sharing of his authority in a prerogative central to
Islamic kingship. For over a decade, between 1611 and 1622, Jahangir
relied heavily upon advice from Nur Jahan and her colleagues.

Predictably a rival faction left outside the charmed circle of the
emperor’s favor emerged. Opposition nobles, headed by Mahabat
Khan, also an Iranian amir, looked to the blinded Prince Khusrau as a
symbol of their resistance to the domination of Jahangir by Nur
Jahan’s clique. Khusrau universally was seen as a tragic and popular
royal figure both by the populace at large and by the royal harem
women who resented Nur Jahan’s power. Popular opinion also held
that he was Jahangir’s real favorite instead of the proud overbearing
Khurram. The Nur Jahan group waited to claim the throne for
Khurram when the emperor died — a not unlikely scenario in view of
his excesses.

ROYAL DISCIPLESHIP AND HEREDITARY
SERVICE!

Jahangir, torn between emulation and rejection of his father, accepted
his inherited role as the light-suffused monarch capable of greater
knowledge and power than ordinary men. By the emperor’s own
statement his new title of honor, Nur-ud-din, “light of the faith”
linked him with the “great light” the sun.?°

Jahangir continued to enroll royal disciples from among his nobles
and, it would seem, guarded his authority over his disciples more
vigorously than Akbar thought necessary. Khwaja Khawand
Mahmud, a popular master of the Naqshbandi order, had enrolled a
number of nobles as his disciples during Akbar’s reign. Much of his
appeal consisted of his attachment to the forms and beliefs of orthodox
Sunni Islam — consistent with the tenets of the order. Shortly after

8-H, Nelson Wright, Coins of the Mughal Emperors of India (New Delhi: Deep Publi-
cations, 1st Indian reprint edition, 1975), p. 93. Originally published-by the Asiatic
Society of Bengal, Catalogue of the Coins in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, 111, “Mughal
Emperors of India,” 1908.

\% The following section is adapted from J. F. Richards, “The Formulation of Imperial
Authority Under Akbar and Jahangir” in Richards, ed., Kingship and Authority,
pp. 268-277.

2 Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements, p. 221.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Jahangir’s accession a high-ranking nobleman complained that Khwaja
Khawand Mahmud had pressed him to become his disciple (murid)
even though the Khwaja knew that he was already the disciple of the
emperor. The master responded that he was a disciple of the Holy Law
who was enjoined to obey those in authority. Therefore, he, the
Khwaja, was himself a murid of the emperor. Only this adroit reply
saved the Naqshbandi from the emperor’s anger.?!

Significant direct testimony to continuing royal discipleship
comes from the letters and journals of Sir Thomas Roe, ambassador
to the Mughal court from King James of England. Roe was in near-
daily attendance in the court and camp of Jahangir for nearly three
years (1615-1618). He established an affable relationship with the
emperor by becoming one of Jahangir’s favorite drinking com-
panions.

Like Akbar, Jahangir selected and initiated disciples from among his
favored nobles “who [are] worthy of receiving shast wa shabab,” i.e.
the seal or ring and the imperial likeness which were the symbols of
discipleship. In his own journal the emperor describes the details of the
enrollment ceremony.?? Roe himself, although he was not aware of the
full significance of the event, became a disciple of Jahangir. In August
1616, Jahangir favored the ambassador by enacting, without warning,
the ceremony of initiation:?3

August 17 ~ I went to visit the King, who, as soone as I came in, called to his
woemen and reached out a picture of himselfe sett in gould hanging at a wire
gould Chaine, with one pendant foule pearle, which he delivered to Asaph
chan, [Asaf Khan, the wazir] warning him not to demand any reuerence of
mee other than such as I would willingly giue, it beeing the Custome, when
soever hee bestowes any thing, the receiuer kneeles downe and putts his head
to the groun ... So Asaph Chan came to mee, and I offered to take it in my
hand; bet hee made signe to putt of my hatt, and then putt it about my neck,
leading mee right before the king. I understood not his purpose, but doubted
hee would require the Custome of the Country called Size-da [the full
prostration or sijdah of discipleship]; but I was resolved rather to deliuer up
my present. Hee made sign to mee to giue the king thancks, which I did after
my owne Custome.

21 Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements, p. 184.

2 S.A. A, Rizvi, Religious and Intellectual History of the Muslims in Akbar's Reign (New
Delhi, 1975), p. 400 quotes the full text of this passage.

2 William Foster, ed., The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul,
1615-1619 (London: Hakluyt Society, new series, 2 vols., 1894) 1, 244-45.

104

JAHANGIR 1605-1627

Roe commented that although the actual money value of his token
from the emperor was trifling it was an eagerly sought preferment:?*

held for an especiall favour, for that all the great men that weare the kings
Image (which none may doe but to whom it is given) receiue noe other than a
meddall of gould as bigg as sixpence, with a little chayne of 4 inches to fasten it
on their head, which at their own Chardge some sett with stones or garnishe
with pendant Pearles.

Selection as a royal disciple was a signal honor. Those who wore the
tiny portraits of the emperor were an elect group of imperial servants.

Jahangir in turn behaved as a disciple to the deceased Khwaja
Muin-ud-din Chishti whose intercession, he believed, had given him
life and Akbar a son and heir. In contrast to his father who seems to
have abandoned his own worship of the Chishti saint, Jahangir publicly
displayed his veneration. At Ajmer in 1614 the emperor visited the
tomb and distributed lavish gifts to the devotees and descendants of the
Shaikh. During this residence, Jahangir fell ill with a prolonged fever.
After several weeks, the weakened emperor finally went to the
mausoleum of the Chishti saint and prayed for health. When his
prayers were granted, Jahangir decided that “inasmuch as I was
inwardly an ear-bored slave of the Khwaja” he would have holes made
in his ears and place a lustrous pearl in each.?> As soon as the news
spread, Jahangir’s own disciples and admirers adopted the same
fashion and placed pearls in their ears. Jahangir distributed 732 pearls
to those officers who had made this gesture. The links of discipleship
reached from the Chishti saint, to the emperor, and from there to his
own disciples. Timurid and Chishti sanctity were conflated.

AGGRESSION ON THE NORTHEASTERN
FRONTIER

Under Jahangir the empire continued to be a war state attuned to
aggressive conquest and territorial expansion. In the northeast, after
weary campaigns to subdue the Afghans, the Mughals clashed with a
new enemy, the Ahoms. This hardy, aggressive, Shan people had been
moving from their home in upper Burma slowly down the Brahmapu-
tra valley since about 1400. As they did so, they defeated. and
assimilated or drove off the indigenous tribal and Hindu peoples of the

2 Ibid. 25 Jahangir, Tuzuk, 1, 267.

105

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

region. The Ahoms gradually came under Hindu religious and cultural
influence as they progressed along the Brahmaputra river.

Ahom determination shaped the limits of Mughal power in the
northeast. Unlike many Indian regimes, the Ahoms were not worn
down by centuries-long struggles against encroaching Muslim power.
Like their opponent they looked back on a history of victorious
aggression. Unconstrained by caste, ethnic, or religious barriers,
Ahom rulers mobilized virtually all adult male subjects for military
service or forced labor when campaigning. They carried on a sys-
tematic program of building roads, embankments and irrigation tanks
in lands seized and occupied. The Ahom state taxed and organized
people by labor levies and produce rather than land in the Indo-
Muslim structures. If policy dictated, the Ahom kings forcibly
uprooted and moved entire local populations to another habitation.
The Mughals found this Southeast Asian style of organization and
warfare extremely difficult to combat.

During Jahangir’s reign Mughal and Ahom armies battled nearly
every year in the riverine and jungly tracts of the northeast. Ahom
commanders threw up bamboo stockades, dug traps and pits, and
employed their musketeers with great skill. They made surprise night
attacks on the Mughal encampments that demoralized and slowed
imperial advances. Lahori, the mid-seventeenth century chronicler,
recorded the unflattering view of the Ahoms held by the Mughal
armies on campaign in this riverine land:?6
The inhabitants shave the head and clip off beard and whiskers. They eat
every land and water animal. They are very black and loathsome in appear-
ance. The chiefs travel on elephants or country ponies; but the army
consists only of foot soldiers. The fleet is large and well fitted out. The
soldiers use bows and arrows and matchlocks, but do not come up in
courage to the Muhammadan soldiers; though they are very brave in naval
engagements. On the march they quickly and dexterously fortify their
encampments with mud walls and bamboo palisades, and surround the
whole with a ditch.

From sheer necessity the Mughals learned to employ river boats with
bow-mounted cannon and matchlockmen as well as cavalry and
elephants in the watery reaches of Bengal and Assam.

26 As cited in E. A. Gait, A History of Assam, 3rd revised edition (Calcutta, 2 vols., Thacket
Spink, 1963), 1, 124.

106

JAHANGIR 1605-1627

DISCIPLESHIP ON THE FRONTIER

Younger men, members of a new generation come to maturity since
Akbar’s death, were inducted into the order of royal disciples. The
autobiographical memoir of Ala-ud-din Isfahani, a Persian nobleman
known as Mirza Nathan, testifies to the continuing appeal of this
institution.?” In 1607, the youthful Mirza Nathan accompanied his
father, Ihtimam Khan, commanding the imperial flotillas of armed
river boats, to the eastern frontier. Soon after his arrival in Bengal,
Mirza Nathan became seriously ill and lapsed into a fever. On the
seventh day of his illness he had an awesome vision. In his feverish
sleep “the king of the spiritual and temporal domain” [i.e. Jahangir]
appeared and addressed him:?8

“© Nathan! Is this the time for a tiger to lie down? Arise, we have granted you
security from pain and trouble by our prayers to the Almighty and Omni-
present Lord. Be quick, and placing the foot of manliness and sincerity in your
devoted work be a comrade to your great father and be his support.”

Nathan awoke fully cured of his fever and convinced of his mission.
With the help of his father and Islam Khan Chishti (a member of the
Fatehpur Sikri Sufi family), the governor of Bengal, Nathan sent a
petition to the emperor describing his holy vision and begging for
enlistment as one of the royal disciples. In reply, an imperial messenger
returned bearing a tiny portrait of Jahangir “adorned with a genealogi-
cal tree” of the Timurid dynasty. Although he was not summoned to
court for a personal ceremony, by placing this image in his turban
Mirza Nathan openly displayed his devotion and membership in the
elect body of disciples.

Mirza Nathan’s night vision of the emperor and his eagerness to act
upon this occurrence undoubtedly derived from his birth and upbring-
ing within the royal household. When Prince Khurram arrived in
Bengal in the course of his rebellion, he referred to the Mirza as “one of
the special servants of our Court, ... who was brought up from
childhood under our feet.”2 Nathan was in fact a khanazad (lit. “son
of the house”), which in Jahangir’s time seems to have connoted actual

2 Mirza Nathan, Baharistan-i Ghaybi, edited and translated by M. I. Borah (Gauhati, 2
vols., 1936). The Baharistan-i Ghaybi, completed by Mirza Nathan in 1632 A.D., contains
a full account of his career as a military officer in service on the marches of Mughal
expansion in eastern Bengal and Assam » daring Jabangir’s reign.

28 Nathan, Baharistan, 1, 17, 74. 29 Nathan, Baharistan, U1, 702.

107

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

residence in or connections with the imperial household during
childhood and adolescence. Later the term took on the wider meaning
of hereditary imperial service. This status and whatever preferment it
might bring intersected with the institution of discipleship for Nathan.

Sustaining these bonds of discipleship and hereditary family service
posed no difficulty in the imperial court or camp. Patrimonial relation-
ships were reaffirmed daily at the array of audiences presided over by
the emperor. During the large court audiences formal rituals of
authority and submission were enacted by gift exchange: the emperor
bestowed offices, titles, increases in rank, as well as honorific clothing,
horses, jeweled weapons, or even money. His subordinates invariably
made an offering of gold coins or other suitable gifts of value. The most
potent of these gifts were full or partial robes of honor worn momenta-
rily by the emperor or brushed across his shoulders. Thomas Roe
received from Jahangir “‘a cloth of gould Cloake of his owne, once or
Twice worne, which hee caused to bee put on my back, and I made
reverence ..., it is here reputed the highest of fauor to give a garment
worne by the prince, or, being New, once layed upon his shoulder.””°
Contact with the sacred person of the emperor was an affirmation of
his care and regard for his servants.

How were these personal ties between emperor and disciple sus-
tained, when as in the case of Mirza Nathan, nobles remained on
campaign? One tangible means lay in the exchanges necessary for
promotion. From his first elevation in rank in 1612 to 500 zat, 250
suwar Mirza Nathan progressed upward until in 1621, as reward for his
role in the suppression of a rebellion by a Muslim zamindar, he became
an amir at 1,000 zat, 500 suwar. The imperial rescript sent to the Mirza,
signed jointly by Jahangir and Nur Jahan, stipulated his new rank and
gave the Mirza a new title, Shitab Khan. The new nobleman also
received a full robe of honor. To complete the transaction Nathan sent
a gift of 42,000 rupees back to the Empress Nur Jahan.*! Alll the critical
elements of the personal exchange were carried out at a distance.

Other gift exchanges helped to maintain this illusion. On various
occasions special imperial envoys delivered a set of soft shawls; a shield
sent directly from the hand of the emperor; and two sets of pendant
pearl earrings (with their connotations of discipleship). To reciprocate,
Nathan organized wild elephant hunts and sent his choicest captives
back as personal offerings to the emperor.

% Foster, Embassy, 1,334. >! Nathan, Baharistan, 11, 666.

108

JAHANGIR 1605-1627

Mirza Nathan, in common with other imperial officers, occasionally
received written orders or farmans bearing the great seal of the Timurid
emperor. Such special rescripts were carried from court by one or two
imperial macebearers or by royal troopers (ahadis). Protocol on these
occasions demanded that the recipient act as if the emperor himself
were arriving. The noble rode several miles to greet the messenger;
performed the sijdah or full-length court prostration; placed the order
on his head and eyes and even kissed it before opening its container.

The emperor used a more dramatic form of communication. A
messenger of considerable rank could be sent to recite orders or
exhortations verbatim from the lips of the emperor.>? To end the
notorious factiousness of Qasim Khan, governor of Bengal succeeding
Islam Khan Chishti, Jahangir sent a revenue officer titled Ibrahim Kalal
with written orders of censure for the governor of Bengal, the
provincial fiscal officer, the provincial military inspector and pay-
master (bakhshi), and the news-writer. When the envoy arrived at the
provincial capital, the governor met him, performed the proper
obeisances, and received the written farman.

The next morning when the Bengal governor, his three principal
officers, and all his leading army commanders were assembled in the
audience hall, Ibrahim Kalal solemnly delivered from memory
Jahangir’s verbal rebuke to each of the four chief officers in turn.
Without waiting for a reply he left the audience hall and set out
immediately on his return journey.>3 Rituals of obedience and respect
were repeatedly enacted even in the absence of the ruler.

EXPANSION IN THE NORTHERN HILLS

To the north, in the Himalayan foothills, the Mughals had an easier
time than in Assam. By the 1590s Akbar had established his suzerainty
over most of the Rajput rulers whose modest mountain valley king-
doms cordoned the Himalayan foothills from Kashmir to the border of
Bengal. Although left internal autonomy, these chiefs were forced to
acknowledge the emperor’s supremacy, pay annual tribute, send
troops for imperial purposes if requisitioned, and send their sons to
serve at the imperial court or daughters to enter noble marriages. The
Mughal emperor reserved the right to intervene in successions to the
ruling seat. A few hill rajas were offered personal service as mansab-
32 See ibid., 11, 307-310 for an example of this practice.» Ibid.

109

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

dars by the emperor on terms similar to their fellow Rajputs in
Rajasthan. Akbar also began the practice of locating faujdars or
military governors in the hills to keep the Himalayan princes under
surveillance. These officers administered tracts of territory forced from
the tributary rajas and annexed as directly administered imperial lands.

The Himalayas permitted passage by traders and nomads over
mountain paths, but rendered improbable an armed invasion. The
Mughal emperor’s main goal here was to extend formal domination to
all the petty kings in the region. This could be done without fear of
reprisal from a neighboring great power. Jahangir’s primary goal in the
hills was subjugation of the Raja of Kangra. The latter relied upon the
legendary strength of his massive fortress to protect him as it had his
ancestors. Mughal operations began as early as 1615 against the capital,
but without notable success until finally Prince Khurram took the
fortress in 1618. The next year Jahangir travelled in person to celebrate
his victory by erecting a mosque in the courtyard of Kangra fort.

RELATIONS WITH PERSIA AND CENTRAL ASIA

The Islamic lands to the northwest of Mughal India - Persia and
Central Asia — posed a knotted complex of problems for Akbar’s
successors. Jahangir was well aware that this region was the source of
great danger. From Mahmud of Ghazni to the founder of his own
dynasty, raiders and conquerors had marched into North India from
the northwest. A fixed aim of Mughal policy was to deflect possible
invasion by well-led, massed steppe cavalry. Kabul and Peshawar must
be held at all costs, and, if possible, Qandahar and Ghazni. To make
matters more difficult, the northwest frontier could only be sealed for
very short intervals of great border tension. Rulers on both sides of the
frontier profited from the bustling caravan trade.

The symbolic weight of these regions was even more burdensome.
Samarkhand was Timur’s capital lost to the Shaibanid rulers of the
Uzbeks. The latter were inveterate enemies of Babur, the Chaghatai
Turks, and his royal descendants. Bukhara, Balkh, and Badakhshan
were the lands of Turan that long ago should have been restored to
Mughal sovereignty. These regions were also the homeland for the
Nagshbandi Sufi order and the ardent Sunni Islam that was part of the
Timurid heritage. Jahangir’s stated goal was “the conquest of
Mawara’a-n-nahr (Transoxania) which was the hereditary kingdom of

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JAHANGIR 1605-1627

my ancestors.”3+ Central Asian conquest was always an enticing
prospect for the Mughals.

Persia in the 1600s presented more difficult problems. Mughal
diplomatic relations with Safavid Persia varied with the ideological/
political stance adopted by each ruler. Apart from the carefully defined
clashes over Qandahar, growing hostility never became unlimited war.
Under Shah Abbas the Safavi state, although smaller in territory,
population, and resources, readily met any military challenges offered
by the Mughal empire. Each state threatened the other by aggressive
diplomacy and intervention in neighboring regions. The Safavids were
vulnerable in Turan or the Uzbek lands and the Mughals uneasy over
the Shi'ite rulers of Golconda in the Deccan.

The Safavids held one grave threat over the Timurids that could not
be countered. Persian nobles and administrators, forming one of the
largest ethnic groups in the Mughal nobility, kept up close ties with
their homeland. Given sufficient encouragement, it was conceivable
that Persian mansabdars might revolt, and bring on Safavid interven-
tion. No Indians held similar posts in Safavid Persia.

The Mughals suffered from the long-standing Persian claim of
cultural superiority over the colonial Islamic lands in India (or for that
matter over Turan). The Timurids accepted this judgment even as they
chafed under it. To this imbalance can be added the fierce sectarian bias
of the Safavis as ardent Shi'i and their contempt for the Sunni ortho-
doxy generally accepted by the Timurids. Much to their chagrin, the
Mughals owed their survival to the sanctuary provided first Babur,
then Humayun by the Safavis. More humiliating than the aid itself was
that public adherence to Shi'ite Islam demanded of each by Shah Ismail
and Shah Tahmasp.

The complex interaction between Safavis and Timurids was also a
product of intimacy. In a strange, and often bizarre, fashion, Safavid
and Timurid emperors looked to their opposites for affirmation of
their grandeur and worth, In their own eyes, they had no other peers
save the Ottoman Sultan. Frequent exchanges of letters, embassies,
gifts, and portraits marked what was an extraordinary ‘personal
relationship between the two emperors — conducted without ever
meeting in person.

Royal attraction and royal competition found tangible expression in
the disputed possession of Qandahar fortress, town, and province.

M4 Jahangir, Tuzuk, 1, 89.

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Akbar had recovered Qandahar in 1595 when two Safavid princes
defected. As soon as Jahangir became emperor, the Safavid governors
of Herat and other border areas organized an abortive assault on
Qandahar. After this failure, Shah Abbas patiently ignored this irritant
in favor of cultivating warm diplomatic and personal relations with
Jahangir.

By 1620, when Jahangir had fallen seriously ill, his queen Nur Jahan,
and Prince Khurram (later Shah Jahan) were locked in an intricate
struggle for dominance at the Timurid court (see below). Taking
advantage of these distractions, Shah Abbas personally led a Persian
army against Qandahar in the winter of 1622. Before a relief army
could be assembled the ill-prepared 300 man Mughal garrison surren-
dered and handed Qandahar back to Persian control.

THE DECCAN CAMPAIGNS AND COURT
POLITICS

At Akbar’s death the Mughals were poised to expand south against the
remaining Muslim Sultanates. Khandesh, Berar, and the northernmost
portion of Ahmadnagar were firmly under imperial control. Incom-
plete Mughal assimilation of Ahmadnagar and Akbar’s preoccupation
with the rebellion of Prince Selim permitted a resistance movement to
flare up in that kingdom. Malik Ambar, a “habshi” or Abyssinian
military slave officer, established a capital for Sultan Murtaza Nizam
Shah (1599-1631) at Khadki (later renamed Aurangabad) fifteen
kilometers distant from the great hill-fort at Daulatabad.

Soon after beginning his reign, Jahangir resumed military operations
against Ahmadnagar. Unenthusiastic campaigns by a succession of
imperial officers produced little result for nearly a decade. Malik
Ambar had obtained support from the Jadavs and several other
Maratha aristocratic families of the region. Finally, in 1616, the Mughal
prince Parwiz commanded a reinforced army that crushed the Ahmad-
nagar forces in a major battle near Jalna. The imperial armies looted
and razed Malik Ambar’s capital city at Khadki (or Khirki). Malik
Ambar fled to shelter in Daulatabad fort and resumed guerrilla
resistance when the Mughals withdrew.

At this juncture the Deccan campaigns became intertwined with the
intricate pattern of dynastic politics at the court. When Jahangir
ordered Prince Khurram to replace his brother Parwiz in the Deccan,

112

JAHANGIR 1605-1627

Khurram refused to set out for the Deccan campaign and leave the only
partially disabled Khusrau behind. He and Nur Jahan persuaded
Jahangir to transfer custody of Khusrau to Asaf Khan, Nur Jahan’s
brother. Thus reassured Khurram led a massive army against the
dwindling forces of Ahmadnagar. Jahangir travelled in person with his
court to Mandu to supervise the operations. Faced with defeat, Malik
Ambar offered full control of Berar and Ahmadnagar to the Mughal
prince.

The Nur Jahan group reached the height of its power with Khur-
ram’s victories in the Deccan and Jahangir’s prolonged tour to Mandu
and the sea at Gujarat. When, after an absence of five-and-one-half
years, the emperor returned to Agra in April, 1619, the political
kaleidoscope shifted within a year. Jahangir’s health deteriorated to the
point that Nur Jahan took active charge of the day-to-day running of
the empire. Tensions between Nur Jahan and Khurram rose as the
prince looked forward eagerly to his patrimony and acted more and
more as a ruling sovereign. In response, in 1620, Nur Jahan arranged a
marriage between Shahryar, Jahangir’s youngest son, age sixteen, with
her daughter Ladili Begam. She would then have a living male heir to
the throne under her control when her husband died. The rupture
between Nur Jahan and Khurram was complete. This bold action
established three royal princes - Khurram, Khusrau, and now Shah-
ryar — as contenders for the throne. Each found noble factions
coalescing around them.

Shortly after the emperor’s return to Agra, however, unrest in the
Deccan flared up again. Malik Ambar renounced the treaty imposed
upon his kingdom and encouraged Bijapur and Golconda to send
forces to help him drive out the Mughals. Jahangir ordered Khurram to
head a relief army, but the prince refused to act unless he could take
Khusrau with him. Accordingly, Jahangir reluctantly handed over
Khusrau to his brother.

Khurram’s dazzling six-month campaign ended with restoration of
imperial control in Ahmadnagar and heavy indemnities paid by
Bijapur and Golconda. Throughout this period Ahmadnagar was
neither fully conquered and annexed, nor neatly assigned tributary
status. For at least three decades a common pattern of Deccan
diplomacy persisted. Violent resistance to the Mughals alternating with
temporary submission was imprinted on the political culture of the
Western Deccan. Not least of the participants in this interaction were

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

the leading Maratha captains of the west. They gained autonomy,
plunder, and wealth from the inability of the Mughals to impose a
definitive political solution in their homeland.

In mid-1621 word arrived at Burhanpur that Jahangir was seriously
ill. Khurram had the unfortunate Khusrau secretly killed and then
reported his brother’s concocted illness and subsequent death to
Jahangir. In January 1622, the wazir, Itimad-ud-daulah died suddenly
to leave his grieving daughter, Nur Jahan, deprived of his advice and
support. Nur Jahan began construction of her father’s tomb in a garden
along the bank of the Jumna at Agra. Completed six years later, the
elegant mausoleum, built of white marble with rich inlaid colored
traceries, became one of the architectural treasures of the Mughal
period.

THE REBELLION OF PRINCE KHURRAM
(SHAH JAHAN)

Suddenly, in March, 1622, while the imperial court was in Kashmir,
Shah Abbas besieged and captured Qandahar fort. Despite a direct
order, Prince Khurram refused to leave the Deccan to join the relief
army unless he were given full command. In the end Jahangir, reacting
to Nur Jahan’s suggestions, permitted his son to remain in the south
and send some of his nobles north. Jahangir appointed the youthful
Shahryar commander of the entire Qandahar expedition (with an
experienced noble as deputy commander). Some of Khurram’s jagir
holdings (including Hissar pargana) were transferred to Shahryar.
Mahabat Khan, one of the most powerful nobles in the empire returned
from Kabul to strengthen the Nur Jahan/Shahryar party.

Convinced that he had lost the political struggle, Khurram rebelled
and marched with the Deccan army north from Mandu. Virtually all
the amirs and offficers stationed in the Deccan, Malwa, and Gujarat
remained loyal to his cause. Mahabat Khan assumed command of the
loyalist army which joined battle with the rebel Deccan forces outside
Fatehpur Sikri. Suffering a bloody defeat, Khurram retreated back to
Malwa. Here he received one million rupees in cash from the provincial
treasury of Gujarat to resupply and reman his army. Moving
aggressively to Ajmer, Jahangir and Nur Jahan directed the loyalist
armies who recovered control of Gujarat and drove Khurram from
Malwa. Plagued by desertions from among his officers, Khurram

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JAHANGIR 1605-1627

retreated with a small force to Asir, the great hill fortress just outside
Burhanpur, the capital of Khandesh, whose commander surrendered
to him.

Forced into flight once more, the rebel prince took refuge in
Golconda with his family and a dwindling group of followers. Heart-
ened by discreet aid from Abdullah Qutb Shah, Khurram made his way
to the northeast through Orissa. A military victory gave him control of
Bengal and Bihar. With fresh funds, artillery, horses, and new recruits
Khurram placed his forces on river boats and moved upriver on the
Ganges. Defeated near Allahabad, Khurram fled toward Bengal where
rebellious zamindars forced him south. Leaving his wife and his newly
born fourth son, Murad Bakhsh, in the great citadel at Rohtas on the
Ganges, Khurram found a strange refuge in the camp of his old
adversary Malik Ambar. The latter was engaged in a war with the
Sultan of Bijapur and his new ally, the Mughal emperor.

Khurram, at the head of a combined Nizam Shahi and rebel Mughal
force, directed a series of assaults on Burhanpur. These failed and the
prince fell ill ~ perhaps due as much to depression as anything else.
New negotiations resulted in terms dictated by Nur Jahan. Khurram
agreed to remain in the south as governor of the Deccan provinces and
to send his two young sons, Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb, as hostages
to the court.

Jahangir and Nur Jahan succeeded in quelling this revolt by the
heir-apparent only after several difficult battles and campaigns stretch-
ing over thousands of miles. Despite the outcome the most serious
weakness of the Timurid system was painfully apparent. Mature royal
princes of ability and ambition were a continuing threat to the
occupant of the throne and were a continuing focus for factional
maneuvering.

MAHABAT KHAN’S COUP

One unexpected result of Khurram’s rebellion was the emergence of
Prince Parwiz, hitherto seen as a drunken mediocrity, as a serious
contender for the succession. Mahabat Khan became Parwiz’s backer
and manager. Together they threatened Nur Jahan’s plans for Shah-
ryar. An open clash came when Nur Jahan called attention to the fact
that Mahabat Khan had not obtained the emperor’s approval custom-
ary for the betrothal of his daughter to a Mughal nobleman. This

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

resulted in the arrest, beating, and imprisonment of Mahabat Khan’s
prospective son-in-law. The dowry that Mahabat Khan had paid was
seized by treasury officials.

In March, 1626, Mahabat Khan chose to confront Nur Jahan and
Asaf Khan directly by marching north to the court at the head of four
to five thousand Rajput troops. The defiant general reached the
imperial camp on the banks of the Jhelum river where he made captive
the lightly guarded emperor. Nur Jahan was forced to give herself up to
Mahabat Khan. Now in control, Mahabat Khan restored Jahangir to
his daily routine as the camp proceeded on its journey. After arriving at
Kabul the general, who seems to have had no clearly conceived plan,
continued to guard the person of the emperor and to direct imperial
business. Nur Jahan and Asaf Khan succeeded in mobilizing anti-
Rajput sentiment among the imperial troopers (ahadis), other nobles
and the urban population of Kabul. Violent clashes resulted in large
numbers of casualties for the Rajputs.

Jahangir, carefully coached by Nur Jahan, acted out a pose of
cheerful compliance with the demands of his faithful servant and
captor, Mahabat Khan. Supervision of the emperor grew more lax. In
June on the return march toward Lahore, near Rohtas fort, the
emperor called for a muster and review of his own royal troopers and
those of the mansabdars. He asked Mahabat Khan to keep his Rajputs
separate. As soon as the royal troopers formed up, Mahabat Khan,
recognizing the inevitable, fled the camp to take shelter with Prince
Khurram in the Deccan.

Throughout this strange episode it is noteworthy that Mahabat
Khan made no attempt to harm the emperor or to replace him on the
throne by another Timurid male, or even by himself. Instead, when he
first seized Jahangir, Mahabat Khan claimed that he was acting only
out of desperation since he feared death or imprisonment from the
plots against him. In his desperation he had “boldly and presumptuou-
sly thrown myself upon Your Majesty’s protection.”35 The Timurid
ruler remained a potent symbol of authority to all concerned.

THE END OF THE REIGN

In October, 1626, Prince Parwiz died of the effects of alcoholism at age
thirty-eight at Burhanpur in the Deccan. Some suspicions that
38 Cited in Beni Prasad, History of Jahangir, p. 404.

116

JAHANGIR 1605-1627

Khurram had hastened the death of his brother were alive at the time.
This left only Prince Shahryar, married to a daughter of Nur Jahan and
her current favorite, and Prince Khurram as mature candidates for the
throne. During the hot weather of 1627 Jahangir had travelled one
more time to his beloved Kashmir. Within days Jahangir became
seriously ill. The badly enfeebled emperor died October 28, 1627, on
the return journey, some distance from Lahore. Neither of his two
sons was with him when he died. Shahryar, who suffered from a rare
form of leprosy marked by complete hair loss, had been advised to
precede the emperor back to the Punjab in the hope that the warm
climate of the plain would be curative. Khurram was on duty a
thousand miles to the south in the Deccan.

As soon as Jahangir expired, the wazir Asaf Khan, who had long
been a quiet partisan of Prince Khurram, acted with unexpected
forcefulness and determination to forestall his sister, Nur Jahan’s plans
for Shahryar. He placed Nur Jahan under close confinement with the
body of Jahangir in the camp. He obtained control of Shah Jahan’s
three young sons who were under her care. The wazir sent an imperial
messenger on the thousand mile journey south to bring Khurram back
from the Deccan. At the same time Asaf Khan obtained the agreement
of a majority of the nobles in the camp to proclaim Dawar Bakhsh, the
young son of the deceased Khusrau, emperor. The unfortunate young
prince was selected solely as a pawn to be sacrificed in Khurram’s
interest.

Asaf Khan thereby forced Prince Shahryar, then at Lahore, to fight
as a usurper against his cousin. Shahryar used the seven million rupee
treasure in Lahore fort to mobilize a large, disheveled, army of hastily
assembled mercenaries. He was easily defeated by Asaf Khan just
outside Lahore. Captured alive in Lahore fort, Shahryar was made to
submit formally to Dawar Bakhsh and then imprisoned and blinded.

Within twenty days imperial runners reached Khurram and the
prince started north immediately. Mughal officers along his route
presented themselves and received ranks and honors from Khurram,
who was seen as the leading contender for the throne. This supposition
became a certainty when news of Shahryar’s defeat by Asaf Khan
intercepted the prince as he crossed the Narmada river. Khurram sent a
farman ahead to Asaf Khan who had brought the imperial entourage to
Agra asking him to blind, and, if necessary, kill Shahryar, the puppet
emperor Dawar Bakhsh, and other mature male Timurid cousins. On

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

January 19, 1628, Asaf Khan imprisoned Dawar Bakhsh. He then
proclaimed Khurram emperor under the title of Shah Jahan by having
his name read in the Friday prayers. Two days later, when Shah Jahan’s
letter arrived, the wazir ordered the execution of Shahryar, Dawar
Bakhsh and his brother, and two sons of Prince Daniyal, Jahangir’s
brother. On January 24, 1628, Shah Jahan entered Agra and was hailed

as emperor.

118

CHAPTER6

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

At his accession, Shah Jahan, the dominant ruler on the subcontinent,
controlled vast territories, unmatched military power, and massive
wealth. He was heir to an ancient and impeccable royal lineage. The
new emperor’s pride in these circumstances and in his own strengths
was manifest — verging on arrogance by contemporary view. Shah
Jahan’s confidence was not unfounded. His abilities had been tested
over long years of military campaigning, diplomatic negotiation, and
political maneuvering. In 1628, at his official coronation, this
aggressive, able man assumed the identity for which he had been
training all his life. Empire and emperor were well fitted to each other.

Shah Jahan established his capital at Agra in the great fortress built
by Akbar. Agra remained the capital until 1648 when the court, army
and household moved to the newly completed imperial capital, Shahja-
hanabad, at Delhi. The spirit and form found in the new capital differed
noticeably from that of Fatehpur Sikri. Like the man, Shah Jahan’s new
city was appropriate to a more formal, more forbidding, and grand
monarchy and empire.

KHAN JAHAN LODI

In 1629, Khan Jahan Lodi, an Afghan noble ranked among the highest
in the empire at 6000 zat and 6000 suwar, fled Agra and sought refuge
with the Nizam Shah ruler of Ahmadnagar in the Deccan. This act of
defiance, unprecedented since Akbar’s days, was the more sensational
because of Khan Jahan Lodi’s privileged relationship with Jahangir. It
was ominous in that the possibility of a widespread Afghan uprising
could not be excluded and could have been the signal for a crisis in the
loyalties of the nobility. Khan Jahan, however, rebelled reluctantly, for
survival and with little hope of overthrowing his royal master. In many
ways his response was a response to a new, less-congenial style of royal
authority.

The youthful Khan Jahan Lodi, originally named Pir Khan, had
joined Akbar’s forces under Raja Man Singh in the last stages of the

11g

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Bengal conquest.! The personable young Afghan mansabdar quickly
became a royal favorite of Prince Daniyal, and, after his death, of
Jahangir. Like the emperor Pir Khan was deeply interested in Sufism
and mysticism. Retitled Salabat Khan at 3000 zat he was included in the
trusted few nobles who met regularly with the emperor in the inner
audience chamber of the bath (the gusalkhbana). The emperor even
talked of having his protégé married into the royal family.

Khan Jahan Lodi retained Jahangir’s complete confidence even
though his accomplishments were minimal. He led a failed Deccan
campaign; served as governor of Multan province in the midst of the
loss of Qandahar; was recalled to guard Agra fort during the revolt of
Prince Khurram; and finally became governor of the Deccan. In the
latter capacity he.colluded with the Nizam Shah ruler of Ahmadnagar
and handed over to him a large tract of the Deccan known as the
Balaghat. Just prior to Jahangir’s death on Khan Jahan’s orders,
faujdars and other Mughal officials in this territory gave up their posts
to Ahmadnagar officers and retired to Burhanpur. Khan Jahan Lodi
was widely reported to have received 300,000 gold hun as payment for
this notorious transaction.

When Jahangir died Khan Jahan Lodi made the mistake of rebuffing
an overture from Shah Jahan for support in the succession. For a time it
appeared that he would even resist the new ruler. Finally, however,
Khan Jahan Lodi came to court, but remained under a heavy burden of
suspicion — in sharp contrast to his role with Jahangir. The emperor
asked him to disband part of his followers and some of his jagirs were
resumed, After eight months of increasing tension, in October, 1629,
Khan Jahan Lodi secretly fled Agra with his family and followers
toward the Deccan. Pursued by a party of loyal officers, led by one of
the formidable Baraha Sayyids, Khan Jahan survived a desperate battle
at the bank of the rain-swollen Chambal river near Dholpur. His two
sons, two brothers, son-in-law, and sixty of his retainers were killed
and many of his women and dependents were left behind. Aided by
Jujhar Singh Bundela, Khan Jahan and his two surviving sons managed
to reach the welcoming court of Murtaza 1, Nizam Shah and was given
command of the Ahmadnagar armies.

Shah Jahan sent three separate armies south and followed them by

1 Shah Nawaz Khan and ‘Abdul Hayy, The Maathir-ul-Umara (New Delhi, 1st reprint
edition, 1979), edited and translated by H. Beveridge and Baini Prashad, 3 vols.,1, 795-804
for his biography.

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SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

shifting his court to Burhanpur in early 1630. Over the next year a
series of inconclusive clashes followed. Both the Nizam Shahi and
Mughal armies looted, burnt and devastated the countryside as they
marched. This simply added to the plight of the population who were
beginning to suffer from a prolonged drought and dearth. The famine
conditions of 1630 would be remembered as the worst for a century or
more in the Deccan and Gujarat. Depressed and demoralized, Khan
Jahan Lodi proved to be an ineffective commander, and late in 1630
suffered a disastrous defeat. He fled with several hundred horsemen
north through Malwa toward the Punjab where he hoped to raise
support from the Afghans in that province. Harried by a net of Mughal
parties, he was finally trapped and killed. His severed head went south
to Shah Jahan who received his trophy in a pleasure boat on the Tapti
river at Burhanpur. One of the most dramatic, and potentially serious
rebellions by a high-ranking amir was successfully suppressed. Khan
Jahan Lodi drew no substantial support from the remainder of the
nobility.

RETURN TO AN ISLAMIC POLITICAL CULTURE

Under Shah Jahan, for the first time, the results of an orthodox Muslim
reaction to the policies of Akbar and Jahangir had an effect on official
policy. Prominent leaders in the Naqshbandiya Sufi order were in the
forefront of a widespread revivalist reaction among orthodox Sunni
Muslims in India. Prominent charismatic teachers in this order, like
Khwaja Baqi Billah (d. 1603) stressed the overwhelming importance of
adherence to the Sharia and discouraged extreme forms of mystical
devotion among their followers? More controversial figures like
Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (see Chapter Five) and his sons and disciples
took a vigorous anti-Shia, anti-Hindu stance in their adherence to the
norms of the Sharia.» Obviously concerned to guard the Sunni
community against heresy and against the assimilative capacity of
Hinduism, the Naqshbandiya Sufis were spokesmen for a broader shift
in attitude among Indian Muslims. This was not confined to the
Naqshbandiya; the Shattari, Chishti, and other prominent Sufi orders
were increasingly affected by revivalist sentiments. Multiple affili-
2 Sayyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, A History of Sufism in India (New Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal, 1983) 11, 185-193.
9 Ibid., pp. 225-241.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

ations and membership in several orders by Sufis and laypersons alike
in this period ensured rapid diffusion of attitudes and beliefs among the
devout Sunni communities of the empire.
Shah Jahan’s attachment to orthodox Islam mirrored a hardening,
more formal delineation of Islamic community in the subcontinent.
The new emperor’s explicitly Islamic idiom was a pronounced depart-
ure from the inclusive political appeal made by his father and grand-
father. The cumulative effect of ‘these changes on Mughal political
culture was substantial. For all pious Muslim rulers the Sharia, as
interpreted by one of the four legal schools, was the only acceptable
touchstone for official policy. Shah Jahan cautiously began to test
Mughal policy against this standard. Some new polities adopted as
canonical reversed Akbar’s generally liberal treatment of non-
Muslims. In 1633, his sixth regnal year, Shah Jahan began to impose the
Sharia provisions against construction or repair of churches and
temples. When he learned that wealthy Hindus wished to complete
construction of several unfinished temples at Benares, he ordered that
all recently built temples in the city be torn down.‘ After this initial
flurry of destruction only prominent shrines encountered in the course
of military campaigns suffered damage.*
Shah Jahan celebrated Islamic festivals with an enthusiasm unfami-
liar to his predecessors. For example, to mark the birthday celebration
(Milad) of the Prophet Muhammad, on September 16, 1633, the
emperor staged a pious celebration featuring recitation of the verses of
the Koran in the great hall of public audience.* Gifts of money were
distributed to worthy ulema and Sufis there assembled.”
Long-dormant royal interest in the Holy Cities revived. Shah Jahan
resumed sponsorship of the annual Haj caravan to the west coast ports
under the direction of a Mughal officer, the Mir Haj. Every year two
Mughal ships sailing from Gujarat to the Hijaz carried Indian pilgrims
whose expenses were met by the state.® To fulfill a vow that he had
made upon his coronation, Shah Jahan sent two scholars on the Haj
laden with Indian goods to be sold for the benefit of the poor in Mecca
+E. Bedley and Z. A. Desai, eds., The Shab Jaban Nama of 'Inayat Khan, (Delhi, 1990),
p. 154. Sti Ram Sharma, The Religions Policy of the Mughal Emperors (London: Asia
Publishing House, Inc., 2nd edition, 1962), pp. 86-87.

5 Sharma, Religious Policy, pp. 86-87. © ‘Inayat Khan, p. 207.

7 Sharma, Religious Policy, p. 81.

«N.R. Faroogi, “Mughal Ottoman Relations: A Study of Political and Diplomatic

Relations Between Mughal India and the Ottoman Empire: 1556-1748,” unpublished
Ph.D thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1986, p. 208.

122

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

and Medina.? '° Eight similar missions followed during his reign.'! In
1643 the Sharif of Mecca, Zaid bin Muhsin (1631-1666) sent a warmly
received diplomatic mission to the Timurid court. In 1650 the head of
the earlier mission, Shaikh Abdus Samad, who had been dazzled by the
wealth and power of the Mughal court, returned to India and was
enrolled as a Mughal mansabdar and made chief judge of the army.!?

PEACOCK THRONE AND TAJ MAHAL

Shah Jahan’s confident sense of Mughal grandeur found creative
expression in monumental building at various scales. His first commis-
sioned work, the Peacock Throne, set the tone for a new era of
ceremonial display. At his coronation the emperor set aside diamonds
and other precious stones worth 10 million rupees for use on the new
throne. The empire’s most skilled craftsmen labored seven years on the
intricate design. Every possible surface was covered with motifs
formed by hundreds of beautifully set rubies, emeralds, diamonds, and
pearls, Above the canopy was the famed “peacock with elevated tail
made of blue sapphires and other colored stones, the body being gold
inlaid with precious stones, having a large ruby front of the breast,
from whence hangs a pear-shaped pearl of 50 carats ...”!3 Shah Jahan
occupied his new seat in a grand audience in Agra fort in March, 1635.

The Taj Mahal was his second, larger, project - one which has been
greatly admired as one of the triumphs of monumental building in
world history. On June 17, 1631, Mumtaz Mahal, beloved wife of Shah
Jahan, died in childbirth (her fourteenth) at Burhanpur in the Deccan.
The emperor was devastated by grief and went into prolonged mour-
ning for her. The dead queen’s body was temporarily interred at
Burhanpur before being brought to Agra by her son, Prince Shuja. On
a plot of land on the bank of the Yamuna river, Mumtaz Mahal was
buried. At Shah Jahan’s orders, imperial architects and builders began
to erect the marble plinth for a tomb over the grave that would be
known as the Taj Mahal.

The tomb itself, with its great bulbous dome of white marble flanked

» Faroogi, “Mughal-Ottoman Relations,”p. 204. "© Ibid. p. 206.

1 Ibid, pp. 208-209.

2 Ibid. p. 208.

‘3 Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Travels m India (London: Macmillan and Co., 2 vols. 1889) 1,
381-384. The throne itself has not survived its removal from India in 1739 by the Persian
invader Nadir Shah.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

by four slender minarets, is merely the central feature of a larger walled
complex comprising some forty-two acres. An imposing set of gate-
ways and courts offers access to the walled garden with a view of the
entrance to the tomb at the far end. The gardens themselves are laid out
in a four-part pattern divided off by two intersecting water channels.
The entire complex, the product of intense creative effort and great
expenditure, required seventeen years to complete.

Shah Jahan did build a mausoleum for his beloved wife. Tran-
scending his grief, however, the tomb-complex affirms the emperor’s
religious faith in Islam and the centrality of Islam to the Timurid
empire. The Taj “was conceived as a vast allegory of the Day of
Resurrection, when the dead shall arise and proceed to the place of
Judgment beneath the Divine Throne.”4 Every feature of the Taj,
from the tiniest detailed embellishment to the largest structural
element, forms part of a unified whole designed to support this
message.

The gateways and gardens of the Taj are “symbolic replicas of the
gateway and gardens of the celestial Paradise.”!5 The main entrance
represents the gateway by which Muhammad entered Paradise during
his miraculous heavenly ascent known as the Mi'raj. The four water
channels of the gardens represent the four Rivers of Paradise. The
raised marble tank in the center signifies the celestial tank of abundance
(Al-Kawthar). The marble tomb itself with its bulbous dome is a
replica of the heavenly Throne of God. God sits in this throne above
Paradise to tender judgment on the Day of Resurrection. The four
minarets can be seen as the four supports of the throne of God referred
to in popular medieval cosmology.

The allegory is made explicit by careful placement of lengthy carved
inscriptions containing Koranic verses. The design and execution of
the inscriptions was the work of Amanat Khan, the imperial calligra-
pher, who carried out a similar task on Akbar’s tomb. The south facade
of the main gateway displays the entire Sura 89, “The Daybreak”
whose theme is that of the Day of Judgment. In the most awesome
imagery, the Sura promises that God will punish the wicked and the
thoughtless. Finally, however the Sura ends with God’s promise to the
faithful:!¢

\ Wayne E. Begley, “The Myth of the Taj Mahal and a New Theory of Its Symbolic
Meaning,” The Art Bulletin, March, 1979, pp. 7~37-
5 Tbid.,p.13. '* Begley, “Taj Mahal,” p. 13 and n. 34.

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SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

O thou soul at peace,

Return thou unto thy Lord, well-pleased and well Pleasing unto
Him!

enter thou among My servants —

And enter thou My Paradise!

The Taj is that paradise. Mumtaz Mahal and, beside her, Shah Jahan lie
in graves buried beneath the Throne of God. In the epitaph inscribed
on his grave below, Shah Jahan is described as Rizwan, the gatekeeper
of Paradise. His was a profound attempt to create an image of God’s
majesty and power — a profoundly Islamic vision.

A NEW CAPITAL: SHAHJAHANABAD DELHI

In 1639 Shah Jahan launched his most ambitious building project:
construction of a new capital. Agra’s palace fortress was cramped and
the city itself overcrowded. A task force of architects, builders, and
astrologers recommended a site just south of Delhi on a bluff over-
looking the Yamuna River.!7 Delhi was especially fitting as the old
Indo-Muslim center of empire in North India. The author of an early
eighteenth century geographical compendium observed, “[Delhi] was
always the dar al-mulk [seat of the empire] of the great sultans and the
center of the circle of Islam (markaz-i dairah Islam].’”8 The tombs and
monumental buildings of the early conquerors of Hind were to be
found there.

Delhi was also a religious center of great sanctity for pious Muslims.
The tombs of dozens of revered saints and Sufis could be found in the
city and its adjoining countryside. On the death anniversary of each
saint, thousands of pilgrims travelled to Delhi to participate in the urs
festival celebrating his entrance into paradise. Redolent memories of
Muslim victory and piety were firmly embedded in the new capital.
Akbar had rejected the symbolic associations of Delhi as the redoubt of
Muslim conquest; Shah Jahan returned eagerly to these associations.

At an auspicious moment, on April 29, 1639, excavations began.'?
Construction proceeded steadily for nine years. The fort and its
buildings consumed 6 million silver rupees in their construction.

17 Stephen P. Blake, “‘Cityscape of an Imperial Capital, Shahjahanabad in 1739” in R. E.
Frykenberg, Delhi Through the Ages (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 153.

© From “Bahjat al-Alam” of Hakim Maharat Khan Isfahani, Persian Manuscript Collection
Ethe 729, India Office Library, folio 34a quoted in Blake, “Cityscape,” p. 155.

19 Blake, “Cityscape,” p. 155.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Finally, all was ready, and on the auspicious day of April 19, 1648,
Shah Jahan formally entered Shahjahanabad and took up residence.
Days of grand celebration and royal largess followed as nobles,
scholars, and dignitaries assembled under a great canopy of
embroidered velvet in the hall of public audience.

Shahjahanabad was a carefully designed courtly city. The emperor
placed the great palace fortress, the “Auspicious Fortress’ (Qila
Mubarak) on the river bank at the meeting place of the two major
thoroughfares. The fortress, still standing today, with its broad, 60 to
75 ft. high walls of red sandstone forms an uneven octagon nearly two
miles in circumference. A stone-faced, water-filled moat protected the
land side; the Yamuna river the other.

The southern half of the fort contains the principal palace and an
array of living quarters and apartments for the emperor, the harem and
household. The largest of these mansions belonged to Jahan Ara
Begam, Shah Jahan’s favorite daughter. The northern half of the
fortress enclosed two large gardens intersected by tanks and water
courses. Around the outer walls were offices, storerooms, the mint,
and dozens of workshops and the royal stables.

Opposite the fortress on a hillock stood the enormous communal
mosque — the Jama Masjid — the largest such mosque in India with
space for thousands of worshipers. The Jama Masjid was flanked by a
hospital offering free care of the sick and a madrasa or religious school.
In its scale and placement the Jama Masjid offered a symbolic
counter-weight to the great fortress.

The massive palace-fortress was the terminus for two straight broad
thoroughfares which framed the city. From the fort’s Lahori gate ran a
broad avenue with a covered arcade housing over fifteen hundred
shops and porticoes. The avenue and shops were designed and paid for
by Jahan Ara Begam, one of Shah Jahan’s wives. A branch of the city’s
canal flowed down the middle of the street. The first of several squares
called the Kotwali Chabutra, or magistrates’ platform, centered on the
public area where the city magistrate tried and punished criminals in
public. The second great square centered on a large pool. A sarai or inn
built by Jahan Ara Begam stood at the north end of the square; a
hammam or public bath at the other. The reflection of the moon by
night from the pool gave the square the name Silver or Moonlight
square (Chandni Chawk).

The other main thoroughfare extended due south from the Akbara-

126

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

badi (Agra) gate of the fort over a kilometer to the Akbarabadi gate of
the city walls. A branch of the canal flowed down the center of the
avenue. Another of Shah Jahan’s wives, Nawab Akbarabadi Begam,
constructed a double row of shops. Just south of the fort gate Nawab
Akbarabadi Begam had designed a broad square. At one end she
constructed an imposing mosque, adjacent to it an inn for travelers or
sarai, and opposite a public bath.

Within the city walls, framed by the canals and central avenues, the
remainder of Shahjahanabad took shape in quarters (havelis) defined by
the mansions, mosques and gardens of the nobility. The walled and
guarded establishment of these grandees included private living quarters
for the noble and his harem, his officers and clerks, his slaves, servants,
and soldiers. The largest might house 5,000 persons. Around these sites
clustered the dwellings of hundreds more traders, servants, and other
urban folk dependent upon the great man’s largess and patronage.

Shahjahanabad, the emperor’s “abode” or “mansion,” was a splen-
did urban creation. Every day the lavish rituals of imperial audiences
were imitated on a lesser scale by nobles holding court in their
mansions throughout the city. Every day the public rituals of Islamic
secular and religous life were enacted in the bazaars, baths, sarais,
gardens and mosques of the great city. At its height Shahjahanabad was
the pulsating heart of a grand empire.

In addition to these three projects, Shah Jahan kept his architects and
builders engaged in a constant series of endeavors throughout his reign.
These ranged from Jahangir’s mausoleum, completed in 1637, to
extensive renovations and additions on Lahore fort, and to Shalimar
Garden in Kashmir, completed 1641-2. Shireen Moosvi has estimated
that Shah Jahan’s expenditure on buildings over his three-decade reign
totalled at least 28.9 million rupees.?° Imposing as is this figure, it was
but a small portion of the monies devoted to war and attempted
territorial expansion.

CONSOLIDATION ON THE INTERNAL
FRONTIER

Under Shah Jahan’s vigorous direction the empire continued its
expansion. Mughal power realigned political relationships and political

20 Shireen Moosvi, “Expenditure On Buildings Under Shabjahan — A Chapter of Imperial
Financial History,” Proceedings of the Indian Historical Congress 46th Session (Amritsar,
1985), pp. 285-299.

127

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

culture in every region of the subcontinent. Even previously remote
refuge areas felt the imprint of imperial power.

The small Rajput kingdom of Baglana sitting astride the main route
from Surat and the western ports to Burhanpur in the Deccan had been
tributary to one Muslim ruler or another for centuries. In 1637,
however, Shah Jahan decided on complete annexation. Mughal armies
under Prince Aurangzeb easily overran the kingdom. The Baharji, the
Raja of Baglana, became an amir of 3,000 zat in Mughal service, but he
did not retain his former kingdom as a watan jagir. Instead Baglana was
attached to Khandesh province and administered by a Mughal faujdar
and representatives of the provincial diwan. The empire began to
collect its standard revenues with the aid of deshmukhs and other local
notables, The Baharji died soon after the conquest. His son converted
to Islam and received the title of Daulatmand Khan, 1,500 zat rank and
control of a pargana as a watan jagir in Khandesh province.

In Sind, the northwestern border province straddling the lower
Indus river, weak political authority and extremely fragmented tribal
polities meant that the Mughals were forced to build an authority
structure before they could impose a standardized imperial administra-
tion. By Shah Jahan’s reign this process was well advanced. Mughal
administrators pressed hard against the turbulent horse, cattle, sheep,
and camel raising pastoralists of that arid region.?! From fortified
urban bases at Sehwan in the north downriver to Nasapur, and the
provincial capital at Thatta in the Indus delta, Shah Jahan’s governors
and faujdars mounted punitive expeditions against the Baluch and
other tribes. Despite occasional setbacks, thousands of tribesmen were
killed or sold into slavery. A network of Mughal small forts or thanas
manned by cavalry and musketeers was established. These policies
discouraged raiding and plundering of sedentary cultivators settled
near the towns and rendered caravans and river traffic more secure
from tribal banditry.

Mughal policy also attempted, with some success, to obtain either
taxes or services from the Sind tribesmen. Provincial revenue officials
tried to collect revenues from each body of pastoralists on a regular
basis. These revenues were demanded in cash, not in animals. If unpaid,
a punitive expedition resulted. Occasionally, revenue demands were
reduced or eliminated in return for protection of trade or travelers.

2 Sunita Zaidi, “The Mughal State and Tribes in Seventeenth Century Sind,” The Indian
Economic and Social History Review, 26 (1989), 343-362.

128

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

Lineage heads were taken hostage to ensure good behavior on the part
of their followers. Many Sind chiefs received payments, honors, and
areas as “jagirs” from which they received Mughal support in collect-
ing revenues. Some were even given small mansabs as recognition of
their goodwill. Muslim Sufis whose control of tombs and other holy
places allowed them to mediate tribal disputes, obtained tax-free land
grants and cash allowances to bind them to the imperial cause.

