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Chapter 4 – Mogul Dynasty. Baber to Akbar. 1526–1605

The Mogul dynasty, 1528

In the month of April, 1526, Sultan Baber captured Delhi, and established the Mogul dynasty, which continued to flourish for a hundred and eighty years, under a succession, unprecedented in India, of six monarchs, distinguished by their prowess in the field, and, with one exception, by their ability in the cabinet.

Baber’s early career

Baber, the sixth in descent from Timur, was the son of Sheikh Mirza, to whom the fertile province of Fergana, on the upper course of the Jaxartes, had been allotted in the distribution of the family possessions. His mother was a descendant of Jenghis Khan, and it has been noted by historians as a remarkable fact, that the empire founded by Baber should be known in history only as the Mogul empire, while he himself execrated the name of Mogul. Baber appears to have inherited that spirit of enterprise which distinguished both his renowned ancestors, and at the early age of fifteen, when he succeeded to the throne, commenced that adventurous career, which he pursued without interruption for thirty-five years. His first campaign was against the city of Samarcand, the metropolis of Transoxiana, which he captured with little difficulty, but he had not held it a hundred days before he was recalled to the defence of his paternal kingdom. He subsequently made three successful efforts to obtain possession of that city, which he coveted as the capital of Timur, and was thrice expelled from it.

Baber seizes Afghanistan, 1504

Baber was engaged for eight years in a series of the most perilous enterprises, and experienced vicissitudes of fortune, which would have crushed an ordinary mind, but they only served to give fresh vigour

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to his buoyant spirit. Seeing no hope of extending his conquests beyond the Oxus, he seized the city of Cabul in the year 1504, and succeeded in maintaining possession of it for twenty years. During this period he was incessantly employed in defending or enlarging his dominions, and never enjoyed a year of repose. His greatest peril arose from the progress of the Uzbeks, a tribe of ferocious Tartars, now swarming from their native hive, and seeking new settlements in the south. Their leader Shaibek had swept the posterity of Timur from Transoxiana and Khorasan, and in his progress towards the Indus had captured Candahar and threatened Cabul. Had he been able to march at once on that capital, he would probably have extinguished for ever the hopes of Baber, but he was recalled from these conquests by the hostility of Ismael Shah, the powerful chief of the tribe which had recently seized the throne of Persia, and established the dynasty of the Sophis. The Uzbek chief was routed and slain, and Baber seized the opportunity of again occupying Samarcand, from which he was again expelled in the course of a few months.

Baber’s five expeditions to India, 1519–1525

To compensate for this disappointment, he turned his attention to India, where the imbecility of the emperor of Delhi presented a temptation too strong to be resisted by a descendant of Timur. His first irruption was in the year 1519, and it was followed by two others, in five years, though with partial success. In 1524 he resumed this ambitious project, and overran the Punjab, where he was joined by Alla-ood-deen, the brother of the emperor, with Dowlut Khan, and other officers, who had been alienated from him by his constant oppressions. But Baber, after having advanced as far as Sirhind, was obliged to return across the Indus, to repel an invasion from the north, and Dowlut Khan, on his departure, deserted his standard and took possession of the Punjab. Alla-ood-deen, who had been left in charge of the province, fled to Cabul, and was immediately sent back to India by Baber, with a well-appointed

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army; but was signally defeated by the emperor, under the walls of Delhi. Baber now advanced on his fifth and last expedition with an army not exceeding 12,000 men, but they were all experienced veterans. The emperor, Ibrahim Lodi, advanced to meet him with an army generally estimated at 100,000, and a thousand elephants. The destiny of India was decided on the field of Paniput. The engagement lasted from sunrise to sunset, and resulted in the total defeat of the imperial army, and the death of the emperor, and 15,000 of his troops. Delhi opened her gates to the victor in May, 1526, and Baber vaulted into the vacant throne, and, as a token of his success, sent gifts from the treasury to the most celebrated Mahomedan shrines in Asia.

