The document provides an overview of the history of the Mughal dynasties that ruled northern India between the 16th and 18th centuries. It describes the founding of the Mughal Empire by Babur in 1526 and highlights some of the major emperors like Akbar, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb. It notes the Mughals' patronage of art, architecture, and their introduction of Persian cultural influences. It also discusses the decline of the Mughal Empire in the 18th century due to invasions and growing British political power in India.

1. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
MUGHAL DYNASTY

2. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
During the last quarter of the 1100s,
Muhammad of Ghor invaded the Indo-Gangetic
Plain. Qutb ud-Din, one of his generals,
proclaimed himself Sultan of Delhi and
established the first dynasty of the Delhi
Sultanate, the Mamluk Dynasty (mamluk means
"slave") in 1211. Various Moslem dynasties
succeeded the Mamluks over the years 1211 to
1526. They presided over a flowering of
Moslem / Hindu arts, and were powerful
enough to insulate India from the rampaging
Mongol hordes in the north in the 1200s,
though Tamerlane did get through to sack Delhi
in 1398. The Sultanate period came to an end
with the arival of Babur in 1526 .....

3. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
Babur 1483 - 1526 - 1530 (47)
The first of the Great Mughals was Babur
("The Tiger"), who invaded and conquered
India in 1526. He was also a diarist, an
enthusiastic hunter and lover of gardens.
He died in the Ram Bagh gardens in Agra,
and his tomb lies in gardens bearing his
name in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Babur was the great great great grandson
of the Mongol Warlord Tamerlane.

4. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
Born in Kabul, Humayun was the eldest of
Babur's sons, and had helped his father
with the conquest of India. He ascended
the throne at Agra on December 30 1530 at
the age of 23, but did not have the skills to
manage the immature empire, Afghan
warlords, Hindu Rajput princes and his own
brothers. He would have liked nothing
better than to pursue his passions of
mathematics and astronomy, but he had
not been dealt that hand!
In 1540 he lost his empire to Afghan leader
Sher Shah, but he hung in and managed to
get it back 16 years later in 1556. However,
only six months later he died as a result of
falling down the steps of his library. Had he
known all of this at the time, he might not
have chosen a name which meant "the
fortunate".

5. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
Humayun did, however, do one
memorable thing for posterity, and that
was to introduce Persian artists who
blended with the locals to produce
what we now know as the classic
mughal artistic tradition.
Humayun's tomb in Delhi was built by
his widow Baga Begam in 1565 -
1569. It is the earliest example in India
of large scale Mughal architecture - not
just the building itself, but the large
formal gardens with water channels
and fountains, which led to the
perfection of the Taj Mahal 70 years
later.

6. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
It was here in Humayun's Tomb that the
last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah
Zafar II (1775 - 1862 (87)), was hunted
down and taken prisoner by a certain
Lieutenant Hodson following the Indian
Mutiny in 1857, a prelude to direct rule
of India by the British from 1858.
Hodson was the son of an Archdeacon in
the Diocese of Lichfield in Central
England.
After public school, Cambridge
University and the Grenadier Guards he
was tasked with raising and operating
an irregular cavalry unit which became
known as Hodson's Horse.
He was killed and buried at Lucknow in 1858,
just a year after capturing Zafar. Monuments
to dad Hodson and Hodson of Hodson's Horse
were later put up in the south choir aisle of
Lichfield Cathedral

7. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
The greatest of the Mughal Emperors, Akbar, was
born in exile and ascended the throne at the age of
13 after his father's short restoration.
In many ways Akbar was the Indian equivalent of
Suleiman the Magnificent (1494 - 1520 - 1566).
He conquered massive new territories including
much of Rajasthan, created a long lasting civil and
military administrative system (called Mansabdari),
introduced standard weights and measures, tax
structures and a workable police force.
Akbar was married to at least seven wives, one of
them a Rajput Hindu princess from Jaipur.
He was enormously liberal for his time, promoting
religious tolerance (and even his own hybrid Islamic /
Hindu / Christian / Zoroastrian religion called Din - i
llahi), abolishing slavery and forbidding forced sati.

8. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
Akbar collected Persian poets,
painters and musicians (including
Tanzen) at his court like they
were going out of fashion.
Finally he gave full vent to the
emerging Mughal architectural
style in a new purpose built 7.5 sq
km administrative capital at
Fatehpur Sikri near Agra (1570 -
1582).
This was the least practical of his
ventures because a lack of water
forced its abandonment 16 years
after its completion.
However the state buildings have been well looked after over the intervening 400+
years and can be visited today as perhaps the finest example of Mughal architecture
(after the Taj Mahal).
Akbar died in Agra in 1605 and is buried in Sikandra.

9. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
Named (again inappropriately) "Conqueror of the World", Jahangir
smoked opium and was into the grog, but was surprisingly effective
at keeping things under control, and he found time to lay out a few
gardens, including the one where he is buried at Shahdra in Lahore.
He let the newly arrived English in on a lot of good deals (for them),
but he also had the good sense to have a woman of staggering
beauty and intellect as his favourite wife (Nur Jahan - Light of the
World), and to leave a lot of the empire running to her. His tomb,
in a 4 acre garden in Lahore, contains some beautiful decorative
tiles and paintings.

10. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
Shah Jahan ("Ruler of the World") inherited a near bankrupt empire from
his father Jahangir. He turned this around, in the process becoming the best
remembered of the Mughal builders, largely because of the Taj Mahal.
Shah Jahan initially chose to rule, like his predecessors, from the Red Fort at
Agra, and it was a few miles away from here that he built the Taj Mahal as a
monument to his wife, known as Mumtaz Mahal ("Ornament of the Palace"
or "Exalted of the Palace" depending on the translator), who died in 1631
after the birth of their 14th child. The construction of the Taj Mahal was
begun in 1632 and it took 20,000 labourers 17 years to complete the
job. Several of the stonemasons involved had earlier been part of the
construction team for the Blue Mosque in Instanbul, designed and built by
the Ottoman Imperial Architect Mehmet Aga in 1609 -16. The Taj Mahal , a
much much more ambitious work, was built on two platforms - sandstone
then marble - and constructed in white marble with inlaid semi precious
stones (see them glinting in the early morning sun!). Believe it or not, the
original idea was to have a similar structure in black marble as Shah Jahan's
tomb on the other side of the river.

11. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
In 1638 Shah Jahan moved his capital to the Red Fort at Delhi, though it took a
further 9 years for the palace complex there to be completed. He ruled from here
until he became very sick in 1658, precipitating a succession battle amongst his
sons which was won by Aurangzeb his third son (who became first by killing his
brothers).
Poor old Shah Jahan recovered, but too late to keep his throne, and he spent the
last eight years of his life locked up in the Red Fort at Agra, only being able to
glimpse the Taj Mahal in the distance through the river mists. His tomb is there,
however, unsymmetrically placed next to that of the his wife - the great love of his
life - because his own black marble Taj was never built!

12. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
•Aurangzeb was an intolerant religious
(Muslim) zealot and kill-joy. He forbade
music, put a stop to Mughal painting and left
behind none of the architectural wonders that
earlier members of his dynasty had
produced.
•
•The Hindus and Sikhs fared even worse, with
suppression, destruction of temples, the
reintroduction of a poll tax and public
executions.
•
•Just a generally nasty little man as far as
most of the population were concerned, and
it is not surprising that his 50 year reign was
the beginning of the end for the Mughal
dynasty.

13. HISTORY OF CULTURE III MUGHAL DYNASTIES SEM III BATCH A
In 1739, India was invaded by the `and sacked Delhi in the style of the Venetian
led 4th Crusade's sack of Constantinople 500 years earlier in 1203. Amongst the
loot they took was the famous Peacock Throne of Shah Jahan.
In 1756 the Nawab of Bengal, aged 27 and wanting to register his dislike of
British administration, captured Calcutta from the British East India
Company. Amongst other things he thoughtlessly imprisoned 146 Brits in a 20'
square airless cellar, and by the next morning all but 23 were dead and the
"Black Hole of Calcutta" had sealed the fates of the Nawab and indeed India.
Robert Clive's forces beat the Nawab decisively at the Battle of Plassey the next
year (June 23 1757), and Clive became the first British Governor of
Bengal. Actually the so called (and famous) "battle" lasted only a couple of
hours, if that, as large numbers of the Nawab's soldiers had previously been
bribed to throw away their weapons and surrender prematurely.