More obscure Rajput houses were subject to new pressures. The
Bundelas, a relatively low status clan of Rajputs, had forcibly estab-
lished a capital at Urchha on the Betwa river in 1531.72 Over several
generations cadet lineages of Bundela Rajputs founded other clan
centers in what had come to be known as Bundelkhand. Early in
Akbar’s reign a Mughal army forced the Bundela ruling house to
submit and pay tribute.

In 1595, Bir Singh Dev, a member of the Bundela royal lineage,
arranged the assassination of Abul Fazl at Prince Salim’s request. On
gaining the throne Jahangir intervened to set aside other more likely
candidates to place Bir Singh Dev on the Bundela gaddi. Simultane-
ously, the Bundela ruler became a high ranking Mughal amir and
retained control over his kingdom as a watan jagir under terms similar
to those of the greatest Rajput nobles. Under these favored circum-
stances Bir Singh built up a vast fortune and unchallenged domination
of Bundelkhand before he died in 1627, the same year as Jahangir.

When Bir Singh’s son and heir, Jujhar Singh, presented himself at
Shah Jahan’s court, the emperor initiated an official enquiry into the
estate of the dead Bundela amir. This inquiry may have been prompted
by the deceased Raja’s vigorous role in the suppression of Shah Jahan’s
revolt against Jahangir. Alarmed by this prospect Jujhar Singh fled
Agra for Urchha without permission. Shah Jahan sent a 34,000 man
army in pursuit, The imperial troops devastated the countryside
around Urchha before storming the city’s fortress. Three thousand
Bundela troops died in the battle. Badly defeated, Jujhar Singh abjectly
asked for a pardon. Shah Jahan extracted a 1.5 million rupee indemnity,
forty war elephants (a regional export), and the annexation of one
district to imperial administration. The emperor also insisted that

22 Kolff refers to the Bundelas as a “‘spurious” Rajput clan whose members could not
intermarry in the larger network of byeceaaoue Rajput alliances. Dirk H. A. Kolff,
Nauher, Rejpat and Sepoy: The Etbnobsory of the Mltary Labour Market in Hindw-
stan, 1450-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 120-143.

129

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Jujhar Singh personally serve with his sons and military contingent as a
Mughal nobleman in the ongoing Deccan campaigns.

When he finally returned to Urchha in 1634, Jujhar Singh violated
imperial rules by leading an illegal raid on his neighboring ruler, the
Gond raja, Bhim Narayan. The Bundelas attacked and captured
Chauragarh, the ancient town and fortress of the Gonds, killed Bhim
Narayan and seized the one million rupee hoard found in the fort. Shah
Jahan, acting upon a complaint of the dead raja’s son, demanded that
Jujhar Singh vacate the lands that he had occupied, return the treasure
to the emperor, and pay a fine.

Jujhar Singh’s outright defiance of this order inflamed Shah Jahan.
He sent another large army under the nominal command of the
sixteen-year-old Prince Aurangzeb to invade Bundelkhand. The
Mughal troops quickly overran Urchha again and installed a more
pliant ruler. Devi Singh Bundela, head of the senior Bundela lineage
and a Mughal mansabdar, (whose line had been set aside by Jahangir
in favor of Bir Singh Dev) became raja at Urchha.

Mughal cavalry pursued Jujhar Singh, his family and fragments of
his army into the forested lands of Chanda, another Central Indian
Gond kingdom, which had not yet acknowledged imperial suzerainty.
When overtaken by Mughal troops, Jujhar Singh’s principal queens
were killed by their attendants, but the remaining royal women were
sent to join the Mughal harem. Two very young sons and a grandson
were converted to Islam. Another older son who refused to convert
was killed outright. Jujhar and his eldest son, driven into the jungle,
were caught and killed by a party of Gonds.

At Chanda, the Mughal commanders compelled the unfortunate
Gond raja to pay a large indemnity and agree to an annual tribute of
80,000 rupees or twenty elephants. At Urchha an intensive search for
the Bundela treasure turned up money and precious objects valued at
ten million rupees. Shah Jahan himself journeyed to Urchha to see the
picturesque waterfalls and hills and palaces of the region. At Urchha,
“the Islam-cherishing Emperor demolished the lofty and massive
temple of Bir Singh Dev near his palace, and erected a mosque on its
site.”23 Aggressive action on the internal frontier in Central India
imposed a new, more intense, level of Mughal political domination in
Bundelkhand and Gondwana.

23 Abdul Hamid Lahori, The Padshah Nama (Calcutta: Bibliotheca Indica, 2 vols., 1867), 1,
121-122. Quoted in Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib (Calcutta, 5 vols., 1912-1924),
I, 29.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

FAILURE ON THE NORTHWESTERN BORDER:
BALKH

Shah Jahan tested the limits of Mughal power in the 1640s by trying to
recover the Timurid homelands in Central Asia then ruled by his
ancestral enemies, the Uzbeks. Uzbek territory included Bukhara and
Samarkhand north of the Oxus River and the provinces of Balkh and
Badakhshan to the south. Possession of Kabul and Peshawar helped to
secure the Mughal northwest frontier, but a steppe power like the
Uzbeks remained an unpredictable and formidable threat to northern
India.

Shah Jahan had long maintained diplomatic communications with
the Khan of Bukhara in order to obtain a flow of intelligence about the
political situation in the Khanate. The most useful emissaries used by
both sides were Naqshbandiya Sufis. The latter played a central role as
members of the political and economic elites of the Central Asian states
at this time. The Mughal emperors tried to make use of their long-
standing family connection with the order.

During the mid-1640s an opportunity appeared. On the losing end
after a year-long civil war with his son Abdul Aziz, the Uzbek ruler
Nazar Muhammad Khan sent an envoy to the Mughal court to plead
for aid. Shah Jahan, citing their long-standing friendship and religious
affinity as fellow Sunni Muslim rulers, responded favorably.

The emperor assembled a 60,000 man army with field artillery under
the command of Prince Murad. Murad was ordered either to restore
Nazar Muhammad Khan as a tributary ruler or, alternatively, to annex
the kingdom. In July, 1646, Prince Murad, and his co-commander, Ali
Mardan Khan, occupied Balkh against minimal resistance. The
imperialists seized the Khan’s treasury containing 12 million rupees,
but failed to capture Nazar Muhammad Khan who fled the city and his
rescuers. Within a month, Prince Murad, dismayed by the dour,
inhospitable landscape of Balkh, pressed to return to India. Shah Jahan
called on his wazir, Sa’dullah Khan, to relieve the disgraced prince and
to organize the occupying army.

In preparation for a spring campaign against Abdul Aziz and the still
unpacified Uzbeks, Shah Jahan recalled his second son, Aurangzeb,
from Gujarat and sent him to Balkh as the new imperial governor. Shah
Jahan himself followed to provide support from Kabul. Aurangzeb
found himself embroiled in a difficult war as he fought his way into

132

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

Balkh. The Uzbeks discovered at considerable cost the effects of the
Mughal field artillery and musketeers. But they could outmaneuver the
Mughals in fast-moving skirmishes to create a stalemate. During the
summer of 1647 the Mughals sat at Balkh and engaged in a protracted
series of negotiations with Abdul Aziz at Bukhara.

To its dismay the imperial army discovered that it could not live
off the land. In this harsh mountainous land the Mughals found no
equivalent to the Indian grain carriers, the banjaras, who normally sup-
plied them. Foraging was nearly futile because the generally productive
irrigated fruit orchards and grain fields of Balkh were devastated by the
war. Under straitened circumstances, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb nego-
tiated a settlement, not with Abdul Aziz but with his father. Finally, in
October, 1647, threatened by the onset of winter, Aurangzeb handed
over the city and adjacent districts of Balkh to Nazar Muhammad Khan
in exchange for a treaty offering nominal submission to the Mughal
emperor. Harassed by Uzbek troops and marauding Turkoman
tribesmen, the retreating Mughal army suffered several thousand
casualties on the difficult return through snow-bound passes to Kabul.

At the end of two years of sustained effort the Mughal-Uzbek treaty
of 1647 extended the imperial frontier north from Kabul by about forty
to fifty kilometers. For the remainder, Shah Jahan had to settle for the
dubious satisfaction of receiving formal recognition of his sovereignty
from Nazar Muhammad Khan at Balkh. At no time did his forces
seriously threaten the Uzbek capital at Bukhara or come close to
seizure of Samarkhand.

The two-year Uzbek campaign demonstrated the true costs of
reasserting Timurid domination over the sparsely populated, impover-
ished lands in Central Asia. Shah Jahan, by official tally, spent forty
million rupees in an attempt to conquer kingdoms whose total annual
revenues were no more than several million rupees. The Mughal search
for familial vindication in this region crashed against the harsh realities
of distance, scanty resources, and determined local resistance. In one
sense the Mughal Chaghatais had failed once again to defeat the
Uzbeks and Turkomans, their inveterate adversaries.

THE NORTHWEST: QANDAHAR

One of Shah Jahan’s fixed goals was recovery of Qandahar fort from
his Safavid rival. Finally, in 1638, an opportunity came when the

133

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Persian commander, Ali Mardan Khan, rightly fearing his execution by
the capriciously crue] Shah Safi (1629-1642), surrendered Qandahar
fortress to the Mughals. Shah Jahan welcomed the distinguished and
highly regarded Safavid noble with rank of 5,000 zat and 5,000 suwar
and immediate appointment to the governorship of Kashmir.

A decade passed before Shah Abbas 11 (1642-1666) decided on a
major military effort against Qandahar. Taking advantage of Shah
Jahan’s failure in Balkh, the Safavid armies set out under the young
Shah in the winter of 1648. Shah Jahan, although warned of the move,
allowed himself to be dissuaded from a relief expedition by his nobles
who argued that a winter campaign was unthinkable. The demoralized
governor of Qandahar surrendered within two months.

Safavid victory brought an immediate response from the enraged
Mughal emperor. Over the next four years, Shah Jahan mounted
three major campaigns against Qandahar. Each failed ignominiously.
In 1649, moving to Kabul, Shah Jahan organized a 50,000 man army
commanded by Sadullah Khan, the wazir, and his most capable son,
Aurangzeb. This force reached Qandahar but failed to break ‘the
fort’s defenses and withdrew before the winter season. Three years
later, in 1652, another Mughal army under Aurangzeb also failed to
take the fort before winter set in. The Mughals did beat off a Persian
relief force in a pitched battle but could not break the fortresses’
defenses.

Mughal failure here was partly a measure of the length of the supply
line from Kabul, itself at the extremity of the empire. Partly this was a
measure of Safavid determination to hold Qandahar. To a considerable
extent, however, Mughal siege artillery simply was inadequate to the
task. Safavid artillerymen inflicted continuous casualties on the
besiegers. The less-accurate Mughal artillery was unable to direct
effective covering fire. Many Mughal guns burst with damaging effects
when overloaded.

Between April and September, 1653, Shah Jahan made one last
attempt to break Qandahar’s defenses. He sent his favorite son Dara
Shukoh to command a larger siege force. The latter commissioned three
specially cast large guns for the task. When they finally arrived, the
new siege guns did manage to breach some of the fortress walls, but not
in time. Dwindling supplies and the season forced a return to Kabul.
Shah Jahan contemplated yet a fourth attempt in 1656, but his advisers
persuaded him to abandon the idea. Qandahar remained a Safavid

134

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

‘possession until the dynasty itself faltered in the early years of the
eighteenth century.

Two attempts to invade Balkh and Badakhshan and three closely
spaced sieges of Qandahar consumed Mughal resources and attention
for nearly a decade. In the end Shah Jahan failed completely. He did
not reach Samarkhand, nor did he retain possession of the gateway to
India at Qandahar. The cost was heavy. As the Mughal historian Sadiq
reviewed the second Qandahar campaign: “nothing resulted from this
expedition except the shedding of blood, the killing of thirty to forty
thousand of people, and the expenditure of three crore and fifty lac [35
million] rupees.”

NORTH

In the Himalayan foothills Garhwal, a remote Rajput hill state,
successfully fought off a Mughal army which tried to impose tributary
status in 1635. So badly mauled were the Mughals that it was nearly
twenty years before Shah Jahan sent another strongly equipped
expedition against Srinagar, the capital. After this army was forced to
withdraw, the emperor assembled a 4,000 man force with artillery to
march laboriously into the hills and threaten the Garhwal capital. At
this point, in 1656, the Raja submitted, agreed to pay tribute and sent
his son to serve at the imperial court.

Elsewhere the Mughals did succeed in thrusting beyond the moun-
tain ranges bounding the subcontinent. In the difficult high mountain
country north of Kashmir a small Muslim population subsisted in the
valleys known as Lesser Tibet or Baltistan. Beneath the shadow of the
Balti range the inhabitants extracted modest amounts of gold from the
rivers, raised sheep for wool, carried on limited sericulture, and grew
fruits, wheat, and barley.26 The Muslim ruler of Lesser Tibet had given
refuge to the last Shia Muslim Chak ruler of Kashmir when that
kingdom fell to Akbar’s army. The princes of that house occasionally
led raids back into Mughal Kashmir. This provocation was the
immediate source of Mughal interest in what in their view was a
2 Muhammad Sadiq, “Shahjahan-Nama,” British Museum, Oriental 174. Folio 173a. As

translated and quoted in Islam, Jndo-Persian Relations, 114.

25 Banarsi Prasad Saksena, History of Shab Jaban of Delhi (Allahabad, reprint of 1932

edition, 1973), p. 123. Begley and Desai, eds., ‘Inayat Khan, eighth regnal year, 1, 269.
26 Habib, An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (Delhi, 1982), map 3B 35+ 75+ for products of the

region.

135

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

“barren and impoverished region,” which yielded barely 100,000
rupees in revenues to its ruler each year.””

In 1634 the Abdal formally acknowledged the Mughal emperor’s
sovereignty by having Shah Jahan’s name read in the khutba or Friday
prayers in his capital. When he lapsed in this observance Shah Jahan
ordered Zafar Khan, governor of Kashmir to invade Lesser Tibet. In
the spring of 1637 Zafar Khan led a Mughal army of 2,000 cavalry and
10,000 infantry 150 miles north in a daring expedition over difficult
mountain passes. The army could count on no more than two months
of summer weather before the passes were blocked. Because the entire
route was virtually uninhabited, the invaders carried all their pro-
visions for the campaign.

When the Mughal army arrived it encountered stiff resistance. The
Abdal’s armies defended their two principal mountain forts with great
stubbornness against sustained assaults by Mughal musketeers and
dismounted cavalry. Only after the Mughals overran the forts did the
Abdal capitulate. Zafar Khan squeezed an indemnity of one million
rupees from the Abdal’s treasury, had Shah Jahan’s name proclaimed
in the Friday prayers and brought the Abdal and one of the Chak
princes back to Kashmir as captives.’® This episode illustrates the
extended reach of the emperor and the skill, tenacity, and effectiveness
of Mughal military commanders and their troops at their best.

NORTHEAST

In the riverine terrain of the Brahmaputra valley Shah Jahan was
content at first to leave the boundary of effective imperial control at
Kuch Bihar and Kamrup.2? At Hajo, capital of Kamrup, a Mughal
faujdar guarded the frontier approach to the Brahmaputra valley.
Across the frontier, Bali Narayan, brother of the deposed raja of
Kamrup, built up a strongly fortified and militarized buffer state at
Darrang as a tributary of the Ahom king. Both sides enjoyed the
benefits of a brisk trade. Captured elephants, gold from river wash-
ings, pepper, and lignum wood were in demand in India and quantities

® Ibid. 28 Saksena, p. 114.

2 The following is based upon Sudhindra Nath Bhattacharyya, A History of Mughal
North-east Frontier Policy (Calcutta: Chuckervertty, Chatterjee & Co. Ltd., 1929),
pp. 256-286 and S, C. Dutta, The North-east and the Mughals (1661-1714) (Delhi: D. K.
Publications, 1984), pp. 23-28.

136

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

of Indian textiles were readily sold at markets up the Brahmaputra
river.

In early 1636, however, slowly building tensions culminated in an
Ahom-Mughal war. The conflict was provoked by the murder of a
Muslim Assamese trader sent as an emissary to the Ahoms by the
Mughals. In the opening episode of the conflict, Bali Narayan and the
Ahoms invested Hajo and forced its garrison to surrender. The next
year, a Mughal amphibious force sent from Bengal recovered the
initiative. At the climactic land and river battle of Burpetah in
November, 1637, Mughal cavalry, artillery, muskets, and war-boats
destroyed an Ahom army and drove Bali Narayan back to Darrang.
The Mughals followed up by administering a sharp defeat to the Ahom
river flotilla and seized the river fort of Kajali on the Brahmaputra. The
capture and killing of Bali Narayan completed Mughal reoccupation of
Kamrup.

The Ahoms responded by sending their full battle fleet and army. In
1638 near Kajali the Ahom army and river fleet drove the Mughals back
with severe losses. At this point the Ahom king and Mughal faujdar
negotiated a treaty. The Ahoms formally recognized Mughal control
of Kamrup and the Mughals agreed to the independent status of the
Ahom monarchy. Restoration of the boundaries brought stability in
the region for the next two decades. In signing this treaty, Shah Jahan
formally conceded the complete independence of the Ahoms. Like the
Safavids in the west, the Ahom rulers remained outside the Indian
Mughal political system.

THE DECCAN

Shah Jahan, who had been in charge of the Deccan at Jahangir’s
death, wasted little time in organizing diplomatic and military pressure
against the remaining Muslim states of the Deccan. The emperor’s
pursuit of Khan Jahan Lodi brought a major Mughal campaign against
Ahmadnagar in 1630-31 at the height of the great famine. As soon as he
obtained the rebel’s head, Shah Jahan, then at Burhanpur, renewed the
campaign. The Mughal governor of the Deccan, Mahabat Khan, led an
army in the successful siege of Daulatabad fort in 1632. This was the
final episode in the conquest of Ahmadabad, the western Deccan
Sultanate. The young Nizam Shahi prince who had served as a puppet
for the Maratha commander, Shahji Bhonsla, became a state prisoner

137

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

for life in the fortress-prison of Gwalior just south of Agra. Many
Abmadnagar Muslim noblemen and a few Maratha captains entered
imperial service. In the territories annexed, an imperial governor,
diwan, and other officers imposed standard Mughal revenue and
administrative practices in the new province.

Ebullient with this newest triumph, Shah Jahan turned his attention
to the two remaining Muslim Sultanates: Bijapur, in the Marathi and
Kannada speaking portions of the western Deccan, and Golconda in
the Telugu-speaking eastern Deccan. In 1635 the emperor sent a
peremptory demand to each Sultan for recognition of Mughal hege-
mony. Each must strike coins with Timurid titles and have read the
emperor’s name as ruler in the Friday prayers. Also demanded was
payment of annual tribute and the presence of a Mughal diplomatic
officer at the Adil Shahi and Qutb Shahi courts.

The Qutb Shah ruler of Golconda quickly complied with these
demands, When the Adil Shah did not, Shah Jahan sent three Mughal
armies to converge on Bijapur and lay waste the countryside. Faced
with certain defeat, the Sultan quickly capitulated. The imposed
settlement placed both kingdoms firmly within the Mughal sphere of
influence. The southern imperial frontier was thereby stabilized for
several decades.

THE SHAPE OF EMPIRE

Shah Jahan’s buildings celebrated the expanding territories, growing
wealth, and stability of the Mughal empire. In 1647, the historian
Abdul Hamid Lahori, closing his enormous chronicle of the first two
decades of Shah Jahan’s reign, summarized the salient features of
Timurid rule.3° One was simply the sheer size of Shah Jahan’s empire.
Mughal dominion stretched from Sind in the far northwest to Sylhet on
the Brahmaputra and from newly conquered Balkh south to the
southern boundary of the Deccan provinces. Twenty-two provinces
contained 4,350 parganas — the basic unit of administration. So exten-
sive was the empire that many large parganas in Agra or Lahore
provinces generated revenue collections each year of more than one
million rupees. This sum, Lahori proudly pointed out, was greater than
the total budget for the entire country of Badakhshan.

Secondly Lahori stressed the extent of imperial revenues. The jama

%© Lahori, Padshah Nama t1, 709-716.

138

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

or assessed annual revenue of the empire was 8,800 million dams — a
sharp increase from the 7000 million dams assessed under Jahangir just
twenty years before. Lahori attributes part of this increase to growth in
population and cultivation under Shah Jahan. Recovery had been
especially dramatic in the four provinces of the Deccan and Ahmada-
bad (Gujarat) which had been desolated by warfare. Recently (after the
Mughal victories and Deccan diplomatic settlement of 1636) these
regions were restored to their original prosperity.

Thirdly, Lahori extolled the wealth and financial skill of his royal
patron. During his fifty-one-year reign Akbar had amassed large
amounts of treasure, but Jahangir had expended most of that reserve
during his twenty-two-year reign. Shah Jahan had overcome this
difficulty and succeeded in bringing great prosperity to the empire. To
build up his reserves the emperor stipulated that the imperial khalisa
should be set at 1200 million dams equivalent to 30 million rupees. This
meant that nearly one-seventh of the annual revenues were funneled
directly into the imperial treasury. This was a greater sum than had
ever before been made available for the central treasury.

Despite large expenditures on the military and for benefactions,
Shah Jahan, since ascending the throne, had accumulated reserves
worth 95 million rupees — half in coin and half in jewelry and other
valuables. And he had spent 25 million rupees in the construction of
grand buildings such as masjids, palaces, forts, tombs, hunting retreats,
and gardens in Delhi, Agra, Lahore, Kabul, and other parts of the
empire.

Fourth, Lahori stressed the military strength of the empire. Stipen-
diary cavalrymen numbered 200,000. This figure did not include local
troops recruited for, revenue collection by faujdars and amils. The
mansabdars themselves numbered 8,000 horsemen. Seven thousand
gentlemen-troopers (ahadis) and mounted musketeers served at court.
The remaining 185,000 cavalry comprised the mounted contingents of
the princes, the great nobles and other mansabdars. According to
regulations promulgated in the ninth regnal year, the number of
horsemen mustered was calculated at one-fourth the nominal suwar
ranking. The central army counted 40,000 unmounted musketeers,
gunners, bombardiers, and rocketeers. From this total, 10,000 foot
were posted with the emperor and the remainder stationed in the
provinces and forts. Cash salaries paid mounted troops and infantry
directly employed by the emperor totalled 640 million dams or 16

139

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

million rupees per year. The salaries paid mansabdars for their con-
tingents were set by their assigned ranks.

Lahori’s summary implies that the core institutions created by
Akbar, which had so successfully driven expansion, were not drasti-
cally altered by his son and grandson. Instead, the technicians of
empire refined and systematized procedures and policies. The imperial
revenue system continued to extract vast sums from the production of
Indian agriculturists, craftsmen and traders. Assessed revenues
doubled in a half century. In Akbar’s fortieth regnal year (1595-96) the
total jama was 4061.1 million dams compared to 8,800 million dams in
1647.>! Part of this increase can be attributed to added territory. Four
new Deccan provinces and the kingdom of Baglana added 1,840
million dams to the imperial assessment as did the 180 million dams
claimed for the central Asian territories. However a substantial
increase in the jama must be attributed to enhancements based upon
increased cultivation and production in the older provinces. Mughal
revenues were sufficient to enable Shah Jahan to spend lavishly on the
military, building and courtly style, while simultaneously adding to his
central reserves.

The area covered by the regulation (zabt) revenue system expanded
in the first half of the seventeenth century. Detailed records surviving
from the late seventeenth century testify to imposition of the standard
revenue system in the Deccan provinces. Murshid Quli Khan, diwan of
the Deccan provinces under the viceroyalty of Aurangzeb, was the
architect of a survey and assessment of the revenue-producing lands in
the four Deccan provinces.>?

To aid recovery after the ravages of war and famine, Murshid Quli
Khan set in motion a vigorous program. He recruited headmen and
settlers for deserted villages; granted loans for seed and cattle; gave
loans to dig wells or build river embankments for irrigation; and he
assured the peasantry of continued peace and security. Parties of
revenue surveyors and assessors carefully recorded holdings, irrigation
facilities, and arable and waste lands. More remote, hilly villages were
left to lump-sum payments per plough or allowed to pay the revenue

31 Total given by Moosvi, Economy of the Mughal Empire, p. 1941s slightly higher than the
jama given in ch. 3 above.

22 Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 1, 189-193; Shah Nawaz Khan and ‘Abdul Hayy,
The Maathir-ul-Umara (New Delhi: 1st reprint edition, 1979), edited and translated by
H. Beveridge and Baini Prashad, 3 vols., 11, 1, 304-309.

140

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

by a share of the crops. But the majority of villages underwent a
revenue survey and were assessed in cash according to the zabt
regulations. Murshid Quli Khan’s system formed the basis for all
subsequent Deccan revenue assessments — Mughal and Maratha — until
the British conquest in the early nineteenth century.

The jagir system retained its central fiscal and military importance,
but technical problems developed in matching assessed revenues to the
salary needs of the jagirdars. Peasant resistance, bad harvests, and
outdated land measurements and assessments all contributed to short-
falls in actual collections from the original assessment figures for each
village and pargana. Rather than update the jama figures every year the
administration adopted a new expedient. Based upon the ten-yearly
record, villages and subdistricts were classified on a “‘month-scale” to
show the ratio of actual collections to assessment. Stable, productive
areas, often reserved for the khalisa or princely jagirs, were termed
“twelve-monthly” if collections approximated assessments. Those
desolated tracts, primarily in the Deccan, with collections at one-
fourth of assessed revenues were labelled “four-monthly.” In between,
other fractional equivalents based on the month-scale were possible.
When mansabdars obtained salary assignments rated at less than
“twelve-monthly,” the numbers of cavalry they were required to
recruit and pay were diminished accordingly.>

Shah Jahan also dealt with a growing discrepancy between the
nominal suwar ranks and the actual contingents mustered by his nobles
and mansabdars. In part this occurred because the pay for both zat and
suwar ranks was gradually reduced from Akbar’s scales. Rather than
raise the rate of pay and demand one to one ratios between the
numerical rank and actual contingents, Shah Jahan fixed the ratios at
less than one. Officers serving in the same province in which they held
their jagirs were to muster fully equipped horsemen at one-third of
their rank; those serving outside the province in which their jagirs were
located were to muster one-fourth the rank; and those sent on distant
campaigns, such as to Balkh, were to muster one-fifth.* These
measures do not imply any weakening of the Mughal military in an
absolute sense. Lahori’s total of 200,000 armed horsemen for the
empire is considerably more than the 147,000 plus cavalrymen

% M. Athar Ali, The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb (Aligarh, 1966), pp. 45-48.
™ Lahori, Padshah Nama, 11, 506-507.

141

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

supported by Akbar in 1595-6.°5 His figure for the mansabdari
contingents relied on the one-fourth formula to arrive at its total.

Shah Jahan’s military concerns did not extend to weaponry. Unlike
Akbar, who took an intense interest in muskets and cannon, none of
his successors paid much attention to technical improvements in
firearms. Improved flintlock muskets were very slow to penetrate the
Indian military market. Sebastian Manrique, the Franciscan Friar who
travelled through India in Shah Jahan’s reign, comments that “most of
the Mogol militia use bows and arrows. Those who carry fire-arms in
their army are matchlock men and people of no rank, known as
tufangis. They carry arquebuses, which being poorly made, are, as it
were, awkward arms.”>¢ The emperor and his commanders seem to
have been content to employ musketeers recruited from those men
readily available in the military labor pool. To a certain extent bowmen
were still favored by the Mughals as past of their Central Asian
tradition. In any event we notice no thrust toward better weapons or
more effective deployment of musketeers.

Artillery was another difficult area. Since Babur first employed field
guns at Panipat in 1526, obvious technical progress had occurred. By
the time of Shah Jahan the Mughals boasted heavy guns firing balls of
sixty to 120 pounds; lighter-weight field guns firing balls of eight to
twelve pounds weight; and swivel guns mounted on camels firing a
three to five ounce ball.3” But progress was slow as the Persian and
Central Asian campaigns revealed. When stung into action by superior
Safavid gunnery, Shah Jahan succeeded in having formidable siege guns
cast and transported to Qandahar fort.

Neither the emperor nor his nobles fostered research and develop-
ment in the science of ordnance. Gunfounding was the province of
immigrant Europeans or Ottoman Turks who were largely left to their
own devices. Indian techniques for cast-iron were generally back-
ward.?® The Mughals also relinquished gun-laying skills to a motley
cadre of highly paid European and Turkish artillerymen. Some were
38 Moosvi, Economy of the Mughal Empire, lists 1,823 mansabdars in all ranks from ten to

10,000, p. 204; 4,441 gentlemen troopers and 141, 053 horsemen mustered by mansabdars,

Appendix 12-A, p. 296.

36 Sebastian Manrique, Travels of Fray Sebastian Manrique 1629-1643 (Cambridge:

Hakluyt Society, and. series, No. 51, 1927), 11, 125.

3 Manucci, Storia'do Mogor or Mogul India (Calcutta, 4 vols., 1907-8), translated by

William Irvine, 1, 265-66 and 316.

o Tapan Raychaudhurs and Irfan Habib, eds., The Cambridge Economic History of India
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 1, 293.

142

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

well qualified; some were certainly not. No systematic efforts were
made to train Indian gunners.

CHANGES IN THE MUGHAL NOBILITY

Lahori closed his history with a listing of the notables of the empire.
He mentions a handful of Muslim shaikhs, ulema, physicians, and
poets, and avoids any reference to non-Muslims. His primary
concern however, is to identify those amirs and mansabdars bearing
ranks of 500 zat and above who served Shah Jahan. Since this is one of
the very few extant systematic lists of the Mughal nobility, consider-
able modern scholarly effort has been put into its analysis.

In 1647-8 Lahori named a total of 578 men of whom 133 were
deceased and 445 officers were still on active service. He listed each
officer by strict numerical rank order to reflect precedence at court
and in the esteem of the emperor. Zat rank was usually assigned in
increments of 1,000 at the highest level; increments of 500 below
3,000; and by units of 100 below 1,000 zat. Lahori supplies the
second suwar or trooper rank, which could not exceed the zat rank,
and, if granted, additional “two-horse, three-horse” ranking. The
latter conferred greater pay and troop responsibilities on the
recipient.

From this list, and other compilations of data on the nobility, it is
certain that the corps of mansabdars increased steadily in number and
in resources as the empire expanded. Even after adjusting for inflation
in rankings, the imperial cadre had nearly doubled from 283 officers
at the end of Akbar’s reign to 445 in 1647.39 What had not changed is
the extraordinary concentration of power, military command, and
wealth in this small contingent of officers. The inner circle of the
princes and the great amirs ranked at 2,500 zat and above, some
seventy-three men, were truly the fulcrum of empire.

The list begins with the four princes, the sons of Shah Jahan. Dara
Shikoh, the eldest son and heir apparent, held the highest rank in the
empire at 20,000 zat, 20,000 suwar, 15,000 two-three horse. Shah
Shuja, Aurangzeb and Murad Bakhsh are listed in descending order
by age and rank. As the accompanying table shows, the four Timurid
princes together were entitled to 724 million dams or 8.2 per cent of

% M. Athar Ali, The Apparatus of Empire: Awards of Ranks, Offices and Titles to the
Mughal Nobility (1574-1658) (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985), xx.

143

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

the current assessed imperial revenues in personal and trooper pay.‘°
They mustered 28,000 cavalry troopers with horses and equipment up
to official standards — calculated at one-fourth their trooper rank. In
general the princes were assigned only the most productive “twelve-
month” jagirs in which tax collections approximated assessments every
year.

Table 2 The imperial elite: nobles 2,500 zat and above*!

Dams Zat (No.) Suwar Two-three horse Troopers
% rule
(Millions)
724 Princes 4 42,000 35,000 28,000
400 7,000 4 21,000 15,000 12,700
88 6,000 2 8,000 2,000
929.7 5,000 15 74,000 23,500 30,250
336.8 4,000 10 29,400 7350
743-4 3,000 33 66,500 41500 18,875
87.2 2,500 5 8,500 2,000 3,128
Totals:
3309.1 73 249,400 80,000 102,303

The four highest ranking nobles in the empire, by comparison, were
Ali Mardan Khan, Zafar Jang, Islam Khan, and Sa’adullah Khan who
each held 7,000 zat, and 7,000 suwar. All save Sa’adullah Khan held
5,000 two-three horse rank. All were Muslim: two were Iranian in
origin, one Turani (of Central Asian descent); and one Indian Muslim.
Together they were entitled to 400 million dams or 4.5 percent of the
total imperial revenues and mustered 12,700 cavalry troopers.

The seventy-three members of the inner elite received and disbursed
3,309.1 million dams or a staggering 37.6 percent of the entire assessed
annual revenues for the empire. They mustered (by the one-fourth
rule) 102,303 horsemen for military service. Pay for their personal rank

“© A. Jan Qaisar, “Distribution of the Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire Among the
Nobility” in Proceedings, Indian Historical Records Commission, 1965, 27th session,
PP. 237-243.

*\ Calculated from Lahori’s listing. An English version of the list is compiled in Athar Ali,
Apparatus, pp. 212-226.

144

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

alone was 643.5 dams or 7.3 percent of total jama’. From these funds
and any surplus squeezed from the employment of their mounted
contingents, these grandees supported numerous wives, concubines,
and slaves; servants, craftsmen; administrators; and musicians, poets,
and holy men. They gave lavishly to good works; built on a grand scale
and made the requisite gifts to the emperor. Each of these noblemen
headed a cluster of other, lesser mansabdars.‘? Often these were sons,
nephews, uncles, and other kinsmen who themselves held relatively
high rank but who were generally affiliated with and served with their
kinsman. Other, non-kin, patron-client ties bound the greater nobles
with lesser men.

Table 3 Mansabdars above 500 zat, 1647-48"

Category Number Percentage
Muslims
Princes 4 9
Tranis 126 28.4
Turanis 103 23.3
Afghans 26 59
Indian Muslims 65 14.7
Other Muslims 29 6.6
Total 353 79.8
Hindus
Rajputs 73 16.5
Marathas 10 23
Other Hindus 7 1.6
Total ge 20.3
Total 443 100.0

Muslim officers constituted four-fifths of the higher mansabdars
(see Table 3); Hindus were only one-fifth in number. Muslim nobles of
Persian and Central Asian origins (Turanis) continued to predominate
42 See J. F. Richards, “Norms of Comportment among Imperial Mughal Officers” in

Barbara Daly Metcalf, ed., Moral Conduct and Authority (Berkeley and Los Angeles:

University of California Press, 1984), pp. 260-261 for a later illustration of such clustering

in Aurangzeb’s reign.

#2 Calculated from Lahori, Padshah Nama, ut, 715-752.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

in numbers and power at all levels of the officer corps. Just over half
belonged to these two groupings. (See Table 3). Nevertheless, member-
ship in this elite became more heterogeneous as the Timurids incorpo-
rated more indigenous regional aristocracies. This trend had the effect
of tying the regime to local society as expansion occurred. Distrusted
and sharply limited in number and power for their role in the great
struggle for northern India under Akbar and Jahangir, more Afghan
officers obtained higher ranks under Shah Jahan. Twenty-six Afghan
nobles, just over 5 percent of the total, were listed. These men had direct
ties to colonies of Afghan zamindar groups who controlled strategic
parganas across northern India from Kabul to Dacca and even more
important links with Afghan tribes in the northwest mountain passages.

The two counter-balancing groups originally added by Akbar
sustained their positions. Sixty-five indigenous or Indian Muslim
officers, including the Sayyids of Baraha, formed just under 15 percent
of the total. They too, had close connections with Muslim zamindars in
north India.

Seventy-three Rajput officers were slightly more numerous. The
highest ranking Rajputs held ranks of 5,000 zat and 5,000 suwar, in the
third tier of great nobles below the princes and six nobles of 7,000 and
6,000 rank. They were the heads of the largest Rajput kingdoms:
Jaswant Singh, the Rathor Raja of Marwar; Jai Singh the Kachhwaha
Raja of Amber; Rana Jagat Singh, the Sisodia Rana of Mewar; and
Bethal Das, the Raja of Gaur. Another five Rajputs, including the
heads of the Bundela and Hada clans, were included in the great amirs
of 2,500 and above. Generally, at this level when the emperor approved
succession to the raja’s seat, confirmation of rank was automatic. A
large portion of jagirs assigned the Rajput heads were given in watan
jagir within their own kingdoms. Higher status Rajput officers tended
to serve in military roles as field commanders or in quasi-military roles
as faujdars. Virtually no Rajputs served as provincial governors, for
example. Nor were they employable in administrative posts demand-
ing technical non-military skills.

Less powerful Rajputs either served directly with their master and
kinsman or held imperial rank but remained part of the cluster attached
to their raja. Combined suwar and two-three horse ranks for the
Rajputs in this year puts their required contingents at about 23,500
men from the total mansabdar contingents.“

4 Calculated from Athar Ali, Apparatus, pp. 212-226.

146

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

The most significant additions were a product of southward expan-
sion. Two groups of officers carried the epithet “Deccani” at the end of
their titles. A handful of Muslim nobles formerly in service to one of
the Deccan Sultans was now enrolled in the Mughal nobility. Eight
men bearing ranks from 4,000 to 1,500 zat were readily merged into the
various groups of Muslim nobles.

Ten Maratha officers, ranked from 1,500 to 5,000 zat made the same
transition to imperial service. The most successful was Maluji Bhonsla
Deccani, who held the rank of 5,000/5,000; his brother Parsuji was
ranked at 3,000/2,000. Formerly a high officer in the Ahmadnagar
Sultanate, Maluji Bhonsla enlisted in Timurid service along with his
two brothers early in Shah Jahan’s regime.45 When Maluji’s eldest
brother returned to fight the Mughals under Sultan Adil Shah of
Bijapur, Maluji and Parsuji were rewarded for remaining loyal. They
served actively with their contingents in the siege of Daulatabad fort,
the conquest of Baglana, and other campaigns in the Deccan. None
obtained major administrative assignments, but were kept in the field.
The brothers “always behaved prudently and cleverly and pleased all
the governors of the Deccan. Maluji was possessed of some urbanity
and gentleness, and ... he was faithful in his friendships.” Parsuji was
noted for his fondness for Mughal customs in his life style.

Unlike the Rajputs, subordinates and kinsmen of these ten comman-
ders were not favored with direct mansab rank. As a result the
Marathas, who remained in private service to their commanders, were
more segregated and less fully incorporated into Timurid service than
their Rajput peers. Restricted deployment in the Deccan further
suggests limited acceptance by the emperor.

Nevertheless, Marathas were a totally new Hindu and zamindar
element in the nobility. Even at the end of Akbar’s reign no Maratha
aristocrats had been accepted into imperial service and only one in
Jahangir’s reign. Such assimilation was a vital step in creating linkages
with local society in the Deccan. This was especially critical in a region
where Muslims formed only a tiny minority of the total population.

In the Deccan, unlike North India, the Mughals did not find
indigenous Muslim warriors controlling peasants on the land.
Throughout the western Deccan tracts, formerly belonging to Ahmad-
nagar, Mughal officers were struggling to restore stable, contractual
relationships with the Maratha intermediaries, the deshmukhs who

#3 Shah Nawaz Khan, Maathir-sl-Umara, 11, 42-5, translation; text U1, 520-24.

147

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

controlled the revenues and local power in each subdistrict. If, like the
Deccan Sultans, the Timurids could recruit and employ representatives
of the Maratha zamindars at the higher reaches of imperial administra-
tion, the task of restoring centralized state power in the region would
be substantially eased.

““SONS OF THE EMPEROR’S HOUSEHOLD”

The changing composition of the Mughal nobility coincided with
changes in the Timurid court culture and the ethos of the nobility. The
relationship of the ruler to his elite became less fervent, and more
formal - expressed more in the idiom of quasi-kinship than of
discipleship. In an early decree immediately after his enthronement,
Shah Jahan abolished the extreme prostration (sijdah) for presentation
in formal court audiences favored by Akbar and Jahangir. Most pious
Muslims thought the sijdah sacrilegious — such extreme submission
should be made by the believer only to God Himself. By ending this
practice Shah Jahan placated orthodox sentiment and served notice that
discipleship with its pledges of fealty and symbols of membership was
ended as well.

Jahangir often employed the term khanazadgi meaning devoted,
familial, hereditary service in his memoirs. Rajputs, Turanis, Iranis,
Indian Muslims, and even some Afghan amirs who termed themselves
khanazads (“born to the house”) formed a large component of the
nobility, if not quite a majority. All viewed Mughal service and
preference within that service as their prerogative. Khanazadgi retained
the central values of discipleship: loyalty, devotion, and sacrifice in the
emperor’s service, but lacked its intensely emotional aspect. From
boyhood each khanazad was imbued with a code of aristocratic and
military honor. The honor of the warrior was compatible with
dignified subordination to the emperor. Buttressing this ethos was the
dynastic ideology of the Timurids which still continued to shape and
influence the sacreal qualities ascribed to the Mughal emperor.**

Khanazads were fully assimilated to the polish and sophistication of
Indo-Persian courtly culture in its elaborate Mughal version. The ideal
khanazad was dignified, courteous, and well-mannered. He under-
stood the intricate rules for comportment in all social encounters —
from the most informal gathering of friends engaged in drinking wine

4 See Richards, “Norms of Comportment among Imperial Mughal Officers”.

148

SHAH JAHAN 1628-1658

to the most rigid of grand public ceremonies at court. He valued and
often quoted Persian and perhaps Hindustani or Turki poetry, and
appreciated Hindustani music, painting, and the other arts nurtured at
court.

Punctuating the life and career of each khanazad were moments of
personal attention by the emperor. On more formal occasions he
received praise, new titles, honors, and promotion in rank in open
court. On other occasions worthy officers were favored with intimate
meetings in the monarch’s less-public audience chambers. Rebukes and
punishment were also possible and frequently occurred. But Shah
Jahan and -his successors were relatively mild and humane in their
treatment of their officers. Mughal grandees were not subject to the
gratuitous cruelties inflicted by the Safavid rulers. Attendance at court,
certainly stressful, was not a daily exposure to physical danger.
Attenuated and changed, nevertheless, an emotional bond did persist
between emperor and imperial servant.

Cognizant of its value, the emperor nurtured and rewarded khana-
zadgi. Nobles, on the birth of a son, sent a gift to the emperor with a
request that he name the child. The emperor was informed of and gave
his approval for the marriage of the children of his nobles. At maturity
all sons of an amir were enrolled as mansabdars in the emperor’s
service. They did not obtain their father’s rank and titles, or indeed
more than a portion of his estate, but they were marked for promotion
and rapid advancement.

Khanazadgi, and the values of hereditary service associated with it,
applied to officers serving as diwans or other posts in the fiscal sphere.
But skills in finance and bureaucratic management, while necessary,
and often rewarded, were certainly seen as lesser attributes compared
to those of the commander and soldier. A renowned revenue admini-
strator like Murshid Quli Khan rose only to 3,000/s00 at the height of
his career. Provincial diwans routinely held lower ranks than did
provincial governors or even some city prefects or faujdars. Neverthe-
less the ethos of service did extend to subordinate officials.

The memoir of Bhimsen Saxena, a Hindu mansabdar from the
Kayasth caste, reveals the degree to which the ideal of khanazadgi had
permeated the ranks of the technical officers employed in the various
administrative posts of the empire. For Bhimsen the Mughal emperor
was “the true servant of God and his agent” who tries “to foster peace
and prosperity.” The “fruits of the empire” were human happiness and

149

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

well-being. Bhimsen, whose family had an extensive tradition of
administrative service to the empire, portrays himself as a khanazad.
He saw himself as an indispensable part of the imperial structure
without whose humble, but necessary, services the system could not
function.

The notion of hereditary familial service combined with assimilation
to the Mughal aristocratic life style offered wider application to men of
higher and lower ranks and statuses. Khanazadgi, in contrast to
discipleship, evoked loyalty and obedience but did not exact expres-
sions of dramatic personal loyalty to a charismatic master. In some
ways reversion to hereditary familial service was a reaction to success.
Shah Jahan, unlike Akbar, did not have to induce extraordinary effort
and unflinching devotion from his nobles. He did expect routine
display of courage in battle, the stock in trade of professional soldiers,
But success in the nobility also demanded personal affability, attention
to ritual and decorum, and those political and organizational skills
necessary for grandees everywhere. Those Hindu nobles and comman-
ders willing to adapt to these requirements could gain acceptance.

By mid-century the Mughal empire was expansive, invincible, and
wealthy on a scale scarcely dreamed of by the Sultans of Delhi.
Shahjahanabad was a fitting new capital for a great empire. Imperial
symbolism and ideology was slowly returning to Islamic orthodoxy.
By the end of Shah Jahan’s reign, however the empire was moving
towards its greatest political crisis.

150

CHAPTER7

THE WAR OF SUCCESSION

During the last half of Shah Jahan’s reign a long-standing political and
intellectual conflict in the Mughal empire polarized around the two
most able and forceful Mughal princes. The liberal party found an
articulate and influential spokesman in the eldest son of Shah Jahan.
Prince Dara Shukoh attracted those nobles, imperial officers, schol-
ars, intellectuals, and others who remained committed to Akbar’s
eclectic ideology and policies. The conservative party found its cham-
pion in Shah Jahan’s third son. Aurangzeb drew to him Muslim
nobles, officers, theologians, official ulema who wished to shift the
empire toward a more properly Muslim state in conformity with the
Sharia. The latter drew their confidence from an increasingly visible
revivalist movement within Indian Islam. By the 1640s and 1650s
other major policy issues such as the question of Deccan conquest
and Mughal relations with Bijapur and Golconda were drawn into
this rivalry.

The two princes emerged as spokesmen in part because of their
high rank, status, and patronage they disposed. In reality, however,
Dara Shukoh and Aurangzeb were important because of the future.
One of Shah Jahan’s four sons, all mature men, would win the
inevitable struggle for succession and Dara and Aurangzeb were the
most likely candidates to prevail. Murad and Shuja, the other two
brothers, while competent administrators and generals, were gen-
erally seen as weaker candidates for the throne. Neither had adopted
such pronounced ideological positions as did Dara or Aurangzeb.

Dara Shukoh remained at court in close personal contact with the
emperor. As the favorite and heir-apparent, he greatly influenced
the emperor. His greatest ally was his eldest sister the princess Jahan
Ara, who served as mistress of the royal household after the death of
her mother, Mumtaz Mahal.

In his intellectual curiosity, his open-mindedness, and his mystical
interests Dara was in many ways a throwback to his great-
grandfather, Akbar. He was an active disciple of Mulla Mir (d. 1635)

Ist

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

and Mulla Shah Badakshi (d. 1661) two leading Shaikhs of the Qadiri
order of Sufis.! In the earliest phase of his mystical studies the prince
compiled a hagiography of Sufi saints and a recounting of orthodox
mystical beliefs.

Beginning in 1641 the maturing scholar, following the Koranic
injunction that no land has been left without prophetic guidance,
became convinced that the Vedas and the Upanishads constitute the
concealed scripture mentioned in the Koran. He regarded the
Upanishads as the ultimate source of all monotheism, including Islam.
With the aid of Brahmin scholars in his employ, Dara translated the
fifty-two Upanishads into Persian in a work titled Sirr-i Akbar. In a
subsequent Persian work titled Majma’ al-babrayn “The Mingling of
the Two Oceans,” the scholar-prince argued that the essential nature of
Hinduism was identical to that of Islam. Using techniques of lexical
similarity Dara posited that the cosmologies and mystical practices of
Muslim Sufis and those of the Upanishads correspond. For example,
ruh or “soul” in Islam is equivalent to atman in Vedantic Hinduism.
The Sufi concept of love is the same as the Hindu notion of maya or
illusion. Dara had “The Mingling of the Two Oceans” translated into
Sanskrit under the title Samudra Sangam to make it accessible to
Hindu scholars.

The prince only succeeded in persuading most Indian Muslims that
he was an apostate who cavalierly ignored the obligatory prayers and
other rituals of Islam. Extended discussions with and patronage of
three Jesuit priests who formed part of his household confirmed this
impression. Conversations with the Hindu Bhakti saint Babalal Vairagi
had a similar effect. Although it is likely that Dara remained a
convinced monotheist, the appearance of apostasy left him politically
vulnerable to attack by the ulema.

Despite his intellectual gifts, Dara Shukoh was a mediocre general
and an insensitive leader who failed to strike the right air of authority
and sympathy with nobles. The most powerful amirs of the realm were
reportedly insulted by his excessive pride and haughtiness.?

Aurangzeb, Shah Jahan’s third son with Mumtaz Mahal, was of an

* The following discussion of Dara Shukoh is drawn from Aziz Ahmad, “Dara Shikoh and
Aurangzeb” an essay appearing in Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian
Environment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), pp. 191-200.

2.N, Manucci, Storia do Mogor or Mogul India (Calcutta, 4 vols., 1907-8), translated by
William Irvine; 1, 221-226 for an account of Dara’s flaws and the enemies he made.

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entirely different personality. Niccolao Manucci’s eyewitness descrip-
tion is apt:>

This prince was very different from the others, being in character very
secretive and serious, carrying on his affairs in a hidden way, but most
energetically. He was of a melancholy temperament, always busy at something
or another, wishing to execute justice and arrive at appropriate decisions, He
was extremely anxious to be recognized by the world as a man of wisdom,
clever and a lover of the truth. He was moderately liberal, distributing rewards
and conferring gifts wherever suitable. But above all, for a long time he
pretended to be a faquir (fagir), a holy mendicant, by which he renounced the
world, gave up all claim to the crown, and was content to pass his life in
prayers and mortifications.

Aurangzeb obviously was a man of extreme piety, who punctiliously
observed the public rituals of Islam. He did not drink wine or take
opium. Engaged in his own spiritual quest, Aurangzeb held long
discussions with members of the ulema or shaikhs from the orthodox
Nagshbandi order. He avidly read the Koran, treatises on the law, and
the works of Al-Ghazzali and other prominent Islamic scholars. But
Aurangzeb’s piety, as suggested by Manucci, did not interfere with his
worldly ambition or continual maneuvering in the high politics of
empire.

An experienced military commander and administrator, Aurangzeb
served as governor of the Mughal Deccan for eight years; as governor
of Gujarat for three years, and then as commander of Mughal armies in
the invasion of Balkh and the first two sieges of Qandahar fort. Despite
his devoted and able performance in these offices, Aurangzeb’s
relationship with his father was acrimonious and distant. Shah Jahan,
encouraged by Dara Shukoh and Jahan Ara, rebuked his least favourite
son frequently, and often unfairly, for a variety of shortcomings.
Aurangzeb’s principal ally in the imperial household was his elder
sister Raushan Ara Begam, the fourth child of Mumntaz Mahal. She
sent him a constant flow of information about the emperor and court
politics.

In 1652, after the third Qandahar campaign ended ignominiously
under Dara’s command, Shah Jahan assigned Aurangzeb to administer
the Deccan provinces once more. For the next five years polarized
tensions in the empire centered on the political struggle between Dara
at court and Aurangzeb in the Deccan.

3 Manucci, Storia, 1, 229.

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CONFLICT OVER THE DECCAN

Shah Jahan sent Aurangzeb to the south enjoined to reform and restore
an effective imperial administration. Since Aurangzeb’s departure in
1644, a succession of ineffective governors, corrupt officials, destruc-
tive military campaigns, and poor agricultural seasons had reduced the
productive capacity of the region. Many villages were deserted and
areas formerly cultivated were now forested. Every year a shortfall in
imperial revenues forced Shah Jahan to send a subsidy to meet the
expenses of the Deccan military and administrative establishment.

Under Aurangzeb’s capable direction the famed revenue officer
Murshid Quli Khan restored order and predictability to the imperial
agrarian system (see above). To stimulate cultivation Murshid Quli
Khan advanced large loans in Khandesh and Berar for peasants to
repair and expand riverine irrigation. In all four provinces he induced
energetic men to become headmen and settle abandoned villages by
making various tax concessions.*

Imperial revenues began to increase, but not enough to compensate
for the deficit. Aurangzeb and Shah Jahan wrangled continually over
Aurangzeb’s request for additional funds to be transferred from Malwa
and Gujarat. In an increasingly acrimonious correspondence, Aurang-
zeb claimed the 800,000 rupee annual tribute from Golconda as well.
Caught in his budgetary difficulties Aurangzeb pressed his father for
permission to invade and annex the Sultanate of Golconda. Golconda
was renowned in the seventeenth century world for its wealth and
especially for its rich diamond mines. Shah Jahan, who still bore
friendly feelings toward Abdullah Qutb Shah for refuge taken during
his own revolt as a prince, ruled out invasion. Undeterred, however,
Aurangzeb began a secret exchange of letters with Muhammad Said,
Mir Jumla, the Qutb Shahi conqueror of the Karnatak. This initiative
brought together two of the most remarkable figures of the seven-
teenth century.

MUHAMMAD SAID, MIR JUMLA

The tributary status imposed on Bijapur and Golconda in 1636

stabilized the northern frontier of those states and brought a respite

from Mughal invasion. A fixed policy aim of the Adil Shahi and Qutb
4 Jadunath Sarkar, History of Awrangzib (Calcutta, 5 vols.,'1912-1924), f, 187-194.

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Shahi rulers was to prevent by persuasion or bribery an aggressive
Mughal forward policy in the Deccan. Their northern frontiers secured
by treaty, each ruler was free to expand to the south.

In the southeastern plain and upland area called the Karnatak,
political power was fragmented among a number of Telugu and Tamil
nayaks who were the descendants of the great warrior nobles of
Vijayanagara. Bijapur armies under Shahji Bhonsla, now in Adil Shahi
service, and other Afghan and Maratha generals forcibly annexed lands
from the Palar river, sixty miles south of Madras, to the Kaveri river in
the Chola heartland. The latter became a province known as the
Bijapur Karnatak. These conquests extended the frontier of Muslim
power five hundred kilometers toward the tip of the subcontinent.

In the 1640s large armies from Golconda battered down local
resistance and conquered the Karnatak between the Krishna river in
the north and the Palar river. This rich, fertile area, also known as the
Coromandel coast, was the center of a burgeoning textile industry.
Thousands of weavers, dyers, and other craftsmen produced millions
of yards of cloth for growing overseas markets.

The architect of this triumph was Muhammad Said, a man of
extraordinary talents. Born the son of an oil merchant in Iran, the
young Muhammad Said migrated to Golconda in the employ of an
Iranian trader. Soon the young entrepreneur obtained a lucrative
diamond mining concession at the famed Golconda mines and rapidly
became a prominent member of the group of Persian traders and
shipowners in Golconda. Domiciled in either Hyderabad or the chief
port, Machhilipatnam, these men were closely linked with their fellow
Persians in the ruling elite of Golconda and held a commanding
position in the kingdom’s maritime trade.>

By 1634 Muhammad Said, who is credited with unusual organi-
zational skills and personal appeal, had opted for the larger prizes
associated with official power in Golconda. Under what has been
called a system of “political capitalism” Muslim officials in Golconda
at all levels were heavily involved in commerce and shipowning.® They
used political power to improve their commercial interests by a variety
of monopoly devices. Within a short time, Muhammad Said became
governor of the port of Machhilipatnam and other coastal territories.

5 Jagdish Narayan Sarkar, The Life of Mir Jumla (Delhi: Rajesh Publications, 2nd. revised
edition, 1979), pp. 4-5-

© Sinnappah Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies, and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast
1650-1740 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 225-225.

15s

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Retaining these offices under his agents, in 1638 he rose to chief
minister of the kingdom and received the title of Mir Jumla.

In his handling of the Karnatak invasion in the early 1640s Mir Jumla
proved to be a talented military strategist and diplomat. For ten years
(1642-1652) his armies were engaged against the citadels of decentral-
ized Hindu warriors and their troops. His formidable cavalry, infantry
and artillery stormed even the most forbidding fortresses of the Hindu
nayaks,

By 1652, Mir Jumla governed for Golconda the Hyderabad Kar-
natak — a kingdom nearly 40,000 square kilometers with annual
revenues equivalent to four million rupees a year. His military role
added greatly to his wealth. Plunder from looted Hindu temples and
diamonds from the newly conquered alluvial diamond workings at
Kullur (the richest in the world at the time) swelled his trading capital.”
Although he sent regular revenue payments north to Hyderabad a
large share of the profits from the Golconda style tax farming system
remained with him. The agents of Mir Jumla’s growing commercial
empire were found throughout the markets of the Mughal empire, in
Persia, Mocha, Burma, Arakan, and Pegu. In addition to large herds of
pack animals employed in the overland trade, Mir Jumla kept at least
ten merchant vessels in commission plying between ports in the Bay of
Bengal and in the Red Sea.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Mir Jumla ran afoul of his royal master,
Abdullah Qutb Shah. Escaping an assassination plot by the Qutb Shah
king, Mir Jumla turned to Bijapur and the Mughal empire to negotiate
a position for himself and his newly founded domains in another state
system.