State of India on Baber’s accession

But Delhi had long ceased to be the capital and the mistress of India. The great Mahomedan empire had been broken up more than a century and a half before, by the extravagances of Mahomed Toghluk, and at the period of Baber’s accession the various provinces were in the possession of independent rulers. In the southern extremity of Hindostan, the great Hindoo monarch of Beejuynugur claimed the allegiance of the various native chiefs who had never submitted to the Mahomedan yoke. Farther to the north lay the territories of the five kings of Beejapore, Ahmednugur, Golconda, Beder, and Berar, who were established on the dissolution of the Bahminy kingdom. The province of Gujerat was governed by a wild youth, who was ambitious of trying conclusions with the Mogul in the field. Rana Sunga, the most powerful prince of his race, was paramount in Rajpootana. The opulent kingdom of Bengal, including Behar, was ruled by an Afghan family, and the “sacred soil,” as it was called, of Orissa, was in the possession of its ancient Hindoo dynasty. Still nearer Delhi, an independent prince held his court at Jounpore, and supported it from the revenues of Oude. The victory of Baber, therefore, only gave him the command of the districts to the north-west of Delhi, and a narrow tract of land, stretching along the

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Jumna to Agra. He had India yet to conquer, but his generals shrunk from the task, and entreated him to return to the cooler and more genial climate of Afghanistan, where they might enjoy the booty they had acquired at Delhi and Agra. But Baber had crossed the Indus, not simply to plunder provinces, but to found an empire, and he announced his unalterable resolution to continue in India, and pursue his career; at the same time, however, he granted permission to all those to return who preferred ease to glory. His ardour subdued their reluctance, and only one of his generals availed himself of this privilege, and he and his soldiers were dismissed with honour, and laden with wealth, in the hope of inducing others to resort to Baber’s standard. In the course of four months after the battle of Paniput, all the country held by Ibrahim Lodi had been secured, and the revolted kingdom of Jounpore brought under subjection.

Defeat of Rana Sunga, 1527

But a more formidable enemy now appeared in the field. Rana Sunga, the Rajpoot prince of Chittore, and at this time the most powerful of all the sovereigns north of the Nerbudda, elated by a recent triumph over the king of Malwa, espoused the cause of the dethroned dynasty of Delhi. All the princes of Rajpootana ranged themselves under his banner, and he advanced with 100,000 men to drive Baber back across the Indus. The first conflict took place at Futtehpore Sikri, where the advanced guard of the Moguls was totally routed by the Rajpoots. Many of Baber’s troops on this deserted their colours, some even went over to the enemy, and all were dispirited. Accustomed as he had been to dangers for thirty years, this extraordinary peril staggered him, but he never despaired. He states in his memoirs that in this emergency he repented of his sins, and determined to reform his life; that he foreswore the use of wine, and broke up his gold and silver cups, and distributed their value among the poor. He resolved to allow his beard to grow like a true Musulman, and promised, if God gave him the victory, to remit the stamp tax to the faithful.

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Animated by his example, his generals took an oath on the Koran to conquer or to die. In this fever of enthusiasm Baber led them against the enemy, and by the aid of his efficient artillery obtained a signal victory, which completely broke the power of Chittore. He celebrated his success by constructing a pyramid of the heads of the slain, and assuming the title of Ghazee, or champion of the faith.

Conquest of Chunderee, Oude, and Behar, 1529

The next year Baber attacked Chunderee, held by Medni Roy, whose history, in connection with the kingdoms of Guzerat and Malwa has been already related. Finding his position untenable, he and his Rajpoots devoted themselves to death with the usual ceremonies, and rushed with frenzy on the Mogul swords. Those who survived the onset put themselves to death. In the following year, Baber extended his authority over Oude and south Behar. But his constitution, which had been gradually impaired by long indulgence, was worn out by these severe exertions in an uncongenial climate. So active had been his life, that for thirty-eight years he had never kept the feast of the Ramzan twice in the same place.

Death of Baber, 1530, his character

He died at Agra in 1530, at the age of fifty, and his remains were conveyed to Cabul and interred in a beautiful spot which he had himself selected for his tomb. The simple and chaste monument raised over his grave continued to attract admiration three centuries after his death. Among the Mahomedan princes of India, no monarch is held in higher estimation than Baber. His career exhibited that romantic spirit of adventure of which nations are always proud. His personal courage bordered on rashness; his activity was almost fabulous. While labouring under a wasting disease he rode a hundred and sixty miles in two days, and swam across the Ganges. He was, however, rather a valiant soldier than a great general, and he lost nearly as many battles as he won; but he never lost heart, and was as buoyant after a defeat as after a victory. Amidst all the bustle of war, he found time for the cultivation of

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literature, and his Persian poetry has been always admired for its elegance. The little leisure he enjoyed from the labours of the field, he devoted to the construction of aqueducts, reservoirs, and other works of public utility. There is no Indian prince with whose individual character we are so familiar, and this is owing to his own vivid delineation of it in the volume of personal memoirs he compiled, in which he records his transgressions with so much candour, and his repentance with so much sincerity, and recounts his friendships with so much cordiality, that in spite of all his failings he becomes an object of personal esteem.

