Medieval and early modern periods 1206
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Humayun 6 March
1508 1530
– 1540
Jan 1556 Reign interrupted by Sur Empire after the Battle of Kanauj (1540). Youth and inexperience at ascension led to his being regarded as a less effective ruler than usurper, Sher Shah Suri. Sher Shah Suri
1472 1540 – 1545 May 1545 Deposed Humayun and led the Sur Empire. Islam Shah Suri
c. 1500
1545 – 1554 1554 2nd and last ruler of the Sur Empire, claims of sons Sikandar and Adil Shah were eliminated by Humayun's restoration. Humayun
1508 1555
– 1556
Jan 1556 Restored rule was more unified and effective than initial reign of 1530 – 1540;
left unified empire for his son, Akbar. Akbar
November 1542
1556 – 1605 27 October
1605 He and Bairam Khan defeated Hemu during the Second Battle of Panipat and later won famous victories during the Siege of Chittorgarh and the Siege of Ranthambore; He greatly expanded the Empire and is regarded as the most illustrious ruler of the Mughal Empire as he set up the empire's various institutions; he married Mariam-uz-Zamani, a Rajput princess. One of his most famous construction marvels was the Lahore Fort. Jahangir
Oct 1569 1605 –
1627 Jahangir set the precedent for sons rebelling against their emperor fathers. Opened first relations with the British East India Company. Reportedly was an alcoholic, and his wife Empress Noor Jahan became the real power 177 | P a g e
behind the throne and competently ruled in his place.
Shah Jahan
5 January 1592 1627
– 1658
1666 Under him, Mughal art and architecture reached their zenith; constructed the Taj Mahal, Jama Masjid, Red Fort, Jahangir mausoleum, and Shalimar Gardens in Lahore. Deposed by his son Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb
21
October 1618
1658 – 1707 3 March 1707
He reinterpreted Islamic law and presented the Fatawa- e-Alamgiri; he captured the diamond mines of the Sultanate of Golconda; he spent the major part of his last 27 years in the war with the Maratha rebels; at its zenith, his conquests expanded the empire to its greatest extent; the over- stretched empire was controlled by Mansabdars, and faced challenges after his death. He is known to have transcribed copies of the Qur'an using his own styles of calligraphy. He died during a campaign against the ravaging Marathas in the Deccan. Bahadur Shah I
14
October 1643
1707 – 1712 Feb 1712 First of the Mughal emperors to preside over an empire ravaged by uncontrollable revolts. After his reign, the empire went into steady decline due to the lack of leadership qualities among his immediate successors. Jahandar Shah
1664 1712 – 1713 Feb 1713 Was an unpopular incompetent titular figurehead; Furrukhsiyar
1683 1713 – 1719 1719 His reign marked the ascendancy of the
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manipulative Syed Brothers, execution of the rebellious Banda. In 1717 he granted a Firman to the English East India Company granting them duty-free trading rights in Bengal. The Firman was repudiated by the notable Murshid Quli Khan the Mughal appointed ruler of Bengal.
Rafi Ul-Darjat
Unknown 1719 1719
Rafi Ud-Daulat
Unknown
1719 1719
Nikusiyar
Unknown
1719 1743
Muhammad Ibrahim
Unknown
1720 1744
Muhammad Shah
1702
1719 – 1720, 1720 – 1748 1748 Got rid of the Syed Brothers. Tried to counter the emergence of the Marathas but his empire disintegrated. Suffered the invasion of Nadir-Shah of Persia in 1739. Ahmad Shah Bahadur
1725 1748 – 54 1775
Alamgir II 1699
1754 – 1759 1759 He was murdered by the Vizier Imad-ul-Mulk and Maratha associate Sadashivrao Bhau. Shah Jahan III
Unknown
In 1759
1772 Was ordained to the imperial throne as a result of the intricacies in Delhi with the help of Imad-ul-Mulk. He was later deposed by Maratha Sardars. Shah Alam II
1728
1759 – 1806 1806 He was proclaimed as Mughal Emperor by the Marathas. Later, he was again recognised as the Mughal Emperor by Ahmad Shah Durrani after the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761. 1764 saw the defeat of the combined forces of Mughal Emperor, Nawab of Oudh & Nawab of Bengal and Bihar at the hand of East India