AURANGZEB AND MIR JUMLA

Always alert to opportunity Aurangzeb opened a correspondence with
Mir Jumla. The Deccan governor proposed to Mir Jumla that he hand
over the Hyderabad Karnatak to Mughal rule and then attack Gol-
conda from the south while Aurangzeb’s armies invaded from the
northwest. Mir Jumla accepted Aurangzeb’s offer and became a
collaborator in a plan to invade Golconda.

When in November, 1655, Abdullah Qutb Shah lost patience with
Muhammad Amin, Mir Jumla’s boorish son, his envoy at the Gol-

7 Sarkar, Mir Jumla, p.77.

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conda court, and placed him in confinenent; this provided the pretext
Aurangzeb needed to move Shah Jahan to action. The emperor
enrolled Mir Jumla and his son as high-ranking Mughal amirs and
ordered Abdullah Qutb Shah to release Muhammad Amin. Before the
Golconda ruler received Shah Jahan’s order, however, Aurangzeb had
already sent an invading army into Golconda. The Mughal army easily
occupied Hyderabad city while the Qutb Shah ruler and his court took
refuge in Golconda fort where they were besieged by the Mughal
army. Within two months Mir Jumla and his force arrived from the
Karnatak to join Aurangzeb,

In the interim, Dara Shukoh and Jahan Ara had been approached at
the Delhi court by agents of Abdullah Qutb Shah. The heir-apparent
intervened and persuaded Shah Jahan to force Aurangzeb to withdraw.
The Qutb Shah ruler would be forced to pay a large war indemnity,
lose some border territory and give up a daughter for marriage to
Muhammad Sultan, Aurangzeb’s son. A peremptory order from the
emperor left Aurangzeb, despite his protests, to withdraw.

By mid-year Mir Jumla had brought his entire establishment north
to the imperial court at Shahjahanabad. At the unexpected death of the
Mughal wazir, Shah Jahan conferred that office upon the newcomer
with a one thousand zat increase in rank. Shah Jahan also agreed to
treat the entire Hyderabad Karnatak as the jagir of his new minister
and to send imperial officers to seize it from Golconda. For the first
time Aurangzeb was favored with a powerful friend and advocate who
rapidly obtained great influence over Shah Jahan. With this advocate
Aurangzeb’s policy of imperial aggression won the emperor’s
approval.

In November, 1656, Muhammad Adil Shah, who had been ill for a
decade, died. His eighteen-year-old son, Ali Adil Shah 11, faced a
factious nobility and rebellious zamindars. Aurangzeb and Mir Jumla
had for some time worked up a plan for the invasion of the kingdom as
soon as the long-anticipated death of Muhammad Adil Shah occurred.
Aurangzeb had been busy in suborning many of the nobles and
military commanders in Bijapur service.

Shah Jahan approved an invasion and sent Mir Jumla with troops to
assist. In mid-1657, as the Mughal army was poised to take Bijapur, the
capital city, Shah Jahan, again urged by Dara Shukoh, ordered Aurang-
zeb to refrain from a final conquest. Instead he was forced to accept a
large war indemnity and cession of the lands occupied to date. The

1§7

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

emperor ordered Mir Jumla to return to Delhi. In the midst of
Aurangzeb’s forced withdrawal, Shah Jahan fell ill in September, 1657.
The first act of the great Mughal war of succession had begun.

THE WAR

Shah Jahan’s magnificent reign ended in a long-anticipated, convulsive
political crisis. When the emperor fell ill, pent-up tensions between the
mature Timurid princes exploded into a four-sided war of succession.
The war pitted Dara Shukoh, resident at court as the designated heir,
against his three younger brothers: Muhammad Shuja, governor of
Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa; Aurangzeb, governor of the four Deccan
provinces; and Murad Bakhsh, governor of Gujarat and Malwa. All
were sons of Mumtaz Mahal and therefore full, rather than half
brothers. Despite Shah Jahan’s expressed preference for his eldest son,
Dara Shukoh, the Timurid appanage system offered no clear precedent
for succession.

This was a bloody struggle fought by formidable opponents. Dara,
Shuja, Aurangzeb, and Murad battled each other with that intensity
and intimacy reserved to brothers with differing personalities. Each
prince shared in the Timurid familial charisma and royal authority
which gave all an undisputable claim on the throne. Each brother
claimed long experience in war, statecraft, and administration and
could draw upon the services of extremely able military and adminis-
trative staffs. Each commanded a power base, Possessed ample treasure
and could muster large, well-equipped armies. Only one contender
could claim the throne; the others faced the grave.

When Shah Jahan failed to hold daily court audiences the news
immediately swept to all parts of the empire. In Delhi the shops
remained closed in the bazaars and public anxiety was at a high pitch
for several days.§ Within the palace only Dara, his physicians, his
daughter Janan Ara, and a few trusted officers were permitted to see the
emperor. Dara quickly assumed command. He seized the agents and
spies of his brothers and censored all communications between them
and their masters. Shah Jahan’s seclusion and Dara’s censorship raised
speculation that the emperor was either dead or completely helpless.
After a month the emperor recovered sufficiently to appear in public.

* Manucci, who served Dara Shukoh as a young gunner, gives a full description of the war
from the viewpoint of a participant. Manucci, Storia, 11, 229-386.

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THE WAR OF SUCCESSION

Thereafter the depressed and ailing emperor journeyed slowly to Agra
to be near his wife’s tomb.

In Bengal Prince Muhammad Shuja immediately crowned himself
king at Rajmahal and brought his cavalry, artillery, and river flotilla
upriver toward Agra. Near Varanasi his forces confronted a defending
army sent from Delhi under the command of Prince Sulaiman Shukoh,
son of Dara, and Raja Jai Singh. In mid-February, 1658, a well-
executed early morning surprise attack routed the Bengal.troops. Shuja
and his surviving men fled downriver to Monghyr.

To the south, in Gujarat, Murad Bakhsh immediately sent a 6,000
man force to extort a half-million rupee forced loan from the mer-
chants of Surat and to besiege the fort whose commander (appointed
independently by the emperor) refused to surrender. Rejecting reports
of his father’s recovery, on December sth Murad crowned himself at a
public ceremony. In early January Surat fort fell with its treasure and
supplies and Murad prepared to march north.

In the Deccan the news reached Aurangzeb just as he was complet-
ing peace negotiations with the Sultan of Bijapur after a successful
invasion of that kingdom. (see above).? Between October and early
January of 1658 Aurangzeb tried simultaneously to impose the
punitive terms of the peace treaty on Bijapur and to position himself
for a run for the throne. In contrast to Shuja and Murad, however,
Aurangzeb did not take the irrevocable step of crowning himself.
Instead, he engaged in a busy secret correspondence with Murad, and,
to a lesser extent, with Shuja. Letters written in cipher encased in
bamboo tubes passed from runner to runner over special relay posts
newly established between Ahmadabad and Aurangabad. Within a few
weeks Aurangzeb and Murad had agreed on a plan for joint action. If
they defeated their brothers, Aurangzeb would leave to Murad the
Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Sind to rule as an independent king
and he would rule the remaining territories. Simultaneously, carrying
on a wide-ranging correspondence, Aurangzeb induced most of the
higher ranking nobles of the Deccan to join him.

In early February 1658, Aurangzeb set his army marching north.
He joined forces with Murad at the village of Dharmat on the
Ghambira river. Here they met Shah Jahan’s army under the command
of Jaswant Singh Rathor. In the ensuing battle Aurangzeb’s well-

9 Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 11, 278-79.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

handled guns and cavalry outfought the imperial army whose survivors
fell back on Delhi in disarray.1°

At Delhi Dara rebuilt a 50,000 man army and awaited his brothers at
defensive positions on the Chambal river south of Agra. Aurangzeb
outflanked him by finding an unguarded ford. The armies met on a
broad plain at the village of Samugarh on the Yamuna near Agra. On
29 May, in the blazing heat of Indian summer, the climactic battle of
the succession struggle took place. Aurangzeb’s superior tactics and
better disciplined artillery and cavalry prevailed against the valor of
repeated Rajput cavalry charges. Finally, toward the end of the day,
Dara dismounted from his war elephant and fled the field on
horseback. A full-scale rout began.

About nine in the evening Dara and a small group of his followers
reached his mansion in Agra fort. Unwilling to face his father, he rested
a few hours then fled toward Delhi accompanied by his family and a
few retainers carrying his treasury. Avrangzeb occupied Agra city and,
when negotiations failed, besieged his father in Agra fort. Deprived of
access to water from the river, Shah Jahan surrendered on June 8, 1658
and became his son’s prisoner. The vast treasuries and magazines of
Agra fort fell into Aurangzeb’s hands.

Dara stayed only briefly in Delhi before moving on to Lahore. When
Aurangzeb resumed the pursuit, tension between him and Murad
grew. Despite warnings, Murad entered his brother’s camp for a dinner
on 25 June. Here he was disarmed, made captive and quietly sent off to
prison along with his son. Aurangzeb enrolled Murad’s leaderless
soldiery into his service the next day.

Aurangzeb paused in Delhi long enough to crown himself on 21 July
in Shalimar gardens with the title of Alamgir or “world-seizer.” This
action marks the end of the first phase of the war of succession when
the outcome was really in doubt. Thereafter Aurangzeb dealt with his
brothers from an overwhelmingly strong position.

When Aurangzeb’s army crossed the Sutlej river, Dara panicked and
fled south down the Indus river with part of Aurangzeb’s army in
pursuit. At Bhakkar, a river fortification, he abandoned part of his
troops, heavy guns, much of a ten-million rupee treasure, and many
dependents. Dara fled south with a few retainers to the Arabian Sea
where he finally took refuge in Gujarat.

By the end of September Aurangzeb left the tracking of Dara to his

10 Ibid., pp. 20-25.

160

THE WAR OF SUCCESSION

officers to meet a new threat: his brother Shuja. Shuja, rejecting
Aurangzeb’s promises of unthreatened rule in the east, mustered a
force of 25,000 cavalry and a flotilla of river boats and marched upriver.
In late December Aurangzeb joined his son Muhammad Sultan for
battle against Shuja. Despite the last-minute defection of Jaswant Singh
Rathor with his Rajput cavalry to Shuja, Aurangzeb‘s army greatly
outnumbered and outgunned the Bengal army. Defeated and routed,
Shuja fled with the remnants of his army.

In the interim Dara had regained his courage, acquired funds,
recruited a 20,000 man army in Gujarat, and marched north to liberate
his father. When he reached Ajmer in Rajasthan the thousands of
Rajput warriors promised to his cause by Jaswant Singh Rathor did not
appear. Instead, Dara faced a large, well-equipped army commanded
by his nemesis, his brother Aurangzeb. In mid-March, 1659, Aurang-
zeb’s army overran Dara’s forces in a bloody three-day battle fought in
the hills outside Ajmer. Dara survived but fled once again.

On his return to Delhi Aurangzeb felt confident enough to arrange
for a properly grand second coronation. On June 5, 1659, at an
auspicious time, Aurangzeb sat on the throne in the Hall of Public
Audience in the fortress at Shahjahanabad. A reciter read his names and
titles as part of the khutba and newly struck coins were distributed.
Only the aftermath of the war of succession remained.

Dara, put to flight again, spent the next three months as a wanderer
trying to evade capture. From Gujarat, to the Rann of Kutch, to
Seistan, to the Bolan Pass, he found little aid or comfort. Finally, he
sought assistance from Malik Jiwan, an Afghan chief whose life he had
saved from execution in Delhi some years before. His devoted wife,
Nadira Banu, a Timurid princess, died of dysentery when they arrived.
Dara sent her body off with most of his escort to be interred in Lahore.
As soon as he did so, Malik Jiwan arrested Dara and sent word to his
pursuers on the Indus.

When Dara Shukoh arrived at Delhi as a prisoner, Aurangzeb first
had him paraded in public humiliation through the streets of the city.
His appearance and his past generosity aroused much public sympa-
thy. That evening in council Aurangzeb, his sister Raushan Ara, and
his advisers, decided on a death sentence. The official ulema con-
demned Dara to death on grounds of apostasy from Islam and idolatry.
On the night of August 30, 1659, two slaves killed Dara and his
youngest son Sipihr Shukoh.

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There followed a year-and-a-half-long, grim, water-borne campaign
in pursuit of Prince Shuja by an imperial army under Mir Jumla. Shuja
fought, retreated east and fought until, finally, at Tanda his army was
decisively beaten and broken. In early May, 1660, Shuja left Dacca by
boat with his family and a few faithful troops to take refuge with the
raiding king of Arakan. Here, suspected of a plot against the king, he
met his death,

Only Murad Bakhsh remained alive as a captive of Aurangzeb in the
state prison at Gwalior fortress. In early 1661 a planned rescue by some
of Murad’s loyal Mughal officers failed, but he remained a threat.
Rather than simply have Murad killed, Aurangzeb arranged a murder
accusation. At the start of the war of succession, enraged with the
suspicion that the diwan of Gujarat was an adherent of Shah Jahan,
Murad had killed his fellow-officer with a spear-thrust. At Aurang-
zeb’s instigation, the diwan’s second son demanded justice under the
Sharia for his father’s death. The qazi of Gwalior fort tried the case and
convicted Murad. The son refused to accept payment but asked for
retribution. On December 4, 1661, two slaves carried out the exe-
cution.

The succession crisis reaffirmed the unity of the empire and the
authority of the victorious Timurid monarch. Partition of the empire
into two or more appanages did not take place. Division of the empire
was a bargaining point, nothing more. The principals knew that
whoever acquired the imperial capital and throne would not rest until
the partitioned territories — be they in the east or west or south — were
recovered. Ultimately the prize was access to a throne ruling a single,
unitary empire.

Throughout Mughal India the succession struggle was high public
drama. Movements of armies, alliances, battles, and skirmishes, the
emperor’s health, flights, and in the end, executions — all were of the
most intense interest. Rumor and gossip darted across the bazaars of
every town and city. Intelligence networks maintained by sarrafs,
merchants, Sufi orders, and Hindu maths strained to obtain and
transmit timely news. Relays of messengers on foot and horse
traversed the roads of the empire. European traders collated and sent
back reports to Europe on the crisis. Events thus shared suggest the
degree to which the empire had become linked into a unified social
system.

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THE WAR OF SUCCESSION

The 1658-59 war stretched the resources of a militarized state and
society. The crisis disgorged a sizable portion of the great hoarded
wealth of the empire found in the provincial and central treasuries and
the personal holdings of nobles and officials. Spending on military
needs soared as commanders on each side enlisted additional soldiery
and bought supplies and munitions. Temporarily, at least, the civil war
reversed the flow of revenues and accumulation of reserves. The
normal flow of tax collections to the imperial center or to the
designated jagir holders virtually dried up in the course of the war.

There were no noticeable or widespread uprisings by zamindars or
peasants. Most of the countryside waited and watched for the outcome
of events, Aurangzeb’s early victories seem to have discouraged direct
challenges to the regime. However, local revenue administration
functioned but feebly for the duration of the conflict. The revenues of
jagirdars and the imperial khalisa dried to a trickle. Agricultural
production faltered as well when campaigning armies marched through
the countryside. Unfortunately the ravages and dislocation of war
were exacerbated by several years of scanty monsoon rains beginning
in 1658, Throughout north and central India a general scarcity,
amounting to famine conditions in many places, accompanied the
political crisis. At Delhi, Agra, and Lahore drought-stricken peasants
from the surrounding countryside descended on each city. The
emperor and the amirs opened free kitchens to dispense cooked food in
each city. Scarcity and the vast influx of dishoarded funds pressed
prices to famine levels in the cities.!1

Timurid royal blood and ample funds were sufficient to recruit
equipped, trained soldiers and obtain arms, animals, and military
supplies in any part of the subcontinent. When in early 1659, Dara
Shukoh arrived at Ahmadabad in Gujarat after his flight from Samu-
garh, his sympathizer, Shah Nawaz Khan, gave him one million rupees
from Murad’s treasury. With these funds Dara recruited some 20,000
cavalry and obtained forty artillery pieces within a month’s time.!?
Everywhere soldiers and suppliers were fully employed.

By and large allegiances in this war were not determined by-broader
issues, but by pragmatism or personal loyalties. For the nobles and
higher ranking mansabdars allegiance was often determined by the
11 Shireen Mosvi, ‘“Scarcities, Prices and Exploitation: The Agrarian Crisis, 1658-1670,”

Studies in History 1 (1985), 46-47.

12 Sarkar, History of Aurungzib, 11, 164-65.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

vicissitudes of imperial posting. The degree of enthusiasm displayed by
each noble might be determined by the personal appeal of the prince in
question. For officers and men in private employment allegiance was
determined by loyalty to one’s salt or by lineage or clan loyalties to
one’s commanders. For those thousands of men in the floating pool of
military manpower allegiance was a matter of payment and perform-
ance an amalgam of professional pride and the circumstance of battle
and campaign.

The succession conflict did bring into the open serious political and
religious divisions. At every opportunity Aurangzeb proclaimed his
horror at Dara’s apostacy from Islam and his idolatry. When Aurang-
zeb and Murad agreed to act jointly to divide the empire, the public,
written statement affirmed that the proposed campaign was not simply
a matter of personal power. Instead they had a more, lofty aim: “to
uproot the bramble of idolatry and infidelity from the realm of Islam
and to overwhelm and crush the idolatrous chief [Dara] with his
followers and strongholds.”!3

It.is doubtful whether Aurangzeb’s religious appeal swayed Muslim
nobles to support him or caused Hindu nobles to turn.against him.
What we can assert, however, is that it did make a difference to the
empire and its inhabitants which of the four contenders triumphed.
Had Shuja or Murad won it is likely that they would have followed
Shah Jahan’s policies with few dramatic changes. Had Dara won, it is
likely that a broader political appeal would have marked his reign.
Whether he could have sustained this program in the face of a more
conservative climate in both the Muslim and Hindu communities is
another question that cannot be answered. Instead, Aurangzeb
imposed a narrow, Islamic character on to the political culture of the
empire. It was Aurangzeb’s insistence on Islamic exclusivity that
shaped imperial policy over the next half century.

' Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 1, 335-337-

164

CHAPTER 8

IMPERIAL EXPANSION UNDER
AURANGZEB 1658-1689

Aurangzeb remained a remarkably vigorous ruler for a half century
(1658-1707) before he died at age ninety. During the first twenty years
of his reign the emperor kept his capital at Shahjahanabad Delhi. In the
next decade the grand encampment became the movable capital of the
empire as the emperor campaigned actively in Rajasthan and the
Deccan. Throughout the first thirty years of his reign Aurangzeb, who
had added “Alamgir” or “world-seizer” to his titles, dedicated himself
to fostering a more properly Islamic regime and to aggressive expan-
sion on the empire’s frontiers. However, several unrewarding cam-
paigns in the 1660s and 1670s beyond the mountain rim of the
subcontinent graphically revealed the harsh costs to further expansion
in the north. These campaigns reinforced the emperor’s pronounced
inclination to move south — to conquer lands long accustomed to
Islamic rule.

TESTING THE LIMITS OF EMPIRE: NORTHEAST

To the northeast, Bengal’s growing export economy and Muslim
settler frontier seemed a likely area for aggressive campaigning.
Imperial authority still rested lightly in this region. When Prince
Shuja’s governorship of Bengal was interrupted by the succession war,
zamindars like Prem Narayan, the ruler of Kuch Bihar, rebelled.
Simultaneously, Jayadhwaj Sinha, the Ahom king, sent an army to
invade and annex Kamrup, the Mughal border district on the Brahma-
putra river.!

In mid 1660, Aurangzeb, determined to regain control of the
northeast, appointed Muhammad Said Mir Jumla, his collaborator in
the Deccan, to be governor of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. During his
first year in office, Mir Jumla restructured the provincial administra-
tion, restarted the flow of revenue and generally imposed Mughal
authority in all three regions. He shifted the provincial capital from

1 Irfan Habib, An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (Delhi, 1982), maps Assam 13A and 13B
display the boundaries of the empire and the Asham or Ahom state in the 1660s.

165

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IMPERIAL EXPANSION UNDER AURANGZEB 1658-1689

Rajmahal east to Dacca, to better reflect the eastward shift in Bengal’s
population and economy. He also invested heavily in various trading
ventures with his own agents and with the European trading com-
panies.?

By November, 1661, Mir Jumla was prepared to move to the frontier
in “a holy war with the infidels of Assam” according to his official
newsreporter.? For this venture the Mughal governor assembled a
force of 12,000 cavalry, 30,000 foot, and a flotilla of several hundred
armed vessels. The latter included ten ghurabs or floating batteries
carrying fourteen guns which were towed by four rowing boats.4 Mir
Jumla marched directly to Kuch Bihar, entered Kathalbari, the forti-
fied capital, unopposed by the Kuch Bihar ruler who had fled, and
annexed the kingdom to the empire. The raja’s son, newly converted to
Islam, joined the Mughals. The conqueror appointed a temporary
faujdar and diwan, changed the name from Kuch Bihar to Alamgirna-
gar, and set up an imperial mint.

Immediately thereafter the Mughal forces set out for Kamrup.
Brushing aside Ahom opposition the Mughals quickly retook Gauhati,
the capital of Kamrup. Moving upriver the invaders crippled the Ahom
river fleet in a decisive naval battle. By March, 1662 the Mughal army
left the fleet and marched inland to seize Garghaon, the capital from
which the Ahom ruler and his court had fled. The spoils of war
included considerable treasure, hundreds of tons of rice stored in
granaries, guns and munitions and dozens of armed river boats.

At this point the rains began and Mir Jumla went into garrison near
the capital. The Ahoms cut off the line of Mughal outposts (thanas)
leading back to the fleet on the Brahmaputra. Between May and
October the Mughal army at the capital and the river fleet at Lakhau
survived near-famine conditions, epidemic disease, continuous Ahom
attacks, and desertions. When the rains ended supplies and reinforce-
ments permitted the Mughal army to engage the Ahoms once more.
Finally in early 1663, the Swargadeo (Heavenly King) and his nobles
sued for peace. The Ahom ruler agreed to become a Mughal vassal, to
send a daughter with a dowry for marriage to the imperial court, to
surrender large amounts of treasure and elephants, and tq give up
2 Jagdish Narayan Sarkar, The Life of Mir Jumla (Delhi: Rajesh Publications, 2nd revised

edition, 1979), p. 278.
> As quoted in Sarkar, Mir Jumla, p. 287.

+ The following description is taken from Sarkar, Mir Jumla and Jadunath Sarkar, History of
Aurangzib, m1, 146-182.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

extensive territories in Darrang and western districts. Mir Jumla was
arranging a phased withdrawal and the administration of the new
districts when he became seriously ill and died in March, 1663.

Aurangzeb failed to send another commander of Mir Jumla’s stature
and abilities to consolidate imperial control of the Brahmaputra valley.
Instead, when conflicts over the peace treaty renewed the Mughal—
Ahom conflict, successive Ahom kings confronted Mughal faujdars
largely unsupported by Delhi. In the end, Gauhati, having changed
hands several times, fell under Ahom control in the 1680s and Kamrup
was lost permanently to the empire.

The emperor scored an important success on Bengal’s coastal
frontier. From Chatgaon, a fortified port on the east coast of the Bay of
Bengal, the Maghs of Arakan and a community of long-domiciled
Portuguese engaged in piracy and slave raiding against the coastal
inhabitants of Bengal. Potentially rich deltaic tracts were systematic-
ally depopulated as Bengali peasants fled the slave-raiders. In 1664
Shaista Khan, the newly arrived Mughal governor of Bengal, commis-
sioned a flotilla of armed coastal vessels to carry a Mughal assault force
against Chatgaon. Shaista Khan formally annexed the Magh head-
quarters, renamed Islamabad, as a district within Bengal and sent home
thousands of freed Bengali slaves. The governor reported to Aurang-
zeb’s query about the new revenues to be gained from the conquest:
“In truth, its revenue (jama) is the composure (jamait) of the minds of
the Muslims [with regard to the pirates]. We can easily imagine how
fast cultivation will increase in Bengal, now that Magh violence has
been put down.”

THE INTERNAL FRONTIER: ANNEXATION OF
PALAMAU

The remote chiefdom of Palamau (Palaun) was a forested, hilly tract
located just south of Bihar between Chota Nagpur and the hills of
Central India. Its sparse population engaged in a mixture of sedentary
and shifting agriculture in the intermittent valleys of the hills. The
Cheros, a tribal people, had retreated to Palamau in the face of rising
Rajput power early in the seventeenth century. By the mid 1620s

5 Quoted in Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 1x, 212. Sarkar has translated excerpts from the
Persian account of Shihabuddin Talish in Fathiyyab-i-ibriyyah which describe this
campaign, Jadunath Sarkar, Studies in Mughal India (Calcutta and Cambridge: M. C.
Sarkar and W. Heffer, 1919).

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IMPERIAL EXPANSION UNDER AURANGZEB 1658-1689

Raja Medini Rai extended the bounds of the Chero domains into Chota
Nagpur and the southernmost portions of Bihar province. Friction
between the imperial administration and the Cheros grew as the latter
raided for cattle in the neighboring Mughal districts.

In 1641, the Mughal governor of Bihar, acting under direct orders
from Shah Jahan, led a punitive expedition into Palamau. Faced with
this threat, Pratap Rao submitted and paid an indemnity of 80,000
silver rupees. The Mughals annexed Devgaon fort and its environs, one
of the three principal fortified towns in the kingdom. Two years later,
an attempt by members of Pratap’s family to dethrone him permitted
the Mughals to intervene. Zabardast Khan, the Mughal field comman-
der, cleared a path through the forest and marched in force from
Devgaon to Palamau fort and town. He forced Pratap Rao to surrender
in person and sign a tributary agreement. Not content with this,
Zabardast Khan carried the Chero Raja back to the governor’s
audience hail at Patna as a prisoner. At Patna, Pratap Rao accepted a
mansab of 1000 zat in service to the emperor, but retained his kingdom
as watan jagir in return for an annual tribute of 100,000 rupees.

As the official Mughal estimate of the Palamau Raja’s total annual
cash revenues was only 250,000 rupees, Mughal tribute soon fell into
arrears. Ongoing Chero cattle raids further increased tensions. Shortly
after his accession, Aurangzeb ordered Daud Khan Panni, the gover-
nor of Bihar, to conquer the chiefdom. In early 1661 Daud Khan,
accompanied by several of his faujdars and assisting zamindars,
occupied the northernmost forts in Palamau. After the rainy season, he
pushed his 6,400 man force directly through the jungle to the capital.
The Mughals overwhelmed the defenders in two sharp engagements
before storming the walls of the fortress. Pratap Rao fled and lived to
rule over a remote corner of his kingdom. Daud Khan Panni appointed
a Mughal faujdar to administer the kingdom as a district of Bihar
province.

Over two decades, recurring Mughal punitive campaigns brought
this small, forested chiefdom firmly into the imperial political system.
By this time, the emperor, his advisers, and the governor of Bihar saw
little value in political conciliation. The attempt to assimilate Pratap
Rao into the cadre of imperial amirs was perfunctory. On the first
plausible pretext, Aurangzeb commanded the Bihar governor to lead
an army in an assault on the Palamau Raja. A short, bloody, but futile
resistance ended with annexation.

169

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

TESTING THE LIMITS OF EMPIRE: THE
NORTHWEST

The Mughal governor at Kabul ruled over a vast semi-arid mountai-
nous domain on the vulnerable northwestern frontier of the sub-
continent. This was a cosmopolitan zone through which a brisk traffic
in goods, animals, people, and ideas passed over the Khyber, Bolan and
other well-known mountain passes. The inhabitants of the region
formed a complex mosaic of lineages and tribal groupings defined by
mountain valleys suitable for limited cultivation and grazing. The
larger, shared Muslim culture divided into two: that of the dominant
Pathans, speaking Pashtun, who were generally tent-dwelling pastoral
nomads and traders, and that of the subordinate Tajiks, speaking
Persian, who were sedentary cultivators living in mountain villages.

The Pathans were organized into stratified patrilineages formed into
named tribes — Yusufzai, Afridi, Wazirs — ruled by tribal councils
(jirgas) and headed by chiefs or khans. In addition to pastoral noma-
dism the Pathan nomad-traders brought caravans of horses into India
and carried Indian goods to Central Asia and Persia. Other Pathans
preyed upon the caravans as bandits — or offered protection if bought
off by political subsidies. In addition, thousands of Pathans or, as they
were known in India, Afghans served as soldiers, traders, and higher-
ranking administrators in the Mughal empire and other Indo-Mughal
states. Many Afghans had settled into roles as zamindars with varying
degrees of wealth and power in pockets of the north Indian country-
side. These emigrés kept close contact with their lineage and tribal
fellows in the mountains and often sent home remittances.

Control of Kabul and the northwestern border regions was of great
strategic concern to the Mughals. When a series of Pathan tribal revolts
against Timurid rule broke out Aurangzeb reacted quickly and deci-
sively. In 1667, a Yusufzai chief and self-proclaimed king in the Swat
valley led allied Yusufzai lineages in pitched battles against Mughal
detachments in Attock and Peshawar. Unrest continued until Muham-
mad Amin Khan, the imperial mir bakhshi, brought a 9,000 man army
from Delhi to suppress further resistance.

More serious was the rising of the Afridis in 1672. The Afridi chief

© This description is based upon Joseph Arlinghaus, The Transformation of Afghan Tribal
Society: Tribal Expansion, Mughal Im and the Roshaniyya Insurrection 1450-
1600 (Durham, NC: Duke University Ph.D dissertation, 1988).

170

IMPERIAL EXPANSION UNDER AURANGZEB 1658-1689

Acmal Khan crowned himself king, struck coins in his own name,
declared war against the Mughals and closed the Khyber pass to
caravan traffic. The Afridis surprised and massacred an imperial army
between Peshawar and Kabul. Other Pathan tribes, including the
Khataks under Kush-hal, the celebrated anti-Mughal poet, joined the
revolt. The next year the Mughals lost another large army to Afridi
ambush in the snowy mountain passes in mid-winter. Finally, in June,
16745 Aurangzeb himself brought another imperial army into the
mountains. The emperor sent out well-equipped and supplied columns
to open the Khyber and other passes. Another imperial army was
ambushed and badly mauled in Bajaur, but the Mughals regained
control of the main trade routes. Simultaneously, Aurangzeb offered
gold, honors, and other rewards to induce rebel tribal leaders to submit
and end the rebellion.

Leaving newly fortified and garrisoned posts behind, Aurangzeb
returned to Delhi by the end of 1675. Thereafter, a new governor at
Kabul, Amir Khan, involved himself heavily in Pathan tribal politics
and supported factions sympathetic to imperial policies. Lavish subsi-
dies were paid as protection money to keep the passes open. Individual
chiefs received frequent payments. Other Pathans were given appoint-
ments in Mughal service. Amir Khan proved to be so adroit that no
further large tribal rebellions flared up during the two decades he
remained as governor at Kabul.

A sympathetic, flexible policy toward local warrior aristocracies, if
backed by sufficient force, could counteract the tendency toward
lineage alliances, monarchy, and state building seen in both the
Yusufzai and Afridi revolts. The effort involved in suppressing these
risings gave Aurangzeb little incentive to imitate his father’s campaigns
into Central Asia.

ISLAMIC POLICIES AND IMPERIAL CULTURE

Aurangzeb completed that transformation of Akbar’s ideology and
inclusive political culture begun by Shah Jahan. The goals of thenew
Islamic ideologies were simply defined: the Mughal empire must
become a Muslim state governed by the precepts of the-Sharia for the
benefit of the Indian Muslim community. The regime would make
every possible effort to encourage conversion of the infidel population.
And, failing that, would rule fairly but sternly over the majority

171

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

population. Increasingly the political culture of the empire would be
defined in exclusive Muslim terms.

Aurangzeb’s goals for the empire were completely consistent with
his own ardent piety as a follower of the Hanafi school. In his later
years Aurangzeb exceeded the bounds of normal devotion. Even as
emperor he devoted seven years to memorizing the entire Koran.” An
initial embarrassment, however, was his need to legitimate Shah
Jahan’s forced deposition and imprisonment. Rebellion against his
father placed Aurangzeb in the awkward position of violating both the
Sharia and strongly held norms of filial piety for Muslims. In 1659, the
emperor sent a richly laden mission to Sharif Zaid, ruler of the holy
cities in the Hijaz, to obtain formal recognition. Rebuffed on this
occasion, a second mission returned with holy relics sent to celebrate
the emperor’s ascent to the Timurid throne. Thereafter Aurangzeb was
a generous patron of the Holy Places:®

[Aurangzeb] used to send large amounts of money, for some years annually, at
others once in two or three years, to the pious men living in retreat in those
Holy Cities, and a large number of men in those Holy Places were permanen-
tly employed by him on daily stipends to act as his deputies in walking round
the Ka'ba, bowing to the Prophet’s tomb, reading the two copies of the Quran
written by this pious Emperor with his own hand and presented to Medina.

Having placated his own conscience and, to some extent public
opinion, Aurangzeb was free to fulfill his Islamic vision of the Mughal
empire.

Aurangzeb’s zealousness was tempered by highly developed poli-
tical and diplomatic instincts as with measured speed, he pressed
toward his ultimate goal. Aurangzeb retained pride in the Timurid
genealogy — but as a descendant of Muslim conquerors, not the heir to a
divinely inspired radiance and knowledge. For example, in his eleventh
year, the emperor ended as un-Islamic the practice begun by Akbar of
appearing on a balcony at sunrise for all who wished to worship or take
darshan from him.? Like his father he turned toward the notion of
khanazadgi rather than discipleship to define the ideal relationship

7 Ibid., p. 314.

* Sagi'Mustald Khan, Maasiri'Alamgiri, p. 525 a8 quoted in N.R. Faroogi, “Mughal-
Ottoman Relations: A Study of Political and Diplomatic Relations Between Mughal India
and the Ottoman Empire: 1556-1748,” unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of
Wisconsin, Madison, 1986, p. 210.

° Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 111, 89.

172

IMPERIAL EXPANSION UNDER AURANGZEB 1658-1689

with his nobles and imperial officials. Aurangzeb further narrowed the
notion of hereditary service by his pronounced preference for Muslim
officers.

Aurangzeb’s anxiety to conform more strictly to the Sharia closed
off several important modes of expression for Mughal political ideol-
ogy. He ended patronage of the combined art of chronicle writing and
book illustration. He stopped the detailed annals of his reign, the
Alamgir-Nama, after the tenth regnal year. Only privately written,
clandestine histories survive. Imperial ateliers were closed and dozens
of master painters and their assistants dismissed. Very little monumen-
tal building occurred — nothing which would match the gardens of
Jahangir or the palaces of Akbar or Shah Jahan. Only properly Islamic
forms and idioms were encouraged in the arts. As a result the entire
political culture of the empire was narrowed and, in the end,
impoverished.

The eclectic, inclusive court culture suffered. Un-Islamic ceremonies
were banned as a new moralistic and legalistic tone pervaded court life.
Right after his second coronation the emperor abolished celebration of
the Iranian New Year or Nauroz festivities at the start of the solar year.
In the same year Aurangzeb dismissed the court musicians and énded
that imperial patronage responsible for the brilliant development of
Hindustani music. Wine-drinking and opium consumption were pro-
hibited. Less-formal socializing between nobles and emperor associ-
ated with their use no longer occurred. While this ban probably
extended the lives of the emperor and many of his closest intimates
(who lived to considerable ages) it did inhibit relations between the
emperor and his senior officers. Considering the vital importance of
the emperor-noble link in the Mughal system, this was a serious
weakness.

Aurangzeb’s aesthetic impulses and patronage were confined to the
Islamic arts and sciences. His greatest achievement was the legal text
known as the Fatawa-i ‘Alamgiri. When requested, independent
jurisconsults gave written opinions, called fatwa, on points of interpre-
tation of the sacred law of Islam. These rulings were often obscure,
frequently contradictory, and at times based on weak legal scholarship.
Therefore since Aurangzeb aimed at “making the general Muslim
public act according to the legal decisions and precedents of the
theological scholars (ulema) of the Hanafi school, ...” he commis-
sioned a board of scholars to compile authoritative and reliable rulings

173

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

in a single work.!© The Fatawa-i 'Alamgiri won rapid acceptance
within India and elsewhere in the Islamic world as a guide to correct
action for orthodox Muslims.

Other measures directly enhanced the status, power and income of
the ulema and the Islamic institutions they served. Under Aurangzeb
the fortunes of the ulema returned full circle to what they had been
before Akbar stripped them of their influence and power in the 1580s.
The chief judge or qazi and the supervisor of pious charity, the sadr,
ranking as nobles, were in constant attendance upon the emperor.
These men controlled lavish patronage. Appointments to paid employ-
ment for supervisors of pious trusts, preachers, judges, and other posts
throughout the empire lay in their hands.

Aurangzeb further gratified the ulema by spending liberally to repair
and maintain mosques and to support religious charity. His most
important concession for the ulema and the larger group of Muslim
gentry throughout the empire was in regard to tax-free land grants.
Aurangzeb reversed Akbar’s policy when in 1672 he resumed all grants
held by Hindus. Although not completely enforced in practice, the
new policy was a sweeping victory for the Muslim ulema of the empire
who could see themselves dividing an increased pool of lands. In 1690
Aurangzeb made all such land grants fully hereditary in another major
concession to the ulema."!

For many senior nobles, the rise of the theologians and jurists, who
generally had limited military and administrative experience, was a
disturbing trend. Often ulema were simply greedy and corrupt. Abdul
Wahhab Bohra, chief qazi for sixteen years, was notorious for accept-
ing bribes to appoint imperial judges. He retired with a fortune
estimated at 3.3 million rupees and other valuables.!2 One of the most
outspoken nobles of the period, the Persian umir Mirza Lahrasp,
Mahabat Khan, protested against making “sparrows into huntsmen”
and relying too heavily on the opinions of the theologians in matters of
state,!3

At his second coronation in 1659, Aurangzeb created a new office,
the muhtasib or censor, appointed from the ranks of the ulema. This
10 Sagi Mustaid Khan, Maasir-i Alamgiri (Calcutta, 1947), translated by Jadunath Sarkar,
11 ftan Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India (London, 1963), p. 311.

12 Sarkar, History of . ‘Aurangzib, MI, 75.

174

IMPERIAL EXPANSION UNDER AURANGZEB 1658-1689

peculiarly Islamic officer regulated urban markets to prevent disorder
and fraud on the public. The muhtasib also enforced Sharia pro-
hibitions against blasphemy, wine-drinking and gambling, and other
heretical or idolatrous behavior in public. Previously unknown in
Indian Muslim regimes, the muhtasib assumed some of the duties of
the indigenous Indian city magistrate, the kotwal. Aurangzeb
appointed Mulla Auz Wajih, Shah Jahan’s former jurisconsult (mufti),
a prominent Muslim theologian from Samarkhand, chief muhtasib
bearing the rank of an amir at Delhi.* Other muhtasibs commanding
bodies of officers and troops were posted in the major towns and cities
of the empire.

ISLAMIC POLICIES AND NON-MUSLIMS

Aurangzeb’s revivalism forced him to confront imperial policies
toward non-Muslims. His edict of 1669 ordered that all temples
recently built or repaired contrary to the Sharia be torn down.!5
Throughout the empire many, although certainly not all, such temples
were ruined by official action. The emperor’s special targets were the
renowned stone temples in the holy cities of Mathura and Varanasi.
The great Kesev Rai temple at Mathura built at a cost of over three
million rupees by Bir Singh Bundela (responsible for Abul Fazl’s
death, see above) was pulled down. The golden bejewelled idols were
taken to Agra and buried under the steps of Jahan Ara’s mosque. A new
mosque was erected on the site of the razed temple.'® Admittedly, this
action was an explicit statement of the emperor’s view of idolatry; it
was also a rebuke to the Bundelas and their troublesome allegiance to
the empire (see above). The emperor’s message was simultaneously
political and religious.

During his reign Aurangzeb issued a stream of discriminatory edicts
and regulations. A tax levied on pilgrims travelling to the numerous
Hindu shrines and periodic festivals, abolished by Akbar, was rein-
stated. In 1665 the emperor decreed that Muslims should be taxed at
2.5 percent of value on internal customs duties and Hindus ¢ percent.
A general edict addressed to provincial governors and revenue officers
commanded the dismissal of Hindu officers and their replacement by

Xs Sarkar, History of Awran naib 11, 77

15 Sri Ram Sharma, The Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors (London: Asia Publishing
House, Inc., and edition, 1962), pp. 130-131.

‘6 Ibid, p. 133.

175

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Muslims.'7 Often not fully enforced, these and other measures never-
theless were widely known and disliked by the majority population.'8

Zealous imperial officers had considerable power to enforce the
new edicts, especially among urban non-warrior groups. At Surat in
1669 the qazi terrorized the entire Bania or Hindu merchant commu-
nity of that city. He pressured several members of the community to
convert to Islam and threatened others with forcible conversion unless
they paid ransom money. He extorted other sums to prevent
defacement of the Hindu temples and shrines in the city. The qazi
forcibly circumcised and converted a Bania serving as a Persian writer
or clerk, who then killed himself. At this point there was a mass
protest: “all the heads of the Banian families of what condition
whatsoever departed the Town to the number of 8,000 leaving their
wives and children in Surat under charge of their brothers or next of
Kinn,”!9

More pragmatic imperial officials failed to support the qazi. And,
the emperor himself, if political loyalties were not involved, would
compromise. The governor of Surat refused to stop the mass exodus
on the grounds that the Banias were the emperor’s subjects and
“might travel in his country where they pleased.” The Banias pro-
ceeded to nearby Broach where they remained for three months in
defiance of the qazi’s threats. They were under the protection of the
city prefect of Ahmadabad, who tried to entice the protestors to his
city. Finally with the commerce of the port frozen, the Banias agreed
to return after receiving letters from the emperor bearing “some
assurance of their safety and more freedom in their religion.”20
Aurangzeb also replaced the over-zealous qazi with a more moderate
judge.

Aurangzeb announced his most controversial measure in 1679
when he revived the jiziya, a graduated property tax levied on non-
Muslims. The court theologians urged this course of action; many of
his nobles seem to have argued against it.?! Cadres of lower ranking
mansabdars became special jiziya collectors in cities and towns
” §, Moinul Haq, Khafi Khan’s History of Alamgir (Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society,

1975), translation of Muhammad Hashim Khaf Khan, Muntakhab-al Lubab, p. 252.

1 These measures are given in great detail in Sharma, Religious Policy, pp. r42ff.
19 Sushil Chaudhury, “The Surat Crisis of 1669: A Case Study of Mercantile Protest in
3 eel ae Calcutta Historical Journal, 5 (129-146), 1983.

21 N, Manucci, Storia do Mogor or Mogul India (Calcutta, 4 vols., 1907-8), translated by
William Irvine, 1 288.

176

IMPERIAL EXPANSION UNDER AURANGZEB 1658-1689

throughout the empire. In rural areas, the provincial diwans were
adding a 4 percent increment to the assessed land revenue each year.”

The new tax provoked heated protests in Delhi. Thousands of
Hindus from the city and its surrounding districts gathered at the
Yamuna river in front of the emperor’s balcony on the Delhi fort wall
to protest the new tax. When Aurangzeb rode out from the fort to
attend weekly prayers at the Jama Masjid:?3

... the Hindus crowded from the gate of the fort to the Jama Masjid in such a
large number for imploring redress that the passage of the people was blocked.
The money-lenders, cloth-merchants and shopkeepers of the camp Urdu
Bazar (Army Market) and all the artisans of the city abandoned their work and
assembled on the route of the Emperor . . . [Aurangzeb], who was riding on an
elephant, could not reach the mosque. Every moment the number of those
unlucky people increased. Then he ordered that the majestic elephants should
proceed against them. Some of them were killed or trampled under the
elephants and horses. For some days, more, they assembled in the same way
and requested for remission (of the jiziya). At last they submitted to pay the
Jiziyah.

The jiziya collectors generally encountered sullen resistance to
payment nearly everywhere — at least initially.

Aurangzeb’s ultimate aim was conversion of non-Muslims to Islam.
Whenever possible the emperor gave out robes of honor, cash gifts,
and promotions to converts.”* It quickly became known that conver-
sion was a sure way to the emperor’s favor. In many disputed
successions for hereditary local office Aurangzeb chose candidates
who had converted to Islam over their rivals. Pargana headmen and
qanungos or recordkeepers were targeted especially for pressure to
convert. The message was very clear for all concerned. Shared political
community must also be shared religious belief.

THE SIKH MARTYRDOM

Aurangzeb’s new policies increased tensions with the still-expanding
Sikh community in the Punjab plain and foothills. Before his death
Guru Hargobind bypassed the claims of his two living sons to name
Hari Rai, son of his prematurely deceased eldest son, as his successor.
22 Sharma, Religious Policy, pp. 52-158. 2? Moinul Haq, Khafi Khan, pp. 258-59.

26 Sharma has culled a list of the converts from the official newsreports from court. Religious
Policy, pp. 70-174.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

During the great Mughal war of succession, Hari Rai offered support
and aid to Dara Shikoh. Consequently, after his victory, Aurangzeb
demanded that Hari Rai send his eldest son, Ram Rai to the Mughal
court as a hostage. By this time-honored device Aurangzeb aimed to
socialize the young Sikh heir to the values and institutions of the
Mughal court. Aurangzeb also planned, as he did with many other
zamindars, to control the Sikh succession. One faction of the Sikh
community supported Ram Rai and favored his candidacy.”

The aging and ill Hari Rai rejected the claims of his eldest son and
nominated instead a younger son, Hari Krishan, as his successor. The
emperor then summoned the Guru and his young heir to Delhi where
in 1664 Hari Rai died of natural causes. Before Aurangzeb could
determine the succession one faction of the Sikhs elected as their new
guru, Tegh Bahadur, the brother of Hari Rai and youngest son of Guru
Hargobind.

Generally recognized as the new Sikh leader, Tegh Bahadur spent
the next decade in vigorously organizing and proselytizing throughout
the Punjab and as far east as Bengal and Assam in North India. It is in
this period that substantial numbers of Jats, members of the most
numerous cultivating caste group in the Indo-Gangetic plain, began to
convert to Sikhism in large numbers. Everywhere Tegh Bahadur
travelled large crowds greeted him and his preaching was met with
enormous enthusiasm.

By the early 1670s the Sikhs ran foul of Aurangzeb’s iconoclastic
policies. Imperial officers received orders to demolish Sikh Gurdwaras
as well as Hindu temples. At the same time several instances of
Muslims being converted to Sikhism by the Guru were reported to
Aurangzeb who ordered Tegh Bahadur’s arrest. In Agra, the Guru and
five companions were captured, arrested and taken to Delhi. There the
qazi’s court tried and convicted the Sikh leader for blasphemy,
sentenced him to death and carried out the execution in November,
1675. After this second martyrdom the annual spring Baisakhi congre-
gation of Sikhs in the hills acclaimed Gobind Singh, the young son of
the slain leader, as the new Guru.?6 At one stroke Aurangzeb earned
the bitter hatred of thousands of Jat and Khatri Sikhs living in the
North Indian plain.

25 JS. Grewal and. S. Bal Guru Gobind Singh, A Biographical Study (Chandigath: Punjab
University, 1967), p.
26 Grewal and Bal, Ghre Gobind Singh, PP. 44-47

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IMPERIAL EXPANSION UNDER AURANGZEB 1658-1689

THE RAJPUT REBELLION

The most sensitive test for the new militant orthodoxy lay in the
emperor’s relationship with his Rajput nobles. On the surface the
Rajputs had no immediate grounds for complaint. They still formed
an influential group within the imperial nobility.2” Indeed, the highest
ranked noble in the empire, was Mirza Raja Jai Singh Kachhwaha of
Jaipur (7,000 zat 7,000 suwar) who had been Aurangzeb’s most faith-
ful supporter in the war of succession. In 1665 Jai Singh became
viceroy of the Deccan provinces, a position usually held by an adult
Timurid prince. After 1679 all Rajputs in imperial service were
exempt from payment of the jiziya — although their subjects at home
were not.

Nevertheless, Rajput nobles as a group were squeezed by what
appears to have been deliberate policy. The percentage of Rajput
nobles to the total number of nobles dropped noticeably as did their
aggregate ranks.2® The emperor curtailed imperial jagirs assigned
outside of Rajasthan and thus reduced the imperial subsidy obtained
by these warriors for their barren homeland.?? The fortunes of the
Rajput nobles, who with their followers had for so long been a vital
striking arm for the empire, were newly reduced.

Wealth and power derived from imperial service supported and
made possible the creation of a locally dominant state structure using
the Mughal administrative model within the raja’s ancestral domains
in Rajasthan. Some lands were directly administered in a form of
crownlands or khalisa. The remaining lands were assigned as jagirs to
loyal kinsmen or other retainers. The great rajas recruited a service
nobility consisting of Rajputs who did not belong to the ruling clan
and served as a counter-weight to the claims of equality and
brotherhood put forward by the fellow-clansmen of the ruler. Each
of these constituencies had a vital interest in increasing the rank,
wealth, and status of their Rajput patron.

The death of the ruling raja was a crisis point for all concerned. The
Mughal emperor was free to choose any of the raja’s sons, or any
other close male relative as the new clan head. Normally this choice
was made promptly and met no resistance. The various Rajput and

2 Athar Ali, Mughal Nobility, p. 35, Table 2 (a).

28 Athar Ali, Mughal Nobility, pp. 23-24.
2 ‘Athar Ali, Mughal Nobility, p. 100.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

non-Rajput factions made the best accommodation they could to the
new order.

In the previous reign in 1638, Gaj Singh Rathor, Raja of Marwar in
western Rajasthan and Mughal. amir, died after an illustrious career
while serving at court in Agra. His youngest son, Jaswant Singh
Rathor, immediately marched to Agra for his father’s cremation. In
May, 1638, Shah Jahan, ignoring arty claims of Gaj Singh’s eldest son
then at court, placed the red tika mark of investiture on Jawant Singh’s
forehead. The emperor gave Jaswant Singh, now Raja, a mansab of
4,000/4,000, a fully decorated robe of honor, a jeweled dagger, a flag, a
kettledrum, a war horse, and an elephant.>° Shah Jahan assigned
Jodhpur and four other parganas in Marwar as his jagir. The emperor
also named a non-Rathor Rajput as Jaswant Singh’s chief fiscal officer
(diwan) during his minority. Several days later, Jaswant Singh pre-
sented six elephants to the emperor as pishkash. For the next year and a
half the young Raja and his Rajput cavalry remained constantly in
attendance on the emperor as the latter travelled to Lahore and
Peshawar. On several occasions he received further honors and gifts
from Shah Jahan. It was only in early February, 1640 that the new Raja
returned to Marwar to formally celebrate his accession with his Rathor
kinsmen at Jodhpur fort.3!

Forty years later, in December, 1678, Maharaja Jaswant Singh
Rathor died while on duty in near-exile as military commander
(thanadar) at Jamrud, in Afghanistan. At his death he had no living son
as male heir. Two of Jaswant Singh’s wives were pregnant and thus
spared the funeral pyre.?? Aurangzeb, upon receiving the news from
Jamrud, immediately took the bureaucratic step of formally trans-
ferring all of Marwar to the status of imperial crown territories
(khalisa). This was not annexation, but simply a measure necessary to
reallocate the kingdom in jagirs. The emperor brought his court to the
Mughal capital at Ajmer to supervise officials and troops sent to take
over the kingdom. When it occupied Jodhpur, the army engaged in
considerable temple and idol smashing in the Marwar capital.
%V.S. Bhargar Marwar and the Mughal Emperors (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1966),

pp: 80-81
a
32 Me stherwise noted, the following description of the Rajput war is based upon Sarkar,

Anrangzib, 111, 322-375; V.S. Bhargava, Marwar and the Mughal Emperors (Delhi:

Munshiram Manoharlal, 1966), pp. 115-166; Robert C. Hallissey, The Rajput Rebellion

Against Aurangzeb (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1977); and
Moinul Haq, Khafi Khan, pp. 263-281.

180

IMPERIAL EXPANSION UNDER AURANGZEB 1658-1689

Returning to Delhi, Aurangzeb invested another Rajput amir, Indra
Singh Rathor, son of Jaswant Singh’s deceased elder brother, as ruler of
Marwar.

The aftermath of these events did not follow the usual script. Rathor
dissatisfaction with the Aurangzeb’s decisions flared up into a full-
scale revolt in Marwar. By investing Indra Singh Rathor, a nephew of
Jaswant Singh, the emperor chose to ignore the fact that on the
much-delayed return journey from Jamrud to Delhi, the two Rajput
queens each bore live sons. The elder boy named Ajit Singh was born
to a Sisodia Rajput rani from Mewar. By June 1679, Durgadas Rathor,
Jaswant Singh’s senior officer, brought his troops and household to the
Rathor mansion in Shahjahanabad. At a court audience, Durgadas and
the senior Rathor officers pleaded the case for making Ajit Singh, the
elder infant, the new ruler of Marwar. Aurangzeb refused but said that
he would rear Ajit Singh in the imperial harem and confer the title of
raja and noble rank when he came of age. This was conditional,
however, on the infant being raised as a Muslim. The Rathor officers,
led by Durgadas Rathor, flatly rejected this proposal.

At this point the youngest infant died. Aurangzeb sent an armed
detachment under the Delhi magistrate (kotwal) to the Rathor mansion
to seize the two Ranis and the surviving heir. Durgadas’ refusal to turn
over the Raja’s widows and son touched off a musketry exchange. As
mounted Rajput lances charged the imperial detachment, Durgadas put
the Ranis disguised in male clothing on horses and, carrying the infant
himself, rode on a desperate flight out of the city. A slave girl with her
infant posed as the Rani and remained behind to be captured. Twice
parties of Rajputs fell back to sacrifice themselves and slow the pursuit.
In the end Durgadas reached Jodhpur with his prizes and entrusted
Ajit Singh and his mother to a safe refuge with sympathetic Rathor
lineage mates.

Aurangzeb claimed that the slave baby captured was the true Ajit
Singh and turned him over to be raised in the harem as a Muslim Rajput
prince. In his next move, Aurangzeb sent a Mughal army commanded
by Prince Muhammad Akbar, his youngest son, to occupy Marwar.
Stubborn, suicidal stands by Rathor defenders did not stop the
invaders from seizing Jodhpur. At this point the neighboring Rana of
Mewar intervened. The Rana was moved by the pleas of his kins-
woman, the Sisodia princess who was the mother of Ajit Singh, and
fearful that Mewar would next be invaded. Even the combined

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Rajputs, who had no field artillery, could not hold against the main
Mughal battle force. By the end of the year the Mughal army had
occupied Udaipur, the capital of Mewar. Great and small temples in
and around the city fell to the iconoclasm of the Mughals. The Rana
and his surviving horsemen retreated to the hills and began a guerrilla
campaign.

In early 1680 Aurangzeb returned to Ajmer and left the suppression
campaign in the hands of Prince Azam, recalled from the governorship
of Bengal, and his two brothers Muazzam and Muhammad Akbar. For
nearly a year the Mughals had only mixed success in dealing with the
harassing activities of the Rajputs in each kingdom. The death from
natural causes of the ruling Rana and the accession of his son, Jai Singh,
did not interrupt the resistance. Aurangzeb sent reinforcements and
sharply reprimanded each of his sons for lack of success.