Humayoon succeeds to the throne, 1530

Humayoon succeeded his father at the close of 1530, but the first incident in his reign exhibited that easiness of disposition to which his subsequent misfortunes were chiefly to be attributed. His brother, Kamran, the governor of Cabul and Candahar, hesitated to acknowledge his authority, and Humayoon, not only consented to resign these provinces to him, but added the Punjab also. By this injudicious act he was deprived of the means of recruiting his army from the countries beyond the Indus, a loss which was severely felt in proportion as Baber’s veterans died out, and Humayoon was obliged to depend on the troops he could enlist in Hindostan. In the third year of his reign, Humayoon became involved in hostilities with Bahadoor Shah. This impetuous prince who ascended the throne at the age of twenty, was incessantly engaged in aggressive wars during the eleven years of his reign.

King of Guzerat defeated, 1533

He had subjugated the independent kingdom of Malwa, and annexed it to his own dominions. He had compelled the kings of Ahmednugur and Beder to do him personal homage. He had added the ancient and venerable city of Oojein to his conquests, and sacked the city of Chittore, in the defence of which 32,000 Rajpoots are said to have fallen. Humayoon demanded the surrender of a fugitive conspirator, which was haughtily refused, on which he marched at once into the country.

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Bahadoor Shah had planted his army in an entrenched camp at Mandishore, trusting to his fine artillery, manned by Portuguese gunners and commanded by Roomy Khan, originally a Turkish slave, but now the first engineer officer in India. Humayoon besieged the camp for two months, cut off its supplies, and reduced the king to such straits, that he was obliged to fly, and eventually to take refuge in Diu, the most remote harbour in the peninsula of Guzerat.

Humayoon’s gallant capture of Chumpanere, 1535

Humayoon immediately overran the province, and proceeded against the fortress of Chumpanere, in which the accumulated wealth of the dynasty was deposited. With only three hundred select troops, he climbed up the perpendicular rock on which it was built by means of steel spikes, and mastered it by an exhibition of heroism which rivalled the exploits of his father. The gallantry of his officers and soldiers was rewarded with as much gold and silver as they could heap on their shields. But his further progress was arrested by the necessity of returning to Agra, to arrest the progress of Shere Khan. On his retirement, Bahadoor Shah again took the field and regained his kingdom as rapidly as he had lost it; but he did not long enjoy it. While at Diu, he had negotiated with the Portuguese for three hundred Europeans to assist him in recovering his kingdom, and in return granted them permission to establish a factory at that port. They began immediately to surround it with a wall, the rudiments of a fortification, and brought up a fleet to protect the progress of the work.

Tragic death of Bahadoor Shah, 1537

Bahadoor Shah had all the native horror of European intrusion, and was determined to prevent the completion of the work. He proceeded on board the admiral’s ship, and invited him and his officers to an entertainment at which he had laid a plot to assassinate them. The admiral, it appears, was equally anxious to obtain possession of the king’s person. An affray ensued in which the king lost his life, by accident, according to the Portuguese historians, by treachery, if we are to believe the Mahomedans.

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Origin and progress of Shere Khan

Shere Khan, who now appears on the scene, was one of the most distinguished characters in the annals of Mahomedan India. He was an Afghan of noble birth, of the tribe of Soor, which claimed affinity with the kings of Ghore. His father held the rank of a commander of 500, and the jaygeer of Sasseram, in Behar, where Shere Khan was born. At an early age he quitted his home in disgust, and enlisted as a private soldier under the king of Jounpore, but at the same time endeavoured to store his mind with knowledge, and prepare himself by study for future eminence. A long series of adventures in which he was engaged on his own account for several years, ended in the occupation of Behar and the siege of Gour, the capital of Bengal. Humayoon was recalled from Guzerat by the tidings of his alarming progress, and moved down to oppose him with a large army, but was detained six months besieging Chunar, though it was assaulted by the floating batteries of Roomy Khan, whom Humayoon had allured to his service after the defeat of Bahadoor Shah. During this protracted siege Shere Khan captured Gour, conquered Bengal, and sent the king flying for shelter to the imperial camp.