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Company at the Battle of Buxar. Following this defeat, Shah Alam II left Delhi for Allahabad, ending hostilities with the Treaty of Allahabad (1765). Shah Alam II was reinstated to the throne of Delhi in 1772 by Mahadaji Shinde under the protection of the Marathas.[49] He was a de jure emperor. During his reign in 1793 British East India company abolished Nizamat (Mughal suzerainty) and took control of the former Mughal province of Bengal marking the beginning of British reign in parts of Eastern India officially. Akbar Shah II
1760
1806 – 1837 1837 He became a British pensioner after the defeat of the Marathas, who were the protector of the Mughal throne, in the Anglo- Maratha wars . Under East India company's protection, his imperial name was removed from the official coinage after a brief dispute with the British East India Company; Bahadur Shah II
1775
1837 – 1857 1862 The last Mughal emperor was deposed in 1858 by the British East India company and exiled to Burma following the War of 1857 after the fall of Delhi to the company troops. His death marks the end of the Mughal dynasty. Influence on South Asia 180 | P a g e
Taj Mahal Built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his beloved wife, the Taj Mahal is a world-renowned testament to Mughal architecture. A major Mughal contribution to the Indian subcontinent was their unique architecture. Many monuments were built by the Muslim emperors, especially Shah Jahan, during the Mughal era including the UNESCO World Heritage Site Taj Mahal, which is known to be one of the finer examples of Mughal architecture. Other World Heritage Sites include Humayun's Tomb, Fatehpur Sikri, the Red Fort, the Agra Fort, and the Lahore Fort The palaces, tombs, and forts built by the dynasty stand today in Agra, Aurangabad, Delhi, Dhaka, Fatehpur Sikri, Jaipur, Lahore, Kabul, Sheikhupura, and many other cities of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.[50] With few memories of Central Asia, Babur's descendants absorbed traits and customs of South Asia, and became more or less naturalized. Mughal influence can be seen in cultural contributions such as:[citation needed] Centralized, imperialistic government which brought together many smaller kingdoms. Persian art and culture amalgamated with Indian art and culture. New trade routes to Arab and Turkic lands. The development of Mughlai cuisine. Mughal Architecture found its way into local Indian architecture, most conspicuously in the palaces built by Rajputs and Sikh rulers. Landscape and Mughal gardening Although the land the Mughals once ruled has separated into what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, their influence can still be seen widely today. Tombs of the emperors are spread throughout India, Afghanistan,[55] and Pakistan. The Mughal artistic tradition was eclectic, borrowing from the European Renaissance as well as from Persian and Indian sources. Kumar concludes, "The Mughal painters borrowed individual motifs and certain naturalistic effects from Renaissance and Mannerist painting, but their structuring principle was derived from Indian and Persian traditions." Urdu language Although Persian was the dominant and "official" language of the empire, the language of the elite later evolved into a form known as Urdu. Highly Persianized and also influenced by Arabic and Turkic, the language was written in a type of Perso-Arabic 181 | P a g e
script known as Nastaliq, and with literary conventions and specialised vocabulary being retained from Persian, Arabic and Turkic; the new dialect was eventually given its own name of Urdu. Compared with Hindi, the Urdu language draws more vocabulary from Persian and Arabic (via Persian) and (to a much lesser degree) from Turkic languages where Hindi draws vocabulary from Sanskrit more heavily. Modern Hindi, which uses Sanskrit-based vocabulary along with Urdu loan words from Persian and Arabic, is mutually intelligible with Urdu. Today, Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and one of the official languages in India.