AKBAR’S REVOLT

Throughout this period a continuing series of secret Rajput emissaries
entreated Prince Akbar to rebel against his father. They argued that
Aurangzeb’s religious bigotry and his anti-Rajput bias would be the
destruction of the empire. With Rajput support, he could seize the
throne and reverse these erroneous policies. The Mughal princess
Zeb-u-nissa, allied with Akbar, also supported this policy in a copious
secret correspondence with her brother. Finally persuaded, on January
1, 1681, Akbar crowned himself emperor and conferred titles on his
immediate officers.

Akbar took a full two weeks to lead his combined army 120 miles to
Ajmer where Aurangzeb was encamped with only a modest contingent
of troops. Akbar’s dilatory pace revealed the enormous psychological
cost of rebellion against his father’s awe-inspiring authority. Finally on
15 January the rebel prince confronted Aurangzeb outside Ajmer. That
same evening Prince Muazzam reached his father after a strenuous
forced march with troops that doubled the size of Aurangzeb’s army.

As usual Aurangzeb was busily engaged in his own form of
psychological warfare. A false letter addressed to Akbar praised him
for fulfilling the emperor’s plot to slaughter the Rajputs between his
and Akbar’s forces. The document reached Durgadas Rathor who was
unable to gain access to the sleeping Timurid prince. Fearing treachery,
he and his Rajput horsemen quietly mounted and fled in the night

182

IMPERIAL EXPANSION UNDER AURANGZEB 1658-1689

toward Marwar. Most of Akbar’s Mughal officers and troopers
surrendered to the emperor. The prince could only muster a handful of
men from his personal guard to join him in a hasty flight.

Aurangzeb immediately sent Prince Muazzam in pursuit. The
Rajputs, who had discovered Aurangzeb’s plot, kept Akbar safe in the
hills. Finally, after several months Durgadas led the prince by a long
evasive route to the court of Shambhaji, the new Maratha ruler.
Contemporary opinion held that Prince Muazzam and Khan Jahan
Bahadur, the governor of the Deccan provinces, were quietly sympa-
thetic to Akbar and, in fact, did not capture him when they could have
done so.33 Akbar’s flight suddenly converted what had been merely an
awkward rebellion by the Rathors to a full-blown imperial crisis.

Akbar’s defection immediately reduced imperial pressure on the
Rajputs. After several months of desultory campaigning the Rana of
Mewar agreed to a negotiated peace in which he surrendered three
parganas to direct Mughal administration and agreed to permanent
payment of the jiziya for Mewar. The Mughal armies withdrew and
Aurangzeb sent a robe of honor to recognize Rana Jai Singh’s
succession to his father’s throne.

In Marwar, however, resistance to the Mughals continued for a
generation. Aurangzeb left it to the faujdar of Jodhpur to direct
punitive campaigns against the rebels. The young fugitive raja Ajit
Singh, who was spirited from one refuge to another, remained the
symbolic focus of the Rathor guerrilla war. It would be a full twenty
years before a settlement was negotiated between the emperor and a
now mature Ajit Singh. For this critical period the Timurids lost the
services of most Rathor Rajputs.

Whether the rupture with the Rathor and Sisodia clans was avoida-
ble is difficult to assess. Had Aurangzeb been more willing to consider
Rajput sensitivities the revolt might not have occurred. Aurangzeb was
obviously irritated with Jaswant Singh over his support of Dara in the
war of succession and his reported complicity in the escape of Shivaji
from Puna (see below). But this should not have interfered with a
smooth succession in keeping with Jaswant Singh’s own investiture
forty years earlier.

Aurangzeb’s new emphasis on Islam as a major strand in the political
relationship strained the Rajput-Timurid bond. Many Rajputs were
deeply disturbed by the new climate as the appeal directed to Prince

>> Moinul Haq, Khafi Kban, pp. 279-280.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Akbar before his revolt suggests. Aurangzeb’s attempt to place a
Muslim convert on the Marwar gaddi reveals the importance he
attached to this issue. Aurangzeb’s new hard line did make it more
difficult to resolve these issues peacefully. Both Rajput and non-Rajput
retainers of Jaswant Singh obviously felt their interests to be jeopard-
ized by the emperor’s actions. After the first violent clash, and as the
conflict widened to Mewar, opposing idioms of resistance and sup-
pression increasingly found expression in religious imagery. This
militant imagery frayed the bond of emotion and interest that tied the
Rathors, Sisodias, and other Rajputs to the empire.

184

CHAPTER 9

THE ECONOMY, SOCIETAL CHANGE,
AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Aurangzeb’s Deccan victories depended as much upon Timurid wealth
as his generalship and military skills. After more than a century of
conquest and territorial expansion the Mughal emperor possessed
enormous resources. From Akbar’s annexation of Malwa in 1561 till
the fall of Golconda in 1687, every victory generated large amounts of
plundered treasure from the hoards of defeated rulers — often sufficient
to repay the costs of conquest. Ordinary revenues obtained through
taxes on agricultural production and trade poured into the emperor’s
coffers. In 1689 Aurangzeb had no reason to anticipate revenue
shortfalls. Whether for war or for routine costs of administration the
empire was self-financing from its own resources.

If a deficit year were to occur the central treasury guarded an
enormous hoard of coined and uncoined gold and silver. Millions of
rupees in liquid wealth held by several hundred Mughal nobles and
higher-ranking mansabdars must also be viewed as a supplementary
reserve. Unlike contemporary early modern European kings, the
Mughal emperors did not depend upon loans from private financiers to
meet routine expenditures or to pay for even the most expensive
military campaigns.’ Military commanders on campaign who needed
funds often were authorized to collect large sums from the ordinary
holdings of provincial treasuries.

THE REVENUE SYSTEM

At the heart of Mughal finance was the revenue system which taxed
agricultural production and urban trade. By its insistence on cash
payment, the regime forced foodgrains and other commodities from
the countryside to be sold in an ascending hierarchy of markets.
Mughal revenue collectors for khalisa lands and collection agents for
jagirdars received regular payments in copper and silver coin in
installments every year.

1 J, F. Richards, “Mughal State Finance and the Premodern World Economy,” Comparative
Studies in Society and History, 23 (1981), 285-307.

185

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

The state revenue demand more than doubled between Akbar and
Aurangzeb. The jama or combined one-tenth urban imposts and
nine-tenths land revenue (mal) grew from 5,834.6 million dams in the
last years of Akbar’s rule to 13,339.9 million dams just after the death
of Aurangzeb in 1709.2 Some of this increase derived from lands added
by conquest; some by rising tax demands. In either event the revenues
accruing to the emperor and the imperial elite rose substantially over
time.

Evaluating this revenue increase is complicated by the secular trend
in prices over the seventeenth century. Some economic historians have
suggested that a doubling of prices in silver currency occurred in the
first sixty years of the century followed by stability until another
fifty-year rising trend began in 1700.> Therefore, from one perspective,
imperial revenues barely kept pace with inflationary trends in silver
currency over the long term. More recently Sanjay Subrahmanyam
argues that long term price data for the subcontinent in the seventeenth
century are both fragmentary and inconclusive: “Overall then, the
Indian evidence suggests that price inflation was at best sporadic, and
limited to specific regions and specific commodities ...””4 It is also
possible, in view of the scantiness of long term quantitative data, that
the silver influx was absorbed for use by an expanding Indian currency
system and economy. And that the rate of silver increase was matched
by increases in productivity and in the demand for money which
slowed or even prevented price inflation.

Nevertheless, for any fiscal administration to adjust upward its
assessment decade after decade is a formidable prospect. To attain this
degree of success bespeaks a well-run, confident structure capable of
responding to changing economic circumstances. Whether Mughal
fiscal officers actually noticed and acted upon a long-term upward
trend in prices is another question. That they successfully raised taxes
is clear.

If the presumed rise in prices did occur and arable lands did grow in
area, the total state-imposed burden on agriculture was reduced

2 Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India (London, 1963), p. 399.

> Irfan Habib, “Monetary System and Prices” in Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib, eds.,
The Cambridge Economic History of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1982), 2 vols., 1, 376.

+ Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “Precious Metal Flows and Prices in Western and Southern Asia,
1500-1750: Some Comparative and Conjunctural Aspects,” Studies in History, 7, n.s.
(1991), 79-105.

186

THE ECONOMY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

accordingly. That is, the tax load imposed in 1700 fell on more
cultivators working a larger arable area than that same tax burden
expressed in real terms in 1600. Necessarily, therefore, the same tax
demand must have rested more lightly on at least some parts of rural
society in this region. Given the provisions of the Mughal revenue
regulations favoring lands newly brought into cultivation, pioneering
peasant-cultivators or zamindars and their tenants probably benefited
disproportionately.

The zabt revenue system gave Mughal administrators a means to
impose higher taxes by intensifying imperial control over rural society.
Resting firmly on annual collection of data on cultivated area, crops,
prices, and collections, the regulation revenue system was a precise tool
for taxing agricultural production. When backed by sufficient force,
land surveys and data collection permitted the administration to move
from tribute-taking or pishkash from local lords to taxation or mal.
Under the zabt system each zamindar was reduced to conveying a
pre-set tax for each cultivator and village to imperial officials. In some
areas the revenue administration could bypass the zamindar and deal
directly with dominant peasant-cultivators (raiyati zamindars) in
individual villages.

Akbar’s agrarian order was not a static entity. A succession of
imperial diwans extended the territory covered by the regulation
system. Between 1595 and the end of the seventeenth century lands
surveyed and recorded increased from 201.6 million to 284.8 million
bigahs, An undetermined, but probably smaller, part of this increase
recorded the extension of cultivation in resurveys of villages and
parganas already brought into the system. A larger proportion,
however, resulted from incorporating new parganas into the regulation
system. In either circumstance, the net growth in measured lands was
an impressive organizational feat.

The pattern of change was not uniform. A minority of provinces
remained exempt from the new order. The northwestern frontier -
Kabul, Thatta — fell outside the regulation agrarian system, as did
Kashmir. Similarly, Bengal and Orissa on the northeastern riverine
frontier were not subject to measurement. Some provinces showed a
decrease in the measured area. Lahore and Multan posted slight
declines. Ajmer and Gujarat showed larger reductions.

Nine provinces recorded increases in zabt lands. In these total lands
surveyed rose by 110.8 million bigahs. This figure commands our

187

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

attention. Even extended over the century it implies that the imperial
administration planned, executed and recorded surveys for over one
million bigahs in an average year. An administrative effort of this
magnitude testifies to the tenacity and purposefulness of the Mughal
revenue administration. If, in addition, we assume that periodic, fresh
surveys were undertaken of previously measured lands. For example,
in the mid-1670s Aurangzeb ordered a fresh survey and measurement
of Bihar province. Only five of the eight districts were resurveyed
before the emperor moved to the Deccan after 1680. Expansion of the
zabt system occurred in two regions: Hindustan, the heartland of the
empire, and the four older Deccan provinces in the south.

In the course of the seventeenth century the Gangetic plain
provinces of Delhi, Bihar, Allahabad and Awadh all showed sub-
stantial rises in lands classified as zabt. Agra, if adjusted for the loss of
two districts to Delhi, added modestly to the total. In these five
provinces land surveyed, measured and assessed rose by 42.3 million
bigahs. By 1700 the lands of 181,300 villages were measured — nearly
four-fifths the total recorded. In Delhi, Agra, and Allahabad measured
villages exceeded 90 percent at the century’s end. Clearly, the admin-
istration’s goal was to obtain saturation coverage of lands in Hindustan.

The assessed revenue demand in the five provinces doubled over one
hundred years from 1,784 million to 3,584 million dams. Steady
growth in the measured area helped the Mughal state to keep pace with
rising agricultural production (and rising prices) over the century.
When cultivators cleared new lands and occupied new villages these
could be surveyed and recorded for revenue assessment. Similarly,
when cultivators turned to more valuable cash crops such as sugarcane
or cotton, the revenue system extracted increased returns.

In the Deccan provinces, Khandesh, Aurangabad, Bidar, and Berar
listed 60.3 million bigahs of arable under measurement by 1700. From a
total of 30,006 villages identified in these provinces, 82 percent (24,637)
were subject to measurement.® At the end of Akbar’s reign, none of the
portions of the Deccan under firm Mughal administration contained
measured lands. Aurangzeb, who as prince governed the Deccan,
commissioned his talented fiscal officer, Murshid Quli Khan, to
implement the zabt system in the south. The initial, massive surveying
S Muzaffar Alam, “Eastern India in the early eighteenth century crisis,” Indian Economic

and Social History Review, 28, January-March 1991, 62.
© Habib, Agrarian System, p. 4.

188

THE ECONOMY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

effort took place from 1652 to 1656 during Aurangzeb’s second tenure
of office. After 1689 the regime faltered in that neither Bijapur nor
Golconda (Hyderabad) were subjected to the regulation land revenue
system.

The ratio of zabt to unmeasured lands serves as a plausible index of
imperial centralization. As the Mughal teams of surveyors and record-
ers progressed from village to village and pargana to pargana, local
Rajput, Afghan or other aristocrats lost power and autonomy. The
chaudhuri of a pargana recently surveyed and assessed became a
functionary subject to a new level of discipline and control. Great
zamindars whose ancestors had paid tribute (pishkash) for generations
to Indo-Muslim states now became mal-wajib zamindars who col-
lected scheduled revenues in return for tax-free home lands and a fixed
percentage of the returns. To retain a semblance of former power, these
local leaders could contract to pay the revenue as a talugdar
collecting from lesser zamindars for a fee. The latter were frequently
retainers or kinsmen now subject to intervening control by the state.

Equipped with detailed, comprehensive data, provincial fiscal
officers reduced the negotiable terrain possible for each zamindar.
They turned to their schedules of revenue rates and cultivated area
tables to settle upon a reasonable demand. Zabt expansion increased
the administration’s ability to deal directly with village elites. The
diwan could better locate and define raiyati areas in which village
zamindars contracted to pay the stipulated taxes rather than zamin-
dars. Increasing areas in raiyati status enlarged the area in which salary
assignments could be freely made to smaller mansabdars. Under the
village-wise arrangement smaller officers did not have to worry about
the refractory responses of troublesome (zor-talab) local aristocrats.
The zabt system generally eased the problem of making collections for
both agents of the imperial crown lands (the khalisa) or salary assignees
(jagirdars).

The system certainly did not hinder, and may have in some ways
encouraged, expansion of productive capacity in these regions —
especially in higher value cash crops. The diwans used these added
revenues partly to strengthen and improve the imperial fiscal structure.
Intensified administrative pressure acted to weaken and undercut the
dominant social class in the countryside. At the same time peace, order,
and new market opportunities, as well as state encouragement,
increased the surplus to be shared between producer, middlemen

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

(traders, brokers, moneylenders), zamindars, and the state. The result,
by the end of this century, was a rural society entered into a quickening
process of change.

THE RURAL ECONOMY

Repressive on occasion, the Mughal revenue system nevertheless did
not stifle agricultural investment’ or inhibit population growth. A
recent, conservative estimate by Irfan Habib suggests that the total
population of India increased slowly throughout the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries from just under 150 million in 1600 to about 200
millions in 1800.7 Even recurring periodic heavy mortality from dearth
and disease when the monsoon rains failed for two years or more
slowed, but did not stop, population growth. The overall trend lay
upwards — toward greater human numbers supported by intensifying
agricultural production in the countryside.

For the century under review the rural economy of Mughal India
prospered. In agriculture the peasantry continued to produce its
surplus. If anything, agricultural capacity improved over the long
term. Indian peasants in the seventeenth century grew a large number
of food and industrial crops efficiently and well. The Mughal revenue
system was biassed in favor of higher value cash crops like indigo,
cotton, sugar-cane, tree-crops, or opium. State incentives plus rising
demand thereby stimulated cash crops grown for the market.

Indian peasants were quick to seize upon profitable new crops.
Between 1600 and 1650 two new world crops, tobacco and maize, were
widely adopted by cultivators throughout Mughal India.* Bengali
peasants rapidly learned techniques of mulberry cultivation and seri-
culture as Bengal became a major silk-producing region for the world.?
In the eastern Gangetic plain, after the mid-seventeenth century, a
rapidly expanding export trade driven by new European trading
centers at Patna stimulated expansion of cotton, opium, and sugar as
cash crops.!°

In nearly every region within the Mughal empire the settler frontier
of sedentary agriculture moved forward at the expense of pastoralists
in the plains or shifting cultivators in wooded areas. To the northeast

7 Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib, eds., The Cambridge Economic History of India
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 1, 167.

* Raychaudhuri and Habib, Economic History, p.217. ? Ibid., p.217.

1 Alam, Eastern India, p.68.

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THE ECONOMY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

along the terai or foothills of the Himalayas and in eastern Bengal and
Assam energetic Muslim peasants reclaimed large tracts from the
jungle for wet rice cultivation.'! To the northwest state revenues in the
Punjab doubled in a century. The recently settled, formerly nomadic
Hindu, and increasingly, Sikh Jat peasantry vigorously expanded
cultivation in the rich river basins of the Punjab. The high fertility of
the soil repaid an intensive investment in well-digging to grow wheat,
cotton, oil seeds, and other crops. Cash crop demands intensified as
market towns sprang up to meet the needs of a booming overland trade
in the region.!2

Fertile soils and relatively easy access to irrigation encouraged rural
expansion in the eastern Gangetic plain. In Awadh, Rajputs
aggressively settled new lands to expand their zamindari holdings." In
Gorakhpur district the extensive forests of Akbar’s period gave way to
settled agriculture by the early eighteenth century. The administration
took special measures to encourage land clearing and settlement.
Revenues assessed on Gorakhpur rose 267 percent in that period.'*

In Bihar in Shah Jahan’s reign, the imperial administration bifur-
cated the old Rohtas district and detached a new district, Shahabad
Bhojpur. Partly this change reflected tighter administrative control
over the region settled by the Ujjainiya Rajput zamindars in Bhojpur
on Bihar’s western border. Partly, however, the change reflected
considerable expansion of cultivation at the forest frontier — expansion
that was actively promoted by the state. A later eighteenth-century
account of Shahabad and the origins of its zamindaris states: “most of
the zamindaris during the reign of Shahjahan originated in bankatai or
populating land after clearing forests. Those who did so became
zamindars and obtained nankars (part of the revenue as zamindari
right) for their lifetime. After the death of such zamindars, their sons
obtained sanads for the rights held by them on condition of continued
service.”!5

ZAMINDARS

In the hundred years elapsed between imposition of Akbar’s new
revenue system in the 1580s and Aurangzeb’s departure for the Deccan

4 Tid. 225.
12 Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India (Delhi: Oxford University

Press, 1986), pp. 139-145. 7
13 Ibid, p.99.. Ibid, p.103. "8 Quoted in Alam, Crisis of Empire, pp. 65-66.

191

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

in 1680, a composite intermediary social class emerged in outline in the
countryside. The growing domain of the zabt system helped to break
away the cyst-like defenses of those warriors who dominated each
pargana. Local chiefs or lineages no longer could add to their domains
by small, vicious, wars against their neighbors. Although still armed
and occasionally violent, Mughal zamindars at all levels had to carry
out contractually defined tasks for the state or their sanads were not
renewed. At the same time buoyant local and regional markets,
stimulated by imperial demand, placed new, or at least enhanced,
sources of wealth within the reach of every local lord and dominant
lineage.

Over time the stability of the Mughal agrarian system strengthened
the contractual position of zamindars at all levels. That agreed upon
share of the annual land revenue guaranteed to the zamindar by the
empire became a form of property that could be sold, inherited and
even mortgaged.'® Obviously, if the rural economy were in crisis —
whether from natural calamity or from excessive taxation — there
would be no point to a market in such property rights. Numerous
seventeenth-century sale deeds for zamindari rights are consistent with
a growing rural economy.

Other zamindars contracted for the right to collect the revenue for
the state over lands beyond their original zamindari holding. For this
service these taluqdars obtained compensation, but they did not
possess full rights and the full share of the revenue of a zamindar.'7
Under normal conditions of peace and security this was not an over-
whelmingly risky proposition in most districts.

Prosperity and stability benefited smaller village or khud-kasht
zamindars. Village zamindars were members of the village elite who
held ownership rights which permitted them to bequeath, sell or
transfer their land. They could not be evicted by revenue officials as
long as they paid their share of the village land revenues and continued
to cultivate their holdings. These peasants who cultivated their own
holdings were also distinguished by ownership of draught cattle and
plows.

Village zamindars, acting as a corporate body, jointly managed the
financial affairs of the village. They were collectively responsible for

6 Raychaudhuri and Habib, Economic History, pp. 176-77, 246.
17 Habib, Agrarian System, pp.171-72.

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THE ECONOMY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

the payment of the land revenue and the village headman came from
their number. At the same time they paid revenue at concessionary
rates fixed by custom which were less than those paid by tenants or
migrant cultivators. These dominant peasants also administered the
communal pastures, woodlands, and ponds and other shared resources
of the village.'8

Within the class of khud-kasht cultivators we find considerable
evidence of inequality and internal stratification. Data from eastern
Rajasthan for the late seventeenth century reveal that the wealthiest
peasants, perhaps two to five big men per village, owned six to eight
plows and bullock-teams which they let out on share-cropping terms
to their less-wealthy fellows.!? These elite peasants built up profits
from investing in cash crops and in extension of cultivation. Often they
engaged in moneylending within and without the village.

Detailed testimony from eastern Rajasthan suggests that cultivation
was expanding steadily in the late seventeenth century and that the
wealthier land-owning peasants put their capital into this effort. Elite
peasants universally paid less in revenues than the body of tenant
farmer (pai) cultivators in northern India who did not share in the
corporate privileges of the village. Often wealthier peasants possessed
surplus funds sufficient to lend at interest. They retained profits from
expanding arable and the increases in cash crops.

In the 1680s state warfare on local aristocracies receded to be
replaced by more routine revenue administration and occasional
punitive actions. A slow process of converting Rajputs, Jats, and
other local warrior groups into quasi-officials was well underway.
Nevertheless, the task remained incomplete. Local zamindars were
only partially controlled, disarmed, or displaced by more docile
newcomers. A growing cash economy offered them opportunities to
profit from both moneylending and cash crops. The Mughal tax
demand, while heavy, left substantial assets with zamindars and elite
peasants. In accumulating resources, both rural lords and village elites
were accumulating the means for defiance — should local rebellion seem

feasible.

4 Satish Chandra, “The Structure of Village Society in Northern India” in Satish Chandra,
Medieval India (Delhi: Orient Longman, 1982), p. 33.

h Chandra, “Role of the Local Community, the Zamindars and the State in Providiny

tal Inputs for the Improvement and Expansion of Cultivation” in Chandra, Medi

India, pp. 171-72.

193

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

GENTRY AND TOWNS

By the 1680s hundreds of prosperous market towns (qasbas) had
proliferated in northern India. In each pargana the central town served
as principal market for grains sold to meet imperial taxes and as a center
for moneylenders and grain traders. The qasbas fostered a growing
gentry class. Agents for jagirdars, grain traders, moneylenders, zamin-
dars, retired petty officials, and retired military officers built residences
and established households. Many religious figures and other
recipients of subsistence grants or tax-free lands (madad-i mash)
settled in market towns. Often the grantees amassed wealth and
purchased zamindari rights over additional lands.

New towns were often founded or moribund settlements revived by
entrepreneurial action. Mughal jagirdars, zamindars, religious figures,
or even court eunuchs acted to improve the economic potential of their
holdings or, in many cases, for personal renown. Relatively modest
funds were required to build a sarai, to dig a well, or to establish a
market (ganj). In the generally peaceful and buoyant conditions of the
Mughal century these efforts flourished. For example the town of
Shahjahanpur, now the district town of the same name, resulted from
Shah Jahan’s grant of fourteen villages to two of his Afghan officers, on
condition that they create a settlement and build a fort. The officers
imported fellow Afghans from beyond the Indus to settle the town and
placed them in quarters according to their lineage and tribal affili-
ations,?°

Town life was especially attractive to Muslims who were the
dominant group in many north Indian qasbas. Generally, in north
India, Muslim gentry benefited substantially from official largess.
Aurangzeb’s policies aimed at restricting these local tax-free grants to
Muslim recipients added appreciably to the fortunes of local town-
based Muslim elites in the countryside. Pargana qazis (judges) by the
mid to late seventeenth century had become conspicuous in this
process.?! The extent to which many qasbas were Muslim-dominated
is revealed in the chronicler’s descriptions of the defense mounted
against assaults by Banda Bahadur’s forces in the Sikh revolt of the
early eighteenth century (see below, Chapter 12).

Batala town in the Sutlej-Chenab doab northeast of Lahore in the

2 Raychaudhuri and Habib, Economic History, p. 443.
21 Alam, Crisis of Empire, pp. 110-119.

194

THE ECONOMY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Punjab is typical of such a qasba. Batala was founded on an ancient
village mound in 1465 by Ram Dev, a Bhatti Rajput newly converted to
Islam, who was the revenue contractor for the Punjab under Sultan
Buhlul Lodi’s governor. After decades of flooding and warfare, the
entire region was depopulated. Ram Dev actively encouraged settle-
ment and reclamation to the point that many villages sprang up around
Batala. By the end of the Lodi period Batala had become a pargana
headquarters town with a resident revenue collector.22

Batala endured several years of warfare and disruption when Babur
raided from Kabul into the Lodi-ruled Punjab, but in 1527, the town
and its surrounding hinterland was fully incorporated into the new
Mughal regime. By the early eighteenth century Batala’s population is
estimated at between 15,000 and 20,000 persons. Each Muslim occu-
pational or sectarian group or each Hindu caste lived in neighbour-
hoods (mohullas) with well-known names and boundaries. Various
functionaries were appointed by the state. Generations of revenue
collectors and locally recruited qanungos accepted Mughal appoint-
ments. Generations of Muslim qazis, appointed by the provincial sadr,
resolved disputes, tried criminals, and protected persons and property
in the town.

For nearly 200 years Batala’s inhabitants experienced uninterrupted
peace until the Sikh attack in 1709. The greater part of the cultivable
land surrounding Batala was irrigated by many wells. Later a branch of
the Shah Nahr, the canal bringing water to Lahore ordered built by
Shah Jahan, carried irrigation water to Batala. Much of the land was
intensively cultivated for market gardens by Arain Muslim Rajputs and
their tenants. Wheat, raw sugar, and other surplus produce gathered to
the town markets was sent on to Lahore. Weavers, dyers, iron-smiths,
leatherworkers, carpenters, and other artisans, almost entirely Muslim,
were present in Batala in large numbers. Ordinary cotton cloth for
lungis and other clothing; saddles, shoes and decorated leatherwork,
and wood carvings were among the manufactured goods exported.
Hindu Khatris, the dominant commercial caste of the Punjab, con-
trolled the commercial life of the town. As many as thirty subcastes of
Khatri traders, shopkeepers, and moneylenders owned residential and

22 The following description of Batala is taken from J.S. Grewal, In the By-Lanes of History:
a Persian Documents from a Punjab Town (Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced
Study, 1975).

195

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

commercial property. Other commercial castes served as sarrafs
(moneychangers) and goldsmiths.

The majority population in Batala, however, was Muslim. The town
was a vital Islamic center which benefited directly from official
patronage. Shamshir Khan, a converted Rajput who was revenue
collector of Batala in Akbar’s reign, built a large reservoir or tank
with an adjoining garden, a mosque, and his own tomb completed in
1588-89. The collector’s tomb became a monument to his benevolent
activity for Batala Muslims who, if literate, left graffiti in ink on its
walls with their names, parentage, and occupations. At the collector’s
request, Akbar gave lands yielding one hundred thousand dams to the
noted Sayyid Muhammad Shah of Bukhar, who used the funds to
maintain a large charitable kitchen (langarkhana) for residents and
travelers,

Royal gifts and grants to the saintly and pious continued in Jahangir
and Shah Jahan’s reigns. Aurangzeb’s long reign saw the construction
of a congregational mosque, supported by a fixed allowance set by the
emperor. Towards the end of the reign, a Qadiri Sufi master, Muham-
mad Faziluddin, founded a hospice and a theological college, both of
which received revenue free lands from Aurangzeb’s successors.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

During the seventeenth century economic growth in Mughal India was
stimulated by the growing importance of a new, external connection:
the link between Mughal India and early modern Europe. The
northern Europeans — Dutch, English, French, and even Ostenders —
organized into joint-stock trading corporations, shunted aside the
Portuguese as the dominant naval powers and traders in the Indian
Ocean. Each trading concern operated under a royal charter which
granted it exclusive national rights to carry out the India trade. The
most powerful entities were the Dutch East India Company (founded
1602) and the English East India Company (founded 1600). These
proved to be long-lived, highly profitable, long-distance trading
corporations. (The French East India Company was a late entrant and
suffered erratic management as a royal trading corporation.) These
East India Companies created and nurtured a steadily enlarging
economic, political and cultural tie with the Indian subcontinent.
East India Company trade exported Mughal India’s industrial and

196

THE ECONOMY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

processed goods to Europe able to pay for these goods with New
World specie. Each region benefited from this exchange. As the
century progressed with swelling trade profits came a larger
European presence. Profitable trading also encouraged and, in fact,
relied upon strong royal support at home. The East India Companies
were very much an expression of the national interest of England and
Holland.

Under the northern Europeans the scale and range of Indian exports
brought directly to Europe increased dramatically. The East India
Companies made sharp inroads in black pepper, the Portuguese staple
obtained in the pepper-growing regions of the southwestern peninsula,
As mass-consumption demands for pepper grew in Europe, EIC
imports from India rose accordingly. In 1621 the Directors of the
Dutch East India Company put the annual European import of pepper
at 7 million Ib. of which the Portuguese brought in 1.4 millions and the
English and Dutch Companies shared the remaining 5.6 million lb.
By 1670 annual imports of both companies combined peaked at 13.5
million lb.

Other Indian commodities such as indigo, grown and processed at
Bayana near Agra, and in Gujarat enjoyed a steady and lucrative
market in Europe. Relatively fast and inexpensive compared to woad,
indigo from India was an important export until cheaper New World
sources displaced it in the eighteenth century. Raw silk, produced in
mulberry plantations in Kasiambazar and its hinterlands in northern
Bengal, became a new source of supply for the silk-weaving industry in
Italy and France after 1650. Saltpeter, much in demand for the
European munitions industry, also served as a ballast for East India
Company ships returning to Europe.

A more significant advance lay in the adoption of Indian textiles as
an export commodity. Early in the century the East India Companies
had entered the long-established trade in Gujarat and southeastern
Coromandel cotton cloths to Indonesia. Profits from this trade helped
to offset the costs of spices and the Dutch, already settled at Batavia,
had an immediate advantage in this trade. Trial shipments soon created

23 K. N, Chaudhuri, “Foreign Trade with India” in Raychaudhuri and Habib, eds., The
Cambridge Economic History of India, 1, 399.

4 KN. Chaudhuri, The European Trading World of Asia and the English East India
Company 1660-1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), Table C.14,
p-$29; and Chaudhuri, “Foreign Trade with India,” p. 399.

197

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

a market for cheaper Indian cotton cloth which undercut woolens and
linens for the poorer ends of the market. By the 1620s the English East
India Company was selling a quarter million pieces or lengths of Indian
cloth at auction in London. Dutch shipments soon rose sharply as
sales in Amsterdam grew. By mid-century the comfort and washability
of Indian cotton body linen and clothing was widely known in Europe.
More costly styles of cotton such as patterned calico and chintz started
to penetrate the luxury ends of the market. Indian silk was also much in
demand.

Between 1660 and 1689 European demand for Indian textiles soared
as prices and demand rose steeply. In 1664 the English East India
Company imported 273,746 pieces of cotton cloth from India
(approximately 4.2 million sq. meters). The rising trend culminated in
1684 at 1,760,315 pieces (or 26.9 million sq. meters).?¢ Dutch imports,
although somewhat less, followed a similar trend. The saturated textile
market in Europe slumped abruptly in 1689 to be followed by a rising
trend at the turn of the eighteenth century.

The return trade from Europe was nearly confined to shipment of
precious metals from the New World, or for a time, from Japan. For
the entire period, the English could only look to modest sales of
broadcloth and woolens, unworked metals such as tin, lead, and
copper, and some European luxury goods. The Dutch could offer
spices obtained in the Moluccas and Ceylon which had fallen under
their control. For both companies, however, purchasing power for
Indian commodities rested upon shipments of bullion. In the century
after 1660, as textile exports accelerated, the Dutch and English
companies together shipped an average of over 34 tons of silver and
nearly half a ton of gold every year?” In the Mughal dominions
imported bullion and coin went directly to the imperial mint to be
melted and struck as rupees or gold muhrs. Only then could they be
used to pay Indian brokers and traders supplying cloth and other
commodities. Often boxes of silver reales minted in Peru were
transshipped through Amsterdam or London unopened until they
reached the Mughal mints at Surat.

25 Chaudhuri, “Foreign Trade with India,” p. 401.

2% Chaudhuri, Trading World, Table C.24, p. $47.

27 J. F, Richards, ed. Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern World
(Durham NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1983), p.24. These annual averages were
calculated on the century from 1660 to 1760 for both companies.

198

THE ECONOMY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

CREATION OF NEW TRADING CENTERS

In the extreme south of India and in Southeast Asia, the Dutch could
freely establish their own fortified trading bases and hope to coerce
producers as had the Portuguese. On the Coromandel coast they had
little trouble gaining permission from the fragmented Hindu nayak
kingdoms of the south to establish their own settlement at Pulicat by
1610. Within the territory of the larger, more powerful states of the
subcontinent, however, they had to take a different approach. The
overall objective was access to Machhilipatnam (Masulipatnam) at the
mouth of the Godavari river in the Sultanate of Golconda and Surat,
the west coast port in Mughal Gujarat. In 1605 and 1606 a Dutch factor
visited Machhilipatnam to negotiate trading entry with the Qutb Shahi
ruler of Golconda. This was a prime production area for fine chintz
much in demand in Southeast Asian markets. A royal order permitted
the Dutch to establish a trading station (factory) at Machhilipatnam
port and gave the Dutch a lower export duty. Ten years later, the
Dutch received permission to open a permanent factory at Surat.?8

The English East India Company did not invest in its own settle-
ments in India at first. Instead, in 1611 the English factory at
Macchilipatnam was founded; in 1613 a similar trading station became
permanent at Surat. In 1615 the Company arranged to have James I
send Thomas Roe as a royal ambassador to the court of Jahangir. Roe’s
success in this mission further solidified the English position at Surat
and permitted them to send factors inland to set up trading posts at
Agra, Burhanpur, Patna, and other trading centers.

At these trading centers, bodies of Dutch or English factors who
were employees of their respective companies sold European goods
and purchased supplies of Indian textiles and other export commodi-
ties. The trading centers or “factories” were self-sufficient communi-
ties of European traders who lived under communal discipline and
maintained their own cultural traditions. In the fashion of the time the
walled factory compounds served as living quarters and as secure
storage for valuable goods. The East India Companies engaged Euro-
peans to serve as armed guards and also hired Indians as well. Larger
stations, especially those in the south like Fort St. George, developed
early into nearly autonomous city-states.

The Indian trading stations stood at one end of a directly admin-

28 Chaudhuri, “Foreign Trade with India,” p. 388.

199

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

istered trading system with London or Amsterdam at the other end.
Only two markets existed: the procurement market in each region in
India for each commodity and the sales market in Europe for each
import. The Companies owned and shipped these goods under their
ownership and control throughout. As has often been suggested they
were indeed the precursors of the modern multi-national corporation.

The East India Company directors and owners — the Court of
Seventeen in Amsterdam and the Court of Proprietors in London —
presided over newly evolved complex organizations capable of great
efficiency and stability in their operations. Each company employed a
system of specialized committees at home for matters like accounts,
buying, warehousing, shipping, bullion procurement, and other func-
tions. Through issue of capital stock, loans, and bonds, they mobilized
large amounts of short and long-term capital to send in the form of
specie to Asia. They kept meticulous accounts which included profit
and loss statements for commodities, ship voyages, trading stations
and trading seasons.

Practices first perfected by trial and error were codified into decision
rules to be applied consistently over time. Company officers organized
an intricate shipping schedule to service their far-flung trading stations.
Scheduling had to account for close to two years’ elapsed time between
India and Europe for each trading voyage. All purpose-built EIC ships
were either owned outright or leased for the trade and manned by
Company staff. All were armed and fully capable of defending
themselves against all vessels save European warships.

In Europe the companies stored Indian goods in warehouses and sold
them on monopoly terms. In so doing the companies were able to
minimize swings in prices and profits. In India, the Dutch and English
companies worked very hard to rationalize procurement of Indian
goods. Textile produced by individual artisans in sequence — spinners,
weavers, dyers, bleachers, and printers — required special efforts at
standardization. EIC factors gave out contracts to Indian middlemen/
wholesale merchants for delivery of thousands of pieces of cloth of
specified quality and style some eight or ten months later. Cash
advances committed the merchants and their weavers to deliver the
cloth on schedule and acted as a deposit on orders for the producers.

By mid-century the effects of this new trade channel were beginning
to be felt in Mughal India. Four coastal zones produced the greater part
of textile exports: the area surrounding Surat in Gujarat; the area

200

THE ECONOMY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

between Krishna and Godavari in northern Coromandel adjacent to
Machhilipatnam; the southern Coromandel between Pulicat and
Madras; and the Ganges delta forming a hinterland for the port at
Hughli in Bengal.29 Within each region bullion imports converted to
imperial currency paid customs duties, the local expenses of the
factors, bribes and presents for officials, and put new income into the
hands of weavers and profits into the coffers of Indian wholesalers and
brokers.

European activities reached deeply into the countryside in these
regions. In northern Coromandel during the latter half of the century,
the Dutch at Machhilipatnam expanded their purchases beyond the
expensive patterned cloth traditionally exported from the region
between the Krishyna and Godavari rivers. They created a new market
for plain white cotton cloths or calicoes.*° The variety known as
longcloth or guinees were 35 yard pieces primarily used in the West
African slave trade. In the early 1680s the Dutch East India Company
purchased 4 to 5 million yards of calicoes each year. Half of these
pieces were shipped directly to Holland; half were consigned to
Batavia for resale in Southeast Asia. The English factory at Machhili-
patnam shipped a like quantity of calicoes for the European market.

The VOC (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie) placed resident
Dutch factors at its head trading station, the port of Machhilipat-
nam, and three subordinate trading stations inland. These stations were
actually markets at which the European factors met twice a year with
Telugu merchants of the Komati caste. From June to August they
placed orders with cash advances with these middlemen. The Komati
wholesalers then executed their contracts with head weavers who
controlled the output of dozens of their fellows and who undertook to
guarantee delivery of acceptable cloth. Between September and Novem-
ber, the prime sailing season, the Dutch factors received delivery of the
woven pieces which had to be checked for general quality, and
standardized dimensions and thread count.

In this region the weavers were not concentrated in towns, but rather
dispersed in industrial villages scattered throughout the coastal dis-
tricts. In the eastern portion of the East Godavari delta the Dutch
station at the village of Draksharama drew its supplies from a catch-

2 Chaudhuri, Trading World, “India: Main Textile Weaving Areas 1600-1750,” p. 244.

20 The data on northern Coromandel are drawn from Joseph J. Brennig, “The Textile Trade
of Seventeenth Century Northern Coromandel: A Study of a Pre-Modern Asian Export
Industry” (Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Ph.D. dissertation, 1975).

201

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

ment area of sixteen villages. A Dutch census in 1682 revealed that
5,960 households operated 6,930 looms in these sixteen villages for an
average of 373 weaving households per village. In the typical northern
Coromandel industrial village, weavers, cloth washers, and dyers
constituted more than half the households and far outnumbered
cultivators.3! Each household operated by adult male weavers pro-
duced between 1,300 and 1,500 yards of cloth per year. At the prices
prevailing in the 1680s a weaver paid in cash could purchase foodgrains
and meet other subsistence needs and generate a surplus at the end of
the year. Head weavers and those with two or more looms did even
better.

Cash advances to the weavers travelled down the social hierarchy to
reach lower caste women who spun cotton yarn and sold it directly to
the weavers. And Dutch advances reached out beyond the region to
pay the banjara wholesaler/transporters who used thousands of pack
bullocks to carry raw cotton to the weaver. The best quality cotton was
not grown in northern Coromandel but came from the black cotton
tracts of Khandesh and Berar five hundred kilometers to the west.
These carriers were given tax-free status by the king of Golconda and
later by the Mughals.

There is no question that the East India Companies’ activities
directly stimulated the economy of each coastal region and the empire
as a whole. Bengal offers the most dramatic example of export-
stimulated economic growth. After Shah Jahan expelled the Portu-
guese from their trading station at Hugli in 1631, the way was cleared
for Dutch, English, and French merchants to place their factors at that
port. Dutch activities in Bengal grew rapidly. In 1663 the VOC
imported treasure worth 903,953 florins into Bengal to pay for its
purchases; by 1707 treasure imports had increased to 3.2 million
florins. The total value of exports followed a similar upward path.3>
From Bengal the Dutch procured growing quantities of saltpeter,
shipped primarily to Europe, opium, sold in Indonesia, raw silk
divided between Japan and Holland; and woven cotton and silk textiles
divided between Europe, Indonesia, and Japan. These were all either
enlarged or new markets for Bengal’s producers.

A recent analysis concludes that the Dutch trade, which primarily
31 Brennig, “Textile Trade,” p. 292.

22 Om Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal 1630-1720

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 66-67.
23 Prakash, Dutch East India Company, p.70.

202

THE ECONOMY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

imported precious metals, caused a real increase in Bengal’s output and
income. The export surplus was generated by fuller utilization of
existing productive capacity and a reallocation of resources to meet
European demand. Dutch and English procurement of textiles by the
end of the century employed nearly ten percent of the full-time
weavers and other workers in the textile sector of Bengal.** For Bengal,
the growing export market in Europe added another impetus to a
steadily enlarging regional economy. This long-term trend, already
well underway, continued well into the British colonial period.

Trading company investments in Bengal directly benefited the
imperial exchequer and indirectly enhanced the incomes of high-
ranking Mughal officers. The stream of silver pouring into Bengal was
a mainstay of the copious output of the imperial mints located at
Rajmahal, Dacca, Patna, and Balasore.35 Cash crops like poppy and
mulberry flourished. Bengali peasants shifted sizable areas of lands
from rice to mulberry in response to market incentives for silk
production. Each bigah of land (3/5 acre) in mulberry paid Rs. 3 per
year; each bigah in rice paid Rs. 0.75. When in 1706 the Mughal
authorities prohibited Dutch trade for nearly a year, provincial rev-
enues suffered as peasants reverted to rice production.** The Mughal
khalisa (crownlands) received revenues from eleven of the twenty-
eight parganas in Bihar which were the primary production areas for
saltpeter. A number of amirs, including Asaf Khan, the wazir, held the
others in jagir. In the late 1680s VOC factors bought 1,310 tonnes
amounting to thirty percent of the total output of refined saltpeter.>”
The crown and prominent nobles held similar interests in the opium
tracts in Bihar.3®

The Mughal empire actively encouraged European trading in Bengal
as it did elsewhere. Beginning in the mid-1630s the Dutch obtained
from Shah Jahan exemption from payment of transit-tolls (which were
the perquisite of local jagir holders) in Bengal.>° Customs duties, at 3 to
4 percent, remained in force since these were collected by the imperial
treasury. A Dutch embassy to Aurangzeb in the early 1660s succeeded
in having these privileges continued. The English enjoyed similar
4 Prakash, Dutch East India Company, p.242.
38 Om Prakash, “Foreign Merchants and Indian Mints in the Seventeenth and the Early

Eighteenth Century,” in Richards, ed., Imperial Monetary System, p. 171-192.
36 Prakash, Dutch East India Company, p.238n. 7 Ibid., pp. 58-60.
38 Ibid., pp. 57-58
» Ibid. p.42.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

concessions. The English as well as the Dutch and French made regular
gifts in cash and kind to keep local officials sympathetic to them and to
be sure that royal exemptions were obeyed.

Still incomplete, but persuasive evidence exists to argue that the secular
trend for Mughal India was that of economic growth and vitality. The
state placed few constraints on economic activity. The state delivered
numerous services and incentives to foster internal trade at all levels.
Even European trading companies were permitted great freedom to
drive a steadily growing export trade and to import precious metals.
The cultivated area underwent noticeable expansion in a number of
provinces. Imperial tax collections rose accordingly. Mughal taxes on
agricultural production could be onerous in specific areas and periods,
but the overall impression is that neither the level of assessment nor the
forms of collection were sufficient to deter continued growth. The
question of which classes and groups were the beneficiaries of that
growth is yet to be fully answered.

204

CHAPTER 10

MARATHA INSURGENCY AND
MUGHAL CONQUEST IN THE DECCAN

Shortly after Aurangzeb’s accession a surprising new source of resist-
ance to Mughal political domination appeared. In the hilly areas of the
western Deccan, around Puna, the Maratha leader Shivaji Bhonsla
(1627-1680) was carving out a self-sufficient state within the enfeebled
shell of the Sultanate of Bijapur. The Bhonsla regime offered a new
option for ambitious and aggressive men from both the Maratha
warrior caste and literate Maratha Brahmin castes. So successful was
Shivaji that by the 1660s he seriously threatened Mughal prestige and
domination in the south.

Shivaji was the second son of Shahji Bhonsla, a Maratha general and
aristocrat, and Jija Bai, daughter of one of the great Maratha noblemen
in the Sultanate of Ahmadnagar. In the early 1630s Shahji had led an
ultimately futile attempt to set up a young Nizam Shah ruler as his
puppet. When Ahmadnagar was swallowed up by the Timurids, Shahji
took service in the Karnatak campaigns of the Sultan of Bijapur. Shahji
retained control of his large fief in the western Ghats near Puna, The
Sultan of Bijapur had de facto ceded political control of much of the
western Ghats to the powerful Maratha chiefs or deshmukhs in that
remote area.

Shivaji was raised by Jija Bai, Shahji’s estranged wife, at Puna as a
rustic Maratha aristocrat. Unlike Shahji’s other sons, Shivaji was not
indoctrinated into the Persianate high culture of the Bijapur court. At
age eighteen Shivaji seized control over his absentee father’s estate. He
attracted several able young Maratha hill chiefs and their retainers to
his service. Partly in response to Bijapur’s weak hand and partly in
rebellion against his father, Shivaji began to expand his domain in the
western hills.

In 1646 the Sultan of Bijapur, Muhammad Adil Shah, fell ill and
remained incapacitated for a decade. Shivaji grasped this opportunity
to enlarge his power. By the late 1650s the young Maratha leader was
independent of Bijapur. He had repudiated the foreshortened political
vision of a Maratha deshmukh or rural aristocrat. He was no longer
caught within the Indo-Muslim political culture defined by Bijapur.

205

4 The Western Deccan in 1707
Source: I. Habib, An atlas of the Mughal Empire (Delhi, 1982), 14A

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INSURGENCY AND CONQUEST IN THE DECCAN

He had become a ruler free to choose his own affiliations and course of
action.

Shivaji’s remarkable achievements in these early years are often
ignored. With incessant negotiation, threat, and, on occasion, fero-
ciously applied violence, the young Bhonsla chief established domi-
nance over other long-established Maratha deshmukhs in the region.
By the same means he took control of nearly forty hill-fortresses from
their Bijapur-appointed commanders. These he garrisoned with com-
manders and troops loyal to him. An impressive cadre of young
Maratha warriors and Brahmin administrators organized and ran the
army and administration of his growing kingdom. Directly paid
infantry and cavalry totalled as many as 10,000 horsemen and 50,000
infantry by the 1660s.

Judicious plunder of government treasure, extortion, and, increas-
ingly, levying of taxes on the populace of the region gave Shivaji
sufficient funds to recruit and pay his followers. With these growing
resources Shivaji developed a network of interlocking, well-sited and
easily defended fortresses in Maharashtra. Rajgarh, designed and built
by him, served as the Bhonsla capital. At Pratapgarh, another great
mountain keep, he installed a large shrine dedicated to his patron, the
goddess Bhawani.

Shivaji extended his domain into the fertile coastal districts of the
northern Konkan. His army seized Kalian, a rich trading town, and
drove off the officers of the Bijapuri nobleman who held jagirs there.
With access to the sea, Shivaji acquired several ships and began to trade
with the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. Other armed coastal vessels in his
employ sailed on plundering expeditions into the Arabian Sea. He
garrisoned several coastal or island fortresses in the Konkan.
Throughout this period the youthful raja negotiated with the Portu-
guese and British for guns, naval supplies, and technical assistance.

In this early phase, Shahji’s prominence and influence at the Bijapur
court helped to deflect punitive actions against his son. Even in 1649,
when the Bijapur Sultan seized and imprisoned Shahji in an attempt to
force the general to control his son’s activities, powerful friends
induced Shahji’s release. For several years thereafter Shivaji was rela-
tively quiescent. During Aurangzeb’s invasion of 1656, the Sultan was
able to call upon his rebel zamindar and send him to plunder Mughal
lands as a diversion. This accommodation ended with the death of
Sultan Muhammad Adil Shah.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

In 1657, the new sultan, Ali Adil Shah, sent Afzal Khan, one of his
most capable commanders, with a 10,000 man army to subdue Shivaji.
Along the route the Bijapur troops profaned the shrine of Bhawani at
Tuljapur as well as several other major Hindu shrines in Maharashtra.
After a series of negotiations marked by suspicion on both sides, Afzal
Khan persuaded Shivaji to meet to negotiate a settlement with the
Sultan. Shivaji and Afzal Khan confronted each other in the Bijapur
commander’s audience tent on a site near Pratapgarh fort. Within the
tent an initial embrace of greeting between the two principals abruptly
became a mortal struggle in which Afzal Khan tried to strangle Shivaji.
The latter used his concealed iron “tiger claws” to disembowel his
larger enemy. At their commander’s signal hidden Maratha troops
surrounding the site attacked and slaughtered the confused Bijapur
soldiery.

Afzal Khan’s death and the rout of the Bijapur army was widely
celebrated in the Maratha country.! The enraged Sultan of Bijapur
personally led a new force into the west and reoccupied the southern
coastal districts before difficulties elsewhere forced him to retire. The
notorious incident ruptured Shivaji’s already dubious subordination to
the Sultan of Bijapur. As an unattached Maratha chief, he was then
forced to come to terms with that Mughal advance that had long
enervated the Deccan Sultanates.

CREATION OF AN INSURGENT STATE: SECOND
PHASE

During the second phase of his career, between 1660 and 1674, Shivaji
wavered between acceptance and repudiation of imperial authority.
For the first time the young ruler faced the full weight of Mughal
power. In 1660, Shaista Khan, new governor of the Mughal Deccan,
swept aside Maratha resistance, occupied Puna and garrisoned the
northern portion of Shivaji’s territories. After a four month siege and
heavy losses, the Mughals captured Chakan, one of Shivaji’s hill forts
near Puna. The costs of attacking even one of Shivaji’s strongly
defended hill forts dissuaded Shaista Khan from further sieges. Instead,
he deployed flying columns of Mughal cavalry to ravage the country-

! Harry A. Acworth, Ballads of the Marathas, “The Death of Abdul Khan at the Hands of
Shiwaji Maharaha” (London: Longmans Green & Co., 1894).

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INSURGENCY AND CONQUEST IN THE DECCAN

side. Aurangzeb sent reinforcements including a 10,000 man Rajput
force under Jaswant Singh Rathor. Shaista Khan took up residence in
the town of Puna itself which served as the central garrison and
command post.

On the night of April 5, 1663, Shivaji infiltrated Puna’s defenses with
400 of his men. He and a raiding party entered Shaista Khan’s mansion,
hacked their way to the nobleman’s bedchamber and wounded but did
not succeed in killing him. Shaista Khan’s son, several of his wives, and
dozens of his servants and soldiers died in the melee. Shivaji and his
troops escaped with only minimal casualties. This exploit delighted the
Marathas who celebrated the near-superhuman feats of their hero.
Suspicion of pro-Maratha sympathies fell upon Jaswant Singh Rathor
whose Rajput troops guarded the outskirts of the city. Shaista Khan,
dishonored and humiliated, was recalled and replaced by Prince
Muazzam as governor of the Deccan.

A few months later, in January, 1664, Shivaji led 4,000 cavalry on a
raid north to Surat, the busiest trading port in western India. The
Mughal governor left the unfortified city of 200,000 defenseless and
fled to the shelter of Surat fort. Shivaji ignored the fort but spent six
days ina leisurely plunder of the town. Among his victims was Baharji
Borah, the Ismaili trader reputed to be the richest merchant in the
world, whose mansion was virtually destroyed in the search for
treasure. Only the Dutch and English merchants, who stubbornly
defended their walled compounds with musket fire, escaped the
general looting. Finally, Shivaji’s troops rode off carrying with them
cash and valuables valued at over 10 million rupees. In the aftermath of
this raid Shivaji’s armed fleet seized Mecca-bound ships and exacted
ransoms from the pilgrims on board. His horsemen also raided the
outskirts of Aurangabad, capital of the Mughal Deccan while Prince
Muazzam, notoriously indolent, did little to stop him. In the same
period Shivaji’s forces beat back an assault by the Bijapur army and
continued to raid freely in that kingdom.

Enraged and disturbed by these insults Aurangzeb sent his most
capable general with orders to first destroy Shivaji and thereafter
invade and annex Bijapur. Mirza Raja Jai Singh Kachhwaha, a sixty-
year-old veteran commander, assembled a large army and relieved
Jaswant Singh Rathor at Puna in March, 1665. The dispatches of Jai
Singh, preserved by his private secretary, display in almost text-book
fashion the skill and resources brought to bear by a high-ranking

209

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Mughal field commander.? In a preliminary diplomatic thrust, Jai
Singh sent emissaries to Bijapur to warn the Sultan against any effort to
combine with Shivaji; agents to the European coastal settlements to
insist that they obstruct any sea-borne activity by the Maratha fleet;
and Brahmin emissaries to those numerous Maratha deshmukhs who
bore long-standing grudges against Shivaji. From the latter he enlisted
cadres of Maratha auxiliaries. Promises of high rank and money were
made to all of Shivaji’s chief officers to undermine their loyalty.

Military operations began immediately. Jai Singh marched due south
from Puna, established his base at the town of Saswad, set out outposts,
and fought his way to the great hill fortress of Purandhar. For two
months the besiegers remorselessly ran trenches, brought up their
guns, and assaulted one line of defense after another. Jai Singh sent out
cavalry to engage the Marathas and to forage and burn the countryside.
Shivaji was unable to relieve the fort or to prevent the devastation of his
kingdom. The goddess Bhawani warned him in a dream that he could
not successfully oppose a Hindu prince.> Demoralized, Shivaji opened
negotiations with Jai Singh. Assured of his safety by Jai Singh’s sacred
oaths, Shivaji, attended only by six Brahmins, came to Jai Singh’s
audience tent pitched just behind the siege lines.

Convinced that he could not save Purandhar or drive the Mughals
out, Shivaji capitulated. Under the treaty of Purandhar Shivaji surren-
dered twenty-three of his fortresses and the lands they commanded to
the empire but retained twelve fortresses and their lands as his estate.
He became a vassal of the Mughal emperor, paying tribute, but
exempted from personal service as a mansabdar. Instead his young son,
Shambhaji, granted the rank of 5,000 zat, would be sent to the imperial
court. Finally, Shivaji agreed to lead his troops as part of the Mughal
force expected to invade Bijapur. In return he was promised additional
lands to be seized from Bijapur. Shivaji surrendered his independence
and entered the imperial system as a chief or, in the imperial parlance, a
zamindar — the fate of dozens of powerful regional chiefs and kings
before him.

Between mid-November, 1665 and February, 1666, Shivaji, with
11,000 troops, accompanied Jai Singh during the abortive Mughal
campaign into Bijapur. Before the war concluded in negotiations

2 Jagadish N. Sarkar, The Military Despatches of a Seventeenth Centwy Indian General
(Calcutta: Scientific Book Agency, 1969).

> James Grant Duff, History of the Mabrattas (New Delhi, 2 vols. in one, reprint edition,
1971); I, 110.

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INSURGENCY AND CONQUEST IN THE DECCAN

Shivaji allowed himself to be persuaded by Jai Singh to journey
northward to the imperial court. Leaving his mother as regent, Shivaji,
his son Shambhaji, seven of his principal officers, and 4,000 men left for
the north. He was advanced 100,000 rupees for the journey from the
imperial Deccan treasury.