Humayoon defeated by Shere Khan at Buxar, 1539

As Humayoon entered Bengal, Shere Khan retired to the hilly and inaccessible region of the south-west, and deposited his family and treasures in the fortress of Rhotas. The emperor took up his residence in Gour, then in the zenith of its grandeur, and on the eve of its decay. When the rains set in, the delta of the Ganges became a sheet of water, and the great army of Humayoon was reduced by disease and desertions. He was constrained to retreat with his dispirited troops towards the capital, where his brothers were beginning to take advantage of his difficulties and to intrigue for the throne. Shere Khan now issued from his fastnesses, interrupted the progress of Humayoon’s force, and after cutting up a detachment at Monghir, came up with the main army at Buxar. At a time when every moment was precious, Humayoon wasted two months

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in constructing a bridge across the Ganges. Before it was completed, he was attacked and completely defeated by his rival, who now assumed the title of Shere Shah, and openly aspired to the empire.

Humayoon again defeated, and flies across the Indus, 1540

Humayoon at length reached Agra, and extinguished the hostile schemes of his brothers. Eight months were passed in assembling an army for the great struggle with his formidable rival, who employed this period in subjugating and organizing Bengal. The two armies met in the neighbourhood of Cunouj, and Humayoon experienced a second and more fatal defeat. He fled from the field of battle to Agra, pursued by Shere Shah, and had barely time to remove his family to Delhi. From thence he was driven to Lahore, where his brother, instead of affording him an asylum, hastened to make his peace with the victim, and was allowed to retire to his territories beyond the Indus. Thus fell the kingdom which Baber had established, and not a vestige of Mogul sovereignty remained in India at the end of fourteen years. The throne of Delhi was restored to the Afghans. Humayoon made the best of his way with his few remaining adherents to Sinde, where he spent eighteen months in fruitless negotiations with its chiefs. He then resolved to throw himself on the protection of Maldeo, the powerful Rajpoot prince of Marwar, but on approaching the capital, found the raja more disposed to betray than to succour him. The wretched emperor endeavoured to cross the desert to Amercote, and was subjected to incredible hardships during the march. The son of Maldeo, eager to revenge the intrusion of the emperor and the slaughter of kine in his territories, pursued him with the utmost rigour.

Birth of Akbar, 1542

At length Humayoon reached Amercote with only seven mounted attendants, and it was in these wretched circumstances that his queen, who had nobly shared with him all the disasters of this journey, gave birth to a son, afterwards the illustrious Akbar, destined to raise the Mogul empire to the pinnacle of greatness. After another series of reverses,

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Humayoon was obliged to quit India, and seek an asylum at Candahar.

Five years’ brilliant reign of Shere Shah, 1540–1545

Leaving Humayoon across the Indus, we turn to the progress of Shere Shah, who now mounted the throne of Delhi, and established the Soor dynasty. While he was combating the emperor, Bengal revolted, as a matter of course, but was speedily reduced to subjection. In 1542 he conquered the province of Malwa, and in the succeeding year reduced the fortress of Raisin, remarkable for its unfathomable antiquity, and for the honour of having been erected, according to local tradition, by the great national hero of the Ramayun. It was here that his reputation was tarnished by the only stain ever attached to it. The Hindoo garrison had surrendered on terms, but the Mahomedan doctors assured him that, according to the precepts of the Koran, no faith was to be kept with infidels, and the infidels were, therefore, slaughtered almost to a man. In 1544 Shere invaded Marwar with 80,000 men. It was defended by a body of 50,000, and by its own sterility. Through the artifice of letters intended to be intercepted, he contrived to raise suspicions regarding his chiefs in the mind of the raja, and thus induced him to retire from the contest; but one chief, indignant at this distrust, fell on the emperor’s force with 12,000 men with such fury as to expose him to the greatest peril; and the emperor, alluding to the barrenness of the country, said that “he had nearly lost the empire for a handful of millet.”

His death, 1545, and character

Soon after, the capture of Chittore placed Rajpootana at his feet, and he proceeded to the attack of Calinjer, one of the strongest fortresses in Bundlecund, but was killed by the explosion of a magazine as he was superintending the batteries.

Thus prematurely ended the career of Shere Shah. As he inflicted the greatest humiliation on the Moguls, the historians of their party have treated him as a usurper, and loaded his memory with obloquy. But his right to the throne was as valid as that of the Tartar adventurer Babel, and in

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both cases it was equally based on the decision of the sword. But the kingdom which he gained by conquest, he governed with the greatest beneficence, and the brief period of five years in which he held supreme power, is the most brilliant in the annals of India. He was a man of consummate ability, distinguished not less by his military exploits than by the triumphs of his civil administration. Though incessantly engaged in the field, he found time for a complete reform of every branch of the government, and his civil institutions survived his dynasty and became the model of those of Akbar. He constructed a grand trunk road from the banks of the Indus to the bay of Bengal, through a distance of 2,000 miles, and planted it with trees, and adorned it with wells and caravanseras, at short distances, for the convenience of travellers, and erected mosques for the benefit of the devout. He appears to have been the first prince who established a mounted post for the conveyance of the mails. At the end of three centuries, his stately mausoleum at Sasseram, the place of his birth and of his burial, continues to recall the remembrance of his grandeur and his glory to the mind of the traveller.