The Indian economy remained as prosperous under the Mughals as it was, because of the creation of a road system and a uniform currency, together with the unification of the country. Manufactured goods and peasant-grown cash crops were sold throughout the world. Key industries included shipbuilding (the Indian shipbuilding industry was as advanced as the European, and Indians sold ships to European firms), textiles, and steel. The Mughals maintained a small fleet, which merely carried pilgrims to Mecca, imported a few Arab horses in Surat. Debal in Sindh was mostly autonomous. The Mughals also maintained various river fleets of Dhows, which transported soldiers over rivers and fought rebels. Among its admirals were Yahya Saleh, Munnawar Khan, and Muhammad Saleh Kamboh. The Mughals also protected the Siddis of Janjira. Its sailors were renowned and often voyaged to China and the East African Swahili Coast, together with some Mughal subjects carrying out private-sector trade. Cities and towns boomed under the Mughals; however, for the most part, they were military and political centres, not manufacturing or commerce centres. Only those guilds which produced goods for the bureaucracy made goods in the towns; most industry was based in rural areas. The Mughals also built Maktabs in every province under their authority, where youth were taught the Quran and Islamic law such as the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri in their indigenous languages. The Bengal region was especially prosperous from the time of its takeover by the Mughals in 1590 to the seizure of control by the British East India Company in 1757. In a system where most wealth was hoarded by the elites, wages were low for manual labour. Slavery was limited largely to household servants. However, some religious cults proudly asserted a high status for manual labour. Science and technology Astronomy While there appears to have been little concern for theoretical astronomy, Mughal astronomers continued to make advances in observational astronomy and produced nearly a hundred Zij treatises. Humayun built a personal observatory near Delhi. The instruments and observational techniques used at the Mughal observatories
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were mainly derived from the Islamic tradition. In particular, one of the most remarkable astronomical instruments invented in Mughal India is the seamless celestial globe. Alchemy Sake Dean Mahomed had learned much of Mughal Alchemy and understood the techniques used to produce various alkali and soaps to produce shampoo. He was also a notable writer who described the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II and the cities of Allahabad and Delhi in rich detail and also made note of the glories of the Mughal Empire.
Sake Dean Mahomed was appointed as shampooing surgeon to both Kings George IV and William IV. Technology Fathullah Shirazi (c. 1582), a Persian polymath and mechanical engineer who worked for Akbar, developed a volley gun. Akbar was the first to initiate and use metal cylinder rockets known as bans particularly against War elephants, during the Battle of Sanbal. In the year 1657, the Mughal Army used rockets during the Siege of Bidar.[68] Prince Aurangzeb's forces discharged rockets and grenades while scaling the walls. Sidi Marjan was mortally wounded when a rocket struck his large gunpowder depot, and after twenty-seven days of hard fighting Bidar was captured by the victorious Mughals. Later, the Mysorean rockets were upgraded versions of Mughal rockets used during the Siege of Jinji by the progeny of the Nawab of Arcot. Hyder Ali's father Fatah Muhammad the constable at Budikote, commanded a corps consisting of 50 rocketmen (Cushoon) for the Nawab of Arcot. Hyder Ali realised the importance of rockets and introduced advanced versions of metal cylinder rockets. These rockets turned fortunes in favour of the Sultanate of Mysore during the Second Anglo-Mysore War, particularly during the Battle of Pollilur.
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Maratha Empire (1674 – 1818)
Nomenclature The Maratha Empire is also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy. The historian Barbara Ramusack says that the former is a designation preferred by Indian nationalists, while the latter was that used by British historians. She notes Neither term is fully accurate since one implies a substantial degree of centralisation and the other signifies some surrender of power to a central government and a longstanding core of political administrators. Maratha power was fragmented among several discreet fragments. Although, at present the word Maratha refers to a particular caste of warriors and peasants, in the past the word has been used to describe Marathi people, including Marathas themselves.
The empire had its head in the Chhatrapati as de jure but the de facto governance was in the hands of the Peshwas after death of Shahu and with the death of Madhavrao - I, various chiefs played the role of the de facto rulers in their own regions. The details are as below.
From Shivaji to Shahu, spanning almost over 108 years, from 1642( sacred oath of shivaji) to 1749(death of shahu), chhatrapatis laid the foundation of the empire. From initial 2000 cavalry to 100000 foot soldiers/cavalry was raised with a sound administration. They defeated adilshah and mughals in a protracted long war . And made the ground for future expansion. A number of forts were newly constructed or own dotting the entire west coast. Further navy was hallmark of royal period. With liberal attitude of this royal family, marathas rose as a single socio-political force consisting of all castes and creeds. Sanskrit and vedic learning regained its lost charm almost after a gap 0f 400 years . A number of Sanskrit works came into being . A briefline of this royal period is as below.