At Agra his host and patron was Kumar Ram Singh, Jai Singh’s son
and his agent at court. On May 12, 1666, the date of Aurangzeb’s
fiftieth lunar birthday, Shivaji offered gifts of submission and bowed at
the foot of the Timurid throne. Aurangzeb made a cursory acknow-
ledgement of his presence but delayed presenting return gifts or other
response till later in the ceremony. Shivaji suddenly found himself
standing in line behind rows of nobles as the elaborate court audience
proceeded. Outraged, Shivaji protested audibly then fell to the floor in
a fainting fit. He was hustled out of the audience hall to Kumar Singh’s
mansion. The suspicious emperor placed Shivaji under house arrest
despite his pleas to be allowed to return home, but did permit Shivaji’s
troops to leave Agra for the Deccan. Aurangzeb refused a private
audience and withheld the elephant, jewels, and robe of honor
intended for Shivaji.

Feigning illness, Shivaji took to his bed and called for physicians.
Over several weeks, he contrived to find a way to escape. This may well
have been with the connivance of Kumar Ram Singh or by bribing his
guards. Shivaji slipped out of the mansion and was gone far before his
absence was discovered and the word sent to Mughal road guards, city
prefects, faujdars, and other imperial officers. Arriving safely at
Mathura the next day, Shivaji took refuge with a family of Maratha
Brahmins who helped to disguise him as a wandering Hindu monk to
evade Mughal patrols. Travelling on foot over a long circuitous route
to the east he and Shambhaji arrived back at Raigarh in December,
1666.

Aurangzeb, somewhat unexpectedly, failed to send an invading
army against Shivaji. Apparently the Yusufzai rising in the northwest-
ern mountains distracted his attention. Two years later, in 1668,
Shivaji’s frequent petitions to Aurangzeb for pardon were answered.
The emperor recognized his title as Raja and restored Chakan fort, but
not any of the other twenty-two occupied by the Mughals to Shivaji.
Shambhaji, his rank of 5,000 zat restored, went to Prince Muazzam’s
court at Aurangabad, the Deccan capital, at the head of a thousand
Maratha horsemen. The latter were supported by jagirs assigned in

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Berar province. Shambhaji and Prince Muazzam formed a congenial
bond during the two years in which the young Maratha heir served the
Mughals.

Soon however, a rupture occurred. Mughal treasury officers tried to
recover from Shambhaji’s jagirs the 100,000 rupees Shivaji had drawn
for expenses on his trip to Agra. Incensed, Shivaji recalled his son and
seized a number of his former strongholds. Mughal retribution was
hindered by internecine conflicts between Prince Muazzam and his
most powerful subordinate, the Afghan nobleman Dilir Khan. The
latter accused the prince of collusion with Shivaji in a plot to seize the
throne. The crisis was eventually resolved and Muazzam exonerated,
but the immediate pressure on Shivaji lifted.

In October, 1670, Shivaji assembled a 15,000 man army and marched
north toward Surat. The Mughal governor offered only nominal
resistance at the city walls (recently erected by Aurangzeb’s order) and
the Marathas plundered the city again. After several days of looting the
raiders carried off cash and goods worth over six and a half million
rupees ~ less than before. Trade at Surat went into decline for the next
several years as it became clear that the empire was no longer able to
defend its most lucrative ocean port.‘ After further raiding in Mughal
Khandesh, Shivaji fought a pitched battle with a 5,000 man Mughal
army before returning to Raigarh.

For the next four years Shivaji’s Marathas raided and plundered to
the northeast in Khandesh in Mughal territory and southeast into
Kanara in Bijapur lands. Both Bijapur and imperial armies pursued the
raiders and often engaged them, but with mixed success. Shivaji’s
commanders discovered that they could meet Mughal armies in the
field on equal terms. The weight of Mughal heavy cavalry and field
artillery were canceled out by greater mobility and higher morale on
the part of the Maratha troops.

CREATION OF AN INSURGENT STATE: THE
MONARCHY

Buoyed by these victories and by the ever-increasing flow of plunder
and taxation coming into his coffers, Shivaji took a momentous step. In
June, 1674, he had himself crowned as an independent Hindu

4 M.N. Pearson, “Shivaji and the Decline of the Mughal Empire,” Journal of Asian Studies,
35 (1976), 221-235.

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INSURGENCY AND CONQUEST IN THE DECCAN

monarch.5 Many months of preparation preceded the ceremony.
Shivaji immersed himself in a period of intense prayer and worship at a
number of temples and shrines. In the meantime his Brahmin advisers
persuaded Gagga Bhatta of Varanasi, the foremost Hindu theologian
of his day, to declare that Shivaji was not a mere Shudra of the Maratha
caste, but a lapsed Kshatriya, a Rajput, whose ancestors could be traced
back to the solar line of the Ranas of Mewar. Gagga Bhatta travelled to
the Maratha capital where he first purified Shivaji and then invested
him with the sacred threat and Vedic verses of the twice-born castes.

On June 6, 1674, after a night of fasting, Shivaji underwent the San-
skritic royal consecration (abisheka) ceremony. Seated on a gold stool
with his wife, Sorya Bai, beside him he was bathed with Ganges water
poured from gold jugs. After changing to a royal scarlet robe, he then
sat upon a newly built, gold-covered throne. To the accompaniment of
Brahminical chants and artillery salvos, Gagga Bhatta raised the royal
umbrella over his head and hailed him as Siva Chhatrapati. Thereafter
followed lavish gifts to thousands of Brahmins, officials and other
dignitaries and a royal procession through the streets of the city. The
entire ceremony was estimated to have cost five million rupees.

Shivaji’s coronation, widely reported throughout the subcontinent,
was one of the most important political acts of the seventeenth century.
Within his kingdom’s borders the coronation ceremony impressed his
legitimate authority over even the oldest of Maratha aristocratic
houses. Beyond his borders it established the Bhonsla ruler and his
descendants as a ruling house the equal of any other. More startling,
however, was the fact that for the first time in generations a regional
monarch claimed royal authority without reference to the Timurid
emperor. With this dramatic act Shivaji, unlike his father, asserted his
independence from Indo-Muslim authority and political culture. In an
avowedly revivalist ceremony he created a militantly Hindu
monarchy. The new ruler was a Chhatrapati; not a Padshah. Insur-
gency against Mughal rule had acquired a new rallying point.

THE QUTB SHAH/BHONSLA ALLIANCE

Within two years the new monarch revealed a bold new strategy.

Shivaji first negotiated a truce with the badly harassed Mughal gover-

5 ‘Phe coronation ceremony is described in detail in Jadunath Sarkar, Shivaji and His Times
(Calcutta: M. C. Sarkar & Sons, Sixth edition, revised and enlarged, 1961), pp. 201-215.

213

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

nor of the Deccan provinces. Then he agreed to a defensive alliance
against the Mughals with Madanna Pandit, the Telugu Brahmin who
was chief minister of the kingdom of Golconda. Under the terms of
this agreement Golconda, the wealthiest and most stable of the Deccan
states, agreed to an annual subsidy to support Shivaji’s campaigns
against the Timurids. Thus encouraged, in January, 1677, Shivaji led a
60,000 man army eastward to Hyderabad, the capital of Golconda.
Here he held a series of meetings with Abul Hasan, the Qutb Shah
Sultan and Madanna Pandit, along with his brother Akkanna, the
commander in chief of the Qutb Shah army. In these meetings the two
rulers negotiated a military alliance aimed at conquest and joint
annexation of the lands of the Bijapur Karnatak. This wealthy,
prosperous area along the southeastern Coromandel coast was current-
ly ruled by nearly independent Bijapur governors or by tributary
rulers. The latter included Shivaji’s half brother, Vyankoji Bhonsla,
who had carved out a kingdom around Tanjore on the Kaveri river.
The Qutb Shah Sultan, heavily influenced by his two Brahmin officers,
agreed to supply a large monthly cash subsidy and an auxiliary five
thousand man force with artillery to accompany the Marathas,

En route to the Karnatak, Shivaji left his army at Anantapur, and
made a pilgrimage to the famous Siva temple of Shri Shaila on the
Krishna river. At this sacred site the royal worshiper spent ten days in
devotion before the image of Siva’s consort. At one point Shivaji tried
to commit suicide in front of the goddess, but was restrained by his
attendants. On departing, he gave funds sufficient to build a bathing
ghat on the river, a monastery, and a guesthouse for pilgrims.°

A year-long campaign sufficed for the Maratha ruler to take posses-
sion of Jinji and Vellore, the two commanding bastions of the Bijapur
Karnatak. Vellore surrendered only after a fourteen month siege.
Victory permitted Shivaji’s officers to occupy and annex territory
yielding revenues of two million gold hun per year. In Tanjore,
however, his half-brother Vyankoji rejected Shivaji’s claim for half
their patrimony, defended that position with his army and eventually
paid Shivaji 600,000-rupees to be left undisturbed. Shivaji proved
unwilling to give up any portion of his new possessions to Golconda.
But this sticking point did not terminate the defensive alliance between
him and the Qutb Shah.

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INSURGENCY AND CONQUEST IN THE DECCAN

DYNASTIC SUCCESSION

Upon his return to Raigarh in early 1678, Shivaji faced the problem of
contriving an orderly succession to the Bhonsla throne. The Maratha
ruler and his council of ministers formally proposed a division of the
kingdom between his two sons to take place after Shivaji’s death.
Rajaram, the youngest, would receive the home territories to rule; and
Shambhaji, then a turbulent youth of nineteen, would be given the
newly acquired lands in Mysore and Jinji.

Shambhaji’s publicly expressed dissatisfaction with this arrangement
became widely known. Dilir Khan, the Mughal governor of the
Deccan, wrote secret letters to the young prince offering Mughal aid to
win his patrimony if he agreed to an alliance. In December 1678,
Shambhaji, in disgrace for the rape of a respectable Brahmin woman,
escaped his father’s surveillance and fled. Accompanied by his pre-
sumably forgiving wife Yesu Bai he rode to the camp of Dilir Khan on
the border of Bijapur. When notified, the delighted Aurangzeb made
the young fugitive prince a Mughal noble with the title of Raja and
seven thousand zat — an extremely high rank.

For nearly a year Shambhaji served with Dilir Khan in a series of
campaigns against the combined forces of Bijapur and Shivaji. The
gradual dissolution of central political authority in the Sultanate
encouraged intervention by both the Mughals and Shivaji. Shambhaji,
however, became increasingly disillusioned and unhappy with his
Mughal associates. In November, 1679, Shambhaji and Yesu Bai,
responding to frequent overtures, returned to the Bhonsla court.

During this interval Shivaji issued a long public letter to the Emperor
Aurangzeb which eloquently rebuked him for reversing the wise
policy of Akbar and Jahangir by imposing the jiziya on Hindus. Shivaji
chided Aurangzeb for adding the hardship of this tax to his already
over-burdened subjects. And, he pointed out that in the Koran God is
styled Lord of all men, not simply of Muslims and that both Muslim
and Hindu worshipped God in their own way.”

Shivaji returned from a great plundering raid into Mughal territories
in Khandesh and Aurangabad to meet his repentant son. In late March,
1680, the Bhonsla ruler, whose health had been declining for some
time, developed fever and dysentery which ended a few days later in his
death at age fifty-three.

7 Sarkar, Shivaji, pp. 320-323.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Three days after Shivaji’s death, his eldest wife Sorya Bai proclaimed
her son, Rajaram, king at Raigarh fort. Shambhaji rejected this and
openly assumed regal powers. Quickly gaining overwhelming support
among the Maratha officers, he occupied the capital at Raigarh without
resistance. The deposed Rajaram was unharmed, but his mother and
about two hundred of her followers were executed. Shambhaji carried
out a full-blown coronation in February of 1681 to fully legitimize his
role as Shivaji’s successor. The Bhonsla dynasty had survived its first
test: one of Shivaji’s sons became undisputed ruler of the Maratha
kingdom.

THE LEGACY

Shivaji’s legacy included a compact unitary state. Within the western
Ghats and the littoral districts of the Konkan, Shivaji constructed an
effective civil administration supported by a firmly controlled network
of scores of massive hill-fortresses and strongly sited island coastal
strongholds. His insistence on strict discipline and accountability, on
cash payments rather than fiefs, and efficient, uncluttered organization
greatly impressed contemporary observers. He also made surprisingly
effective use of access to the sea for trading and plundering from his
coastal ports. Shivaji’s unexcelled strategic and diplomatic skills —
based firmly upon timely access to information — were also widely
admired and feared. In this respect he was a worthy match for
Aurangzeb, his greatest enemy.

Shivaji’s successes shaped a new mode of aggressive political and
military action against the Indo-Muslim powers. Reassertion of
imperial Mughal power against the Deccan Sultanates in the 1650s
created circumstances favorable to Shivaji’s rise in the western Deccan.
His insurgent state gained resources and confidence as it challenged
imperial might. By the early 1660s the Maratha had adopted a new style
of wide-ranging predatory raiding into Mughal and Bijapur lands. By
the 1670s Maratha forces in Baglana seriously constricted, if they did
not cut off altogether, the important overland caravan routes running
from Surat to Burhanpur in Khandesh. The raids produced a steady
flow of plunder or, in later years, extorted payments in return for
immunity. The latter was often expressed as chauth, the 25 percent of
the revenue traditionally left to zamindars by Indo-Muslim states in
Gujarat and Khandesh. It was the annual profits from raiding beyond

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INSURGENCY AND CONQUEST IN THE DECCAN

his borders that sustained the home territories. Shivaji could pay and
pay well because he tapped the productive resources of a much larger,
and more productive catchment area surrounding the western Ghats.

The unitary state died quickly. But the tradition of aggressive
Maratha predation against the empire continued unabated. Once
released, the organizational and martial energies of the hill Marathas
surged outward into the wider world of the Mughal Deccan. No longer
merely zamindars engaged in petty local skirmishes or hired captains
employed by Muslim Sultans, Maratha commanders raided and con-
quered in the name of the Bhonsla dynasty. Timurid officers in the
Deccan encountered a new, unsettling type of resistance — a resistance
that could not be swept aside by the usual repertoire of Mughal
diplomatic and military tactics. Mughal administrators found them-
selves ruling lands devastated and disrupted by incessant Maratha
raiding and plundering. Maratha deshmukhs could look to a power-
fully appealing alternative to submission to the empire.

THE MOVE TO THE DECCAN

In the desert outside Ajmer, Prince Muhammad Akbar came very close
to dethroning Aurangzeb in one quick stroke. In exile at the Bhonsla
court, he posed a less immediate, but no less serious, threat to
Aurangzeb. Akbar’s familial charisma as a Timurid prince gave him a
potent political appeal. Akbar could become the catalyst for an alliance
between Shambhaji, Abul Hasan Qutb Shah, the ruler of Golconda,
and even Sikandar Adil Shah, the young king of Bijapur. Since the
wealthiest and most powerful Muslim kingdom, Golconda, was now
under the effective domination of two Telugu Brahmins and the
aggressive Maratha kingdom was an avowedly resurgent state, restored
Hindu domination of the Deccan was not such a far-fetched possi-
bility. Especially worrisome was the continuing factionalism and
weakness of Sultan Sikandar Adil Shah’s regime in Bijapur. If Akbar
were to ride north at the head of combined Maratha/Sultanate armies
would the rebellious Rajputs of Marwar and Mewar hesitate to join
them? And, if the balance of power began to shift how long would it be
before other Mughal nobles transferred their allegiance to a younger,
more vigorous sovereign?

Akbar also posed a larger challenge to those policies most deeply
cherished by his father. Partly by circumstance and partly by personal

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

inclination Akbar became a rallying point for those unhappy with
Aurangzeb’s treatment of non-Muslims and especially with his reim-
position of the jiziya. Many nobles were dismayed by the rising power
of the Muslim ulema and the constricting of the open political culture
of Akbar and Jahangir. These views converged with a growing
uneasiness over Aurangzeb’s unrelenting aggressive posture in the
Deccan. Accommodation with Bijapur and Golconda and the new
Maratha state seemed the better course to many of Aurangzeb’s nobles.
Just as Dara Shukoh was symbol and spokesman for similar policies a
generation earlier, so Akbar became a focal point for opposition in the
1680s. The costs of Aurangzeb’s policies were starting to become
apparent to those within the inner circles of the empire and to external
observers as well. To Aurangzeb, therefore, the danger posed by
Akbar’s presence in the Deccan was grave and required immediate
action.

Hard on the news that Akbar had proclaimed himself emperor, in
late January, 1681, Shambhaji led 20,000 Maratha horsemen deep into
Khandesh. At Bahadurpur, a prosperous trading suburb of Burhanpur,
the raiders seized the Mughal jiziya collector and leisurely plundered
the town for three days. Due to the large numbers of bankers and
traders who lived in the town, Bahadurpur had “a large quantity of
precious metals and every kind of merchandise belonging to the seven
climes, huge quantities of other goods from every sea port, valued at
lakhs [hundreds of thousands] of rupees ... stored in its shops.”8
Shambhaji, in contrast to his father’s practice, condoned casual rape
and violence by his troops. The reduced Mughal garrison of Burhanpur
remained penned up in the citadel as the raiders burnt, looted, raped
and tortured. The Marathas “plundered lakhs of rupees in cash from
the bankers and merchants of every Purah [quarter], and set fire to
them. Some men of noble birth killed their women and received
martyrdom as they fell in fighting ... ””?

As Shambhaji’s army withdrew toward Baglana, Khan Jahan
Bahadur, the governor of the Deccan provinces, missed intercepting
the Marathas by just a few kilometers. Popular rumor had it that Khan
Jahan Bahadur had been bribed by emissaries from Shambhaji to avoid
contact with the Marathas. Public outrage was great. Plundering on

8 §, Moinul Haq, Khafi Khan’s History of Alamgir (Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society,
5 ep P- 277.

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INSURGENCY AND CONQUEST IN THE DECCAN

this scale would jeopardize the long-distance overland trade and
exchange for which Burhanpur was such a critical node. But the protest
to the Mughal emperor took a narrower, more sectarian view:!°

The learned and pious persons [i.e. the ulema] and the nobles of Burhanpur,
sent a petition to the Court describing the domination of the infidels, the
destruction of the property and honor of the Muslims and the discontinuance
of the Jum'ab prayers in future.

For the dominant notables of Burhanpur, Shambhaji’s raid was not
simply an outrage against public order, but it was a blow directed
against the Muslim community by an infidel. If the Mughal empire
could not safeguard Muslim lives and property, the Friday congre-
gational prayers could not include Aurangzeb’s titles as ruler.

Stung by this appeal and dismayed by his son’s rebellion Aurangzeb
marched south as soon as he concluded a peace with Mewar. From
north India Aurangzeb brought the entire central army directly under
his command; those of the three remaining princes, and the con-
tingents of his best generals. Accompanying the army was the imperial
harem and household and the central administration with its atten-
dants, clerks, and officers. Tens of thousands of artillerymen,
musketeers, and pioneers; artists and craftsmen; clerks and scribes;
physicians, artists, and musicians, and a staggering array of servants
and menials marched in their allotted places and sheltered within or
beside the great encampment every night. A well-organized bazaar
with its traders and their dependents trailed the official establishment.

For the first time since his reign began the emperor committed his
full resources to stabilize the southern frontier of the empire. This
momentous decision shifted the center of imperial power from Shahja-
hanabad south to the tented, movable, capital in the Deccan.

Despite the high drama of Akbar’s flight and Aurangzeb’s pursuit a
curious stalemate marked the next several years. Shambhaji had
prevaricated and avoided a joint military thrust north to restore Akbar
to the throne. Akbar became increasingly frustrated as Shambhaji
ignored his pleas for joint action. Caution, indecision, or fear preven-
ted Shambhaji from a bold assault on one of the Mughal armies in the
Deccan. Akbar argued that victory in such an encounter would clear
the way for a victorious march to Delhi. Instead, Shambhaji diverted
his attention to the coast where for four years he engaged in two

19 Ibid., p. 279.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

furious little wars: first with the Siddis of Janjira (a small piratical
maritime state tributary to the Mughals) and the English East India
Company at Bombay, and second with the Portuguese at Goa. Each
conflict ended in weary stalemate. Dispirited, Akbar made several
attempts to charter or build a ship that would take him to refuge in
Persia.

Aurangzeb positioned strong defensive forces at a number of strate-
gic points in the Mughal Deccan to fend off Maratha raids. For the
next four years he sent two or more field armies into the Maratha
kingdom every year. One after the other his commanders found that
they could maneuver freely, plunder and burn villages and towns, and
return. Mughal commanders found it too expensive to assault the
dozens of hill and island fortresses of the kingdom. Shambhaji relied
upon his father’s decentralized network of strongpoints to shelter
much of his population and to resist all but the most determined
imperial sieges. Nor were they able to draw Shambhaji to a main force
battle that would decide victory or defeat. In short, the emperor could
discourage Shambhaji from following Akbar to a northern filibuster
by keeping up steady military pressure on his home territories. He
could discourage large scale Maratha raiding in the Mughal Deccan by
keeping sizable armies in the field. But total conquest of the Maratha
kingdom demanded a much greater commitment of imperial resources
and determination than Aurangzeb had previously thought necessary.

CONQUEST OF THE DECCAN

Frustrated in his Maratha campaigns, Aurangzeb turned to a goal
which had long eluded him: the final conquest of the two Deccan
Sultanates. His first target was Bijapur. The youthful Sultan, Sikandar
Adil Shah, continued to offer clandestine military aid to Shambhaji
despite Mughal pressure. In the early months of 1685 a Mughal army
of nearly 80,000 men, commanded by Prince Azam and Prince Shah
Alam, laid siege to the massive city walls of Bijapur. For fifteen
months Sikandar Adil Shah commanded the 30,000 man garrison in a
stubborn defense against Mughal trenches and artillery. The Mughals
held on despite dearth in the countryside and pestilence and near-
starvation in the imperial lines. Aurangzeb countered threatened
reinforcements from Golconda by sending Prince Shah Alam to
invade that kingdom. Finally, in September, 1685, when Mughal

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INSURGENCY AND CONQUEST IN THE DECCAN

trenches reached the fort walls, Sikandar Adil Shah surrendered his
much-depleted garrison.

Aurangzeb annexed Bijapur as a province within the Mughal empire.
The deposed Sultan was kept under confinement in the imperial
encampment. Most of the leading Afghan and Indian Muslim nobles of
Bijapur who had survived were assimilated into the Mughal nobility.
The emperor appointed a governor, a provincial fiscal officer, faujdars,
and fortress commanders so that a standard Mughal provincial admin-
istration could be created in the new province.

Golconda was next. In 1685, during the siege of Bijapur, Aurangzeb
had sent a large army under Prince Shah Alam to invade Golconda. The
invaders fought their way past numerous Qutb Shah cavalry to the
vicinity of Hyderabad. Qutb Shah resistance collapsed when Mir
Muhammad Ibrahim, a Persian noble commanding the defenders,
defected to the Mughals. Abul Hasan Qutb Shah, the royal household,
military, and thousands of panic-stricken residents of Hyderabad fled
to the great fortress of Golconda several kilometers outside the city.
Before the Mughals entered Hyderabad the urban mob looted and
raped indiscriminately as all order in the city broke down.

Negotiations began immediately between Abul Hasan Qutb Shah,
penned up in Golconda fort, and Prince Shah Alam, commanding the
occupying army in Hyderabad and Aurangzeb, near Bijapur. The
helpless Sultan agreed to dismiss his two Brahmin ministers, to pay a
huge war indemnity, and to cede some border territory to the Mughals.
Before Abul Hasan could remove Madanna and Akkanna from office,
however, a Muslim court faction arranged the murder of the two
Brahmins by a party of armed palace slaves. Rustam Rao, their nephew
and a high-ranking military commander, and numerous other Telugu
Brahmins and their servants were also slain. The conspirators sent the
severed heads of the hated Brahmins directly to Aurangzeb. Thus
satisfied, the Mughal army withdrew to Bijapur.

After the fall of Bijapur, Aurangzeb spent a week in devotion at the
Gulbarga tomb of Shaikh Sayyid Muhammad Gesu Daraz, one of the
most revered Sufi saints in the Deccan. In mid-January, 1687, Aurang-
zeb led his grand army directly toward Hyderabad. Abul Hasan and
his court and army once again retreated to Golconda fort. The Mughals
completely invested the four mile length of the outer wall of the
massive stronghold. Aurangzeb pressed the siege stubbornly against a
well-supplied, well-armed, garrison. Two mines driven under the walls

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

exploded prematurely and killed several thousand imperial troops.
Aurangzeb issued a proclamation annexing the entire kingdom of
Golconda, which was largely under Mughal control.

The end came by betrayal. An opened gateway permitted a surprise
assault on September 21, 1687. Taken captive, Abul Hasan joined his
colleague Sikandar Adil Shah in the imperial encampment. The fabled
treasury of the Qutb Shahs, now depleted, yielded gold and silver coins
valued at over sixty million rupees along with vast quantities of
jewelry, gold and silver utensils, and other valuables.'!

Aurangzeb repeatedly stated that he could not forgive the willing-
ness of both Sultans to ally themselves with the perfidious infidels. In
response to the plea of a deputation of Muslim ulema from Bijapur
who asked him how he could justify making war on fellow Muslims,
Aurangzeb replied that the Sultan had sheltered and assisted Shambhaji
who harassed Muslims everywhere. The same stern judgment applied
to Abul Hasan who had committed the additional crime of handing
over control of his state to his two Brahmin ministers. During the
Golconda siege Aurangzeb appointed a muhtasib in Hyderabad with
orders to demolish Hindu temples, build mosques, and put down all
forbidden deviations from proper Islamic practice.

Aurangzeb’s zealousness even began to arouse resistance among his
strongest supporters. The chief sadr, Qazi Abdullah, begged the
emperor to accept Abul Hasan’s capitulation after the sack of Hyder-
abad and allow him to renew Golconda’s tributary status. Other senior
ulema protested the continued assaults on fellow Muslims.

As in most policy issues, resistance centered on Prince Shah Alam
who was widely known to favor a conciliatory attitude toward both
Deccan Sultans. At Bijapur Shah Alam negotiated secretly with
Sikandar Adil Shah to arrange a surrender in return for concessions.
Aurangzeb, discovering this, sharply rebuked his son and pressed
ahead with the siege. When at the Golconda siege, Shah Alam opened
similar negotiations with Abul Hasan Qutb Shah, Aurangzeb swiftly
arrested Shah Alam and confined him, his wife and four sons in the
imperial encampment. This proved to be a captivity lasting seven years.
Any possibility of an informed discussion of Deccan policy among the
imperial elite vanished. If even theologians and princes were stifled,
then ordinary nobles could hope for little.

‘1 Moinul Haq, Khafi Khan, p. 366.

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INSURGENCY AND CONQUEST IN THE DECCAN

With the fall of the two Deccan Sultanates, Aurangzeb then turned
his attention to the Marathas. His son Akbar was no longer a threat.
Unsupported by Shambhaji, the rebel prince and a few dozen fol-
lowers chartered a ship for Persia where they obtained refuge at the
Safavid court. During this period Shambhaji was preoccupied with
internal politics and not with external raiding. His harsh ruling style,
offensive womanizing, and erratic administration had aroused the
Maratha deshmukhs to great hostility. By popular report he spent
considerable time in drinking and debauching instead of on state
business.

Right after the fall of Golconda fort Aurangzeb sent one of his amirs
on a special mission. Mugarrab Khan, a Golconda nobleman of
recognized ability, had deserted to the Mughals in return for appoint-
ment as a Mughal noble. Muqarrab Khan was to lead his 25,000 cavalry
to the Maratha kingdom. Ostensibly he was to besiege Panhala fort,
but his real task was to hunt down Shambhaji. Late in 1688, Mughal
spies discovered that Shambhaji was relaxing in the gardens and
mansions of his pleasure palace at Sangameshwar, in the hills thirty-
five kilometers northeast of Ratnagiri. Mugarrab Khan immediately
made a forced march across the western Ghats and captured both
Shambhaji and his Brahmin chief minister alive.

The two captives were brought to the imperial encampment beside
the Bhima river. Shambhaji, although a monarch, was not treated with
the dignity permitted the Bijapur and Golconda rulers. Dressed as
buffoons he and his minister were presented to Aurangzeb who knelt
in thanksgiving prayer. During interrogation by Mughal officers,
Shambhaji sealed his fate by insulting both the emperor and the
Prophet Muhammad. A panel of ulema sentenced him to death for
having slain and captured good Muslims. After a fortnight of torture,
Shambhaji and his companion were hacked to death and the pieces
thrown to the dogs.

In 1689 Aurangzeb had surmounted the crisis created by Akbar’s
rebellion seven years earlier. His son was a refugee at the Safavid court.
Bijapur, Golconda, and the Maratha state were safely conquered and
annexed. Everywhere Mughal power was triumphant. The new acqui-
sitions added 221,107 square miles to the empire — an increase of over
one-quarter. Four new provinces were added: Bijapur and the Bijapur
Karnatak, and Hyderabad and the Hyderabad Karnatak. The Maratha

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

lands were divided between Aurangzeb province in the north and
Bijapur in the south. The Mughal frontier in the south was now
coterminous with the farthest extent of Indian Muslim domination on
the subcontinent.

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CHAPTER 11

THE DECCAN WARS

Aurangzeb’s triple victory — Bijapur, Golconda, and the Maratha
kingdom - should have been the prelude to a new era of peace,
prosperity, and political stability in the Deccan and southern India.
With the exception of the Tamil regions of the Golconda and Bijapur
Karnatak, but recently conquered in the 1640s, the western Deccan of
the Marathas and the eastern Deccan of the Telugus had long been
accustomed to Indo-Muslim rule. After a brief period of overseeing
initial arrangements, the emperor would lead his grand encampment
and central army triumphantly north back to Shahjahanabad. As they
had dozens of times in the past cadres of imperial administrators could
assume those powers exercised by their defeated counterparts in each
of the three kingdoms. Surplus revenues from the new provinces
would flow northward to enrich treasuries in Delhi and Agra. Instead,
the reverse occurred. Aurangzeb remained in the Deccan, year, after
year, fighting an endless war and hoping to reverse a descending spiral
of public order and imperial power in that region.

The insurgent Maratha state did not die with Shambhaji. His
younger brother Rajaram, hastily crowned, fled to the extreme south
to take refuge in Jinji fortress. Maratha officers left in the north
directed an intensifying campaign of predatory raiding against the
Mughals. Imperial officials faced enormous difficulties in defending
their districts and in collecting revenues.

Grimly determined to stamp out this rebellion, Aurangzeb made the
great imperial encampment his capital. For six years the emperor’s
camp occupied several sites between Puna and the city of Bijapur. In
1695, he selected a permanent location at Brahmapuri, renamed
Islampuri, on the southeast bank of the Bhima river. At this site
Aurangzeb lived uninterruptedly under tents for nearly five years. In
1699 the emperor ordered Islampuri to be completely walled round
with earthen defenses. He placed Asad Khan, his chief minister (wazir)
in charge of the court, the emperor’s household and those of his nobles.
Departing the encampment, Aurangzeb led his weary army in
a strenuous six-year-long campaign against the hill-fortresses of

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

5 South India, 1707
Source: I. Habib, An atlas of the Mughal Empire (Delhi, 1982), 16A

226

THE DECCAN WARS

Maharashtra. Finally, gravely ill and worn out, he retreated to the city
of Ahmadnagar for a year before he died in early 1707.

THE EASTERN DECCAN UNDER MUGHAL RULE:
1687-1700

Mughal annexation and administration of Golconda proceeded
smoothly in the years immediately after the conquest. For the majority
of Golconda’s population, absorption by the Mughals did not mean
radical changes in their lives and fortunes. After the fall of Golconda
fort and capture of the king, little further resistance occurred. At a
festive grand audience held in Golconda fortress, the emperor gave
robes of honor, promotions, and other rewards to his two sons, Prince
Azam and Bidar Bakht, and the amirs who had participated in the
siege. Soon thereafter imperial officials began inventorying and
packing the enormous treasure of the Qutb Shahs for shipment north
to the imperial vaults in Delhi.

Abul Hasan was not killed, but languished as a state captive. His
three daughters were placed in honorable marriages with Mughal
nobles. His adoptive son, Abdullah, and other male relatives and at
least twenty-four Muslim nobles (largely of Turco-Persian descent)
became Mughal nobles.' Other mid-level Muslim functionaries, artists
and craftsmen, and military officers were offered and accepted similar
posts in the imperial administration as lower-ranking mansabdars.

The Hindu officials of Golconda fared less well. Several Brahmin
governors still in office did not reemerge as Mughal grandees, but
disappeared into obscurity. Those Telugu nayaks recruited by the
Qutb Shahs from the Kamma, Valama, Kapu, and Razu warrior-
peasant castes, who served as military commanders, found themselves
redundant after 1687. Only one officer, Yacham Na’ir, who served in
the Karnatak with Mughal field armies at Kinji, became a Mughal amir
before he was beheaded for treason by his new employer.?

Golconda had been annexed and retitled Dar-al Jihad, Hyderabad.
The lands to the south were detached to form a separate province
known as the Hyderabad Karnatak. In 1688 Aurangzeb transferred a
cadre of experienced Mughal officers into the new provinces. The

' This discussion of post-conquest Golconda is drawn from J.F. Richards, Mughal
Administration in Golconda (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 52-214.

2 See J. F. Richards, “The Hyderabad Karnatak, 1687-1707” in Modern Asian Studies, 1x
(1975), 241-260.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Mughal governor, Jan Sipar Khan, and his son Rustam Dil Khan, were
Irani amirs, of long familial service. Nine mansabdars and their
contingents were stationed as faujdars or military intendants across
Hyderabad. Twelve mansabdars assumed independent command of
the greatest fortresses in the former kingdom. A similar clutch of
officers took charge of the newly constituted Hyderabad Karnatak.

Before conquest the ongoing alliance between the Bhonsla rulers and
Golconda had ensured that the eastern Deccan was free from Maratha
raids. This immunity ended with Mughal annexation. Between 1688
and 1692, the Marathas made several sweeping long-distance plunder-
ing raids into Hyderabad. Maratha raiding bands generally outnum-
bered the provincial detachments of Jan Sipar Khan. The latter did little
to confront or drive off these invaders. The Marathas held up traders
on the roads and freely entered the smaller market towns to plunder,
but did not engage in a full-scale assault or siege on either Hyderabad
or Machhilipatnam, the major coastal port. After 1692, the Mughal
siege of Jinji to the far south diverted Maratha attention from
Hyderabad.

Despite the weak Mughal response, few, if any, of the local Telugu
warrior aristocrats either joined or supported the Marathas. The
nayaks did not share in the insurgent tradition of the Maratha Bhonslas
of the western Deccan.

In spite of occasional Maratha incursions, the new regime wasted
little time in adapting the Golconda revenue system to Mughal
practice. A technically competent mansabdar, Muhammad Shafi,
became the first Mughal diwan or provincial fiscal officer of Hyder-
abad. The new diwan negotiated written agreements with the Telugu
warrior chiefs who had served the Golconda state as pargana headmen
and Brahmins who served as local accountants throughout the new
province. Almost immediately taxes began to flow into the provincial
treasury.

A systematic review revealed the pre-conquest revenues for Hyder-
abad proper to be 13.7 million rupees per year and that for the
Karnatak 8.3 millions. A full-scale regulation survey and reassessment
zabt of the new lands was not done. Instead, the Mughals left the old
Qutb Shah totals intact since these alone added 12 percent to the
overall revenues of the empire. The only new burden imposed was the
capitation tax on non-Muslims, jiziya which returned about a million
rupees per year. Additional revenues — and occasionally a spectacular

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THE DECCAN WARS

diamond - came from the famed Golconda diamond mines in the
Karnatak whose operation was now an imperial, rather than a Qutb
Shah, monopoly.

The regime imposed the imperial monetary system on Golconda.
The diwan established a central mint at Hyderabad and subordinate
mints in the major trading centers to strike copper, silver, and gold
currency. The eastern Deccan began to shift toward a silver standard in
place of the older Deccani gold standard based upon the gold hun or
pagoda.

MARATHA INSURGENCY: THE STRUGGLE FOR
JINJI

To the west, in Bijapur, the central state had been wracked by factional
struggles and a weak monarchy for nearly two decades. The entire
political structure of the western Deccan was in disarray and required
systematic reconstruction by the Mughals. This Aurangzeb attempted
to do. Just as he did with Golconda the emperor sent reliable nobles
and mansabdars to serve as provincial governor, faujdars, and fortress
commanders and their troops. A diwan and his staff restored Bijapur’s
revenue system. Jagirs were assigned to support them. Unfortunately,
establishing political ties between the new regime and Bijapur’s
zamindars in the countryside was far from easy. The Maratha desh-
mukhs of Bijapur faced a more treacherous political context than that
presented to their Telugu counterparts in the east. Bhonsla power and
authority still challenged that of the Timurids.

Immediately after receiving the news of Shambhaji’s capture the
senior commanders at Raigarh fort, the Maratha capital, turned to
Shambhaji’s younger brother Rajaram instead of his young son. In
February, 1689, they conducted a hasty coronation ceremony for
Rajaram, the third Bhonsla ruler. When, within days a Mughal army
arrived and besieged the capital, Rajaram secretly fled. The Mughals
did capture Shambhaji’s principal queen, Yesu Bai and her nine-year-
old son Shahuji, the putative heir to the Bhonsla throne. Three other
royal wives and four other children were taken as well.? Aurangzeb
decided to raise Shambhaji’s heir as a member of his own household
within the red canvas screen marking his living quarters and harem
(gulalbar). The emperor kept his young captive strictly confined, but

3 Jadunath, Sarkar, History of Aurangzib (Calcutta, 5 vols., 1912-1924), V, 203-207.

229

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

well-treated, and free of pressure to convert to Islam. Shahuji was to be
raised as a Maratha princling who was also a khanazad.

The Bhonsla monarchy had a competing claimant who was free of
Mughal control. Shahuji’s uncle, Rajaram, fled disguised as a Hindu
religious mendicant (yogi), accompanied only by a few of his closest
officers. The small band made its way 800 kilometers on foot to Jinji,
the enormous triple hill-fortress, on the southeastern coast. Here a
Maratha governor still controlled part of the Bhonsla domains on the
southern boundary of the Bijapur Karnatik.

For the next eight years the southeastern coast became a principal
arena for the Mughal-Maratha struggle.* At Jinji, Rajaram took full
charge of the Maratha districts still under Bhonsla control and encour-
aged a general uprising against Mughal authority in the Karnatak
districts. Aurangzeb sent Zulfikar Khan, the son of his chief minister,
south with a sizeable army in pursuit of Rajaram.

The siege of Jinji lasted until the fortress finally fell to a Mughal
assault in 1698. Throughout the siege the emperor kept a large army
supplied with treasure, fresh troops, and military supplies. The supply
line stretched from the imperial encampment near Bijapur, through
Cuddapah as a base, to the Mughal siege camp outside Jinji. Rajaram
obtained substantial assistance from his cousin, Shahji 11, the Raja of
Tanjavur. More important were reinforcements from the Bhonsla
kingdom. As Maratha raiding bands grew in size and confidence in the
Deccan they periodically were recalled to attack the Mughals in the
Karnatak.

Prince Kam Bakhsh, the emperors’ youngest (and dearest) son, and
the imperial wazir, Asad Khan, joined Zulfikar Khan with another
large army as the siege ended its first year. Despite these reinforce-
ments, the imperial army was still unable to completely cut off the
stubbornly defended fort. At the end of the second year, two celebra-
ted Maratha generals, Dhana Singh Jadev and Santa Ghorpare, com-
manding an army of 30,000 horsemen, arrived from the Deccan. These
troops, after capturing and holding for ransom the local Mughal
faujdar, severed all supply and communication links for the besieging
army. Plentiful foodstuffs carried cheaply in bulk by the active
coasting trade had supplied the besiegers from the European ports at
4 The following is largely based on Sarkar, History of Aurengi, v, 5-109; and G. T.

Kulkarni, The Mughal-Maratha Relations: Twenty-Five Fateful Years (1682-1707) (Pune:
Deccan College Post-Graduate Research Institute, Department of History, 1983).

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THE DECCAN WARS

Madras and Negapatnam. This flow ended. All communication and
funds from the emperor’s camp were also cut.

At this point a familiar scenario played out. Persuaded by false
rumors that Aurangzeb had died, Prince Kam Bakhsh secretly tried to
arrange a peace settlement with Rajaram. He also plotted to take over
supreme command of the Mughal army in preparation for the
inevitable war of succession. The wazir and Zulfikar Khan, finding the
Mughal position untenable, had already burst their cannon and begun
to withdraw from the siege lines when they learned of the plot. They
arrested Kam Bakhsh and made a fighting withdrawal fifty kilometers
north to Wandiwash, a Mughal-held fortress. Finally a strong relief
force with supplies and letters arrived from the north.

In the second phase of the Jinji campaign, Asad Khan returned to the
imperial court with Kam Bakhsh. At the court, Aurangzeb reluctantly
received the errant prince at an informal audience in the harem. He did
so at the plea of his daughter, Zinat-un-nissa, who was a partisan of
Kam Bakhsh. The emperor uncharacteristically forgave his youngest
son his transgressions at the siege and did not confine him to the camp.

For the next four years, Zulfikar Khan used Wandiwash as a base to
engage in a forcible restoration of Mughal authority in the area around
Jinji. A campaign against Tanjuvar forced Shahji 11 to pay tribute and to
agree temporarily, at least, to stop supplying aid to Rajaram. Aurang-
zeb sent men and treasure to support Zulfikar Khan, but long periods
frequently intervened between shipments. Often short of funds,
Zulfikar Khan foraged and exacted taxes and tribute in practices little
different from the Maratha armies. The unfortunate inhabitants of the
southeastern coastal districts found themselves in a continuing war
zone. Many refugees took shelter in the fortified European city-states
of the coast.

Zulfikar Khan’s next foray against Jinji in 1694-95 was so half-
hearted that popular opinion had it that the Mughal general was in
collusion with Rajaram. It was rumored that Zulfikar Khan, anticipat-
ing Aurangzeb’s death from old age, planned to carve out an indepen-
dent kingdom for himself on the southern coast during the war of
succession.

Aurangzeb rejected overtures from Rajaram for a negotiated settle-
ment and, in 1697, finally ordered Zulfikar Khan to an all-out assault
on Rajaram. Forced into action, the Mughal army scaled a wall and
took the lower citadels and fought their way through to the highest

231

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

citadel in the fortress. Apparently warned by Zulfikar Khan, according
to rumor at least, Rajaram hastily fled Jinji just before the final
assault. When the much-reduced garrison of the citadel capitulated in
February, 1698, the Mughals captured unharmed four of Rajaram’s
queens, three sons, and two daughters who were sent to Aurangzeb’s
grand encampment to join Shahuji.

WAR IN THE DECCAN 1689-1698

In the Maratha homeland Raigarh and most of the Maratha forts were
quickly taken and manned by Mughal garrisons.> From Jinji, Rajaram
sent a stream of letters, robes of honor and golden bangles to his
remaining fortress commanders, other officers and to deshmukhs
throughout the Maratha Kingdom. He urged them to reject Mughal
authority and to ravage and plunder imperial territory.

Maratha resistance to the Mughals in the western Deccan took on a
decentralized character which proved to be extraordinarily effective.
Santa Ghorpare, Shana Singh Jadev, and several other of the most able,
battle-tested Maratha commanders rapidly built up armies that often
swelled to 30,000 men. Their troops were minimally armored Maratha
light horsemen with lances, swords, and occasionally muskets. Nearly
equal in numbers were large contingents of “Karnataki” musketeers
renowned for their marksmanship. Except for the rainy season, each
Maratha band campaigned continuously in raids or battles with the
Mughals.

Deprived of Bhonsla funding, these commanders plundered or
exacted a form of protection levy called chauth from each locality.
Chauth or one-quarter was the customary share the zamindar retained
from the land revenue in Gujarat and the western Deccan. The Maratha
captains demanded chauth from village or pargana headmen, or from
the town notables as an option to being raided. Regular payment of this
levy, computed on the established Mughal assessment (jama) provided
steady support for the irregular Maratha raiding forces. Such an
arrangement became, in effect, a rudimentary revenue system albeit
shared with Mughal authorities.

Individual Maratha horsemen were no match for determined
Mughal cavalrymen whose chain-link armor, lances, muskets, and

5 Description based on Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, v, 20-49, 110-137; and Kalkarni,
Mughal-Maratha Relations, pp. 135-166.

232

THE DECCAN WARS

heavy battle horses made them formidable fighting units. In larger
battles, Mughal heavy cavalry supported by effective field artillery was
superior to the Maratha horsemen. But in mobility, leadership, sup-
plies, and certainly in morale, Maratha irregulars were the equal of
imperial troops. Able commanders like Santa Ghorpare out-
maneuvered and captured several high-ranking Mughal noblemen with
many of their troops. The luckless amirs paid high ransoms from their
own resources for their eventual freedom.®

Throughout the Jinji siege, Maratha commanders alternated
between expeditions to the south to assist Rajaram and spells of
campaigning in the western Deccan. An extraordinarily effective
Mughal faujdar, Matabar Khan, succeeded in taking the Maratha hill
forts in the Konkan, the fertile coastal strip, in 1689-90.” Thereafter,
Matabar Khan successfully beat off Maratha raiders until his death in
1704. But in the interior districts of the Maratha homeland, in Bijapur,
and in Khandesh, the Mughal imperial troops did not succeed in
stopping the raiders. Maratha mobility, decentralized authority, and a
steadily growing system of parallel or shadow government prevented
Aurangzeb from devising an effective strategy to contain the
insurgents.

THE FINAL DECCAN CAMPAIGN, 1698-1707

After his escape from Jinji, Rajaram returned unscathed to the Maratha
homeland and set up his court and residence in Satara, a strong hill fort.
Within the imperial encampment at Islampuri, Aurangzeb received his
news with dismay and made a momentous decision:®

As the reports of the enemy’s daring raids and ravages in the Imperial
territories and his increasing strength were being received successively, the
Emperor resolved to start jihad against them and to capture the forts which
were places of their refuge and thus to uproot entirely those accursed people.

At the age of eighty-one Aurangzeb declared a holy war against the

Marathas. He took personal command of the grand army in a con-

tinuing assault on the hill fortresses of Maharashtra. The princes, all

6 §, Moinul Haq, Khafi Khan’s History of Alamgir (Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society,
1975)> P. 414.

? Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, v, 138-158.

& Moinul Haq, Khafi Khan, p. 453. Khafi Khan, Muntakbab al-Lubub (Calcutta: Asiatic
Society of Bengal, Bibliotheca Indica, 1874), Part 1, 459. Khafi Khan uses the term jibad in
the text.

233

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

senior officers and nobles were ordered to leave their families and
households at Islampuri, now walled round, and set out on campaign.?
His first target was the fort of Vasantgarh to be followed by Satara.

Rajaram left Satara to lead a large Maratha field army on a devastat-
ing campaign into Khandesh and Berar. In the latter province he
planned to join forces with the Gond raja of Deogarh, now in rebellion
against the Mughals. Mughal spies gave Aurangzeb information soon
enough for him to send Prince Bidar Bakht with a large army to
intercept Rajaram. Near Ahmadnagar a bloody battle resulted in a
decisive defeat for the Marathas. Rajaram survived to lead his
remaining troops in a running flight to safety to Singugarh fort. A few
months later, the third Bhonsla ruler became seriously ill and died
March 2, 1700.

Since December, 1699, Aurangzeb was deeply engaged in the
investment and siege of Satara fortress, the Maratha capital. Ignoring
all difficulties Aurangzeb pressed forward with an attempted mining of
the fortress. Finally, in mid-April when the mines blew a breach in the
walls, the assault failed. The first mine explosion burst outward killing
2,000 Mughal troops waiting to attack. After news arrived of Rajaram’s
death, Subhanji, the Maratha fort commander, surrendered on terms.
Subhanji and his officers and relatives were taken into Mughal service.

With scarcely a pause, the emperor led his army directly to the attack
against the nearby Parligarh fortress. Six weeks into the siege, the
Maratha fort commander surrendered the fort in return for his life and
a large monetary payment. Aurangzeb placed a garrison in the fort and
then led the Mughal grand army into a well-deserved rest for the rainy
season.

Shortly after Rajaram’s death, his senior widow, Tara Bai, success-
fully maneuvered to place her four-year-old son, Shambhaji 11, on the
throne. Tara Bai was to act as regent. In this capacity she made a peace
overture to Aurangzeb who was encamped before Satara fortress.!°
The Maratha queen proposed formal submission to Mughal authority.
She offered to cede Satara, Panhala, and five other of the most imposing
hill fortresses, and to send 5,000 Maratha horsemen to serve the
governor of the Deccan. In return her son would be recognized as the
Maratha ruler, given the rank of 7,000 zat as a Mughal amir, and

9 Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, v, 159-235 and Kulkarni, Mughal-Maratha Relations,
Pp. 169-259.
19 Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, v, 136.

234

THE DECCAN WARS

exempted from personal service at the imperial court as his great-
grandfather Shivaji had been. Tarabai also stipulated that Shambhaji
m should be made the sardeshmukh or head deshmukh of the
Mughal Deccan provinces. In effect, this was a new position which
would have given the Maratha ruler 10 percent of the imperial
revenues in return for his assistance in revenue collection and
maintenance of order. The proposal would have Shahji become
simultaneously a Mughal nobleman and the dominant zamindar of the
entire Deccan. If consummated, this proposal would have reinserted
the Bhonsla monarchy within the structure of Timurid authority at
two levels. Aurangzeb, distrustful as ever, rejected Tara Bai’s proposal
outright, and put all his attention into his campaign against the hill-
fortresses.

Between 1700 and 1705 another eleven strongholds fell to the
imperial armies — among them those offered up by Tara Bai. Aurang-
zeb persotially led his weary army into the field after each rainy season
and commanded most of the sieges himself. In most instances the
emperor resorted to bribery to persuade the Maratha commanders to
surrender on terms. Large Maratha armies hovered, harassed and
sometimes defeated Mughal cavalry beyond the imperial lines. They
were never sufficiently strong to defeat the Mughal grand army in a
fixed battle or to drive off Aurangzeb’s besieging forces. Aurangzeb
took heavy losses in men and animals every year from battle casualties
and disease. He drafted levies of troops from provincial governors
around the empire; called for drafts of horses from Kabul and Surat;
and received regular shipments of treasure from the north.

During this last phase, Aurangzeb maintained two highly mobile,
aggressive, field armies. Each was headed by experienced noblemen
who regularly pursued and defeated even the strongest Maratha forces.
The first battle group was commanded by Zulfikar Khan Nusrat Jang,
returned from his victory at Jinji in the south, along with Daud Khan
Panni, a former Bijapur officer of Afghan descent, and two Rajputs,
Dalpat Rao Bundela and Ram Singh Hara. In 1701-02 Zulfikar Khan’s
troops fought nineteen major battles with the Marathas in a six-menth-
long campaign of constant movement.'! After 1702 Zulfikar Khan was
appointed bakhshi of the empire and worked more closely with his
father Asad Khan, the imperial wazir. He and his commanders

41V, G, Khobrekar, ed., English translation of Tarik-i Dilkasba (Bombay: Govt. of
Maharashtra, 1972), p. 233.

235

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

alternated between service at the sieges and forays to pursue the
Maratha raiders. These troops frequently escorted treasure caravans
from North India and goods caravans from Burhanpur to the imperial
encampment.

The Turani nobleman Ghazi-ud-din Khan Firuz Jang commanded the
second battle group. Surrounding him was a familial cluster consisting
of his sons Chin Qilich Khan, Hamid Khan and Rahim-ud-din Khan,
and a cousin, Muhammad Amin Khan, with their followers. Firuz Jang
served as governor of Berar and took an active role in the defense
against Maratha incursions from that province. Each amir and subord-
inate officer in these two groups took great pride in keeping his cavalry
contingents at full strength.

On at least two occasions the emperor half-heartedly experimented
with negotiations that would make use of Shahuji Bhonsla, the
Maratha prince who was still a captive in the imperial encampment.
Now mature, the 21 year-old Shahuji had a claim to the Maratha
throne fully as strong as that of Rajaram’s young son.

In 1703, Aurangzeb first offered freedom to Shahuji Bhonsla in
return for converting to Islam. When he refused, Aurangzeb tried to
arrange a settlement with the leading Maratha generals. He recruited
Raibhan Bhonsla, son of Vyankoji, Shivaji’s brother who had been
Raja of Tanjavur, into Mughal service as a high-ranking amir. Raibhan
was to act as an intermediary between Shahuji and the Maratha
generals. Shahuji would be released to become ruler of the Marathas
and given the right of collecting chauth or 25 percent of the Mughal
revenues for the Deccan. The negotiations failed due to mistrust on
both sides. The emperor feared Maratha trickery. The Marathas
themselves had not all that much to gain by making a settlement. In
1706, the year before he died, the emperor again tried to arrange a peace
by offering again to release Shahuji. This also fell through.

PARALLEL GOVERNMENT IN THE WESTERN
DECCAN

Aurangzeb’s final campaigns further weakened imperial authority
elsewhere in the Deccan provinces. Declining personal and corporate
security hurt productivity in trade and agriculture. These problems
were heightened by the failure of monsoon rains throughout the
Deccan in 1702-04. The entire region was hit by the scarcity and

236

THE DECCAN WARS

soaring prices of famine conditions. The usual outbreak of plague and
other epidemic disease added to mortality figures.

Rebuffed in her diplomatic initiative, Tara Bai immediately shaped
an energetic military response. The Mughal historian Khafi Khan
reported that:!?

[Tara Bai] started an endeavour to ravage Imperial territories. She engaged
herself in arranging and posting her forces in the six [provinces] of the Deccan
up to the frontiers of ... Malwa, with the object of ravaging the territories and
in winning the loyalty of her officers in a way that all the efforts and the
conquests of the forts by ‘Alamgir failed to keep them in proper check; until
the end of her regime the rebellions of Marhatas continued to gain strength
every day.

Under Tara Bai’s aggressive policies, Maratha attacks resumed in the
east as well. In 1702, an enormous army estimated at 50,000 horse and
foot attacked and looted Hyderabad city. The Mughal governor
simply took refuge in his fortified mansion." In 1704, in the midst of
general dearth and scarcity, the Marathas paused to plunder Hyder-
abad city before ranging as far as Machhilipatnam on the coast. Some
Telugu zamindars joined the invaders or plundered on their own. Most
did neither, but waited for the intruders to leave. Other ruthless,
ambitious men, who were not zamindars, took advantage of the
dislocation caused by the raids to attract armed followers and plunder
on their own.!*

Long-distance caravan trade out of Hyderabad city to Gujarat or
northern India was shut down completely between 1702 and 1704.15
The main artery leading from Hyderabad to Machhilipatnam was
blocked as well. Caught in a cycle of disorder and dearth, peasants and
zamindars no longer paid Mughal revenues to the dismay of Mughal
jagirdars.'¢

Imperial authority in the western Deccan faced a different and,
ultimately, a graver threat. In the 1699 campaign just prior to his death,
Rajaram and his leading commanders marched confidently into Khan-
desh and Berar. Instead of raiding, they demanded regular payment of
25 percent of the imperial revenues for chauth and an additional 10

12 Moinual Haq, Khafi Khan, p. 508. © Richards, Mughal Administration, p."218.

\ Richards, Mughal Administration, pp. 219-220; and J. F. Richards with Velchuru Nar-
ayana Ras, “Banditry in Mughal India: Historical and Folk Perceptions,” The Indian
Economic and Social History Review, 17 (1980), 95-120.

45 Ibid,. pp. 225-229. 8 Ibid., p. 221.

237

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

percent based upon the fiction that the Maratha ruler was the heredi-
tary head deshmukh of all the Deccan provinces. This was no longer a
simple plundering expedition:!7

All who submitted to the payment of [Rajaram’s] demands were protected,
and the Mughal garrisons that remained passive spectators were not molested,
but such as made unsuccessful opposition were put to the sword. On this
occasion the Mahrattas were more systematic in their exactions than they
before had been; where they could not obtain ready money they took
promissory notes from the Patells [village headmen] ...