Reign of his son and nephew, 1554

His eldest son was set aside by the nobles for imbecility, and his second son, Jelal Khan, was raised to the throne under the title of Selim Shah. After quelling a dangerous rebellion by his promptitude and vigour, he was enabled to pass nine years in tranquillity, indulging his hereditary taste for public works; and if his reign had extended over a longer period, we should probably have heard little or nothing of a Mogul dynasty. It was the profligacy of his successor that brought the son of Baber again to India. He was the brother of Selim, and after having murdered his son, mounted the throne, and is generally known in history simply by the name of Adili. He was remarkable only for his ignorance and prodigality, and exhibited all those purple-born vices which, in India, presage the fall of a dynasty.

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Hemu sustains the throne

But the ruin of this royal house was retarded by the matchless talents of Hemu, a Hindoo, originally a shopkeeper, whose figure is said – but only by Mogul historians – to have been as mean as his origin. Adili having exhausted his treasury by profligate waste, began to resume the jaygeers of his Patan nobles, and they went one by one into insurrection. Five independent sovereignties were forthwith established in the dominions under the crown, till nothing was left to it, except some of the districts around the metropolis. Hemu presented a bold front to these difficulties, and had succeeded in reducing two of the rebels, when the aspect of affairs was at once changed by the appearance of Humayoon on the banks of the Indus.

Progress of Humayoon after leaving India

We left this prince a refugee at Candahar in 1543 where his adverse fortune still continued to pursue him. The hostility of his brother obliged him to retreat, and he sought shelter in Persia, the throne of which was then filled by Shah Tamasp, the second of the Sophi dynasty, who directed that he should be received with royal hospitality in his progress, but did not condescend to give him an interview for six months. The fugitive prince was subjected to all the humiliating caprices of a despot and a bigot, for Tamasp was an intolerant Shea, and regarded the Soonees with more than the usual measure of polemical hate. His father had invented a peculiar cap – the kuzelbash – as an emblem of religious distinction, and Humayoon was required to place it on his head in the presence of the Persian monarch, though the courtly historians of the Mogul dynasty speak with much reserve on this subject. He was also required to sign an engagement to embrace and to enforce the Shea creed, and to cede the frontier provinces of Afghanistan to the Persian crown. The Persian monarch then furnished him with a body of 14,000 horse, with which he marched to Candahar, and captured it after a siege of five months, making it over, with all the treasure found in it, to Morad Mirza, the Persian

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prince. On his death, which happened soon after, Humayoon entered the city as a friend, but put the greater portion of the Persian garrison to the sword, an act of perfidy which has fixed an indelible stain on his memory.

Conquest of Afghanistan by Humayoon, 1545

Having thus obtained possession of Candahar, he marched to Cabul and established his authority in that province, but had to maintain a protracted struggle with his brothers, in which he was alternately victorious and defeated. His brother Kamran at length fell into his hands, and to his disgrace, he ordered the sight of the unfortunate prince to be extinguished.

He crosses the Indus and remounts the throne, 1555

After ten years of incessant warfare, the increasing confusion at the capital of India tempted Humayoon to make a bold stroke to regain the throne. He crossed the Indus in 1555, and obtained a complete victory over Secunder Soor, who had usurped the imperial authority at the capital, and who was posted at Sirhind with a body of 80,000 men. In this battle the young Akbar gained his first laurels. Leaving the young prince in the Punjab to watch the movements of the usurper, Humayoon hastened to Delhi, and mounted the throne he had lost fifteen years before. But before he could recover the dominions attached to it his career was brought to a close by a fatal accident. Six months after he had entered Delhi, while descending the steps of his library, he heard the muezzin’s call to prayer, and stopped to repeat the creed, and sat down.

His death, 1556

As he endeavoured to rise, leaning on his staff, it slipped on the polished steps, and he fell over the parapet, and four days after closed his chequered life, at the age of forty-nine.