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Shivaji was born in the hill-fort of Shivneri near the city of Junnar. While Jijabai was pregnant, she had prayed the local deity (devi) called "Shivai" for the good of her expected child. Shivaji was named after this local deity. Birth date The exact birthdate of Shivaji has been a matter of dispute among the historians. The Government of Maharashtra accepts the 3rd day of the dark half of Phalguna, 1551 of Saka calendar (Friday, 19 February 1630) as the official birthdate of Shivaji. This date is supported by several other historians including Dr. Bal Krishna. A horoscope of Shivaji found in the possession of Pandit Mithalal Vyas of Jodhpur also supports this birthdate. According to Setu Madhavrao Pagdi, Shivaji's court poet Paramanand has also mentioned Shivaji birth date as 19 February 1630. However, some other historians such as Jadunath Sarkar and Rao Bahadur Sardesai believed that Shivaji was born in 1627. The various suggested dates include: the second day of the light half of Vaisakha in the year 1549 of Saka calendar i.e. Thursday, 6 April 1627. 10 April 1627 May 1627 Sarkar believed that there are no contemporary reliable records of Shivaji's exact birth date and boyhood, and the bakhars composed years after his birth contain several unreliable anecdotes. Dr. Bal Krishna rejects the date suggested by Sarkar, criticizing him for over dependence on 91-Qalmi Bakhar (composed in 1760s) and Shivadigvijaya Bakhar (composed in 1818).
Shivaji's father Shahaji was the leader of a band of mercenaries that serviced the Deccan Sultanates. His mother was Jijabai, the daughter of Lakhujirao Jadhav of Sindkhed. Shivaji was the fifth son born to Jijabai, three of whom had died as infants; Shivaji's elder brother Sambhaji (not to be confused with his son Sambhaji) was the only one to have survived. While Shivaji was accompanied mostly by his mother, Sambhaji lived with his father Shahaji at present day Bangalore. During the period of Shivaji's birth, the power in Deccan was shared by three Sultanates – Bijapur, Golkonda, Ahmadnagar. Most of the then Marathas forces had pledged their loyalties to one of these Sultanates and were engaged in a continuous 185 | P a g e
game of mutual alliances and aggression. Legend has it that Shivaji's paternal grandfather Maloji Bhosale was insulted by Lakhujirao Jadhav, a sardar in Nizamshahi of Ahmadnagar, who refused to give his daughter Jijabai in marriage to Shahaji. This inspired Maloji to greater conquests to obtain a higher stature and an important role under Nizamshahi, something that eventually led him to achieving the title of mansabdar (military commander and an imperial administrator). Leveraging this new found recognition and power, he was able to convince Lakhujirao Jadhav to give his daughter in marriage to his son Shahaji. Shahaji following in the footsteps of his father, began service with the young Nizamshah of Ahmednagar and together with Malik Amber, Nizam's minister, he won back most of the districts for the Nizamshah from the Mughals who had gained it during their attack of 1600. Thereafter, Lakhujirao Jadhav, Shahaji's father-in-law, attacked Shahaji at the Mahuli fort and laid a siege. Shahaji was accompanied by Jijabai, who was four months pregnant. After seeing no relief coming from Nizam, Shahaji decided to vacate the fort and planned his escape. He sent Jijabai off to the safety of Shivneri fort, which was under his control. It was here at Shivneri that Shivaji was born. In the meanwhile, suspecting his disloyalty, Lakhujirao Jadhav and his three sons were murdered by the Nizamshah in his court when they came to join his forces. Unsettled by this incident, Shahaji Raje decided to part ways with the Nizamshahi Sultanate and raise the banner of independence and establish an independent kingdom. After this episode Ahmednagar fell to the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, and shortly thereafter Shahaji responded by attacking the Mughal garrison there and regained control of this region again. In response the Mughals sent a much larger force in 1635 to recover the area back and forced Shahaji to retreat into Mahuli. The result of this was that Adilshah of Bijapur agreed to pay tribute to the Mughals in return for the authority to rule this region in 1636. Thereafter, Shahaji was inducted by Adilshah of Bijapur and was offered a distant jagir (landholding) at present-day Bangalore, but he was allowed to keep his old land tenures and holdings in Pune. Shahaji thus kept changing his loyalty among Nizamshah, Adilshah and the Mughals but always kept his jagir at Pune and his small force of men with him.
All historical accounts agree that Shivaji was extremely devoted to his mother Jijabai. His father Shahaji's affection and wealth were directed more towards his step- brother Vyankoji. During the 1630s, Shahaji was involved in campaigns against the Deccan Sultanates and the Mughals. In October 1636, he had to cede Shivneri to the Mughals as per a peace treaty. He retained the control of his ancestral jagir of Pune and Supa. This ancestral jagir was formerly held under Nizam Shah, but in 1636, Shahaji entered the service of Adil Shah of Bijapur. According to Tarikh-i-Shivaji, Shahaji placed this jagir under Dadoji Konddeo, who had shown good administrative skills as the kulkarni (land-steward) of Malthan. He asked Konddeo to bring Jijabai and Shivaji from Shivneri
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