Tara Bai regularized these arrangements to create a dual or parallel
administrative structure. For each province she appointed a Maratha
commander as governor, who headed a field army of seven or eight
thousand horsemen. The governor built a small fortress to use as his
headquarters and deployed collectors to receive payments of chauth
and sardeshmukhi in various parts of the province. If chauth were not
paid because of opposition from imperial faujdars or from local
zamindars still loyal to the Mughals, the governor “rushed to their help
and surrounded and plundered that place.”!® The governor also
deputed officers to guard the main routes. Any merchants who wished
to travel safely had to pay a fixed sum per cart or laden pack bullock.
The Maratha road tax was set at an amount three to four times that
which the Mughals levied on merchants. In some villages headmen
who were Maratha sympathizers had constructed small forts. With the
aid of Marathas they resisted the Mughals when they came to collect
the revenues.

Mughal governors and faujdars and many zamindars still remained
stubbornly opposed to the Marathas. But a growing number of
zamindars, town notables, and village headmen had openly sided with
the raiders. In 1702, when a Mughal field army under Nusrat Jang
appeared in Khandesh and Berar, the Maratha governors assembled
60,000 horsemen with the aid of zamindari levies.!9 As this process of
slow permeation occurred, the frontier line of Maratha raids moved
north. The Marathas crossed the Narmada river, the traditional
boundary between the Deccan and north India, in 1700. Soon they were
mounting raids in force into Gujarat (Ahmadabad) and Malwa provinces.
17 James Grant Duff, History of the Mabrattas, as quoted in John F. Richards, “Official

Revenues and Money Flows in a Mughal Province,” in John F. Richards, ed. The Imperial

Monetary System, of Mughal India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 222.
8 Moinul Haq, Khafi Khan, p. 508. Khobrekar, Dilkasha, p. 228.

238

THE DECCAN WARS

RISING EUROPEAN POLITICAL POWER

Slowly, decade after decade, as the Timurid regime was embroiled in
the Deccan wars, the English, Dutch, and French East Indian Com-
panies developed the capacity to challenge the authority of the Mughal
emperor and to negotiate with imperial authorities from a position of
growing strength. To some extent European confidence grew out of
improved information and experience in dealing with the Mughals as
well as a carefully nurtured constituency of sympathetic Mughal
officials. But much more was involved, The East India Companies
were always conscious of their superiority at sea. Indian shipping of
any sort was vulnerable to seizure by well-armed Dutch, English, or
French merchant vessels. In extremities, the East India Companies
could carry out a naval blockade of any of the Mughal ports. Or, they
could seize Indian vessels at sea as reprisals for maltreatment on the
subcontinent.

Along the coasts, wherever gaps in strong indigenous state power
occurred, the European trading companies built autonomous city-
states similar to Portuguese Goa. As early as the 1620s the English
factors at Surat had urged that Bombay island and its magnificent
natural harbor, then virtually unused, be acquired from the Portuguese
and used to build a secure base for their operations. Finally after
prolonged negotiations the East India Company Court of Directors
received the grant of Bombay as part of a marriage settlement between
Charles 11 of England and Catharine of Aragon.?° For three decades
successive governors of Bombay encouraged trade and settlement and
built up the defenses of the island.

In 1689-90 the autonomy of Bombay was severely tested. Due to a
miscalculation by John Child, the governor of Bombay, the English
East India Company became involved in a brief war with the Mughals.
Child was a leading spokesman for a more aggressive English policy in
India. Troubled by unauthorized English private traders operating in
India, Child tried to put pressure upon the imperial authorities at Surat
to stop their trading. East India Company vessels captured and held
eighty Indian vessels sailing to Surat. Aurangzeb, angered by this,
stopped all English trade and ordered his local officers to seize all
English trading missions. At Hughli, in Bengal, the English factors fled

29 M.D. David, History of Bombay, 1661-1708 (Bombay: University of Bombay, 1973),
p. 26.

239

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

down the river to a site which became the town of Calcutta. At
Bombay, the Mughals ordered the Abyssinian sea lord, the Siddi, who
was tributary to the Mughal emperor, to attack Bombay. The Siddi’s
troops succeeded in occupying most of the island, but did not capture
the city and its citadel. In the end frantic negotiations and offers to pay
reparations by the English ended the imbroglio.

Over the next few decades Bombay’s defenses became more for-
midable and its population and trade grew steadily. Strong traditions of
internal order, religious toleration, modest customs and other taxes,
and other inducements brought thousands of migrants to Bombay. By
the early eighteenth century, Bombay had begun to challenge Surat’s
role as the leading port of trade for western India.?!

Along the southeastern coast of India, in the Hyderabad and Bijapur
Karnataks, an area marked by fragmented and shifting political auth-
ority, the three East India Companies founded and nurtured several
enclaves. By the 1680s these city-states served as the headquarters to
their respective companies for trading activity to the north in Gol-
conda. The Dutch controlled the port of Pulicat and protected it with
the guns of Fort Geldria. Forty kilometers to the south the English had
built a busy port on the open roadstead at Madras protected by Fort St.
George. Still further south the French occupied Pondicherry, another
bustling trade center, protected by state-of-the art fortifications and a
French garrison.

At the Mughal conquest of Golconda, the French and Dutch factors
came to terms with Aurangzeb and obtained permission to trade in
Golconda’s former territories much as before. Madras was threatened
with Mughal attack in 1689~90, but pressing needs for support in the
campaign against the Marathas at Jinji diverted the attention of Mughal
commanders. Madras supplied munitions, foodgrains, and even
gunners to the Mughal army besieging the Maratha fortress.?? Pondi-
cherry and Madras flourished as thousands of migrants fled to seek the
security offered by these enclaves in the midst of devastating warfare in
the region. By the turn of the century the former sheltered some 60,000
inhabitants and the latter well over 100,000.

By the 1690s the Mughal emperor began to pay considerably more
21 Ashin Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat c. 1700-1750 (Wiesbaden:

Franz Steiner Verlag, 1979), pp. 7-8.

2 J. F. Richards, “European City-States on the Coromandel Coast” in P. M. Joshi and

M. A. Nayeem, eds., Studies in the Foreign Relations of India (Hyderabad: Government
of Andhra Pradesh, State Archives, 1975), p. 511.

240

THE DECCAN WARS

attention to the East India Companies. The main issue was that of
uncontrolled European piracy in the Indian Ocean for which the
emperor tried to hold the East India Companies responsible. Tensions
soared over the capture of the Ganj-i Sawai, the largest vessel in the
Surat mercantile fleet. Every year, protected by its eighty guns, this
great vessel transported high status pilgrims to Mecca and then
travelled to Mokha to trade in Indian goods. In 1695 the ship was
returning to Surat from Mokha with a full load of passengers and
treasure worth 5.2 million rupees. Off the Indian coast Henry
Bridgeman on the ship Fancy and another pirate ship attacked,
dismasted, and boarded the Ganj-i Sawai against feeble resistance. For
three days the pirates raped the women and plundered the ship. When
the vessel finally reached Surat public outrage was very great. The Surat
governor occupied the East India Company factory and jailed all the
occupants. The atrocities committed against high-born Muslim
women and against pilgrims returning from the Haj were deeply felt
and blamed on the English.23

At this point in time the emperor’s attention was drawn to the
English minting of rupees at Bombay. These were coins adhering to
Mughal standards for fineness and weight but bearing the insignia of
the English monarch on them. When some of the survivors of the
pirate attack and some of the offending rupees were exhibited in open
court, Aurangzeb authorized an attack on Bombay by the Mughal
tributary, the coastal chieftain, Siddi Yaqut Khan and his fleet. This
attack faltered against the fortifications of Bombay.

Piracy persisted despite protests of innocence and promises by the
Dutch and English to help in its suppression. In 1702 Aurangzeb
reacted to the depredations of European pirates by interdicting all
trade with the Dutch, English, and French companies in the empire.
The Mughal faujdar of the Hyderabad Karnatak, Daud Khan Panni, an
amir who was a confidant of Zulfikar Khan, took the opportunity to
demand payment of large arrears of presumed revenue from the
English at Madras. He also announced that his officers would inven-
tory and survey the East India Company lands in and around the city
and send troops to occupy the unfortified Indian quarter of Madras.
The British resisted and a siege ensued. Continuing negotiations ended
with the lifting of the siege after three months. Daud Khan Panni
received a large monetary payment from the English and in return

23 Sarkar, History of Aurangzth, v, 343-351.

241

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

publicly proclaimed the independence and autonomy of Madras.”
Pondicherry, under the governorship of Francois Martin, survived a
similar set of threats to make a similar settlement with the faujdar.25
Mughal failure to seize Bombay and Madras was a direct result of
Aurangzeb’s overwhelming preoccupation with the Maratha problem.
The emperor was unwilling and increasingly unable to bring sufficient
military weight to bear to occupy these ports. After Aurangzeb’s death
none of his immediate successors was prepared to pursue the matter.
Bombay and Madras continued to flourish as autonomous trading
centers in the years that Surat and Machhilipatnam were in decline.

THE IMPERIAL ELITE IN THE DECCAN WARS

The never-ending Deccan war battered at the cohesion and morale of
the imperial elite. Long-serving Mughal amirs and mansabdars became
disillusioned with imperial service. Aurangzeb’s military impotence in
the Deccan was more obvious every passing year. The hardships and
danger of life in the imperial encampment in the Deccan continued
without relief. Maratha raiders rode boldly close to the encampment
and cut off supplies of foodgrains during the sieges. As Bhimsen, who
wrote from personal experience, commented:26

Ever since His Majesty had come to the throne, he had not lived in the city,
and adopted all these wars and hardships of travel, that the inmates of his
camp, sick of long separation, summoned their families to the camp and passed
their time; a new generation was thus born (in the camp).

After 1689 the Mughal elite divided into those men committed to
service in the Deccan and those fortunate enough to be deputed
elsewhere. As Bhimsen’s passage suggests, nobles in the Deccan rarely
left it. Whereas officers who proved to be reliable and competent on
provincial assignment in the north tended to remain.

Aurangzeb undercut that critical process by which the responsible
officers of the empire received rewards and reprimands directly from
the throne. Amirs posted to the north rarely participated in the
ceremonial enactment of the emperor’s authority at court audiences.
Those officers in the Deccan who did attend audiences in the emperor’s
camp were forced to confront the dissonance between the still-grand

26 Richards, “European City-States,” p. 516. 8 Ibid., p. 512.
2 Khobrekar, Dilkasha, p. 233.

242

THE DECCAN WARS

ceremonies within the encampment and the hollowness of imperial
power without.

In an unprecedented development, many Mughal mansabdars in
the Deccan routinely shirked their duty as warriors. Governors and
faujdars in every province often kept their troops safely locked up in
their forts rather than challenge large bodies of Maratha raiders.
Aurangzeb increasingly failed to punish or even admonish those
officers who failed to engage the enemy.

By its length and inconclusiveness, the Deccan war fostered con-
siderable interaction between Mughal and Maratha commanders.
Many Mughal officers spent time in Maratha camps waiting for ransom
payments to be made. Some Maratha commanders had been in imperial
service. Violent, bloody battles certainly occurred, but an equal, if not
greater, number of clashes were avoided by intense unofficial nego-
tiation and clandestine agreements. Increasingly anxious for their
future in Aurangzeb’s waning years, many imperial governors and
faujdars negotiated immunities for themselves, their followers and the
areas they administered or their jagir lands. Some offered outright
payments in cash; others offered services.

Part of the reluctance to do battle displayed by a growing number of
Mughal commanders can be traced to deficiencies in their contingents.
Increasingly Mughal mansabdars in the Deccan failed to maintain the
full number of properly mounted and armed cavalrymen stipulated by
imperial regulations. So widespread was this abuse and so inept were
the imperial inspections that it became a commonplace observation in
every bazaar.

Aurangzeb contributed to demoralization by inflating Mughal ranks
and honors. At the fall of Bijapur and Golconda, Aurangzeb enrolled
sixty-four Muslim nobles from those states as high-ranking amirs.
Thirty-two of these “Deccani” nobles as they were termed, were given
ranks of 5,000 zat or more. They constituted 40 percent of all nobles
with the highest ranks.?”7 Although most were able warriors and
administrators and fully fluent in the shared Indo-Persian courtly
culture of India, they still encountered considerable resentment from
Mughal nobles who were khanazads.

Marathas, appointed for political reasons by Aurangzeb, constituted
the other category of Deccani nobles. In the last half of the reign,

2 M. Athar Ali, The Apparatus of Empire: Awards of Ranks, Offices and Titles to the
Mughal Nobility 1574-1658 (Delhi: Oxford University Press), pp. 26-27.

243

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

ninety-six Marathas were enrolled as Mughal amirs.?* They comprised
16.7 percent of the total nobility. Most (sixty-two) were ranked below
3,000 zat in contrast to the Deccani Muslims. Nevertheless this was a
large and unsettling element to force into the Mughal nobility. Some
Marathas enlisted with the Mughals out of enmity against the Bhonsla
dynasty.?? Kanhoji Shirke, who had been badly treated by Shambhaji,
joined Mughal service with his family members and rose to the rank of
6,000 zat. Others, driven by expediency, vacillated in their allegiances.
Virtually all the Maratha nobles were employed as auxiliary field
commanders with their troops and proved to be of doubtful reliability.
Ranks and honors bestowed upon the Marathas as political rewards
were viewed with great cynicism by the long-serving Mughal nobles in
the Deccan.

Aurangzeb’ was not in a position to devise a new “Maratha policy”
similar to Akbar’s “Rajput policy” a century earlier. Neither his
personality or his reputation for piety lent themselves to a warm
welcome for Maratha chiefs. Few, if any, of these Maratha comman-
ders had a substantial exposure to Indo-Persian high culture, or indeed,
could communicate freely in Persian. For them to be assimilated fully
into the imperial elite required a systematic, conscious effort that
Aurangzeb was certainly not prepared to make. Nothing analagous to
the political marriages arranged between the Rajputs and Timurid
house seemed feasible for improving relations with the Marathas. At
best, the emperor could hope that the years invested in nurturing and
socializing the young Shahu might be rewarded by placing him on the
Bhonsla throne. And, as long as other descendants of Shivaji occupied
that throne, the Mughals had difficulty in matching incentives for
raiding and plundering offered by the insurgents.

Accommodating Deccani Muslim and Maratha nobles put strains on
imperial resources. Khanazads serving in the Deccan complained
bitterly about an emerging shortage of jagirs:2°

At last, things reached such a state that the whole country was assigned to the
new recruits from the Deccan and their agents, through bribery, obtained the
choicest (jagirs) yielding the highest revenue for the Deccanis, and it was plain
for all to see that the ranks and numbers of the new and unknown mansabdars
went on increasing while the mansabs of the old mansabdars went on declining.
28 Athar Ali, Apparatus, pp. 29-30. 29 Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, v, pp. 207-213

30 Abul Faz! Mamuri, Tarskh-i Aurangzeb, ff. 156b-157a, translated excerpt from Athar Ali,
Mughal Nobility, p. 29.

244

THE DECCAN WARS

The number of claimants for jagirs began to exceed the lands in the
temporary pool (paibaqi) awaiting assignment.>!

The most obvious response to this situation would have been to
assign productive lands in Golconda and Bijapur to jagirdars. Instead,
Aurangzeb appears to have made a deliberate policy decision to favor
the needs of the central treasury over those of mansabdars claiming
their pay. Most of the lands in Hyderabad province, formerly Gol-
conda, were kept in khalisa earmarked for the central treasury. Other
lands stayed in the temporary pool of lands for extended periods of
time.>? Similar policies seem to have prevailed in Bijapur and the
Maratha lands.

The shortfall in jagirs in the Deccan proved to be more than an
artifically created problem. As the Deccan wars continued the Maratha
style of predatory raiding and Mughal reprisals drove greater and
greater numbers of peasants off the land. Burnt villages and towns and
butchered traders and caravans hindered production. Embittered men
joined the Marathas or groups of bandits as public order declined.33
Under these conditions jagirdars holding lands in the Deccan
provinces found it more difficult to collect even reduced revenues.
Mughal officers clashed with one another over access to those tracts of
land where revenues could be reliably collected. By the early 1700s
many Mughal officers in the south suffered real impoverishment as
they failed to obtain paying jagirs.

Doubt, uncertainty, and frustration led to widespread unhappiness
with Aurangzeb’s policies. At the highest levels of the nobility, one
group of nobles aligned themselves with Zulfikar Khan Nusrat Jang
and his father the wazir, Asad Khan, at the head of a mixed coterie of
nobles (see above). These men favored some form of negotiated
settlement with the Marathas that would end the drain of imperial
resources in the Deccan. Zulfikar Khan was directly involved in several
offers and counter-offers between Aurangzeb and the Bhonsla rulers.
Despite his aggressive military role, Zulfikar Khan remained in conti-
nual contact with his adversaries throughout this period.

Others supported Ghazi-ud-din Firuz Jang and his son Chin Qilich
Khan, who headed a family group of Turani Muslim amirs. One
3 Athar Ali, The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb (Aligarh, 1966), pp. 92-94.

32 J, F. Richards, Mughal Administration in Golconda (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975),

PP. 157-162.
2 For details of these years in Hyderabad province see Richards, Mughal Adminstration,

PP- 215-235.

245

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

member of the group, Muhammad Amin Khan, had served as chief
religious officer (sadr) briefly for Aurangzeb. Members of this faction
insisted on a hard line. They felt that the full weight of imperial military
power should be brought to bear on the Marathas to end the war and
that no settlement was possible with these infidels.>+

All of these men shared two or more decades of Deccan service. All
were deeply involved in trying to stabilize imperial rule in the south.
They might differ over the means, but the end was unarguable.
Aurangzeb’s prolonged stay in the Deccan had succeeded in turning
imperial priorities upside down for the officers who surrounded him in
his last years. The Deccan, not the north, was the center of their
universe.

THE NORTHERN PROVINCES

After 1680 imperial administration in the north was subordinated to
the emperor’s involvement in the south. Aurangzeb kept up a brisk
exchange of reports and orders between himself and his administrators
and commanders in the north but his absence demanded careful
management. On the whole, by using his sons and grandsons and his
most capable nobles, the emperor kept intact imperial institutions and
order in the northern plains. Crises did occur and were dealt with
efficiently. Diversion of the empire’s core military to the south did
make the frontiers, revenues, and supply lines vulnerable to disruption.

To the northwest, the Afghan revolts of the 1670s had shown the
importance of firm, personalized, and flexible imperial policies. Amir
Khan, an extremely able Shi'ite Irani officer, assumed the governorship
of Kabul at the close of the Afghan campaigns. For twenty years, Amir
Khan’s shrewd interventions into the internal politics and rivalries of
the Yusufzais, Afridis, and other Afghan lineages kept the northwest
relatively peaceful. In large measure this stability was secured by large
subsidies paid in cash from the Kabul treasury to various chiefs and
factions. The caravan trade continued to move large quantities of goods
across the mountain passes with little interference.

In 1698, when Amir Khan died, his wife Sahibji, an aristocratic
Mughal woman who had advised him closely, assumed full charge of
the frontier administration for nearly two years. Finally Aurangzeb’s

» Athar Ali, Mughal Nobility, pp. 106-111; Satish Chandra, Parties and Politics at the
Mughal Court, (New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, znd. edn., 1972), pp. 1-10.

246

THE DECCAN WARS

new governor, his son Prince Shah Alam, arrived at Kabul. Only then
did the much-admired noblewoman return to the south, send on Amir
Khan’s sons to court for appointments, and then proceed on a
pilgrimage to Mecca. The prince kept a firm hand on the frontier until
his father’s death in 1707.

On the northeastern frontier, along the Brahmaputra, Gadadhar
Singh, a new, vigorous monarch of the Hindu Ahom kingdom,
ascended the throne in 1681. At a conference of his nobles in 1682 the
Ahom ruler set out his plans to retake Gauhati and to force the
Mughals back down the river. The Ahom flotillas drove back the
Mughal frontier posts (thanas) and engaged Mansur Khan, the faujdar,
at an island garrison in the river opposite Gauhati. At the battle of
Itakhuli, in September, 1682, the Ahom forces chased the defeated
Mughals nearly one hundred kilometers back to the Manas river. The
Manas then became the Mughal-Ahom boundary until the British
occupation.°6 War booty taken from the discomfited Mughals
included much treasure, war boats, arms, munitions, and elephants.

Itakhuli was the last main force battle to occur between the two
powers in the northeast. Thereafter Gadadhar Singh and his son and
successor Rudra Singh (1696-1714) devoted their energies to consoli-
dation of royal power under a newly proclaimed form of officially
sponsored Sakti Hinduism. Mughal expansion in the northeast had
ground to a standstill, and the Ahom rulers had become so confident
that by the end of Aurangzeb’s reign they were preparing to invade
Mughal Bengal.

Aurangzeb was dependent upon peace and order in the north to
supply surplus revenues to pay for his incessant campaigning. Bengal,
which regularly delivered a large surplus of revenues over expendi-
tures, was a matter of special concern. In 1696-97 a dramatic revolt
underscored the difficulties of absentee rule from the Deccan. Ibrahim
Khan, the governor of Bengal, faltered badly in responding to a serious
revolt. Sova Singh, a zamindar of Midnapur district in the far south-
west corner of Bengal, had allied himself with Rahim Khan, leader of
those Afghan zamindars in Orissa who were discontented with
Mughal rule. The allied rebel forces killed Raja Krishna Ram, the
38 Shah Nawaz Khan and Abdul Hayy, The Maathir-ul-Umara (New Delhi, 1st reprint

edition, 1979), edited and translated by H. Beveridge and Baini Prashad, 3 vols., 1,

PP. 246-253.
3 S.C. Dutta, The North East and the Mughals (1661-1714) (Delhi: D. K. Publications,

1984), Pp. 154-156.

247

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Khatri revenue collector of the district, seized his family and treasure,
and occupied Burdwan town. The rebels then routed the Mughal
faujdar in western Bengal and Rahim Khan, the Afghan chief, led
troops to occupy Nadia and Murshidabad. Ibrahim Khan remained
inactive at Dacca while that portion of Bengal west of the Ganges was
left for plunder by the increasing numbers of rebels.

Ac that juncture, the daughter of Raja Krishna Ram killed Sova Singh
with a dagger when he tried to assault her. Rahim Khan, the new
leader, titled himself Rahim Shah to proclaim his regal aspirations. His
rapidly growing force had reached 10,000 horse and five to six times as
many infantry. Aurangzeb dismissed Ibrahim Khan from his post,
appointed his own grandson, the Timurid prince Azim-ud-din to the
governorship, and ordered Zabardast Khan, son of the dismissed
Bengal governor, to take the field immediately. Zabardast Khan, using
his cavalry and field artillery effectively, drove the rebels into retreat
for the rainy season. By early 1698 Prince Azim-ud-din arrived and
confronted Rahim Shah and his revived rebel force near Burdwan. Ina
brief, hard-fought battle the imperial troops killed Rahim Shah and
crushed the rebellion.

Aurangzeb’s main concern was to restore the Bengal revenues which
had plummeted during the revolt and not revived under the manage-
ment of his grandson. Azim-ud-din was fully engaged in sequestering
all possible revenues to himself and his followers in Bengal as he
prepared for the war of succession soon to come. Regular surplus funds
shipped from Bengal to the Deccan faltered. In 1701, Aurangzeb
selected one of his most capable financial officers to become chief fiscal
officer of Bengal. Kartalab Khan was a young Brahmin slave purchased
by a prominent Irani Mughal officer, Haji Shafi Ibrahimi, who served
Aurangzeb as diwan of the Deccan provinces. Converted to Islam, the
young boy was treated as a son by his patron and painstakingly trained
in the clerical and fiscal arts necessary for Mughal service.>” In 1701
Kartalab Khan transferred from Hyderabad, where he served as diwan,
to Dacca where he became imperial diwan of Bengal and Orissa.

The new diwan, who, in the Mughal system, held nearly equal and
independent powers from the governor, immediately took fiscal
control away from Prince Azim-ud-din. He discovered after compil-
ing an up-to-date revenue roll for Bengal that the crown revenues had

°7 Abdul Karim, Murshid Qul: Khan and His Times (Dacca: Asiatic Society of Pakistan,
1963), Pp. 15-26.

248

THE DECCAN WARS

dwindled, the jagirdars were appropriating more than their stipulated
salaries, and that only the relatively small customs duties found their
way to the provincial treasury. Embezzlement of revenues by imperial
officers was pervasive. Kartalab Khan increased the khalisa lands by
confiscating some jagirs and by transferring others from Bengal to less
productive areas in Orissa. He employed a number of Hindu subord-
inate revenue officers, largely Khatris from the Punjab, to take charge
of various parts of the province on farming terms. That is, they put up
security bonds for the assigned collections in their area and were paid a
percentage of the proceeds.>8

Rigorous attention to receipts and brutal imprisonment and torture
for defaulting zamindars, chaudhuris, or other local officials and for
the collectors themselves brought fast results. Kartalab Khan was so
successful that in the first year he generated a ten million rupee surplus.
In 1702, the diwan sent this treasure south to fill Aurangzeb’s nearly
empty treasury. By this time the prince’s jealousy and rage had grown
to the point that he tried to have Kartalab Khan killed. The diwan
survived the attempt and shifted his offices from Dacca to Makhsuda-
bad, a trading center on the Ganges, where he had been appointed
faujdar as an additional charge. When reports of the fracas reached
Aurangzeb, the emperor reprimanded his grandson and forced the
prince to leave Bengal and take up residence at Patna in Bihar as
provincial governor.

Azim-ud-din retained the absentee governorship of Bengal, but
Kartalab Khan was left the most powerful imperial officer in the
province. The young Brahmin slave boy was fast becoming an imperial
grandee. In 1703, the Bengal diwan travelled to Aurangzeb’s court in
the Deccan and presented another large remittance and his accounts as
well as lavish gifts for his sovereign and superiors. At that audience,
Aurangzeb gave his favored officer a full robe of honor, a kettledrum, a
standard, a promotion to 2,000 zat and 1,000 suwar, and a new title:
Murshid Quli Khan. The title was a direct reference to the deceased
Murshid Quli Khan who had carried out the Deccan revenue settle-
ment some fifty years earlier. Aurangzeb permitted Murshid Quli
Khan to rename his headquarters Murshidabad and to open an imperial
mint in that city. Murshid Quli Khan also assumed the duties of
governor of Orissa (removed from Azim-ud-din), and faujdar of
28 Jadunath Sarkar, ed., History of Bengal: Muslim Period 1200-1757, (Patna, 1973),

PP. 408-410.

249

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Sylhet, Midnapur, Burdwan, and Cuttack in. Orissa. On his return he
also became diwan of Bihar. The emperor permitted Murshid Quli
Khan to select his own deputies for these posts. And, in 1704, fourteen
members of his adoptive kin from Iran arrived in Bengal and were
given mansabs and postings under him. Murshid Quli Khan remained
in office and kept up annual shipments of treasure to Aurangzeb and
his successors in Delhi for over two decades. In so doing, he became
the de facto ruler of Bengal as the imperial structure collapsed.

REVOLT OF THE JATS NEAR AGRA

Aurangzeb relied upon the great royal road running from Delhi to
Agra, through Dholpur, and past the great prison-fortress at Gwalior
to Burhanpur as the central conduit for fresh treasure, supplies,
animals, and troops. Unfortunately this route passed through the
Chambal river ravine country and other stretches of more desolate hills
and forests. Year after year as the rich traffic along this route expanded,
the temptation for banditry and plundering grew accordingly.

In the districts of Kol (present-day Aligarh), Agra, and Sahar,
straddling the Yamuna river, Jat peasants and zamindars proved to be
especially troublesome.°? In 1685, Rajaram, a Jat zamindar at Sinsini,
eighty kilometers west of Agra, strengthened a strongly defended
fortress of hardened mud. Shielded by difficult terrain and bamboo/
scrub forests these forts could beat off all but the most determined
assaults. Already refusing to pay the revenue, Rajaram led his Jat
clansmen to plunder traffic on the royal road. They even attempted to
enter Sikandra to despoil Akbar’s tomb, but were driven back by the
faujdar. Soon the overland route to the Deccan was virtually closed.
Even great nobles travelling with their entourages were not safe. In
1686, a Turani amir, Aghar Khan, who was marching from Kabul to
Bijapur with his troops and household, tried to pursue the Jats who
had plundered his baggage train. Outside the Jat fort he was killed
along with his son-in-law and eighty of his followers. In the face of this
palpable threat imperial revenue collectors and other officials either
fled the districts or remained penned up in the towns.

In late 1687, Aurangzeb sent Bidar Bakht, his young grandson,
north with troops to suppress the Jats. In the interim the newly
appointed governor of the Punjab, Mahabat Khan, a former Hyder-

2 Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, v, 296-303.

250

THE DECCAN WARS

abad officer, had encamped near Sikandra on the Yumuna river. The
Jats boldly attacked his camp in force and only retired after losing four
hundred casualties.

Rajaram’s Jats outmaneuvered the local imperial forces and occupied
Sikandra where they succeeded in looting Akbar’s tomb. According to
Manucci:*°

Already angered by the demands of the governors and faujdars for revenue, a
great number of them [Jats] assembled and marched to the mausoleum of that
great conqueror Akbar. Against him living they could effect nothing; they
therefore wreaked vengeance on his sepulchre. They began their pillage by
breaking in the great gates of bronze which it had, robbing the valuable
precious stones and plates ... of gold and silver, and destroying what they
were not able to carry away. Dragging out the bones of Akbar, they threw
them angrily into the fire and burnt them.

Whether the Jats actually seized Akbar’s remains, the desecration of
the tomb was as Manucci puts it “the greatest affront possible to the
house and lineage of Taimur-i lang (Timur].” After this incident
Rajaram, the Jat leader, was killed by a Mughal musketeer in a
subsequent clash, but the Jat stronghold at Sinsini was untouched.

Aurangzeb responded to these events by commissioning the young
Raja Bishun Singh Kachhwaha of Amber (Jaipur) as faujdar of
Mathura and as jagirdar of Sinsini, the Jat stronghold. The new
commander and his Rajput troops marched directly to the Jat strong-
hold and besieged it. After a four-month siege, the Mughal troops laid
a mine successfully, opened a breach, and stormed the small fort.
Fifteen hundred Jat defenders died; nearly a thousand imperial troops
were killed or wounded. Another small fortress at Sogar fell to the
Mughals, By January, 1691 the Jat revolt around Agra was temporarily
suppressed.

The Kachhwaha raja was given extensive holdings in jagir over the
Jat territories and asked to restore normal administration. This he was
unable to do and intermittent Jat resistance continued over the next
fifteen years. After a brief interval, Churaman Jat, a nephew of the dead
Rajaram, who proved to be exceedingly able, emerged as new militant
leader who resisted any revenue demands. The Jat peasantry displayed
a remarkable solidarity with their caste-fellows who were zamindars.
In the Kol, Agra, and Sahar districts, a region stretching over approxi-

251

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

mately forty parganas, village patels and the dominant elites in each
village actively supported Churaman Jat with men and material.!

Churaman Jat also joined forces with Rajput zamindars from the
Naruka, Kilanot, and Chauhan clans, in nearby Alwar, Ajmer, and
Ranthambor districts. The Rajputs were trying to resist the Kachhwaha
Raja’s attempts to displace them from their holdings in favor of his
own clan members. The rebel zamindars did not share caste identity
with most of the peasants in these districts and did not enjoy anything
near the same support that the Jats did. In many areas Rajputs were
violating imperial regulations by trying to extend their limited lands to
control peasant villages free of zamindar control. Nevertheless a united
front against the Mughals and against the Kachhwaha regime success-
fully denied revenues and any sort of control over these districts in the
remainder of Aurangzeb’s regime.

Despite his advancing age, Aurangzeb was an active, energetic chief
officer of the Mughal empire in the last eighteen years of his reign. The
centralized structures of the empire continued to function. But
Aurangzeb’s long absence from the North Indian heartland of the
empire and his obsession with the endless Deccan war strained imperial
institutions and resources. Pouring treasure and manpower into the
south prolonged rather than ended the war with the Marathas. A policy
debate was muted. Thoroughly intimidated by their indomitable
father, Aurangzeb’s sons found neither the means nor the courage to
challenge the emperor’s plans. After 1689, in both newly conquered
and older Deccan provinces public order, political stability, and
agricultural and industrial production were in a descending spiral.

4. RP. Rana, “Agrarian Revolts in Northern India during the Late 17th and Early 18th
Century,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review 28 (1981), 287-326.

252

CHAPTER 12

IMPERIAL DECLINE AND COLLAPSE,
1707-1720

Aurangzeb died March 3, 1707, in his encampment at Ahmadnagar in
the Deccan. In a written will the emperor made a futile attempt to
divide the empire between his three living sons. Instead, the usual war
of succession, so long delayed, broke out almost immediately. At the
imperial encampment, Prince Azam Shah, supported by the imperial
wazir, Asad Khan, adopted royal titles, struck coins and marched
north toward Agra. At the frontier fortress of Jamrud, in the Hindu
Kush, his elder brother Muazzam received the news of his father’s
death twenty days later. Imperial messengers had averaged seventy
miles per day to bring the dispatches over 1,400 miles.! Muazzam, who
had been preparing his army for the inevitable war for well over a year,
began a forced march south to Agra.

Ata site just north of Lahore, Muazzam declared his accession to the
throne and took the title of Bahadur Shah. By June rst the newly
crowned emperor occupied Delhi. By June 12 he arrived at Agra where
he met his son Prince Muhammad Azim, who had marched from
Bengal and took possession of Agra fort and the central treasury. The
imperial reserves at Agra proved to be little depleted by the Deccan
wars. Bahadur Shah’s officers found coined and uncoined gold and
silver totalling 240 million rupees — considerably greater than Akbar’s
reserves at his death.2 Muhammad Azim brought additional funds
from the Bengal treasury which further strengthened his father’s cause.

In mid-June, 1707, the two contenders met just south of Agra at
Jajau, near Samugarh, the site of the climactic battle between Aurang-
zeb and Dara Shukoh. At Jajau, Azam Shah and his two sons were
killed on the battlefield and his troops routed. On the victor’s return to
Agra all nobles who made submission were welcomed and given
appropriate postings.

While Bahadur Shah was preoccupied with the Rajputs during 1707
(see below), news arrived that his brother, Muhammad Kam Bakhsh,

' The description of the war of succession is drawn from William Irvine, Later Mughals
(New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 1971), 2 vols. in one; 1, 1-66.

2 J.F. Richards, “Mughal State Finance and the Premodern World Economy”, Comparative
Studies in Society and History, 23, (1981), 293.

253

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

had crowned himself as an independent ruler at Bijapur. In response to
this direct challenge, by May, 1708, Bahadur Shah marched south with
an army of over 300,000 men. Prolonged negotiations with an increas-
ingly despairing and unstable Kam Bakhsh ultimately failed. Outside
Hyderabad in January, 1709, Bahadur Shah’s troops encircled Kam
Bakhsh who was left with but a remnant of his army. He and his two
sons were killed in the clash that followed.

No sharp ideological cleavage divided Bahadur Shah from either of
his brothers and:the new emperor was quick to pardon and accept any
nobles who had supported his dead rivals. Despite the problems of
Aurangzeb’s last years, the empire passed, seemingly intact, to his son
and successor. Nevertheless, Bahadur Shah, who was considerably
more moderate in his approach to doctrinal purity, was still hampered
by the aftereffects of Aurangzeb’s unremitting insistence on Islam as
the only touchstone for loyalty. He never formally abolished the
jiziya, but the effort to collect the tax became ineffectual and dispirited.

A serious financial crisis faced the new emperor. Revenue collections
in the Deccan were squeezed by Maratha activity. In the northern
provinces revenues interrupted by the 1707-1709 war did not regain
their assessed level. The main source of funds remained Bengal.
Treasure carts and bills of exchange continued to arrive at the capital
from Dacca. Failure to assign fully productive jagirs strained the
loyalties and reduced the effectiveness of members of the nobility and
the corps of mansabdars. The regime’s inability to keep order in the
countryside undercut long-standing agreements between the state and
the zamindars. If the state could not fulfill its obligations, local
aristocrats were not inclined to pay the land revenue. These strains in
the imperial fabric found expression in the most important political
crises to occupy Bahadur Shah: disaffection of the Rajputs, growing
militancy among the Sikhs and Jats in the north, and continuing
Maratha insurgency in the south.

RAJPUTS AND JATS

Since his dramatic escape in infancy, Ajit Singh, the Rathor prince, had
survived to become the acknowledged ruler of Marwar and holder of a
3,500/3,000 rank as a reluctant Mughal amir. Ajit Singh took advantage
of the death of Aurangzeb, his life-long enemy, to drive the Mughal
occupation force from Jodhpur and take full possession of his capital.

254

DECLINE AND COLLAPSE, 1707-1720

He destroyed those mosques erected since the Mughal occupation and
forbade Islamic prayers in the city.) After the climactic battle at Jajau,
Ajit Singh failed to acknowledge Bahadur Shah’s authority. In this
continuing defiance he was reportedly supported by his contemporary,
Jai Singh Kachhwaha of Amber, who had first aligned himself with
the Azam Shah then deserted him at the climactic battle, and by the
young Rana Amar Singh Sisodia, who ruled Mewar from Udaipur.

Bahadur Shah personally commanded a large royal army which, by
January 1708, occupied Amber, the Kachhwaha capital. The emperor
conferred the Kachhwaha gaddi on Jai Singh’s brother, Vijai Singh,
who had actively served Bahadur Shah earlier. However, a Mughal
faujdar and his troops continued to garrison the city after the royal
army marched on. The Udaipur Rana averted Mughal invasion by
sending an envoy with lavish gifts while he and his family fled to the
sanctuary of the Mewar hills.

Mughal troops easily brushed aside Ajit Singh’s clansmen and seized
Jodhpur, capital of Marwar. Shortly thereafter, Ajit Singh surrendered
and appeared in person before Bahadur Shah’s durbar. The emperor
restored noble rank to Ajit Singh, granted him the title of Maharaja,
and gave generous mansabs to two of his sons. For his part, Ajit Singh
had to swallow the indignity of having an imperial qazi and mufti
placed on duty in Jodhpur. These officers were “to rebuild the
mosques, destroy the idol-temples, enforce the provisions of the
Shari‘at about the summons to prayer and the killing of cows, to
appoint magistrates and to commission officers to collect jiziyah.’”*
Mughal occupation of both Jodhpur and Amber was a further tighten-
ing of imperial domination over Rajasthan.

Ajit Singh Rathor and Jai Singh Kachhwaha, forced to accompany
the distrustful emperor on his Deccan campaign against Kam Bakhsh,
managed to effect their escape and return to Rajasthan. With assistance
from the Rana of Mewar each rebel prince recovered control of his
capital. Together they joined forces to besiege the Mughal redoubt at
Ajmer, but were repulsed by the imperial faujdar. In a conciliatory
measure supported by many nobles, the emperor affirmed the mansabs
of the errant rajas, but refused to grant them their capitals under the
watan jagir arrangement. Whether or not to negotiate a further

> Satish Chandra, Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court 1707-1740 (New Delhi: People’s
Publishing House, and. ed., 1972), p. 29.
4 Khafi Khan, pp. 606-607 quoted in Chandra, Parties and Politics, p. 33.

255

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

reconciliation with the Rajputs or to brutally suppress them was a
matter of intense debate among the emperor’s advisers and nobles. In
the end the question was resolved by the Sikh revolt at the close of
1709. A hurriedly cobbled agreement gave Ajit Singh and Jai Singh
their homelands and capitals as watan jagirs and six months leave to
return to their kingdom.

This hasty compromise did not‘ entirely restore the Rathors and
Kachhwahas to the fully committed, zealous warriors for the Timurid
cause that they had once been. A consistent, firm, but sympathetic
policy was necessary to return the emperor—Rajput relationship to its
former intensity. Unfortunately, Bahadur Shah and his successors
were never given the opportunity to rebuild this imperial asset.

THE SIKH REBELLION

The tenth Sikh Guru, Govind Singh, who had supported Bahadur Shah
in the war of succession, joined the royal entourage as the emperor
marched to confront Kam Bakhsh in the Deccan. Govind Singh’s
mission was to obtain redress against Wazir Khan, the faujdar of
Sirhind whose brutal execution of Govind Singh’s two youngest sons
was the latest Mughal-inspired Sikh martyrdom. Despairing of justice,
the Guru sent an emissary back to the Punjab to bring the Jat peasantry
to revolt against tyranny if his mission failed. That emissary, Lachman
Das, an ascetic renamed Banda or the “slave” of Govind Singh, was
armed with the Guru’s standard and kettledrum. While Banda and a
small band of followers paused at Delhi, news of Govind Singh’s
assassination reached the capital. The most plausible explanation for
the assault is that the young Pathan assassins were hirelings of Wazir
Khan who was threatened by Govind’s accusations. Just before he died
Govind Singh informed his followers that he was the last of the line of
true Gurus and that henceforth they were to look upon the Granth
Sahib or holy book as their true and constant guide.5

Banda immediately began to assemble hundreds of Sikhs at his camp
under the dead Guru’s standard. In what rapidly became a millenial
resistance movement, he preached sermons, gave benedictions, wel-
comed converts to Sikhism, and freely gave out any offerings he
received. Banda issued proclamations offering refuge to anyone

5 Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 2
vols., 1, 95-

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DECLINE AND COLLAPSE, 1707-1720

“threatened by thieves, dacoits or highway robbers, troubled by
Mohammedan bigots, or in any way subjected to injustice or ill-
treatment.” Banda’s primary appeal lay in those parts of the sub-
Himalayan interfluvial zones in the Punjab and Delhi provinces where
formerly pastoralist, recently settled, Jat peasants, anxious for recogni-
tion, responded to Banda’s egalitarian appeal. They, and numerous
lower-caste or untouchables — scavengers, leather workers — travelled
to Banda’s camp, converted, and took the name Singh as members of
the Khalsa.” All were prepared to fight for the new faith.

In November, 1709, Banda’s army stormed, leveled, and massacred
Samana, a prosperous, Muslim-dominated Punjab town. A half dozen
Punjab towns shared a similar fate before the Sikhs reached Sirhind
where they aimed to revenge themselves on Wazir Khan. After a
winter of preparation on both sides, in May, 1710, Banda led thousands
of badly armed peasants against Wazir Khan’s artillery, Mughal
cavalry and cohorts of volunteer Muslim ghazis. Despite their lack of
firearms, or horses, the Sikh army overran the Mughals and killed most
of them in desperate hand-to-hand fighting. Two days later the Sikhs
stormed Sirhind, massacred those inhabitants who did not hastily
convert to Sikhism, looted the city and destroyed the buildings. After
Sirhind, Banda adopted the title of padshah, started a new calendar and
issued coins bearing the names of Gurus Nanak and Govind. Each coin
displayed the cauldron of the Sikh communal kitchen and the sword of
the Khalsa. By this time, in the style of a millennial leader, Banda was
reputed to deflect bullets from their course and protect his men from
swords and spears by his spells.

In the next few months, Banda’s armies had overrun the Punjab plain
between the Yamuna river to the Ravi and beyond. Only Lahore,
Delhi, and a few Afghan towns held out:*

For eight or nine months, and from two or three days march from Delhi to the
environs of Lahore, all the towns and places of note were pillaged by these
unclean wretches, and trodden under foot and destroyed. Men in countless
numbers were slain, the whole country was wasted, and mosques and tombs
were razed.

Bahadur Shah hurried north to the Punjab to organize a fastmoving
drive against the rebels. By the end of 1710 Mughal commanders had

7 Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India (Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1986), pp. 144-145.

* Khafi Khan quoted in Singh, Sikbs, 1, 109 n.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

pushed Banda’s peasant forces from the plain to Mukhlisgarh, a
fortified refuge in the hills. Banda escaped capture in the final assault
and remained free to rally new followers in another attack on the
Punjab plains in early 1711. Bahadur Shah moved to Lahore in order to
better command the campaign, but remained frustrated as Banda
stayed at large. In February, 1712, Bahadur Shah died of natural causes
and a new war of succession immediately broke out.

The Sikh rebellion was a dramatic testimonial to severe disaffection
in the provinces of north India. For well-equipped Mughal troops to be
routed by ill-armed peasant infantry was a shocking and nearly
unprecedented development. Only a religious appeal rooted in class
hatred could so galvanize these disparate bands of rebels. Banda’s
millennial message focussed long-standing peasant and lower-caste
rievances against the regime and its allies, the qazis and other
prosperous Muslim gentry who were grant-holders under the regime
and Afghan, Rajput, and other non-Jat zamindars. In the savage battles
fought over several years, Muslim solidarity typified by the emergence
of armed ghazis was an important element in the resistance to the
Sikhs. The Muslim populations of the Punjab towns fought desper-
ately to save themselves. Banda, on the other hand, appealed to the
Sikh version of martyrs for the faith who would be protected in battle
by his own extraordinary powers. The Muslim chroniclers all decry the
ascendance of low-caste or even untouchable Hindus to positions of
power under the Sikh regime.

Imperial forces under Bahadur Shah swept the Sikh armies from
the plains back into the hills. But they had less success in squelching
what had become strong guerrilla movements resting on wide
popular support. Unlike the Rajput zamindars of the plains, many of
the Rajput hill chiefs were secretly in sympathy with any resistance
against Mughal power and supplied Banda with information,
material and refuge when needed.? Only in 1715, in Farrukhsiyar’s
reign, was the Punjab governor able to surround Banda and his
followers in his hill fortress. After an eight month siege, the Mughals
captured Banda and his starving garrison alive. Gory public execu-
tions followed of Banda, the self-proclaimed ruler, and hundreds of
his followers.

° Alam, Crisis of Empire, pp. 155-164.

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DECLINE AND COLLAPSE, 1707-1720

THE MARATHAS IN THE DECCAN

In October, 1707, in the confusion surrounding Aurangzeb’s demise,
an important event occurred. Prince Azam Shah permitted Shahuji, the
son of Shambhaji Bhonsla, to leave the imperial encampment where he
had been confined since infancy. The young Maratha prince was free to
seize leadership of the badly disunited Maratha chiefs and generals. He
was pitted against Tara Bai, the widow of Rajaram (d.1701) who
claimed the Bhonsla throne on behalf of Rajaram’s son Sivaji 1. By
releasing Shahuji, Prince Azam opted for a conciliatory policy with the
Marathas. Aurangzeb’s endless war had failed.

If Shahuji could ascend the Bhonsla throne with Mughal support, he
would be the first Maratha ruler thoroughly socialized into imperial
culture. Aurangzeb had treated Shahuji with warmth and generosity in
the hope that he could be useful in the future. Shahuji was not forced to
convert to Islam, and was given proper Brahminical instruction in the
Hindu faith. His attitudes toward the Timurid empire were consider-
ably more sympathetic than most Marathas. In the last phase of the war
of succession Bahadur Shah conferred high Mughal rank upon the
freed Bhonsla prince and obtained the services of Nimaji Sindhia with a
large Maratha contingent for the campaign against Kam Bakhsh.

The question of a Deccan settlement arose immediately after the
death of Kam Bakhsh. Zulfikar Khan, who had survived the war of
succession by deserting to Bahadur Shah at a critical moment in the
battle of Jajau, became absentee governor of the Deccan provinces as
well as head bakhshi of the empire. Daud Khan Panni served as
Zulfikar Khan’s deputy in the south with his headquarters at Auranga-
bad. Continuing to favor a soft line with the Marathas, Zulfikar Khan
wasted little time in presenting Shahuji’s emissary to Bahadur Shah
with a proposed settlement. Shahuji asked that he be made head
deshmukh of the Deccan provinces with an allowance of 10 percent of
the imperial revenues. He should have authority to divert an additional
25 percent of the Deccan revenues as chauth. In return Shahuji would
restore order and prosperity to the war-ravaged provinces. Simultane-
ously, a counter-proposal came via Munim Khan, Bahadur Shah’s
wazir and rival of Zulfikar Khan. An emissary from Tara Bai asked
only for a 10 percent share of the imperial revenues and appointment as
head deshmukh of the Deccan. She too offered to put down insurgency
and renew prosperity.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Formally at least, both offers, if accepted, placed the Bhonsla ruler in
a subservient position to the Mughal emperor by seeking appointment
as a deshmukh and zamindar. Shahuji and Tara Bai thereby hoped to
strengthen their claim to sovereign power over the splintered Maratha
chiefs and armies. Shivaji had founded his dynasty on rejection of
imperial authority; his two descendants were seeking that recognition
by the emperor as local rulers.

In the end Bahadur Shah equivocated and granted a sanad as head
deshmukh to each claimant but did not concede the collection of
chauth. This non-policy simply incited the two Maratha factions to
fight for supremacy — a policy that could only be damaging to imperial
territories.

During the last two years of Bahadur Shah’s reign massive Maratha
armies only loosely tied to either Shahuji or Tara Bai raided and
plundered in all the Mughal provinces in the south and ventured as far
north as Malwa. So devastating were these raids and so ineffectual the
Mughal defense that Daud Khan Panni, Zulfikar Khan’s deputy in the
Deccan, negotiated a private agreement with Shahuji to turn over to the
Bhonsla prince the full 35 percent of revenues he had requested from
the emperor. In return Shahuji agreed to restrain the freebooting
Maratha chieftains and restore order. This essentially temporary and
private agreement did little to help Shahuji bring the numerous
Maratha chieftains under his effective authority. During Bahadur
Shah’s reign the umbrella of imperial authority in the Deccan became
even more bedraggled and tattered than it had been in Aurangzeb’s last
campaigns against the Maratha hill forts.

THE WAR OF SUCCESSION

In early January 1712, Bahadur Shah, then in his seventieth year, lay
dying at Lahore. As was his invariable custom, he occupied the tents of
the great imperial encampment rather than the royal quarters in Lahore
fortress. Unlike his father, Bahadur Shah kept his four mature sons in
close attendance on him, rather than permitting them to build regional
power bases as provincial governors. Each prince remained alert with
his troops in his own tented encampment on the outskirts of the city.
The leading contender for the throne was Bahadur Shah’s second son,
Prince Azim-ush-Shan, who had accumulated a vast fortune as
governor of Bengal and Bihar 1695-1706, commanded a large army,

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and had come to be his father’s chief adviser. In a new departure,
however, his opposition centered on an amir, Zulfikar Khan, who as
chief bakhshi of the empire and viceroy of the Deccan, was the most
powerful noble at Bahadur Shah’s court.

Prior to Bahadur Shah’s demise, Zulfikar Khan negotiated an
unusual agreement with the three remaining princes — each of whom
viewed his chances of survival as nearly nil. Zulfikar Khan proposed
that the three princes combine against their half-brother. If victorious,
they would divide the empire: Jahandar Shah was to become emperor
of Hindustan, Rafi-ush Shan to rule the northwest from Kabul, and
Jahan Shah to take the Deccan. Zulfikar Khan would become the
imperial wazir residing at Delhi whose deputies would act as chief
ministers at the courts of each of the other brothers. This proposal,
solemnly sworn on a Koran, centered symbolic unity upon the eldest
prince, Jahandar Shah, whose titles would appear on a common
coinage. Effective rule however, would fall to Zulfikar Khan as wazir.

The battle for power erupted even before the emperor died on
January 12, 1712. Ina three month struggle at Lahore, the most power-
ful nobleman in the empire out-generaled and defeated the most
powerful prince. Azim-ush Shan died caught in quicksand in the Ravi
river trying to flee the victorious allied forces. Not surprisingly, Zulfi-
kar Khan then shifted his support to Jahandar Shah, probably the most
pliable of the three princes. Within a month he had defeated and killed
Rafi-ush Shan and Jahan Shah. On March 29, 1712, Jahandar Shah
enthroned himself as emperor on the field of battle outside Lahore.

The new emperor found that he could not reward his long-standing
confidant and assistant, his foster brother Kokaltash Khan, who was
pushed to one side. Instead, Zulfikar Khan became wazir with the
unprecedented rank of 10,000/10,000. His deputy, Daud Khan Panni,
remained in charge as viceroy of the Deccan. Zulfikar Khan’s private
fiscal officer, Sabha Chand, became diwan of the imperial khalisa.

After the coronation, Zulfikar Khan actively persecuted dozens of
those nobles who had supported the dead princes. Most were
imprisoned in Delhi and their property confiscated. Two amirs,
however, were publicly executed. This is the first time that nobles on
the losing side were punished. In the past, only the royal contenders
and their progeny were killed and their property seized. New dis-
tortions in the system marked this second succession struggle to occur
within five years.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

JAHANDAR SHAH, [712-1713

Jahandar Shah moved his capital back from Lahore to occupy the
fortress and palace at Shahjahanabad Delhi. This should have strength-
ened the new emperor’s authority. Instead, in the few brief months of
his reign the strongest aspects of Mughal centralized power suffered
dramatic, debilitating changes - changes that would have to be
corrected rapidly if the empire was to survive. First, the long-standing
power and authority of the Timurid monarchy itself was weakened.
The new wazir, by virtue of his role in the succession struggle, his
reputation, and his political and military resources, assumed the
executive direction of the empire. Zulfikar Khan, not the emperor,
decided on appointments and imperial policy. For the first time since
Akbar’s early years, the Timurid occupant of the throne had allowed
day to day authority to slip into the hands of an overmighty minister.

It was Zulfikar Khan who, consistent with his long-standing
posture, pressed forward with a broad policy of conciliation for the
emperor to promulgate. First, only nine days after the coronation,
jiziya was abolished. Second, important concessions to the Rajputs
followed. Ajit Singh Rathor received an enhanced rank, the title of
Maharaja, and appointment as governor of Gujarat. Jai Singh Kachh-
waha was given the same rank, the title of Mirza Raja, and gover-
norship of Malwa. Other territorial additions to their hereditary
domains brought an enthusiastic response from the two former rebels.
Third, as a partial solution to the Maratha problem, the emperor
granted a mid-level noble rank, the title of Anup Singh, and the
deshmukhi of Hyderabad province to Shivaji 11, the son of Tara Bai and
Rajaram. This was an attempt to divide the Maratha domains between
Shahu and his cousin and to bring each figure into the Mughal system
as a formally recognized feudatory.!°

Unable to challenge Zulfikar Khan’s authority directly, Jahandar
Shah resorted to conspiring with Kokaltash Khan and his clique to
undermine the wazir’s position.!! This further inflamed factional
resistance to Zulfikar Khan and damaged the emperor’s reputation.

By his own behavior Jahandar Shah lowered the dignity of the
monarchy. After his accession the emperor raised his favorite concu-
bine, Lal Kunwar, to the status of a queen. The new queen was the

10 Chandra, Parties and Politics, pp. 74-75.
4 Chandra, Parties and Politics, pp. 67-82, forcefully makes this argument.

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DECLINE AND COLLAPSE, 1707-1720

daughter of a well-known court musician who, despite his talent,
shared the demeaning status accorded all musicians by Mughal aristo-
cratic culture. Lal Kunwar was widely disliked for her origins and her
influence over the emperor. She and Jahandar Shah violated decorum
by their display of drunkenness and amorousness. Royal frivolousness
disturbed many at court as Lal Kunwar and the emperor devoted much
time and energy to planning and arranging for lavish, expensive public
festivals. Thrice-monthly city-wide illuminations at Delhi became
excessively expensive. Unearned honors, ranks and titles given Lal
Kunwar’s father and brothers further offended the nobles and their
followers.

The fast-slipping authority of the emperor coincided with a severe
administrative and fiscal crisis. The shortage of productive jagir lands
begun in Aurangzeb’s reign did not abate but continued to plague the
corps of mansabdars. At the same time the divergence between the true
income from jagirs and that assigned on paper became wider. Inflated
ranks given by Bahadur Shah and Jahandar Shah after each political
struggle simply added to the demand placed on shrinking resources.

The meticulous procedures of the zabt revenue system unraveled in
the scramble to secure even partial revenues from the North Indian
countryside. Zulfikar Khan and his officials ignored widespread viola-
tions of imperial regulations. Officials at all levels became open to
bribes and various forms of peculation. Middlemen seized the oppor-
tunity to make their fortunes. Everywhere revenue farming became the
practice. In place of carefully calculated assessments based on relative
fertility and market prices, officials of the khalisa and agents of
jagirdars settled for bids made by private revenue farmers. The sharply
discounted revenues were collected immediately from the successful
tax bidders and their bankers.

The signs of imperial fiscal bankruptcy were obvious. Jahadar Shah’s
Own troops remained unpaid from the time of his accession. The only
revenues that could be counted upon with any certainty were the
regular shipments of treasure from Bengal. Prices of foodgrains,
vegetable oils, and other commodities rose to new heights as supplies
dwindled in the markets of Agra and Delhi. When revenue collections
no longer arrived at the capital, the stimulus for urban sales of
foodgrains declined. Regional and local economies absorbed the flow
of taxes, produce, and loans upon which the Mughal revenue system
was based.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

A SUCCESSFUL COUP, I713

Farrukhsiyar, the second son of the slain Prince Azim-ush Shan, began
marching from his post as governor of Bengal when the war of
succession began. Hearing of his father’s defeat and death, Farrukh-
siyar, after vacillating, crowned himself at Patna as a contender for the
throne. Virtually his only prominent supporters were two brothers:
Sayyid Husain Ali Baraha, who owed his position as governor of
Bihar to Azim-ush Shan, and his brother, Sayyid Abdullah Khan
Baraha, who benefited from the same patronage to become governor of
Allahabad.

The Sayyid brothers looked to their kinsmen in the Baraha clan
settled on the upper Doab region between the Ganges and Yamuna for
their strength. The Barahas could field several thousand fighting men
marked by their conspicuous bravery, kinship solidarity, and loyalty
to the Timurid house. As Indian Muslims settled on the land tied into
four linked patrilineages, they closely resembled Rajputs in their dual
ties to locality and empire. They could recall the family tradition in
which their ancestors were key players in the struggle to put Prince
Salim, later Jahangir on the throne (see above). In return for Baraha
support in what was a risky, even foolhardy, venture, Farrukhsiyar
promised the brothers appointments as wazir and mir bakhshi, the two
highest ranking posts available if he prevailed.

In November, 1712, Jahandar Shah’s son, Prince Azz-ud-din, and
two of the emperor’s chief officers, all inexperienced in military affairs,
led a large army to try to stop the rebel advance from the east. Near
Allahabad, the prince and his advisers, uncertain of their troops, broke
and fled before giving battle. In the aftermath of this rout, ntore nobles
and zamindars brought troops to align themselves with Farrukhsiyar.
At Delhi, Jahandar Shah and Zulfikar Khan tried frantically to muster
an army to meet the advancing rebels. The biggest problem was lack of
money. The last imperial reserves had been consumed in organizing the
large army sent east with Prince Azz-ud-din. The unpaid royal
soldiery refused to march without pay. In desperation, Jahandar Shah’s
officers broke up gold and silver vessels from the palace, passed out
immensely valuable jewels and jeweled articles from the treasuries, and
even ripped gold and silver from the walls and ceilings of the palace to
meet this emergency. From these frenzied actions the bankruptcy of
the Timurids was painfully apparent.

264

DECLINE AND COLLAPSE, I707-1720

Finally in early December, Jahandar Shah and Zulfikar Khan set out
toward Agra at the head of 40,000 cavalry, as many musketeers and
bowmen, and artillery. The emperor’s top commanders were faction
ridden and demoralized. Newly recruited forces from Chin Qilich
Khan and several Turani nobles, who had been out of favor since
Aurangzeb’s reign, were regarded with considerable (and justified)
suspicion by Jahandar Shah’s commanders. In mid-January, 1713, the
two armies met at Agra in a desperately fought day-long battle. As
agreed, the Turani contingents under Chin Qilich Khan betrayed
Jahandar Shah and stood by without fighting. Before the battle was
concluded Jahandar Shah dismounted the royal elephant and fled with
Lal Kunwar into Agra. Hurriedly they set out as isolated fugitives to
Delhi. In the aftermath of the battle, Zulfikar Khan also retreated with
his surviving troops towards Delhi.

FIRST PHASE OF THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE,

1713-1715
At Agra Farrukhsiyar installed himself in Jahandar Shah’s duplicate set
of royal tents, and caused his name and titles to be read in the Friday
prayers at the great public mosque. As the new emperor marched
toward Delhi he appointed Sayyid Abdullah Khan to be wazir or chief
fiscal officer of the empire, and his brother Sayyid Hussain Ali Khan,
still recovering from battlefield wounds, as chief bakhshi of the
empire.

At Delhi, Jahandar Shah had sought refuge with Zulfikar Khan. The
latter imprisoned his former sovereign and offered to hand Jahandar
Shah over to Farrukhsiyar’s officers. When Farrukhsiyar arrived at the
capital, he greeted an unsuspecting Zulfikar Khan effusively and
warmly in an audience before leaving him to be brutally slain by a body
of royal slaves. That same day Farrukhsiyar ordered the execution of
Jahandar Shah who had been confined with Lal Kunwar in Delhi fort.
Lal Kunwar was sent to that portion of the palace where widows and
families of deceased emperors resided. Several other nobles and
higher-ranking administrators were executed. To add to the general
sense of insecurity, these slayings were carried out under the guise of
normal, even cordial, audiences with the emperor or his highest
officers, Suddenly the victims were seized and knifed or strangled by
palace slaves. Farrukhsiyar completed this initial purge by ordering the

265

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

three most capable Timurid princes, including his own twelve-year-old
brother, blinded and confined in the state prison in Delhi fort.

Still fearful for his throne, Farrukhsiyar, urged on by a court party of
nobles dependent upon him, soon began conspiring to destroy the
Sayyid brothers. The larger issue concerned the extent to which the
wazir or the Timurid ruler would be the effective ruler of the empire.
The emperor’s plotting launched a desperate struggle between Far-
rukhsiyar and his two leading nobles. Between 1713 and 1719 the
factional struggle at court was the single dominant political fact in the
empire. Virtually all other policies and reforms were sacrificed to this
conflict. Neither party could assemble enough military power and
political support to readily destroy the other. Instead, the vital link
between emperor and noble, which shaped the solidarity of the Mughal
elite, was further shredded over the next six years.

Tension between emperor and wazir was especially harmful in
trying to formulate policy toward the Rajputs and Marathas. All the
leading Rajput rajas sent letters of submission and felicitation to
Farrukhsiyar, but refused to appear in person at a court audience.
Trying to divide the Rajputs, Farrukhsiyar offered the governorship of
neighboring Malwa to Jai Singh Kachhwaha, who accepted and left
for his post. Appointment to the distant province of Thatta (Sind) was
flatly rejected by Ajit Singh Rathor.

In response Farrukhsiyar sent Sayyid Husain Ali Baraha in command
of a large army to bring Ajit Singh back to court. As he departed, the
emperor sent secret letters to Ajit Singh promising him imperial favor if
he were to defeat and kill Husain Ali Khan. Ajit Singh opted to come to
terms with the Sayyids rather than the emperor. In the course of a
four-month campaign, more movable negotiations than battle, Ajit
Singh and Husain Ali Khan agreed on a treaty. The raja promised to
give his daughter in marriage to the emperor; to send his son Abhai
Singh to court to serve as a Mughal noble, and to come himself when
summoned. He also paid tribute and agreed to accept the governorship
of Thatta. In a secret codicil, Husain Ali Khan promised that as soon as
Ajit Singh had shown public compliance by marching toward Thatta,
he would be reappointed governor of Gujarat. This was a first step in
an emerging alliance between the Rathor ruler and the Sayyid brothers.

Upon Husain Ali Khan’s return to the capital in mid-1714, the court
struggle broke out into the open. Conflicts over appointments and
maladministration by the wazir’s deputy, Ratan Chand, flared up.

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Farrukhsiyar diverted funds so that two of his courtiers, Khan-i
Dauran and Mir Jumla, could assemble troops sufficient to attack the
Sayyids. For their part, the Sayyids could not muster enough men from
among their own kinsmen and dependents to prevail over the emperor.
Considerable evidence exists that they were reluctant to violate long-
standing norms of deference to the Timurid ruler — even if they had put
Farrukhsiyar on the throne.

In mid-1714, Abdullah and Husain Ali Khan, fully aware of the
emperor’s plans, retired to their mansions in Delhi surrounded by the
nearly ten thousand Baraha kinsmen and troops they commanded.
From this redoubt they sent letters asking the emperor to allow them
to retire from imperial service. Farrukhsiyar, fearing rebellion if they
did so, tried to appoint a new wazir, but none of the emperor’s
intimates were willing to confront the formidable Sayyids in direct
combat in the streets of Delhi. Months of protracted negotiations
between two armed camps finally produced a compromise. The
emperor agreed to send Mir Jumla, his favorite seen as most hostile to
the Sayyids, to Bihar as provincial governor. In return Husain Ali
Khan would give up his post as mir bakhshi of the empire and take up
the governorship of the Deccan provinces in person. The emperor’s
man Khan-i Dauran became imperial bakhshi. Abdullah Khan would
remain in Delhi as wazir.

In May, 1715, Husain Ali Khan left for the Deccan. Husain Ali Khan
carried with him several concessions wrung out of the emperor. The
new Deccan governor carried the grand seal which gave him full
authority to appoint and dismiss all office holders and to assign jagirs
in the Deccan. In an unprecedented measure, Husain Ali Khan was
given full authority to appoint, transfer and dismiss the commandants
of the great fortresses. Prior to this all Timurid rulers had jealously
guarded this power to provide a counterweight against overambitious
provincial officials.

Shortly after sending Husain Ali Khan to the Deccan, Farrukhsiyar
transferred Daud Khan Panni from the governorship of Gujarat to
Khandesh, one of the six provinces under the Deccan administration.
In a secret dispatch, the emperor ordered Daud Khan Panni to attack
and, if possible, kill Husain Ali Khan. If he were successful Daud Khan
would become governor of the Deccan provinces. Instead, in a battle
fought near Burhanpur, Husain Ali Khan easily defeated and killed
Daud Khan Panni who had only a small cavalry force. Among the

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

latter’s captured effects were the secret communications from Far-
rukhsiyar.

SECOND PHASE OF THE POLITICAL
STRUGGLE, 1715-1718

Immediately after the settlement, however, in Delhi there was a brief
thaw. In December, 1715, the emperor celebrated his long-agreed
marriage to the daughter of Ajit Singh Rathor, in an attempt to settle
the long smoldering problem of Rajput loyalty. Sayyid Abdullah Khan
participated fully in the elaborate ceremonies surrounding this great
public event.

News of Daud Khan Panni’s death and the emperor’s treachery soon
restored mutual hostility. Emperor and wazir continued in a frustrat-
ing stalemate over the next two years. The political climate of the
capital remained tense and suspicious. Farrukhsiyar busied himself in
several abortive plots to seize Abdullah Khan. The emperor fixed upon
one noble after another as possible victors over Abdullah Khan and as
putative wazirs. None could be persuaded to risk an armed showdown
with Sayyid Abdullah Khan given the unreliable nature of the emper-
or’s support. The wazir looked to his own security by keeping
thousands of his Baraha kinsmen on armed alert. When he attended the
daily audience he was accompanied through the streets of Delhi by
three to four thousand armed cavalry.

The financial crisis deepened. Abdullah Khan’s diwan, Ratan
Chand, leased all revenues to the highest bidders. Even the khalisa
(crownlands) were leased out to those collectors who submitted the
best bids. Ratan Chand extracted a lease in writing and payment in
advance from the collector’s backers. Small to middling ranked man-
sabdars found it impossible to collect revenues from their assigned
lands. The treasury began cash payments of fifty rupees monthly for
many of these men. Even these payments were late and often not fully
made. Larger jagirdars could only manage by obtaining heavily
discounted payments from revenue farmers or their bankers. Their
best opportunity for realizing funds was to obtain a jagir assignment
uninterruptedly near their home territories. Under conditions of
financial stringency, the emperor even tried briefly to revive collection
of the jiziya — a measure which aroused intense opposition from Ratan
Chand and other Hindu officers serving in the administration.

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DECLINE AND COLLAPSE, 1707-1720

In this period the emperor started to lose credibility with even his
most loyal supporters. Even day to day administration in Delhi
deteriorated. Violent affrays in the streets by frustrated and fearful
armed men became common daily fare. Increasingly Mughal nobles
had to look to their own armed strength and their diplomatic and
political skills for sheer survival, not simply for the emperor’s pre-
ferment as in past reigns.

Despite the final suppression of the Sikh revolt and the public
execution of Banda and his followers in Delhi in mid-1716, other
localized resistance flared up. The Jats in and around Delhi and Agra
had been armed and turbulent since the last years of Aurangzeb.
During the battles of the 1708-09 war of succession, their leader,
Churaman Jat, assembled large numbers of his kinsmen to pillage arms,
money and other goods from both sides in the struggle. From Bahadur
Shah he obtained forgiveness in the form of rank and titles as a Mughal
amir. During the 1712-13 battles, the Jats once again looted and
pillaged each side equally. In an effort to stop Jat robbery of merchants
and travelers along the royal high road from Agra to Delhi, the
imperial wazir made Churaman official road guard responsible for
keeping order on that stretch of road. This appointment simply gave
him an imperial mandate to plunder.

The emperor pressured Jai Singh Kachhwaha to lead a punitive
campaign against the Jats. A large, primarily Rajput, imperial army
cut its way through the surrounding jungle and invested Thun, the
Jat fortress. The siege dragged on for twenty months against the
well-supplied and armed garrison. Jat robbery and rural guerrilla
action outside the fortress increased during the siege. In the end
Abdullah Khan negotiated a settlement over Jai Singh’s head.
Churaman paid a substantial indemnity, gave a bribe to the wazir,
surrendered his fortresses and agreed to serve wherever he was
posted.

Meanwhile in the Deccan, Husain Ali Khan rejected Daud Khan
Panni’s pact with the Marathas which gave them over a third of
imperial revenues in return for keeping order. As a result Maratha
raiding and indecisive open warfare continued. Husain Ali Khan’s
difficulties were compounded by letters sent from the emperor to
Shahuji Bhonsla and other Maratha chiefs urging them to oppose the
Deccan governor’s forces. Maratha armies were steadily seizing full
control of more and more territory in the northern Deccan. In the

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

south the Deccan governor’s authority in Bijapur, Hyderabad, and the
two Karnataka provinces were virtually nil.

Under these dismaying conditions, the Sayyid brothers changed
their policy to try and enlist the Marathas as their allies. Husain Ali
Khan began negotiations with Shahuji in mid-1717 and finally arrived
at a formal treaty in February, 1718. The boldness with which this
treaty conceded Mughal failure and Maratha success is startling. The
Sayyid brothers were prepared to admit Shahuji and the Marathas into
partnership in the southern empire in return for their political and
military support in the struggle at the center. The new agreement gave
Shahuji unchallenged authority over Shivaji’s original swaraj lands in
Maharashtra and coastal Konkan and, in addition, ceded recent
Maratha conquests in Berar, Gondwana, and Karnatak. A critical
concession was the right to employ Maratha agents to collect the 35
percent share of imperial revenues from chauth and sardeshmukhi
throughout the six provinces of the Deccan. In return Shahuji agreed
to pay tribute of one million rupees and to maintain fifteen thousand
Maratha troopers to be placed at the disposal of Husain Ali Khan.
Shahuji also agreed to keep order and to refrain from levying duties or
taxes beyond those in the imperial assessment. When Farrukhsiyar
refused to ratify this agreement, Shahuji simply acted as if the treaty
were formalized and proceeded to send his collectors out and attach a
10,000 man cavalry force to Husain Ali Khan.

THE FINAL CRISIS

By mid-1718 the enmity between emperor and minister, barely
concealed beneath rigid Mughal norms of court civility and decorum,
erupted as the balance of power began tilting toward the Sayyids.
When the emperor made several appointments to the Deccan
provinces in violation of the earlier agreement, the wazir simply
voided them. Enraged, the emperor engaged in abortive plots to kill
Abdullah Khan before he appealed to the three most powerful
noblemen left in the empire. Ajit Singh Rathor, the Turani nobleman,
Nizam-ul Mulk from Moradabad, and Sarbuland Khan from Bihar
brought a total of 70,000 or more troops into Delhi. By his temporiz-
ing and equivocation, the emperor alienated all three amirs. They
either left the capital or aligned themselves with the wazir. Toward the
end of 1718 the emperor could count on only Jai Singh Kachhwaha

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DECLINE AND COLLAPSE, 1707-1720

and his 20,000 Rajputs. The standoff continued until the end of the
ear.

Earlier Abdullah Khan had written to his brother, Husain Ali Khan,
asking him to return in force from the Deccan. In October Husain Ali
left Burhanpur for the march north at the head of 15,000 cavalry,
10,000 matchlockmen, and artillery. He was joined by Balaji Vishwa-
nath, Shahuji’s Peshwa or chief minister, who brought 10,000 Maratha
horsemen (paid a rupee a day from the Mughal treasury). The public
reason for return, contrary to the emperor’s orders, was that Shahuji
had offered an important exchange proposal. The Bhonsla ruler
requested that his mother Yesu Bai and his younger brother, who had
been held captive at the Mughal court since 1689, be released. In
exchange he handed over the son of Akbar, the deceased Mughal rebel
prince. Husain Ali Khan must bring the boy to Delhi in person. The
supposed Timurid prince was in fact an imposter, the son of a Qazi
who bore a resemblance to the Timurids. Husain Ali Khan supplied him
with a scarlet tent, robes, and a crown as well as appropriate attendants
on the march. The threat, plain for all to see, was that Farrukhsiyar
could be readily deposed in favor of this claimant to the Timurid throne.

In February, 1719, Husain Ali Khan entered Delhi with his drums
beating and standards flying in defiance of imperial etiquette. Farrukh-
siyar, anxious to conciliate the Sayyid brothers, agreed to dismiss all
royal officers commanding Delhi fort and all officers who controlled
access to court audiences. The emperor also dismissed Jai Singh
Kachhwaha, who departed reluctantly from the capital at the head of
his mounted Rajputs. When Farrukhsiyar delayed giving up control of
the palace-fortress, Abdullah Khan met him in person in the audience
hall. An angry and abusive exchange between emperor and minister
occurred in which all decorum was lost and all the anger and fear of
years of conflict released. The wazir stormed out of the audience and
Farrukhsiyar retreated to the women’s apartments in the palace.
Abdullah Khan then turned out all the imperial guards and seized
control of the fort and palace.

That night rumors as to the events in the palace spread throughout
the city. The emperor refused to come out of the women’s quarters
where he was guarded by armed female slaves. The next day, on 28
February, several nobles and military commanders still loyal to
Farrukhsiyar marched at the head of their troops toward the fortress.
En route they clashed with the Maratha horsemen of Husain Ali Khan.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

Unprepared for street fighting nearly 2,000 Marathas were killed and
stripped of their clothes and weapons by a mob of bazaar dwellers and
unpaid soldiery.

Threatened with the urban mob and the Rajputs of Jai Singh who
were only a few miles distant, the Sayyid brothers opted for direct
action. They could not reasonably depose Farrukhsiyar and replace
him by one of themselves — the sentiments for a Timurid ruler were still
too deeply embedded. But they could depose Farrukhsiyar and replace
him with a pliable young prince. First they tried unsuccessfully to seize
Prince Bidar Dil, son of Bidar Bakht, who was regarded as the most
able of the Timurid princes. But he, fearful of being killed, remained in
hiding. In the end Abdullah Khan settled on Prince Rafi-ud-darjat, son
of Rafi-ush-shan and grandson of Bahadur Shah, as the candidate. The
startled youth was seated on the Peacock Throne and proclaimed
emperor.

An armed party burst into the women’s quarters, captured Farrukh-
siyar, and brought the deposed ruler to the wazir. Abdullah Khan
found in his own pen case a needle used for applying collyrium to his
eyes and ordered the emperor thrown down and blinded immediately.
Farrukhsiyar was then imprisoned in the fort. Public announcement
of the new emperor ended the riots outside the fort. Two months later,
the Sayyid brothers had Farrukhsiyar strangled in his prison cell and
buried in a crypt in Humayun’s tomb.

SAYYID RULE, 1719-1720

The Sayyid brothers assumed stringent control over the new puppet
emperor. Rafi-ud-darjat was guarded day and night by a select group
of Baraha soldiers. All court audiences were played out to a script
prepared by the wazir. In June, the ill-fated Timurid ruler died of
tuberculosis. His brother, Raji-ud-daulah, fell victim to the same
disease within weeks of replacing his brother on the throne. Finally,
the Sayyids settled on the eighteen-year-old Prince Roshan Akhtar, son
of Jahan Shah and grandson of Bahadur Shah. Roshan Akhtar, titled
Muhammad Shah, became the new Timurid ruler in September, 1719.

Under the Sayyids, imperial policy turned toward inclusive policies.
Imperial seals confirmed the treaty with Shahuji and the satisfied
Marathas left Delhi to return to the Deccan. They tried to conciliate
Ajit Singh Rathor by allowing his widowed daughter, who had

272

DECLINE AND COLLAPSE, 1707-1720

converted to Islam for the marriage to Farrukhsiyar, to renounce Islam
and return to her father at Jodhpur. This was the first time a Rajput
princess had been allowed to leave the imperial harem and return
home. This concession aroused great indignation among the Muslims
of the capital. Formal concessions were made to Churaman Jat as well.

However, the Sayyids were not able to command the full loyalty of a
demoralized and dispirited imperial nobility. Opponents found a
leader in the Turani amir Nizam-ul Mulk who was given the gover-
norship of Malwa. Released from the closest forms of surveillance, the
young emperor had sent a plea to Nizam-ul Mulk to free him from his
Sayyid captors. When the Sayyids tried abruptly to transfer him from
Malwa the Nizam marched against Delhi. In his appeal for noble
support, the Nizam deplored the ruin of the Timurid house and the
monarchy; he protested that the Sayyids were intent on ruining all the
old Irani and Turani families of the empire; and that they were
following a disastrous pro-Hindu policy. The Nizam drew to him all
those Irani and Turani commanders who were appalled by the depos-
ition and slaying of Farrukhsiyar. They were especially dubious about
full power in the empire going to a group of Indian Muslims, no matter
how illustrious their familial service to the Timurids. From one
perspective this split could also be seen as a division between foreign,
more cosmopolitan officers and locally rooted cadres comprised of
Indian Muslims, Rajputs, Marathas, and Jats.

In August, 1720, the Nizam won a key battle at Shakarkhedla in the
Deccan against a combined Maratha/Sayyid army. A successful plot
secured the assassination of Husain Ali Khan while he was marching
toward the Deccan with the emperor in his camp. Muhammad Shah
then joined the insurgents in a campaign against Abdullah Khan. The
latter was defeated and captured outside Delhi in November, 1720.
After two months in captivity Abdullah Khan was executed.

THE NORTHERN PROVINCES

Between 1707 and the accession of Muhammad Shah in 1720, instabi-
lity at court had its impact in every part of the empire. The carefully
divided jurisdictions of governors, fiscal officers, faujdars, bakhshis
(army paymasters and intelligence officers), and jagirdars blurred, and
in some provinces, disappeared. Imperial orders which in the past had
been executed unquestioningly were now ignored. Both public and

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

secret news reports sent to the center declined in frequency and in
quality. The regulations of the zabt revenue system elided into more or
less open revenue farming. Jagirdars found that to collect their
stipulated revenues from local authorities they had to assume full
military and police powers over their holdings. Tax collections dim-
inished and became erratic in most provinces due to local resistance.
The level of internal violence undoubtedly increased in nearly every
locality as zamindars and peasants rebelled.

Weakened central authority in confused times created new opportu-
nities for aggrandizement by provincial officers, During the first three
decades of the eighteenth century, strong protodynastic figures devel-
oped nascent regional kingdoms in several northern provinces. Under
regional authority political conditions stabilized. These rajas, gover-
nors, or diwans, putative rulers, intensified revenue collections, sup-
pressed zamindari rebellions, and reorganized their administrations, all
with the aim of strengthening their powers while still paying lip service
to the emperor’s authority. The northern provinces were edging
toward stability within a loosened, decentralized imperial structure.

In Rajasthan, the leading Rajput amirs energetically subverted the
intricate imperial administrative controls imposed on that province.
Under existing arrangements the entire province fell under the control
of the imperial revenue administration headquartered at Ajmer, the
seat of the governor. Lands were assigned routinely as jagirs or retained
in khalisa for the central treasury. Only the relatively limited home
domains or watan jagirs of the rajas were left in their control. After
settlement of the second Rajput war in 1708 (described above) the
Rajputs devoted considerable effort to extending their watan or home
territories in an attempt to build near-autonomous regional kingdoms.

Jai Singh Sawai, the Kachhwaha head of Amber, used two methods
to peacefully gain control of lands adjacent to Amber. First, his agents
at court lobbied for and obtained temporary, regulation jagirs to
support his pay claims.'? Second, Jai Singh’s agents actively offered
written contracts by which they undertook to pay a fixed proportion
of the official revenues for non-Rajput officers given jagirs in eastern
Rajasthan. Lesser Rajput thakurs of various clans were then given
revenue farming contracts to produce the money each year. For
Mughal officers, beset by the factional conflict of Farrukhsiyar’s reign,

12 Satya Prakash Gupta, The Agrarian System of Eastern Rajasthan (c.1650-c.1750), (Delhi:
Manohar, 1986), pp. 1-37.

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DECLINE AND COLLAPSE, 1707-1720

even discounted revenues paid regularly were preferable to the expense
of trying to collect revenues from turbulent Rajput bhumiyas. Those
jagirdars who tried to collect their own revenues in this region found
their agents hindered and harassed by Kachhwaha officers.

As Farrukhsiyar’s authority weakened, Jai Singh simply assumed
permanent powers over all his jagirs and revenue farms. By 1726, the
six parganas adjacent to Amber had been absorbed into Sawai Amber
as the core territory of the new eighteenth century state.!3 Six other
contiguous subdistricts had been enlarged and added to the total. For
the first time since Bharamall negotiated his daughter’s marriage to
Akbar in the 1560s the Mughal emperor no longer controlled the lands
and revenues of eastern Rajasthan.

Some provinces experienced greater instability than others. For the
thirteen year period, Awadh in the eastern Gangetic plain had a total of
fifteen governors, some completely absentee. In response to disorder
in Awadh later governors were given unprecedented powers, notably
over the fiscal and revenue institutions managed by the provincial
diwan. By 1714, the amir Chabele Ram, accepted the Awadh gover-
norship on condition that one of his relatives become diwan.'* When
the Sayyids appointed Girdhar Bahadur as governor in 1719 the new
governor, who had been in revolt, named the province he wanted,
demanded to be made diwan, and obtained an unprecedented appoint-
ment as faujdar for the entire province.'S In 1722, a dominant proto-
dynastic figure emerged. By that time there was ample precedent for
Burhan al-Mulk, the founder of the kingdom of Awadh, to bundle all
administrative authority in the province into his own grasp and to beat
down resistance from the zamindars.

In Awadh the majority of zamindars, whether Rajput or Afghan,
were engaged in widespread defiance of Mughal authority and revenue
demands. The Bais Rajputs of Baiswara, who had been turbulent since
the last years of Aurangzeb’s reign, united under the banner of a single
war leader and fought the Awadh governor in a three day battle at their
central fortress. Temporarily beaten, they were forced to submit, but
by mid-1715 they had launched another coordinated uprising. Once
again Chabele Ram, the Awadh governor, defeated and dispersed the
rebels. Afghan zamindars in Lucknow district remained in armed
resistance to the governor and faujdar throughout 1714. The same year

3 Ibid. p.26. 4 Alam, Crisis of Empire, pp. 64-65.
15 Alam, Crisis of Empire, p. 69.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

virtually all the Rajput chiefs in Awadh district itself were in revolt.1¢
Lacking sufficient direction and support from Delhi, the governor was
unable to muster overwhelming military strength to put an end to the
risings.

Despite seizure of revenue powers by later governors, collections
from Awadh were erratic and modest at best. Most of the lands in the
province were allocated to jagirdars, many of whom were stationed
outside the province. Local resistance made it difficult, and in some
instances impossible, to collect the stated assessment. In Farrukhsiyar’s
reign the Sayyid brothers began to assign jagirs in Awadh to Indian
Muslim officers native to the province.!” The lands assigned were
located in the home territories of each officer who received the
assignment as watan jagir. An additional number of his kinsmen and
private officers also received jagirs adjacent to his. These jagirdars were
expected to keep the assignments for extended periods and to use their
local kinship and patronage ties to build strength sufficient to collect
revenues from the zamindars and peasants. The end result was to begin
the process of converting jagirs in Awadh to fiefs held in perpetuity.

The administrative and political circumstances in Bengal and Orissa
were different. Under Murshid Quli- Khan, the efficient fiscal officer
appointed by Aurangzeb, the two provinces were marked by stability
and order after 1707. Reappointed diwan (after a two year transfer) by
Bahadur Shah, Murshid Quli Khan resumed his post in 1710 with a
new rank of 2,000 zat.'8

In 1712, when Prince Farrukhsiyar was preparing to make his bid for
the throne, he demanded the accumulated revenues of Bengal and
Orissa. Murshid Quli Khan refused pointblank on the grounds that the
prince was not yet emperor and had no legitimate claim to the funds.
Farrukhsiyar sent a 3,000 man force to bring back the treasure or
Murshid Quli Khan’s head. In a lengthy battle outside the plain at
Murshidabad, the stubborn diwan’s troops killed Farrukhsiyar’s
general and routed his army. When in early 1713, Farrukhsiyar
crowned himself at Delhi, Murshid Quli Khan sent the Bengal
surpluses to him without delay and was confirmed in his position.!9
Farrukhsiyar also made Murshid Quli Khan deputy governor of

16 Alam, Crisis of Empire, pp.96-97. "7 Ibid., pp. 124-129.
18 Abdul Karim, Murshid Quli Khan and His Times (Dacca: Asiatic Society of Pakistan,
1963), pp. 29-30.

19 Jadunath Sarkar, History of Bengal: Muslim Period 1200-1757 (Patna, 1973), 407-

276

DECLINE AND COLLAPSE, 1707-1720

Bengal (acting for the emperor’s infant son) and governor of Orissa.?°
In 1717, to retain his support, Farrukhsiyar promoted Murshid Quli
Khan to governor of Bengal.

Murshid Quli Khan’s success was based on imperial loyalty and
obedience in his accustomed role of careful fiscal manager.
Throughout the twists of deadly factional politics at the center,
Murshid Quli Khan retained his grip.on Bengal by faithfully sending
Bengal revenues to a cash-starved monarch. Between 1712 and his
death in 1727 during the reign of Muhammad Shah, Murshid Quli
Khan sent an average of 10.5 million rupees per year to Delhi. These
constituted the revenues of crownlands, tribute from zamindars, and
miscellaneous funds for both Bengal and Orissa - all meticulously
accounted for.?!

Whether this annual drain harmed the economy of Bengal is difficult
to determine. Internal peace and increased cultivation and trade were
pushing expansion of the Bengal frontier to the east and the sea.
Shipping ten million or so rupees in carts each year certainly put a
strain on the provincial money supply. Ample imports of New World
silver by the Dutch and English trading companies were converted
immediately to new coin at the provincial mint. Whether severe
methods of collection from intermediaries caused oppression of the
peasantry is also difficult to decide. It is doubtful if Murshid Quli
Khan’s total revenue demands were proportionately any greater than
they had been under earlier administrations. Past surplus funds had
gone to enrich a succession of seventeenth century Bengal governors.

Although he used force ruthlessly and effectively when necessary,
Murshid Quli Khan pared down his provincial army to 2,000
horsemen and 4,000 infantry.2? No serious external threats menaced
Bengal and Orissa during his administration. Nearly all the official
revenues were shipped to the emperor. Murshid Quli Khan kept
expenses to a minimum remarked upon by his contemporaries. His
personal fortune, although large — six million rupees at his death — was
not excessive.

Paradoxically, however, as the center weakened, the Bengal gover-
nor became more autonomous. More Bengali Hindu officers found
2 Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, p. 48.

21 Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, p. 85 n. Based on a total of 165.1 million rupees for fifteen
years and nine months. This was from the fifth year of Bahadur Shah to the ninth year of

Muhammad Shah,
22 Sarkar, History of Bengal, 1, 412.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

employment in his administration and joined the relatives of Murshid
Quli Khan and those North Indian officers who had already followed
him to Murshidabad. By 1727 his son-in-law Shuja-ud-din Muham-
mad Khan, then serving as deputy governor of Orissa, simply seized
control of the two provinces in defiance of Murshid Quli Khan’s
wishes in what amounted to a coup. The new administration was duly
ratified by the emperor, Muhammad Shah. By this time Bengal and
Orissa had become a regional state paying tribute to the Mughal ruler
in Delhi.

THE DECCAN

Virtual paralysis in Delhi eroded provincial administration in the
Deccan as it did in the north. In the western Deccan, however, no
strong, dominant governor emerged. Instead, Maratha raids enfeebled
Mughal administration in Khandesh, Aurangabad, Berar, and Bijapur.
Bereft of support from the emperor, provincial governors and their
cadres either accommodated, sheltered in their fortified capitals, or fled
outright. The Maratha style of repeated raiding and plundering fol-
lowed by more formal tribute taking (chauth) was damaging and
disruptive. In the aftermath of Maratha raids, dispossessed peasants
and defeated soldiery turned to banditry in large numbers. Roiling
conflict and confused claims and counter claims between Maratha
intruders and Mughal authorities ruined many formerly prosperous
areas. In Khandesh province the process of sorting out the dual shares
of Mughal jagirdars and Maratha chiefs and their revenue collectors
took years to resolve. Revenues remained low and were often paid in
kind. Many villages were deserted by the 1720s.23

Insecurity and disorder accompanying this conflict was especially
damaging to the long-distance overland trade. Hard hit were those
cities, like Surat, that had been the busiest entrepots of that trade. In
1716, the Dutch East India Company was forced to close its trading
station in Agra because it was impossible to buy Bayano indigo or
specialized textiles and ship the goods reliably overland to Surat.
Caravans organized by private merchants, even though protected by
hired guards, could no longer travel safely from Agra to Surat.
23 Stewart Gordon and John F. Richards, “Kinship and Pargana in eighteenth century

Khandesh,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 22 (1985), 384; and

Richards, Monetary System, pp. 225-224.

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DECLINE AND COLLAPSE, 1707-1720

Zamindars leading armed bands of peasants threatened and attacked
even strongly armed parties headed by Mughal officials. It was not
uncommon for bands of 5,000 men of whom 2,000 were carrying
muskets to be reported.?* If these local rebels did not succeed, groups
of Maratha horsemen were likely to intercept caravans.

After 1707, Indian and European merchants at Surat could not
obtain adequate supplies of textiles, indigo or other export commodi-
ties from their normal production areas. They could not profitably
transship imports like Mocha coffee or Indonesian spices to their
normal markets. The cost of bills of exchange between Agra and Surat
shot up to as high as 12 percent for a transaction that had formerly cost
1 to 2 percent.25 For a time production within Gujarat helped to meet
some of this demand, as the Dutch opened new trading stations in
Ahmadabad and Broach. Textile prices rose and supplies dwindled in
Gujarat as a reflection of rising insecurity from Maratha raids in the
province.

The money supply of the formerly prosperous port dried ap. The
imperial mint shut down for several years and numerous money-
changers went bankrupt.”6 After 1710 it became difficult to obtain cash
for imported goods. Declining exports reduced bullion imports
sharply at Surat. A drain of silver coin in payments to the imperial
armies in the Deccan continued with no compensating payments in
return.

By the end of Farrukhsiyar’s reign, Surat, the principal Mughal west
coast port, was cut off from its empire-wide trading hinterland and
reduced to trafficking with a regional hinterland no greater than the
boundaries of Gujarat. The relative security of British-controlled
Bombay made it a rival port and entrepot rapidly surpassing Surat in
importance.

The lands of the eastern Deccan’ suffered the same conditions as
those in the west under Bahadur Shah and his immediate successors.
Maratha raiding, banditry, and devastation were commonplace in
Hyderabad province between 1707 and 1713.27 In 1708, the capable,
long-serving governor of Hyderabad, Rustam Dil Khan, was killed by
Prince Muhammad Kam Bakhsh in a clash over access to the provincial
2 Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, pp. 140-143 for the journey of the last

Dutch trader to leave Agra in 1716.

28 Ibid. p.152. 2 Ibid.
2 J. F. Richards, Mughal Administration in Golconda (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975),

PP- 264-305.

279

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

treasuries. Over the next few years three successive governors were
unable to cope with widespread disorder, insolvency, and army
mutinies. Finally, in 1713 a new governor appointed by Farrukhsiyar
arrived in Hyderabad. This was a turning point for regional political
life.

Both capable and determined, Mubariz Khan at once set about
restoring order. He hammered any Maratha raiders and drove them
decisively beyond his borders. At the head of several thousand Mughal
heavy cavalry Mubariz Khan rode in repeated punitive raids against
rebellious Telugu zamindars, bandit chiefs, and renegade Mughal
commanders.

In 1715, Mubariz Khan made an accommodation with Sayyid
Husain Ali Khan, sent by Farrukhsiyar to be governor of the Deccan
with powers of appointment for all provincial officers. At Aurangabad,
Mubariz Khan aligned himself with the Sayyids and obtained
reappointment to his post in Hyderabad. At this meeting, Husain Ali
Khan appointed his new adherent provincial diwan as well as governor
and authorized Mubariz Khan’s son to become commander of Gol-
conda fort, the leading bastion of the province. These were both
formerly independent assignments made by the emperor. After this
meeting Mubariz Khan ignored the provisions of the 1717 treaty which
conceded 35 percent of imperial revenues to be collected by Maratha-
appointed agents. In the eastern Deccan these provisions did not apply.
The Marathas were blocked from setting up a dual administrative
structure in the eastern Deccan.

Mubariz Khan also ignored his obligations to the emperor. He made
few, token payments to the central treasury from the Hyderabad
revenues. He freely confiscated the khalisa crown parganas in Hyder-
abad and sent his own agents to collect the revenues. Virtually all
official appointments or transfers to and from Hyderabad ceased after
171}. The governor filled important provincial offices with his six sons,
his uncle, his trusted slave-eunuch, and other members of his entou-
rage. This became a system of regional officials, recruited within
Hyderabad.

By the end of Farrukhsiyar’s reign, Mubariz Khan restored the
authority exercised over the province by the governor or earlier by the
Qutb Shah rulers. Relative peace and order permitted revenue collec-
tion and greater stability for the inhabitants of the province. In so
doing the imperial governor in reality became a regional king — not

280

DECLINE AND COLLAPSE, 1707-1720

because he was disloyal, but rather because he had little choice. The
emperor and the imperial wazir offered little support or encourage-
ment to distant governors. Had the throne recovered power and
strength it is likely that Mubariz Khan could once more have been
brought into a revived empire. It did not, and in 1724, the Nizam-ul
Mulk, who was trying to establish his own independent domain in the
Deccan, defeated and killed Mubariz Khan at the battle of
Shakarkhedla.

For over a decade, instability and weakness caused by the bitter
conflicts over the throne wrenched at imperial authority and effici-
ency. Revenues plummeted and the entire imperial structure entered a
downward spiral. Perhaps if a strong Timurid monarch or, for that
matter, a charismatic nobleman capable of founding a new dynasty,
had occupied the throne, this descent might have been checked in the
17208. Certainly, as the examples of both Murshid Quli Khan in Bengal
and Mubariz Khan in Hyderabad illustrate, the habits and beliefs in
imperial service could have been resurrected among Mughal nobles and
technocrats. Instead, during Muhammad Shah’s lengthy reign, the
empire slipped into a loosely knit group of regional successor states.

281

CONCLUSION

During his half-century-long reign from 1556 to 1605, Akbar’s
repeated victories enabled him to build a multi-regional empire from
the territories of defeated kingdoms. He and his advisers devised
innovative and durable centralized institutions. But dynamic expan-
sion did not end with Akbar’s death. Instead, the Mughal empire
continued to expand and to deepen its administrative control from
1556 until 1689.

Imperial dynamism was at its core military. The Mughal empire was
a war-state. The dynasty and nobles were warriors governed by an
aggressively martial ethos. By far the greater proportion of the state’s
resources was devoted to war and preparation for war. Every year
Mughal troops were engaged in active campaigning against foreign
enemies or domestic rebels. The Mughal emperors made little apology
for attacks on neighboring states and needed still less by way of
provocation. In common with all imperial rulers, they regarded
adjoining states as either tributaries or enemies —no other category was
possible.

To the north it was only when Mughal arms reached the extremities
of the Indian subcontinent that the limits of expansion were estab-
lished. Beyond the subcontinent the physical and social landscape
together presented overwhelming obstacles. In the mountainous zones
of the north Mughal armies found themselves precariously extended
on their supply lines. They had difficulties foraging for firewood and
fodder for their animals and could not rely upon the Indian grain
merchants who supplied their needs when campaigning in the sub-
continent. The Mughals encountered strong resistance mounted by
formidable rulers and peoples who were not assimilated into the
Indo-Muslim political system and who were not especially impressed
by Mughal imperial might.

To the south the empire expanded slowly, but steadily. The physical
terrain, although often difficult, did not stop military operations.
Society in the Deccan and further south was well-instructed in the
brutal truths of Indo-Muslim power. In these regions however,

282

CONCLUSION

Mughal diplomatic pressures weakened the centralized control of the
Deccan states. As a result Mughal generals and administrators found it
difficult to conquer and rule regions in which political power was
fragmented. Imperial policies also failed to fully adapt to the differing
cultures and social structures of the dominant Maratha, Telugu,
Kannada, and Tamil landed aristocracies. Conquest and political
control became a time-consuming, and often frustrating task. It is in
the south after 1689 that Mughal expansion faltered and ended.

The sea blocked expansion to east and west. Mughal military power
was land-based — not maritime. Unlike their contemporaries, the
Ottoman Turks, the Timurid emperors never considered or pursued
expansion by sea. The culture of seafaring was completely foreign to
the Mughal elite. They were more than willing to invest in trade by sea
and even own seafaring vessels, but this interest did not extend to
placing themselves on board anything so unpleasant as a sea-going
vessel. Pilgrims travelling to the holy cities for the annual Haj were the
only exceptions to this rule.

Intermittent internal warfare was also characteristic of the Mughal
empire. Numerous kingdoms and chiefdoms not subject to direct
administration by Mughal governors existed in the less accessible and
fertile regions of the empire. Formal submission, payment of annual
tribute, and the supply of troops or war elephants to the emperor
sufficed initially to keep these rulers on their ancestral seats. The
impetus for consolidation, for conquest on the internal frontiers of the
empire was difficult to restrain. By and large tributary kings engaged in
a constant political battle to survive. Lapsed payment of tribute
brought warnings and a punitive campaign with the ever-present
possibility of full-blown annexation to direct administration.

After conquest and annexation an imperial peace prevailed. The
Mughal empire sustained a relatively high level of public order. Towns
and cities and their immediate hinterlands were generally free of
organized predatory violence. The main roads were secure for traders
and travelers. Mughal military governors (faujdars) city magistrates, or
road commanders (rabdars) vigorously pursued and punished bandits
and rebels. Elsewhere, like Europe in the same period, there were areas
in the hills or the infamous sandy ravines of the Chambal river valley
where the king’s writ ran weakly, if at all. Travelers ventured there at
their peril.

In the countryside Mughal dynamism found expression in an

283

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

ongoing struggle with the lords of the land, or in Mughal parlance the
zamindars. Imperial officials combined threat and reward to induce
local warrior aristocrats or village lords to assist in the collection of
imperial revenues. At times force was necessary. In some areas
especially belligerent zamindars rebelled periodically and awaited the
arrival of imperial troops with some zest. More frequently negotiation
and persuasion sufficed for compliance.

The Mughal revenue system was engaged in a continuing campaign
of political socialization. Its aim was to transform armed, often-
truculent, parochial warrior-aristocrats, into quasi-officials. By entan-
gling local aristocracies in the revenue system imperial officials were
also engaging the zamindars, even remotely, in a broadly shared
imperial culture. For over a century this effort continued with notable
success. As new lands came into the empire or tributary kingdoms
were annexed, time-tested devices were employed to assimilate the
local aristocracy and dominant peasant groups to the demands of the
revenue system. After 1689, however, administrative momentum
dwindled. The inability of Mughal officials to maintain the imperial
peace in the Deccan provinces had its effect. Loss of morale and a sense
of direction beset local officers elsewhere in the empire. Those
zamindars who had been brought into a wider system in the course of a
century were now confronted with new prospects and new hazards.

Imperial expansion and consolidation before 1689 drew part of its
dynamic energy from a radical political orientation put forward by the
emperor Akbar. In his formulation the interests of the dynasty and the
state were given precedence over narrowly defined interests of Islam in
India. In a marked departure from previous practice active participa-
tion in the imperial system was open to non-Muslims as well as
Muslims. In every way possible the emperor tried to make the imperial
system inclusive rather than exclusive.

Despite large-scale conversions and immigration, Islam remained a
minority religion in every region of the subcontinent. The resilience of
Hindu caste-defined society made further mass conversions unlikely.
In the sixteenth century, Indo-Muslim rulers faced a political dilemma.
If they restricted the higher levels of political and military service to
Muslims, they drew from a very narrow base of support. If they
opened recruitment to all persons of talent and substance, there would
be a strong reaction from the orthodox Muslim establishment. Akbar
made a determined effort to break out of that dilemma by creating a

284

CONCLUSION

new dynastic ideology that would appeal to his subjects of all religions
and statuses.

Akbar’s centralized empire successfully tapped into the rising
productivity of the Indian economy in the early modern period. New
world economic linkages were an important stimulus to economic
activity. Portuguese trading in the Indian Ocean increased, rather than
decreased, the overall demand for Indian goods and services. Flows of
New World specie came pouring into the subcontinent ~ in a lesser
portion through Goa and in a much greater stream through the normal
sea and overland routes to India. Akbar’s state seized upon these
abundant supplies of gold and silver to fashion its currency and to fill
its treasuries. With the conquest of Gujarat in 1574 the Timurid empire
became a coastal state with access to the new inflows of precious
metals. In Gujarat could also be found the industrial production of
cloth which could pay for these imports. Gold and silver were an
indispensable resource as the empire expanded.

The imperial economy expanded in tandem with centralized state
power in Mughal India. Although hard quantitative evidence is scanty,
the qualitative evidence suggests that the Mughal empire stimulated
economic growth. State revenue and consumption demands encour-
aged and shaped the growth of India’s varied and lively regional and
subcontinental markets. Imperial insistence on payment of the land
revenue in official coin forced the sale of food grains and other crops to
local grain dealers who then responded to consumption demands for
the towns and cities. The consumption demands of several million
persons dependent upon state salaries or largess fostered markets for a
vast range of manufactured and processed goods.

In more specialized areas the emperors routinely looked to private
markets and entrepreneurial activity to meet official needs. Some
luxury goods and staple commodities were produced in the large
household establishments of the emperor and nobles, but most goods
and services were supplied from the private sector. Continuing mili-
tary operations fostered a peripatetic bazaar sector geared to supplying
food grains and other essentials to Mughal armies on the march. The
emperors and their military commanders relied upon cash payments to
mobilize troops at whatever location, numbers, skill, and equipment
they needed. Similarly, for large-scale building projects, they would
obtain cadres of highly skilled workers in ample numbers at any
location.

285

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

In general imperial integration seems to have fostered the growth of
inter-regional trade and linkages. Much of this trade was in luxury
goods, but not all. During the Mughal period provinces with food
surpluses, such as Bengal, sent these goods to food-deficit areas like
Gujarat by means of the active coastal shipping industry. The empire
taxed overland and maritime trade, but at a modest, and generally
predictable level. Increased security from banditry and arbitrary
confiscation offset the costs of customs and other duties imposed.

WORLD CONNECTIONS

After Vasco da Gama’s voyage around Africa, India’s pepper and other
spices and cotton textiles drew first Iberian, then Northern European
traders to the subcontinent armed with plentiful supplies of gold and
silver from the New World. Self-sufficient in most products and
commodities save for precious metals, India eagerly accepted gold and
silver as payment for a rising export to Europe. By 1600 the Dutch and
English East India Companies had begun to exploit the commercial
potential of the Cape route direct to South and Southeast Asia. This
new sea link carried steadily expanding cargoes between Mughal India
and Europe. European textile demand stimulated Indian cloth pro-
duction throughout the subcontinent. Despite frequent strains, the
interests of both the Mughal empire and that of the East India
Companies were well served by this new connection. Beyond the
economic effects, what were the cultural impacts of this change in
Europe and Mughal India?

By the first decades of the eighteenth century hundreds of European
traders, seamen, diplomats, and adventurers had endured the long sea
voyage to India. These men, and a few women, traversed the length and
breadth of the subcontinent. Many were employed by Indians; more
Indians were employed by them. Despite the lengthy delays, letters
were exchanged regularly between India and Europe. Those who
returned gave first hand accounts of India to those at home. Numerous
collections of letters and travel accounts were published and dissemi-
nated widely amongst the reading public of Europe. From this
proliferating literature, Europeans obtained a detailed picture of early
modern Mughal India.

What of the return traffic? What sort of information did Mughal
India receive about Europe? The most direct answer is, very little.

286

CONCLUSION

Despite regular shipping between Indian and European ports, no
Indians other than a few seamen made the voyage. Traveler’s accounts
and letters describing Europe to a Mughal public simply do not exist.

Europeans could travel freely in Mughal India because state and
society were so remarkably indifferent. In China at the same period all
foreigners were tightly controlled by imperial officers. Japan during
the Tokugawa period excluded all Europeans from the islands. Only a
handful of Dutch traders were permitted a tiny enclave at Dakshima
from which they could carry on trade. By contrast, Mughal India was
completely permeable to foreign visitors. Society, rather than the state,
placed barriers against intruders in India’s compartmentalized society.
After they had paid customs duties, all foreigners were free to travel
anywhere and to remain as long as they wished. This resulted in a
network of Europeans domiciled in every major town on the sub-
continent.

Emigrés of higher status or ability occasionally developed friend-
ships with Mughal officers or Indian merchants, but the impact of these
relationships was minimal. Indians displayed little interest in European
culture or society. As we have seen Akbar’s interest in Christianity
moved him to entertain Jesuit missionaries at his court — a practice
engaged in by his more inquiring descendants until the death of Dara
Shukoh. After Akbar, however, none of the Mughal emperors had any
appreciable interest in Europe. Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb
all admitted envoys from the trading companies or their rulers, and
displayed an intense interest in the types of presentations and gifts
offered. Beyond this little notice was taken. In the historical writing of
the period these curious foreigners were largely ignored — despite their
depiction in paintings of the Mughal court.

The Europeans carried with them a variety of technological
advances. Some techniques and devices were widely accepted, used,
and indigenous adaptations produced. For example, the use of the
capstan (a wheel and axle on a vertical axis) for hauling heavy objects
was adopted for launching ships at some ports.! Some techniques and
devices were adopted but not produced locally. The use of hand-driven
pumps to move standing water from boats was a technique readily
accepted by Indian shipmasters in the seventeenth century. But there is
no evidence of indigenous manufacture. Some innovations were seen

1 Ahsan Jan Qaisar, The Indian Response to European Technology and Culture (A.D.
1498-1707) (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 33-

287

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

purely as a curiosity in spite of widespread practical application in
Europe. Telescopes were used regularly as navigational aids and for
long-distance observation in warfare in Europe. Examples were pre-
sented to various Indian dignitaries but elicited no usage or pro-
duction.? European mechanical clocks and watches used routinely by
Europeans in India were ignored by Indian society.

The question of technology transfer in regard to firearms is complex.
The casting of cannon and manufacture of muskets was apparently a
matter of routine and the technical skills and materials to accomplish
this were widely available. Despite its importance, Mughal histories
and other surviving documentation have little to say about the tech-
nical side of weaponry. Those armorers, smiths and other technicians
who actually cast cannon or fabricated muskets were mute. We have
frustratingly little direct information about the production and distri-
bution of firearms in Mughal India.

Some innovations were adopted and diffused widely. Animal-borne
swivel guns became a routine feature of Mughal warfare. These were
guns with stocks often two or more meters in length which fired a ball
perhaps 10-12 cm. in diameter.* Other developments such as the
flint-lock musket widely used in Europe in the 1620s, lagged. Adop-
tion of this device in Mughal India was much slower. For most of the
century the matchlock or arquebus was the dominant weapon.’ Use
and manufacture were two different spheres. Pistols were known and
used on a wide basis in seventeenth century Mughal India, but were
not commonly manufactured in India.®

The apparent indifference of the Mughal elites to improved
weaponry is striking. Official interest in weaponry was occasional and
haphazard at best. As usual Akbar was exceptional in that he took a
keen interest in trying to improve the quality of muskets. He kept a
special collection of muskets and tested them himself for their firing
qualities. After Akbar only occasional references to the technical side
of weapons occur. Mughal artillery was certainly far superior to
anything that could be deployed by regional rulers, tributaries, or by
zamindars. Within the subcontinent the combined effect of Mughal
artillery and well-handled heavy cavalry continued to be decisive. But

2 Ibid. p. 35. > Ibid., p. 66.

+ Surviving specimens may be seen in various museums or in the collections of forts such as
that at Golconda outside of Hyderabad.

5 Qaisar, Indian Response, p. 52. Ibid., p. 54.

288

CONCLUSION

the Mughals may well have started to fall behind other contemporary
powers in the seventeenth century.

The emperor and his nobles employed a polyglot group of European
soldiers and adventurers as artillerymen. In the last half of the
seventeenth century European gunners, who were often deserters from
the East India Company ships and garrisons, had a virtual monopoly
on gunners’ positions. By falling back on this expedient, the military
elites of Mughal India essentially abdicated any responsibility for
technical improvements in gunnery. They left these matters up to small
cadres of foreign specialists - most of whom had only the most
rudimentary training and but limited experience.

By the early years of the eighteenth century Mughal India was not
keeping pace with Europe in field artillery. For example, in 1701,
William Norris, the English ambassador to Aurangzeb’s court, finally
obtained an audience with the emperor who was then engaged in the
siege of Panhala fort near Kolhapur. So impressed was the Mughal
chief of artillery with twelve light brass field guns that Norris brought
in his entourage that the English ambassador was forced to offer them
to the emperor at the court audience.” Norris also supplied six gunners
to operate the guns in the siege. Even allowing for Mughal disorgani-
zation in Aurangzeb’s last years, the gap between the artillery of early
modern Europe and that of India was widening. Later in the century
the Maratha, Mysore, and Mughal successor states made strenuous
and largely successful efforts to overcome this disadvantage in their
wars with the British.

Perhaps the most puzzling cultural divide was to be found in
differing approaches to writing and literacy. In common with much of
the early modern Islamic world, Mughal India did not adopt movable
type printing. The Portuguese operated a printing press with movable
metal type at Goa in the 15 50s. Religious tracts in various south Indian
languages were printed from fonts of Romanized script.? Akbar
acquired a large number of printed European books for his library
from the Jesuit missionaries. In 1606 the Jesuits showed Jahangir a
copy of the Gospels printed in the Arabic script to verify that this was
possible.? Nevertheless, despite this exposure, none of the emperors,
intellectuals, or nobles showed any interest in printing. This is

? HH. Das, The Norris Embassy to Aurangzib (Calcutta, 1959). pp. 293-94.
® Qaisar, Indian Response, p. 58.
» Ibid., p. 60.

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THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

especially surprising in view of the enormous mass of written materials
required to operate the imperial administration. Widespread adoption
of mechanical printing only began in Bengal under British colonial
rule.

Mughal civilization was far more outward looking than Tokugawa
Japan. Certainly the emperor and the imperial elite were informed
about its neighboring countries and regions. Elite and popular atten-
tion was fixed primarily on the Islamic world to the west and especially
on the Ottomans and Safavids. The Mughal emperors, measuring their
success by wealth, victory, and grandeur, saw little to interest them in
the politics and culture of Europe.

REVERSALS AND DECLINE

It was only after Aurangzeb annexed the Sultanates of Bijapur and
Golconda that the forward momentum of victory and centralized
control slowed and reversed. The three decades from 1689 to the end of
Farrukhsiyar’s reign in 1719 saw the deterioration and, in the end, the
destruction of the centralized imperial system. An empire accustomed
to never-ending expansion and victory could not adjust to losses and
defeats. No longer confident and unassailable, the emperor, the
princes, and the nobility of the empire struggled with shrinking
resources, loss of control, and growing disorder. Aurangzeb’s rigid
and imperceptive policies, especially in the Deccan, failed to respond to
the growing crisis.

Under Aurangzeb imperial policy reverted to the militance of
Indo-Muslim frontier expansion. Under Aurangzeb political loyalty
was increasingly seen as sectarian loyalty. Only Muslims could partici-
pate fully in the Timurid empire. Religious sentiment did translate in
complex and meaningful ways into political responses in Mughal India.

High level policy debate — never a strong point within the system —
was pallid and ineffectual. Unlike contemporary Ottoman practice, we
find no examples of clearly stated memorials to the throne, written by
high-ranking officers, that questioned the costs of Aurangzeb’s Deccan
war. When such debate did occur, during the great sieges of Bijapur,
Golconda, and Jinji, the princes were the locus. And, unfortunately,
their role as loyal opposition encountered Aurangzeb’s fear and
suspicion of his sons. Opposition or independent negotiation with the
enemy was viewed as treasonous.

290

CONCLUSION

Between 1707 and 1720 the centralized structure of empire broke
apart. Four wracking, bitter, wars of succession occurred in this
thirteen-year period. The bureaucratic edifice manned by skilled
technical staff lost its efficiency and probity. The two central institu-
tions managed by that bureaucracy — the zabt revenue system and the
assignment of jagirs — degenerated to caricatures. The revenue system
slid into tax farming and those jagirs assigned rapidly became local
fiefs. Mughal officers maneuvered successfully to have jagirs assigned
to their home localities and to keep the same assignments for extended
periods.

This rapid collapse could have been an inevitable result of a “jagir
crisis,” that is the widening gap between the salary demands of the
mansabdars and revenue-yielding lands sufficient to meet those needs.
Was it this crucial link between rural society, the regulation land tax
system, and the military elites which faltered? Was the jagir crisis
symptomatic of a mismatch between the ever-rising resource demands
of the state and the capacity of Indian society to meet those demands?
Irfan Habib has taken this view.

In the well-known last chapter of his 1963 book, Habib argues that
official revenue policy — driven by ever-expanding imperial expenses —
appropriated the entire surplus produced by the peasantry. The jagir
system itself inevitably drove up the revenue demand as time passed.
This flaw did not show up in the nominal assessment, which increased
roughly in tandem with prices, but rather in the behavior of the
individual jagirdar. The latter, who held his lands for no more than
three or four years before transfer, maintained no long-term interest in
their prosperity. Hence each jagirdar’s need for money encouraged
him to “sanction any act of oppression that conferred an immediate
benefit upon him, even if it ruined the peasantry and so destroyed the
revenue-paying capacity of that area for all time.’”!° Cultivation fell off
as oppression increased and peasants left the land because they could
not survive. Responding to this cycle zamindars squeezed between the
jagirdars and the peasantry entered into armed revolts at the head of
their rural dependents. In support of this argument Habib refers to the
protracted revolts of the Jats and Sikhs. The most devastating zamin-
dari rebellion flared up in the Maratha resistance in the Deccan.

This powerful interpretation has colored virtually all recent popular
10 Irfan Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India (London: Asia Publishing House,

1963), p. 320.

291

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

writing and most scholarly views of the Mughal empire. In recent years
critics have become more vocal. Examination of post-conquest
imperial policies in Golconda suggests that policy choices had a
bearing on the severity of the jagir crisis. Aurangzeb seems to have
decided to retain many productive tracts in Golconda and also in
Bijapur under direct crown control. Thereby jagirdars serving in the
Deccan were denied access to the new resources obtained by conquest
and annexation.!! Other critics have pointed out difficulties in firmly
identifying the links between oppressive jagirdars, agrarian resistance
and imperial decline. Checks against abuse were built into the system.
A plausible case can be made that agricultural production was increas-
ing, not decreasing, and that peasants were not fleeing the land, but
expanding the cultivated area. It is difficult to accept the notion that the
imperial system itself either stifled or stagnated economic growth and
social change. Quite the reverse. Evidence for a prosperous town
gentry, well-to-do peasants, and a substantial commercial and trading
community abounds.

As Satish Chandra has pointed out transfers of jagirs for large
holders may have not been as frequent as we have previously thought
and many nobles may have held on to their lands for ten years or
more. “In fact, not frequent transfers but the decay of the practice of
periodic transfers of jagirs during the eighteenth century made the
jagirs hereditary, and led to the further strengthening of the zamindars
as a class.”!? In short, the jagir crisis, while certainly serious, was not
the central reason for imperial decline.

The revolts in northern India occurred partly because of inattentive
and weak administration in those years when Aurangzeb was preoccu-
pied in the Deccan. From one perspective, at least, the shortage of
productive jagir lands can be located in official policy and in the
devastation and dislocation wrought by the Deccan wars. Thereafter a
series of political crises caused by struggles over the throne rapidly
weakened the integrity of non-hereditary salary assignments and the
regulation land tax system.

Was there a structural disjuncture between Mughal state and society
that led to long-term, unremedied, structural weaknesses? Two link-
ages were essential for centralized Mughal authority. These were the
ties of emotion and interest that bound the nobility to the throne and

11 See Richards, Mughal Administration, for a full discussion of this issue.
12 Satish Chandra, Medieval India (Delhi: Orient Longmans, 1982), p. 73.

292

CONCLUSION

those contractual ties buttressed by self-interest that linked the rural
warrior aristocracies to the empire. For nobles and zamindars the aim
was similar: to convert armed warrior aristocrats into dependable
imperial servants. Mughal expansion and dynamic growth was the
impetus for a slow, but steady socialization and transformation of each
group. Retreat on the frontiers, confusion, and loss of confidence
halted this process.

Both linkages came under intense strain in the years between 1689
and 1720. Factional conflict, sinking at times to bitter fighting in the
streets of Delhi, severely tested the loyalties of the nobility. Nobles and
mansabdars discovered that personal ties to the emperor were atten-
uated as the factional struggle proceeded. The emperor was less and less
able to deploy and control amirs to meet imperial needs. Nobles
managed their households, revenue collection, troops, and their
assigned tasks to best serve perceived needs for survival — not royal
favor and preference. In the provinces, impeccably loyal governors and
diwans ignored regulations and taboos. To survive they shaped
regional systems of power and authority which became Mughal
successor states. Even a consummate technician like Murshid Quli
Khan became a regional ruler in Bengal and Orissa despite his manifest
loyalty to the Timurid throne.

These problems were most severe with the two major groups of
Hindu nobles. Aurangzeb proved unable to- repair his relationship
with the Rajputs. Long-term trends within Rajasthan, such as the
steadily centralizing authority and power of the great Rajput noble
houses, may have demanded alterations in the Rajput-Timurid
relationship. Since the Rajput war of 1679 the Mughal empire had
suffered from the growing alienation of this important segment of the
Mughal nobility. Aurangzeb and his immediate successors were unable
to restore a relationship of affection, trust and dependence between the
ruler and Rajput amirs. What proved to be half-hearted attempts at
conciliation and reincorporation failed.

Equally devastating was Timurid failure to incorporate Maratha
rulers and commanders in the western Deccan as full participants in the
governance of the empire. Crucial opportunities to enlist Maratha
loyalties were lost. Those Marathas who accepted imperial mansabs
were used primarily as troop commanders in the Deccan and were not
rotated in service elsewhere in the empire. In the east, apart from one or
two unhappy exceptions, no Telugu aristocrats were recruited as

293

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

nobles and military commanders. The regime’s preoccupation with the
Marathas prevented any attempt to incorporate this numerous and able
warrior group into the imperial elite.

The later Timurid regime did not succeed in converting armed
zamindars into disarmed quasi-officials who would reliably carry out
imperial policy. Instead, by the second decade of the eighteenth
century, widespread violent resistance by zamindars occurred in every
region of North India as well as in the Deccan. The Sikh, Beas Rajput,
and Jat resistance are only three examples of widespread violence in the
countryside. That intrusion into the hard-shelled pargana structures of
the country begun by Akbar with the zabt system faltered during the
Deccan wars. Across North India thousands of zamindars discovered
that contractual agreements (sanads) made with the Mughal emperor
possessed dwindling worth. The regime was failing to guarantee
zamindari rights and failing to enforce zamindari obligations in the
countryside.

In the south the Mughals failed to reconstitute the agrarian system of
the western Deccan. Decades of Mughal campaigns and diplomatic
pressures on Ahmadnagar, Khandesh, and Bijapur weakened authority
structures in the Muslim Sultanates of the western Deccan to the point
that they could not retain the services and loyalties of Maratha
deshmukhs and other landholders in the countryside. Inclusion in the
emerging Bhonsla structure became a viable alternative to many, but
not all, Maratha zamindars. In the eastern Deccan under the Sultanate
of Golconda, the state retained coherent authority in the countryside
over the Telugu aristocracy. After conquest the Telugu nayaks did not
join the Marathas in rebellion and remained relatively quiescent under
the new regime.

Widespread violent resistance directed against the Timurid regime
by zamindars and peasants can be explained simply as a predictable
response to weakened imperial power. Oppressed and burdened by
Mughal revenue demands local zamindars and peasants at the first
opportunity joined in resisting the demands of the centralizing state.
The difficulty with this analysis is that the secular trend between
Akbar’s reforms in the 1580s to 1700 or thereabouts suggests that,
although occasional episodes of brutal oppression can be identified,
most zamindars and peasants were prospering. With the exception of
war-torn regions in the Deccan, generally agricultural production
seems to have increased and the area under cultivation grew steadily.

294

CONCLUSION

Agricultural growth responded directly to expanding markets driven
by the state’s revenue demands and by the demand impulses generated
by new export markets. Networks of trading towns (qasbas) and larger
villages grew more dense. These were inhabited by increasingly
well-to-do traders and moneylenders like the Khatris in the Punjab.

Under these circumstances cooperation with the regime could pay
real dividends. The state by its contractual relationships with zamin-
dars and elite peasants (often referred to as “village zamindars”)
provided guarantees of security and stability. A market in the sale and
lease of zamindars’ rights emerged. Consequently peaceful aggran-
dizement began to supplant the aggression, colonization, and settle-
ment of warrior/peasant lineages formerly engaged in miniature local
warfare. Documented sales of zamindar rights supply powerful evi-
dence that the centralizing Timurid regime successfully intervened in
the arrangement and distribution of local power.

Why then these revolts under the later Mughals? One answer is that
the very success of the Timurid agrarian system brought about
important changes in rural society. These changes required, but did not
receive, recognition and adjustment by the regime. Under Shah Jahan
and Aurangzeb sizable numbers of Muslim ulema and their dependents
were given tax-free grants of land. Royal patronage provided the
umbrella under which grant recipients took up residence in market
towns or in larger villages. Returns from untaxed lands as well as
frequent engagement in the trading life of these towns brought
prosperity to a burgeoning class of Muslim gentry. In addition to
tax-free lands they also enjoyed freedom from the burden of jiziya. If
from these bases Muslim, or even Hindu trading groups, took the
opportunity to obtain zamindari rights, their interests would
inevitably clash with those of the zamindars. The current evidence,
though sketchy, suggests a real cleavage between Muslim gentry ranks
and those of the Jat peasantry in the Sikh rebellion, for example.

Rising production and monetization of the rural economy put more
resources at the disposal of both zamindars and peasants. Many
successful local lineages, like the Beas Rajputs, growing in numbers,
wished to expand their domains. If the Mughal agrarian order con-
tinued strong and resilient, these groups could have used their profits
to purchase or lease added rights in neighboring lands. Such expansion
would have been an important step in demilitarizing these warrior
lineages. On the other hand, if the state’s local control slackened as it

295

THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

did in Aurangzeb’s later years, prosperous zamindars could count on
greater resources — money and men — by which to annex new lands
with time-honored violent methods. Possessing ample funds they
could obtain the services of non-kinsmen from the local military labor
market. For such warrior elites the constraints of expansion by
purchase may well have been irksome and the violent tactics of men of
honor preferable.

As yet unexamined is the extent to which local zamindars had slowly
gained a military advantage vis-a-vis imperial forces. The growing
popularity of improved muskets and greater proficiency in their use
should have been advantageous to zamindars who relied primarily on
foot soldiery. Better-equipped, more numerous, and better drilled
musketeers might even the balance with imperial heavy cavalry.
Certainly the Mughals themselves increasingly hired professional,
specialized bodies of musketeers available for service from eastern
Hindustan (Buxaris) and other localities in the subcontinent.’ If local
elites could use their financial strength to hire large numbers of
competent musketeers, they could have reduced the tactical disparity
between themselves and Mughal contingents.

Mughal intervention in rural Indian society, initially highly
effective, hesitated at a critical juncture. If the agrarian system had
remained intact, its effect would have been to slowly demilitarize
cadres of local warrior aristocrats.'* Instead the long-term effect was to
increase the confidence and the resources of the zamindars and to
encourage conflict with more prominent gentry and trading groups.
Perhaps the empire was not sufficiently flexible to deal with social
change that its new order itself had helped to bring about. The
Timurids failed to incorporate zamindars into the political life and
culture of the Mughal empire nor did they have the resources and will
to forcefully disarm and demilitarize these bellicose warrior groups in
the countryside. Only their successors, the British, who were con-
structing a rapidly modernizing colonial state, were able to reach that
goal after decades of remorseless military campaigns.

When the empire began to decline signs of economic decline in the
subcontinental economy are noticeable. Growing disorder brought on
by unchecked raiding and plundering in the Deccan did inhibit

13 Dirk H. A. Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990), pp. 159-176.

4 Barrington Moore, in his Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston, 1956),
first articulated this vital point in a comparative assessment.

296

CONCLUSION

economic activity. But in many regions, growth continued at a steady
pace. The structural break-up of empire in the early eighteenth century
did not necessarily force the complete dissolution of the inter-regional
imperial economy. Instead, those forces for change already present
responded to new incentives and growth continued.

By the first decade of Muhammad Shah’s reign, money, information,
orders, and men no longer moved from capital to province and from
province to province at the emperor’s command. After 1720 the
formerly centralized empire continued as a loosely knit collection of
regional kingdoms, whose rulers, although styling themselves imperial
governors, offered only token tribute and service to the Mughal
emperor at Delhi. The Marathas, headquartered at Poona, were organ-
izing a counter-empire, one less rigid, more flexible than the Mughal
empire. The symbols and aura of Timurid authority continued to
fascinate the hardened Indian and European politicians and generals of
eighteenth century India. The Mughal empire was fast becoming
merely the empty shell of its formerly grand structure.

297

abisheka
abadis
amil

amin

amir

anna
bakhshi
bankatai
banjara
bek
bhaibamdh
bhakti
bhumiya
bigah
chabutra
chaudburi
chauth
chhatrapati
dagh
Dar-al Islam

Dar-al Jihad
darshan

GLOSSARY

the Brahminical coronation ceremony for Hindu
rulers.

cadre of high-status cavalrymen employed directly by
the Mughal emperor.

agents in charge of revenue collection.

a revenue officer charged with revenue collection.

a Mughal officer of high status and rank, a nobleman.
one-sixteenth part of a rupee.

a military paymaster also in charge of military inspec-
tions and intelligence gathering.

populating land after clearing the forests.

itinerant traders employing thousands of pack oxen to
transport salt, foodgrains, and other bulk commo-
dities.

a Central Asian or Turkish term for a man of high
status and rank.

a Rajput patrilineage claiming shared descent up to six
or more generations.

popular devotional Hinduism centered on poet saints
and their followers.

warriors of the land, less powerful retainers of a
Rajput thakur or chief.

unit of land area standardized by imperial decree at
approximately three-fifths of an acre.

the raised platform found in city squares used for
public executions and punishments.

in North India quasi-official recognized as the
headman of a pargana by the imperial authorities.
traditional one-fourth portion of the land revenues
claimed by zamindars and later the Marathas in
western India.

Sanskrit term for all-conquering ruler.

a distinctive brand placed on the flank of horses
meeting imperial standards.

Mughal copper coin valued at one-fortieth of a rupee.
the abode or land of legitimate Islamic rule and
practice.

the land of war or unbelief.

personal worship of a god.

298

deshmukh
dharma
dhimmis

din

diwan

diwan-i khalisa

diwan-i kul
diwan-i tan

doab
durbar

farman

fath nama
fatwa

faujdar
gaddi
ganj
gaz

ghat

ghazi
ghurab

gulalbar
gusulkbana

hbammam
haveli

bun
igta

Jagirdar

GLOSSARY

in the Deccan a quasi-official recognized as the
headman of a pargana by the imperial authorities.
variable rights and duties associated with different
castes in the Hindu social order.

those non-Muslim peoples treated by Islamic rulers as
dependent communities with fixed rights and obli-
gations.

religion.

a fiscal or revenue officer within the Mughal admin-
istration.

officer in charge of all lands and revenue producing
units administered directly by the emperor.

also wazir or chief imperial fiscal minister.

Mughal minister in charge of salaries and perquisites
for mansabdars.

land lying between two rivers.

a public audience held by an official or ruler.

a formal, written, edict issued by the Mughal emperor
under his personal seal.

the victory proclamation issued by a Muslim ruler.

a public ruling on a point of law issued upon request
by a Muslim jurist or mufti.

a Mughal officer given military and executive respon-
sibility in a fixed area.

Hindi term for the low cushioned seat of a ruler.

a grain market.

imperial measure of length roughly equivalent to a
meter.

literally a step; used to refer to the bathing steps at a
river.

an armed warrior fighting for the faith of Islam,

a shallow draft war boat carrying cannon for use in
rivers and estuaries.

the screened-off living quarters and harem of the
Mughal emperor in camp.

the personal bathing room, of the Mughal emperor,
used for secret conferences with senior officers.

a public bath.

the quarters or urban areas surrounding noble
mansions.

a gold coin circulating in the Deccan and South India.
provinces or other regions ruled in the name of
medieval Indo-Muslim rulers by nobles or other
officers.

holder of revenue-producing lands assigned for salary,
Le. a jagir.

299

jagir

jama
jan
jauhar

jihad
jirga
jiziya
karuri
khalifa
khalisa
khan
khanazad
kha;

bbud-hasht zamindar
khutha

kotwal
langarkbana
lungi
madad-i mash

madrasa
mahajan
mahdi
mal

mal
mal-wajib zamindar

GLOSSARY

temporary fiscal right conferred by the Mughal
emperor to collect the land tax from a specified village,
pargana, or large area.

total revenues or revenue demand.

life or spirit

killing of female dependents in a last rite of defeated
Rajput warriors who then seek a suicidal death in
battle.

striving on behalf of the Islamic faith in the conflict
with unbelievers.

an Afghan tribal council.

an annual tax levied on protected non-Muslim com-
munities by Islamic rulers.

a revenue official under Akbar.

the caliph or the secular successor to the Prophet
Muhammad who assumes leadership of the entire
Muslim world.

lands or other entities producing revenue directly for
the emperor and the central treasury.

a Turkish and Central Asian honorific term for chief
or nobleman.

“son of the house”, an officer boasting hereditary
family service to the Mughal emperor.

an extended patrilineal Jat clan.

smaller zamindars dominant within villages.

prayers which acknowledge the legitimate ruler of the
kingdom uttered at the time of the weekly congre-
gational Friday prayers.

a city magistrate.

the Sikh charitable kitchen at which all comers are fed.
cotton cloth used as a men’s loincloth.

tax-free lands given to pious or otherwise worthy
recipients as charity.

school or seminary offering instruction in Islamic
jurisprudence, theology, philosophy and similar
topics.

traders in grain and other commodities.

Muslim belief that the Prophet Muhammad will
return as the savior of Islam or mahdi.

property anid goods.

term for revenues obtained from the land tax.

a landholder who collected specified revenues for the
Mughals in return for tax-free lands and a percentage
of his collections.

imperial unit of weight.

300

mansab

mansabdari
mansabdar

maths
mir bakhshi

mir saman

mobulla
muchalka
mufti

muhr
muhtasib

mujtahid
murid

namus
nankar

nayak
padshah
pahi
paibaqi
paisa
pargana

pir
pishkash

qanungo
qasba
qazi
rabdar

raiyati
ratyat

GLOSSARY

rank, status and position denoted by numerical rank
and title.

of or pertaining to mansabdars.

officer holding a specified numerical rank and title
awarded by the Mughal emperor.

centers or hospices for Hindu orders of monks.

a high-ranking officer reporting directly to the
emperor in charge of military pay, inspections,
recruitment, and intelligence.

officer in charge of the royal household, palaces,
treasuries, mints and royal construction projects.

a town quarter or neighborhood.

a bond drawn up to assure good performance.

a Muslim jurist who issues public decisions on legal
matters.

Mughal gold coin.

Islamic official appointed to enforce the Sharia and to
regulate markets and commerce.

interpreter of the Holy Law of Islam.

disciple who has sworn devotion to a Sufi master or to
the Mughal emperor.

the honor of the warrior.

that portion of the revenue alloted zamindars for their
services.

local king or chief in South India.

Persian term for emperor or great king.

tenant farmers in Rajasthan.

unassigned jagir lands managed temporarily by the
diwan-i khalisa.

copper coin of the Sur dynasty.

asmall, named and bounded, rural administrative area
containing between ten to over one hundred villages
and one or more larger towns.

a Sufi saint or master.

tribute paid in money or goods to a superior.
quasi-official recognized by the imperial administra-
tion as the keeper of revenue records for a pargana or
district in North India.

a town, frequently applied to rural market towns.

a judge charged with upholding the holy law of Islam
and carrying out numerous civil functions.

military commander assigned the task of road
security.

peasant held, not zamindari.

Mughal term for peasants or rural subjects.

301

reale

sabat

sadr

sakti

sanad

Sarai
sardeshmukh
sardeshmukhi
sarkar
sarrafs
shaikh(s)

shast-wa shabah
sijdah

sikka

suwar

swaraj

taluqdar
tariqa
thakur
thana
thanadar
tika
ulema

GLOSSARY

a Spanish silver coin minted in the New World
revenues in lieu of pay and perquisites.

a covered approach way, often a trench, constructed
to allow an assault on a besieged fortress.

Muslim head of religious patronage for the Mughal
emperor.

worship of the energies of Kali or Devi, the great
destructive female goddesses in Hinduism.

a written document or ‘order conferring office or
privileges.

a public inn run for the benefit of travelers.

chief of the deshmukhs within a province or region.
that ten percent of the revenue allocated to the chief
deshmukh or a region.

a named territorial and administrative unit between
the pargana and province.

moneychangers and purveyors of short-term com-
mercial credit in Mughal India.

leader or head of a Sufi order or hospice.

imperial seal and miniature portrait.

the extreme form of ceremonial prostration favored
by Sufi disciples before their masters and adapted by
Akbar for his court.

newly-minted coins circulating at a premium,
numerical ranking denoting the number of armed
heavy cavalrymen each Mughal officer was required
to bring to the muster.

refers to the original Maratha homelands under Shivaji.
a zamindar who collected land revenues from his
fellow zamindars in return for a commission from the
imperial revenue ministry.

the mystical path followed by all Sufis and other
mystics in search of God.

North Indian term for master or lord; used commonly
by Rajput and Jat castes.

a fortified military frontier checkpoint.

commander of a military border post.

the vermilion mark placed on the forehead of a Rajput
ruler.

men learned in the Sharia or Holy Law of Islam and
the Islamic subjects of higher learning.

the anniversary of the death of a revered saint.
deputy or assistant, chief minister in Akbar’s early
years.

a trust for religious and charitable purposes founded
by a Muslim.

302

watan
watan jagir

wazir
zabt

zakat

zamindars

GLOSSARY
ancestral lands held in the family of a Maratha chief or

warrior.

ancestral holdings assigned in jagir to Rajput Mughal
officers.

chief fiscal minister for the Mughal emperor.

the mature system of land tax assessment and collec-
tion under the Mughals.

obligatory tax levied on the property of Muslims
every year for charitable purposes.

landlords or landholders who controlled the
peasantry directly.

personal numerical rank held by a Mughal officer.

393

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY

GENERAL HISTORIES

The short narrative account of the Mughals in The Oxford History of India
(Oxford, 3rd edition, 1958) is helpful for a quick overview. R. C. Majumdar,
ed., The History and Culture of the Indian People, The Mughul Empire,
although detailed, has a decidedly anti-Muslim bias. More readable, with
superb illustrations, is Bamber Gascoigne’s The Great Moghuls (London,
1971). Another popular narrative is Waldemar Hansen, The Peacock Throne
(New York, 1972). A number of regional or provincial histories cover the
entire Mughal period. Among these are Jadunath Sarkar, ed., History of
Bengal: Muslim Period 1200-1757 (Patna, 1973) and B. C. Ray, Orissa Under
the Mughals (Calcutta, 1981).

BABUR, HUMAYUN, AND SHER SHAH

Babur’s own memoir can be read in the A. S. Beveridge translation of his
Babur-Nama (New Delhi, reprint edition, 1970). Stephen Dale discusses the
intensely personal nature of this memoir in “Steppe Humanism: The Auto-
biographical Writings of Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur, 1483-1530,” Inter-
national Journal of Middle East Studies 22 (1990), 37-58. The most recent full
biography is Mohibbul Hasan, Babur, Founder of the Mughal Empire in India
(Delhi, 1985). Still lacking is a first-rate study that places Babur intelligibly in
both his Central Asian and North Indian worlds. Humayun’s reign is covered
in Ishwari Prasad, The Life and Times of Humayun (Calcutta, 1955).
Gulbadan Begam, in her memoirs, The History of Humayun (London, 1902),
translated by A. Beveridge offers a noblewoman’s perspective on the dynasty
and India. Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely
Vision (Los Angeles, 1989) argue that Timur and his successors refined a
coherent aesthetic designed to buttress and support political domination.

Iqtidar Alam Khan’s biography of Humayun’s brother, Mirza Kamran
(Bombay, 1964) is also useful. One of the best treatments of the Surs is I. H.
Siddiqi, History of Sher Shah Sur (Aligarh, 1971) and by the same author
Afghan Despotism in India (Aligarh, 1969).

AKBAR
The official history of the reign is by Abul Fazl, Akbar-Nama (Delhi, 3 vols.,
reprint 1977) in the Beveridge translation. Frequently cited is the accompany-
ing imperial manual, the Ain-i Akbari translated by H. Beveridge (Lahore,
reprint 1975). Distinctly unofficial is the unsympathetic Abdul Qadir

304

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS

Badauni, Muntahkhabu-t Tawarikh (Calcutta, 3 vols., 1864~9). A. Monser-
rate Commentary ... on his journey to the Court of Akbar translated by J. S.
Hoyland (London, 1922) is an informative visitor’s account. In a provocative
synthesis, Douglas E. Streusand, The Formation of the Mughal Empire (Delhi,
1989) sets out a new interpretation of the evolution of Mughal political
institutions under Akbar. K. A. Nizami, Akbar and Religion (Delhi, 1989)
systematically analyzes. N. A. Siddiqi, Land Revenue Administration Under
the Mughals 1700-1750 (Aligarh, 1970) treats the deterioration of the revenue
system in north India.

IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION, MILITARY, AND DIPLOMACY

For administrative, political, and economic geography consult Irfan Habib,
An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (Delhi, 1982). The atlas, the product of
inspired scholarship, contains detailed political and economic maps of each
province. For the revenue system and imperial institutions generally Irfan
Habib’s The Agrarian System of Mughal India (London, 1963) is indispensa-
ble. I. H. Qureshi, The Administration of the Mughul Empire (Karachi, 1966)
is clear and concise. The most informative treatment of the Mughal nobility is
M. Athar Ali, The Mughal Nobility Under Aurangzeb (Aligarh, 1966) and
consult also Athar Ali, The Apparatus of Empire (Delhi, 1985) an exhaustive
compendium on the nobility prior to 1658. H. Beveridge and B. Prashad have
translated the large biographical dictionary of the Mughal nobility, Shah
Nawaz Khan, The Maathir-ul-Umara (New Delhi, 2 vols., reprint edition
1979). See S. N. Sinha, Subah of Allahabad Under the Great Mughals (Delhi,
1974) and B. C. Ray, Orissa Under the Mughals (Calcutta, 1981) for provin-
cial administration. The excellent study by S. P. Gupta, The Agrarian System
of Eastern Rajasthan (c. 1650 to c. 1750) (Delhi, 1986) is based upon analysis of
the voluminous archival sources from this region. See also S. A. A. Rizvi,
Religious and Intellectual History of the Muslims in Akbar’s Reign (New
Delhi, 1975); J. F. Richards, “The Formulation of Imperial Authority Under
Akbar and Jahangir” in J. F. Richards, ed., Kingship and Authority in South
Asia (Madison, 1978) is also useful. Shireen Moosvi has intensively analyzed
the statistical material found in the Ain-i Akbari and ancillary sources in The
Economy of the Mughal Empire c. 1595 (Delhi, 1987). The question of Akbar’s
illiteracy is discussed in an important article by Ellen Smart, “Akbar, Illiterate
Genius,” Kaladarshana (1981), pp. 99-107.

JAHANGIR

Anew critical study of Jahangir is badly needed. The standard biography, Beni
Prasad, History of Jahangir (London, 1922) is outdated. Jahangir’s own
account is to be found in the A. Rogers and H. Beveridge translation, The
Tuzuk-iJahangiri (Delhi, 2nd. edn., 2 vols. in one, 1968). An excellent example
of the Indo-Muslim “Mirrors for Princes” literature is Sajida Alvi’s Advice on
the Art of Governance (Albany, 1989), the text and translation of a treatise

305

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS

written in Jahangir’s reign. A fascinatingly candid Mughal nobleman’s auto-
biography is Mirza Nathan, Baharistan-i Ghaybi (Gauhati, 2 vols., 1936)
translated by M. I. Borah. Thomas Roe gives us an astute foreign view of
Jahangir and his court in W. Foster, ed., The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to
India 615-1619 (London, rev. edn, 1926).

SHAH JAHAN

The standard history of the reign, long out-dated, is Banarsi Prasad Saksena,
History of Shah Jahan of Dili (Allahabad, reprint of 1932 edition, 1973). The
massive official chronicles of Shah Jahan’s reign have not been translated, but
W.E. Begley and Z. A. Desai, eds., The Shah Jahan Nama of 'Inayat Khan
(Delhi, 1990) have published a translation of an abridged version of those
histories. The better traveller’s accounts include Sebastian Manrique, Travels
of Fray Sebastian Manrique 1629~1643 (Cambridge, 1927) and Peter Mundy,
Travels, Vol. 2: Travels in Asia, 1630-1634, ed. R. C. Temple (London, 1914).

AURANGZEB

The standard biography is by Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib (Cal-
cutta, 5 vols., 1912-24). This is still the most reliable full political and military
narrative that we possess. S. Moinul Haq, Khafi Khan’s History of Alamgir
(Karachi, 1975) translates the best narrative history of Aurangzeb’s reign.
Jadunath Sarkar has translated Saqi Mustaid Khan, Maasir-i Alamgiri (Cal-
cutta, 1947), a history of the reign that is more terse and official. $. C. Dutta,
The Northeast and the Mughals (1661-1714) (New Delhi, 1984) is an
evenhanded treatment of the political and military history of this neglected
region. See also Gautam Bhadra, “Two Frontier Uprisings in Mughal India”
in Ranajit Guha, ed., Subaltern Studies 11: Writings on South Asian History and
Society (Delhi, 1983). Provincial studies include Anjali Chatterjee, Bengal in
the Reign of Aurangzib 1658-1707 (Calcutta, 1967) and J. F. Richards,
Mughal Administration in Golconda (Oxford, 1975). Satish Chandra, Medi-
eval India, Society, the Jagirdari Crisis and the Village (Delhi, 1981) brings
together a set of powerful essays touching major themes and issues in later
imperial history.

The half century of Aurangzeb’s reign is rich in descriptive accounts by
European sojourners and residents in India. A fascinating, and generally
reliable, history of Aurangzeb’s half century by a participant is N. Manucci,
Storia do Mogor or Mogul India (Calcutta, 4 vols., 1907-8) translated by
William Irvine. The best-known European account is that of Francois Bernier,
Travels in the Mogul Empire ao 1656-1668 (Delhi, reprint of rev. 2nd. edn,
1968) translated by A. Constable. H. H. Das, The Norris Embassy to Aurang-
zib (Calcutta, 1959) summarizes and quotes extensively from the journals of
the English ambassador to the Mughal court at the turn of the century. Jagdish
Sarkar’s The Life of Mir Jumla (New Delhi, 2nd rev. edn., 1979) has a detailed
description of a remarkable career.

306

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS

BAHADUR SHAH TO MUHAMMAD SHAH

The best narrative is still William Irvine, Later Mughals (New Delhi, 2 vols. in
one, reprint edition, 1971). Bengal in this period is covered in Abdul Karim,
Murshid Quli Khan and His Times (Dacca, 1963). Satish Chandra, Parties and
Politics at the Mughal Court, 1707-1740 (New Delhi, 2nd. edn. 1972) analyzes
the politics of the center. A brilliant, incisive discussion of imperial decline in
this period is Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India
(Delhi, 1986). See also Muzaffar Alam, “Eastern India in the Early Eighteenth
Century ‘Crisis’: Some Evidence from Bihar” in The Indian Economic and
Social History Review, 28 (1991), 43-72-

One of the few works to analyze the Mughal military system is that of Dirk
H. A. Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military
Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450-1850 (Cambridge, 1990). For an un-
equalled perspective on Mughal military operations see Jagdish Sarkar, The
Military Despatches of a Seventeenth Century Indian General (Calcutta,
1969).

Mughal relations with the other two large early modern Islamic states are of
great interest. Most recently we have the excellent study by N. R. Faroogqi,
Mughal-Ottoman Relations (Delhi, 1989) and Riazul Islam, Indo-Persian
Relations: A Study of the Political and Diplomatic Relations Between Mughal
Empire and Iran (Tehran, 1970).

THE ECONOMY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

The first volume of Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib, eds., The
Cambridge Economic History of India (Cambridge, 1982) is largely devoted to
Mughal India. John F. Richards, ed., The Imperial Monetary System of
Mughal India (Delhi, 1987) is a useful approach to questions of money and
coinage. A seminal article on Mughal commerce is B.R. Grover, “An
Integrated Pattern of Commercial Life in the Rural Society of North India
During the 17th-18th Centuries” in Proceedings, Indian Historical Records
Commission, 37 (1966), 121-53. Ashin Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the
Decline of Surat c. 1700-1750 (Wiesbaden, 1979) is a scholarly, gracefully
written analysis of the decline of the great Mughal port.

For urbanization see the relevant sections in Raychaudhuri and Habib,
above. Systematic excavation of potentially rich urban, town, and village sites
has only begun for medieval and Mughal India. The benefits of intense,
cooperative research may be seen in the essays in Michael Brand and Glenn D.
Lowry, eds., Fatehpur Sikri (Bombay, 1987). Stephen P. Blake, Shahjahana-
bad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India, 1639-1739 (Cambridge, 1990)
provides an excellent analysis of Shah Jahan’s new city and its evolution over a
century. Much descriptive material from the major histories and European
travelers has been assembled in H. K. Naqvi, Mughal Hindustan: Cities and
Industries 1556-1803 (Karachi, 1958) and by the same author Urbanization
and Urban Centers Under the Great Mughals (Simla, 1972). Gavin Hambly,

307

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS

Cities of Mughal India: Delhi, Agra and Fatehpur Sikri (New York, 1968) is a
readable, well-illustrated volume.

The India trade has been an important field within the massive academic
industry devoted to the study of early modern Europe. Many able scholars
have made good use of the copious sources found in the archives of Europe.
For the Portuguese, the best recent synthesis is M. N. Pearson, The Portu-
guese in India (Cambridge, 1987), vol. 1.1 in The New Cambridge History of
India. The definitive work on the English East India Company is K. N.
Chaudhuri, The European Trading World of Asia and the English East India
Company 1660-1760 (Cambridge, 1978). For a broad synthesis see by the
same author, Asia Before Europe: Economy and Civilization of the Indian
Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, 1990). For a review of the
Dutch from the perspective of the metropolis, see Jonathan I. Israel, Dutch
Primacy in World Trade 1585-1740 (Oxtord, 1989). An invaluable regional
study is Om Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of
Bengal, 1630-1720 (Princeton, 1985). See also Susil Chaudhuri, Trade and
Commercial Organization in Bengal, 1650-1720 (Calcutta, 1975). An
excellent study of the southeastern trade under the Mughals is $. Arasaratnam,
Merchants, Companies, and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast 1650-1740
(Delhi, 1986). For an earlier period see Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Political
Economy of Commerce: Southern India, 1500-1650 (Cambridge, 1990).
Edward Alpers points out the importance of maritime trade between western
India and eastern Africa in this period in “Gujarat and the Trade of East
Africa, c. 1500-1800,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies
9 (1976), 22-44.

CULTURAL, ETHNIC AND LOCAL HISTORY

S. A. A. Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements in Northern India in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Agra, 1965) is a detailed study of
religious change in Indian Islam. Rizvi’s two-volume A History of Sufism in
India (Delhi, 1983) is a comprehensive treatment of the Sufi orders in Mughal
India. Yohanan Friedmann, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (Montreal, 1971) adopts a
revisionist approach to Sirhindi. See also Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic
Culture in the Indian Environment (Oxford, 1964). Asim Roy, The Islamic
Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal (Princeton, 1985) highlights the distinctive
character of the expansive, rice-growing, frontier-settling Bengali Islam in this

riod.
Phe literature on the Sikhs is extensive. The most recent overview can be
found in J. S. Grewal, The Sikhs in the-Punjab in The New Cambridge History
of India. See also by the same author, Guru Nanak in History (Chandigarh,
1969) and W. H. McLeod, Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion (Oxford, 1968).
An excellent biography of the last Sikh guru is J. S. Grewal and S. S. Bal, Guru
Gobind Singh (Chandigarh, 1967).

Newly invigorated historical studies on the Rajputs have begun to meld
detailed information from archival sources with the Rajput chronicles and

308

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS

bardic poetry. Kunwar Refagat Ali Khan, The Kachhwahas Under Akbar
and Jahangir (New Delhi, 1976) has compiled useful data on the Jaipur
house. Richard Fox, Kin, Clan, Raja, and Rule (Berkeley, 1971) has
modelled the life cycle of Rajput lineages in the Gangetic plain. See Norman
P, Ziegler, “Some Notes on Rajput Loyalties During the Mughal Period” in
Richards, ed., Kingship and Authority. Satya Prakash Gupta, The Agrarian
System of Eastern Rajasthan (c. 1650-c. 1750) (Delhi, 1986) is a convincing
example of the value of the archival sources preserved in various Rajput
capitals. See also R. P. Rana, “Agrarian Revolts in Northern India during the
Late 17th and Early 18th Century,” The Indian Economic and Social History
Review 28 (1981) 287-326 for a valuable case study. Robert C. Hallissey, The
Rajput Rebellion Against Aurangzeb (Columbia, 1977) reinterprets the
Rajput wars.

The most entrancing history of the Marathas is that written by a British
colonial officer in western India, James Grant Duff, History of the Mabrattas
(New Delhi, 2 vols. in one, reprint edition, 1971) first published in the early
nineteenth century and incorporating data from sources now lost. The best
overview of the Marathas is to be found in Stewart Gordon, The Marathas,
1600-1800 (forthcoming) in The New Cambridge History of India. For a full
narrative see G. S. Sardesai, New History of the Marathas (Bombay, 3 vols.,
197). Jadunath Sarkar, Shivaji and His Times (Bombay, reprint edition, 1973)
is still a useful narrative. A. R. Kulkarni, the distinguished Maratha historian,
reviews the structures of society, state, and economy in Mabhrashtra in the Age
of Shivaji (Poona, 1974). For details on a neglected period see A. R. Kulkarni,
The Mughal-Maratha Relations: Twenty-Five Fateful Years (1682-1707)
(Pune, 1983). See also Andre Wink, Land and Sovereignty in India: Agrarian
Society and Politics Under the Eighteenth Century Maratha Svarajya
(Cambridge, 1986).

M. C. Pradhan’s anthropological study, The Political System of the Jats of
Northern India (Bombay, 1966) points to the need for systematic research
among lineage, clan, and family records. Two important documentary
collections reinforce this point: B. N. Goswamy and J.S. Grewal, The
Mughals and the Joghis of Jakhbar (Simla, 1967) and J.S. Grewal, In the
By-Lanes of History: Some Persian Documents from a Punjab Town (Simla,
1975).

GARDENS, PAINTING, ARCHITECTURE

The visual appeal of Mughal gardens, painting, and buildings has encouraged a
large literature of handsomely produced volumes. Only a few can be men-
tioned here. For gardens see Sylvia Crowe, et al. The Gardens of Mughul
India (New Delhi, 1972). A stimulating interpretation of the changing uses for
gardens is in James L. Wescoat, Jr., “Gardens Versus Citadels: The Territorial
Context of Early Mughal Gardens” in J. D. Hunt, ed., Landscape and Garden
History: Issues, Approaches, Methods (Washington DC, 1991). For painting
under Jahangir and Shah Jahan see Milo Beach, The Grand Mogul: Imperial

309

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS

Painting in India 1600-1660 (Williamstown, 1978), also Milo C. Beach,
Mughal Painting (forthcoming) in The New Cambridge History of India.
Wayne Begley, “The Myth of the Taj Mahal and a New Theory of Its
Symbolic Meaning,” The Art Bulletin (March, 1979) offers a revisionist
interpretation of the tomb complex. See also by Begley, “Ahmad, Ustad” in
Adolf K. Placzek, Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects (New York, 1982).
Catherine B. Asher, Mughal Architecture (forthcoming) in The New Cam-
bridge History of India contains a complete treatment of Mughal building. See
Ebba Koch, Shah Jahan and Orpheus (Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlag-
sanstalr, 1988) for a stimulating analysis of European influences in Mughal
architecture under Shah Jahan.

310

INDEX

Abbas, Shah, 51, 111, 112, 114

Abbas II, Shah, 134

Abd-al Haq Dihlawi, 99

Abdul Aziz, 132, 133

Abdul Nabi, 39, 41

Abdul Wahhab Bohra, 174

Abdullah Khan, governor of Malwa, 17

Abdullah Khan, 270, 271, 272, 273

Abdullah Khan Uzbek, 49, 51

Abdullah Qutb Shah, 115, 154-5, 156

Abul Fazl, 26, 31, 45, 5199) 129) 175

‘Abul Hasan Qutb Shah, 214, 217, 221, 222,
227

Acmal Khan, 171

Adham Khan, 14, 15

Adil Khan Sur, 16

Adil Shah, Muhammad, Sultan of Bijapur,
147, 205, 207

Afghan coinage, 73

Afghan nobility, 60, 66, 145, 146,

221
Afghans, 6, 8, 16, 170
and the caravan trade, 50
conflict with Mughals, 10-11, 81
exclusion from nobility, 20
and land grants, 92
and Mahdawis, 38
and the revolt of 1579-80, 40
under Akbar’s rule, 37
Afridis, 170-1
Afzal Khan, 208
Aghar Khan, 250
Agra, 11, 12, 13, 62
fortress at, 27-8, 55
under Jahangir’s rule, tor
zabt lands, 188
agricultural production, 4, 292
in the Deccan, 236-7
growth in, 190, 193
and imperial decline, 294-5
taxation of, 185, 186-90, 204
Ahmadabad
occupation of, 32-3
revenues, 139
agar, $2) 54-52 119
Jahangir's campaign, 112-13
Ahoms, 105-6, 137, 167-8, 247

Ajit Singh Rathor, 181, 183, 254~6, 262,
266, 268, 270, 272-3
Ajmer, 13, 28, 182
Akbar, Jalal-ud-din Muhammad, 12-57, 98,
139» 140, 284-5
in Agra, 14-28, 52-5
appearance, 44, 45-6
centralized administration under, 56,
58-78
death, 55-6
and Europeans, 287, 289
at Fatehpur Sikri, 29-49
ideology centred on, 45-9
and Islam, 25, 34-49, 52, 284~5
at Lahore, 49-52
looting of tomb, 250, 251
as military commander, 41-4
and the nobility, 16, 19-24
ranking system under, 24-5
sency period, 13-14
ae the ulema, 16, 36-40
and weaponry, 288
Akbar, Muhammad, Prince, 181, 182-4,
217-18, 219, 220, 223
Akbar-Nama, 45-6
Akkanna, 214, 221
Alanquwa, queen, 46-7
Ali Adil Shah, Sultan of Bijapur, 208
Ali Adil Shah Il, 157
Ali Mardan Khan, 132, 134, 144
Ali Shah, 1
Allahabad, 28
zabt lands, 188
Amanat Khan, 124
‘Amar Singh, Rana of Mewar, 95, 96
Amin, Muhammad, 156-7
Amin Khan, Muhammad, 170, 236, 246
Amir Khan, 171, 246, 247
Amir Timur Gurgan, 47
amirs, 143, 149 242
under Akbar’s rule, r9
Arab nobles, 60, 66
Arjumand Banu, see Mumtaz Mahal
Argun, Sikh guru, 96-7, 98, 99
army, Mughal, 68-9
expenditure, 75, 76
and gunpowder weaponry, 57

BIT

INDEX

and the mansabdars, 63-6
and the nobility, 60
royal guard troops, 68
salaries, 139-40, 141
under Akbar’s rule, 42~4, 56
under Shah Jahan, 139-40, 141-3
weaponry, §7, 142-3, 288-90
army ministers (bakbshi), 59, 634
Asad Khan, 225, 230, 235, 245
Asaf Khan, 102, 113, 116, 117-18, 203
Asir, 115
Asirgarh, 28, 54
Askari, 9
Aurangzeb, 115, 128, 151
character, 152-3
court culture, 173-5
death, 253
and the Deccan, 154, 220-5, 225-52
and the English traders, 239
and Europeans, 287
and imperial decline, 290
imperial expansion under, 165-84
and the Marathas, 244
and Mir Jumla, 156-8
and Qundahar, 134
rank, 142
and Shahuji, 229-30
and Shambhaji, 215
and Shivaji, 211, 215, 216
and the ulema, 174
and the war of succession, 158-64
zabt lands, 188
Awadh, 188, 275-6
Azam, Prince, 182, 220, 227
Azam Shah, Prince, 253, 259
Azim-ud-din, Prince, 248, 249
Azz-ud-din, Prince, 264
Azim-ush Shan, Prince, 260-1

Babalal Vairagi, 152
Babur, Zahir-ud-din-Muhammad, 6-9, 50,
102, 110, 111, 142
Badakhstan, 9, 110, 135
Badakshi, Mulla Shah, 152
Baglana, 128
Baglana, Maratha forces in, 216
Bahadur, Sultan of Khandesh, 54
Bahadur, Tegh, 178
Bahadur Khan, 16, 17
Bahadur Shah (ruler of Gujarat), 10
Bahadur Shah (Prince Muazzam), 253-4,
2551 257-8, 259, 260-1, 276, 279
adurpur, Maratha raid on, 218-19
Baharji, the, 128
Baharji Borah, 209
Bairam Khan, 13-14, 16, 19, $4) 71

bakhshi (army ministers), 59, 63-4
Balaji Vishwanath, 271
Bali Narayan, 136, 137
Baliyan, Jat clan in, 88-90
Balkh, 110, 132-3, 135, 141, 153
Baltistan (Lesser Tibet), 135-6
Banda (Lachman Das), 256-8
Banda Bahadur, 194
bankers, local, and the jagirdars, 68
Batala town, 194-6
Baz Bahadur, Sultan of Malwa, 14, 5
Bengal, 115, 187, 247-50, 254, 290
Dutch trade with, 202~3
English traders, 239-40
occupation of, 33-4
revenues from, 276-7
revolt of 1579-80, 40-1
Sher Khan’s invasion of, 10
silk industry, 190, 197
under Aurangzeb, 165-7
Berar, 52-3, 54~§, 113
zabt lands, 188
BethakDas, Raja of Gaur, 146
Bharamall, 21-2
Bhimsen, 242
Bhimsen Saxena, 149-50
» zabt lands, 188
lar Bakht, Prince, 227, 234, 250
idar Dil, Prince, 272
Bihar, 12, 33, 15, 169
zabt lands, 188
Bijspar, $3> 113s 138, 1545 155, 156, 1575
20)

Maratha-Mughal conflict in, 209-12
Mughal conquest of, 220-1
Bijapur Karnatak, 155
East India Companies in, 240
Bir Narayan, 17
ir Singh, raja of Orchha, 55
Bir Singh Bundela, 175
Bir Singh Dev, 129, 130
Bishun Singh ‘Kachhwaha of Amber, 251
Bombay, 220, 239, 240, 241, 279
Brahmapuri (Islampuri), 225
Brahmaputra valley, 105-6, 136-7, 168
Bridgeman, Henry, 241
budget, imperial, under Akbar’s rule, 75-6
ful Lodi, 6
Bukhara, 110, 132-3
bullion, imports of, 198, 201, 279
Bundelkhand, 130
Burhan al-Mulk, 275
Burhan Nizam Shahb Il, 53-4
Burhanpur, 62, 114, 15, 12

Calcutta, 240
312

INDEX

caravan trade, 50, 51
cash crops, 189, 190, 193, 203
caste elites, in rural society, 79-81
‘castes
in Batala, 195-6
and ganungos, 82
censor, sifice of, 174-5
Central Asi is:
Jahangir’s relations with, 110-12
Shah Jahan’s campaign in, 132-3
Central Asian nobles, 19, 66, 145-6
Chabele Ram, 275
Chad Sultan, 54
Chaghatai nobles, 19, 60
Chaghatai Turks, 19, 110
Chakan, 208

Spempenit, 10

Chanda, 130

Chandiri, 8

Chandra, Satish, 292

Chatgaon, 168

chaudburis, 8-2, 87-8

Chauragahr, 130

Cheros people, 168-9

Child, John, 29

Chin Qilich Khan, 236, 245, 265

China, 287

Ming empire, 1

Chingiz Khan, 9, 47

Chistis, 30

Chitor, capture of, 26-7

Christianity, and Akbar, 35

Chunar, 10, 16

‘Churaman Jat, 251-2, 269, 273

clan councils, 88-90

coinage, 71-4, 102-3

conservative party, and the succession to
Shah Jahan, 151

consumption demands, 285

copper coins (dams), 72, 73, 74, 85

Coromandel, trade, 199, 201, 202

crops

assessing value of, 85-6

culture, 1
under Akbar’s rule, 29-30, 34-5
customs duties, 203

Dalpat Rao Bundela, 235
Daniyal, Prince, 54, 55, 118, 120
Dara Shukob, Prince, 115, 134, 153. 1575
178, 218
character, 151-2
rank, 143
and the war of succession, 157, 158,
160-1, 163, 164

Daud Dayal, 3.
Daud Kavrani Sultan of Bengal, 33
Daud Khan Pani, 169, 235, 241-2, 259,
260, 261, 267-8, 269
Dawar Bakhsh, Prince, 117-18
Deccan, the, 2, 282-3
administration, 278-81
Akbar’s military operations in, 52-5
eastern, under Mughal rule, 227-9
and imperial decline, 294, 296
Jahangir’s campaign, 112-14
and Khan Jahan Lodi, 119-21
Maratha-Mughal conflict, 205-24,
269-71
and the Marathas, 53, 114) 147-8
revenues, 139, 140, 141
under the Farrukhsiyar, 269-70
under Shah Jahan, 137-8
and the war of succession, 154-6
western, government in, 236-8
Deccan wars, 225-§2
and the nobility, 242-6
Delhi, 2, 12, 13, 62, 125
zabt lands, 188
Delhi, Sultans of, 2, 52
Devi Singh Bundela, 130
Deyell, John, 74
Dhana Singh Jadev, 230
Dilir Khan, 212, 215
diwan-i-tan (minister for salaries), 66

provincial, 59, 67, 149
Durgadas Rathor, 181, 182-5
Durgavati, Rani, 7
Dutch East India Company, 196-8, 199,
2014, 239, 241, 278, 286

East India Comy

economic gro

economy, 4

rural, 190-1, 283-4, 294-6

English East India Company, 196-8,
199-201, 2034, 220, 239-41, 286

eunuchs as slaves, 62

European influence, in Mughal India,

286-90
expenditure, imperial, under Akbar’s rule,

75-6, 77-8
exports, 202-3

ani 196-204

famine, 164, 237

Farrukhsiyar, Prince, 264, 265-72, 268,
273, 274-5, 276, 280

Fatawa'i Alamgini, 173-4

Fatehpur Sikri, 12, 29-30, 31, 36, 451 471
5270

313

INDEX

faujdars (military intendants), 59
Faziluddin, Muhammad, 196
Firuz Jang, 236
fiscal administration, 69-71
decline in control of, 273-4
under Aurangzeb, 185-90
under Farrukhsiyar, 268
under Shah Jahan, 138-41
fiscal officers (qanungo), 82
French East India Company, 239, 241

Gadadhar, Singh, 247
Gagga Bhatta of Varanasi, 213
Gaj Singh Rathor, raja of Marwar, 180
gardens, imperial, 101
Garghaon, 167
Katanga (Gondwana), 17
Garhwal, 155
Gauhati, 168
gentry class, 91, 194
Ghaziuddin, Khan Firuz Jang, 236, 245
Ghazni, 110
Girdhar Bahadur, 275
Goa, §, 32, 285, 289
Gobind Singh, 178
Golconda, 53, 111, 113, 138, 154-5, 156,
156-8, 217
Dutch trade with, 199
Mughal conquest of, 221-2
Mughal rule in, 227-9
and Shivaji, 214
and trade, 240
gold coins, 72, 74
Gondwana, 130
yur, agricultural production, 191
Gosain Jadrup of Ujain, 98
governors, provincial, 59
Govind Singh (Sokh uri), 256
Gujarat, 10, 17, 31
reconquest of (1572), 32-3
Gulbadan Begum, 31
Guru Nanak, 34

Habib, Irfan, 190, 291

Haji Shafi Ibrahimi, 248
Hamid Khan, 256

Hamida Begam, 14

harems, 61-2

Hargobind, Sikh guru, 97, 177
Hari Krishan, 178

Hemu, 13, 20

Himalayan foothills, Jahangir’s expansion
into, 109-10

Hindal, 9

Hinduism

Satki, 247
under Akbar’s rule, 34, 36, 38-9
jus

in Batala, 195-6

in government administration, 71

and Indian Muslim rulers, 2-3

officials of Golconda, 227

Rajput nobility, 20-4, 60, 66, 145

Shivaji as Hindu monarch, 213

and Sikhs, 258

taxes on, 175-7

under Jahangir’s rule, 99

under Shah Jahan, 122

and the war of succession, 164
Hindustan, 13
Humayun, emperor, 6, 8, 9-12
Husain Ali Khan, 269, 270, 271, 273
Husain Mirza, 32
Hyderabad, East India Companies in, 240
Hyderabad Karnatak, 156, 227-9

Ibrahim (Sur prince), 13
Tbrahim Adil Shah 53
Ibrahim Kalal, 109
Ibrahim Khan, 247, 248
Ibrahim Lodi, Sultan of Delhi, 8
Tbrahim Qutb Shah, 53
Thtimam Kham, 107
Ilahi coins, 72-3
Indian Muslims
and Dara Shukoh, 152
nobility, 19-20, 60, 144, 145, 146, 148,
221
as ganungos, 82
as rulers, 2-3
Indian Ocean, 5, 241, 285
Indra Singh Rathor, 181
industrial production, 4
inheritance law, 88
international trade, 196-204, 239-42, 286

and Akbar, 25, 34-40, 52, 284-5

and Aurangzeb, 153, 164, 165, 171-2,
173-7, 183-4, 218, 222

and Dara Shukoh, 151-2

in the Deccan, 53

and Indo- Muslin rulers, 2-3

in Safavid Persia, 111

and Shambhaji, 222, 225

and the Taj Mahal, 124-5

under Jahangir’s rule, 9-100

under Shah Jahan, 121-3

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