Accession of Akbar, 1556

Akbar, the greatest prince of the dynasty of Baber, whose genius raised the empire of the Moguls to the summit of renown, was only thirteen years and three months of age when the death of Humayoon placed him upon the throne, which he continued to adorn for fifty years. He was the contemporary of Queen Elizabeth,

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his reign having begun two years before, and ended two years after hers; and thus, by a memorable coincidence, this period of half a century has been rendered as illustrious in the annals of England as of India. During the minority of Akbar, the regency continued in the hands of Byram Khan, a Turkoman, the companion of Humayoon in all his vicissitudes, and the greatest captain and statesman of the age, but a man of austere manners and stern bigotry. Hemu, the Hindoo general of Sultan Adili, was employed in quelling a rebellion in Bengal when he heard of the death of Humayoon, and conceiving fresh hopes from that event deposited the emperor at Chunar, and moved up with an army of 30,000 men which was swelled to 100,000 as he advanced.

Defeat of Hemu, 1556

Agra and Delhi opened their gates to him, and so completely were the commanders in Akbar’s army confounded by the rapidity of his successes, that they entreated their master to abandon India and return to Afghanistan. Byram alone advised an immediate and vigorous attack, and Akbar, though only a stripling, seconded his ardour. The two armies met at Paniput, and the destiny of India was a second time decided on that field. Hemu, after prodigies of valour, was completely defeated, and conducted, bleeding from his wounds, to the tent of Akbar. Byram urged him to secure for himself the religious merit of slaying an infidel, but the generous youth refused to imbrue his hands in the blood of a gallant and now helpless foe, and Byram struck off the head of the captive with one stroke of his scymetar.

Arrogance and fall of Byram, 1560

It was the military talent of Byram, and the vigour of his measures, which had seated Akbar on the throne, but the minister had grown too big for a subject. So great indeed was his power and influence that for four years after his accession, Akbar felt himself a mere cypher in his own dominions. Such thraldom was intolerable to a high spirited prince, and when he had reached the age of eighteen he resolved to throw off the yoke. On the plea of the sudden illness of his mother, he repaired abruptly to Delhi,

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and immediately issued a proclamation announcing that he had taken the government into his own hands, and that no orders were to be obeyed but those which issued from himself. Byram felt that his power was slipping away, and endeavoured to regain it, but he had alienated all the public officers by his haughty demeanour, and in the time of his adversity found that he was without a friend. He retired to Nagore, giving out that he was proceeding on pilgrimage, but he lingered there in the hope of receiving some gracious message from his master. Akbar, however, discharged him from all his offices, and requested him to hasten his departure. Stung by this indignity, he assembled an army, and marched against the imperial troops. He was signally defeated, and constrained to throw himself on the mercy of the emperor. As the fallen minister entered the royal tent, with his turban humbly suspended on his neck, and cast himself at the feet of the prince whom he had cherished from his cradle, Akbar hastened to raise him, and seated him on his right hand, investing him with a robe of honour, and offering him the choice of any post in the empire. The pride of Byram, who had been the instrument of erecting the Mogul throne a second time in India, led him to prefer a retreat to Mecca, and he accordingly proceeded to the sea coast, but was assassinated on the route by an Afghan, whose father he had put to death.

Akbar his own master at eighteen

Akbar was now his own master, at the age of eighteen, but he was surrounded with difficulties which would have broken a spirit of less energy. For some time after its establishment, the dynasty of the Moguls was weaker than any which had risen to power since the Mahomedans first crossed the Indus. It was not connected with any large and powerful tribes beyond that river, ready to support the progress of their countrymen. It had no resources in reserve. Akbar’s army was simply an assembly of mercenaries drawn together by the hope of plunder from the various countries of Central Asia. His officers were only a band of adventurers, bound to his family by no ties of hereditary

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loyalty, and more disposed to carve out kingdoms for themselves, as other adventurers had done for five centuries, than to unite in building up a Mogul empire. Their ambition had been effectually curbed by the iron despotism of Byram, but blazed forth on his removal, the effect of which soon became visible in the growth of disorders.

Revolt of Akbar’s generals, 1660–1567

In the fourth year of his reign, Akbar extended his authority along the banks of the Ganges to Jounpore; the son of the last king, Adili, advanced to recover his dominions, and was defeated by Zeman Khan, but that general, despising the youth of his sovereign, withheld the royal share of the booty, and manifested such a spirit of independence, that Akbar was obliged to take the field, and reduce him to obedience.

Adam Khan, another of Akbar’s generals, was sent to expel the Afghans from Malwa, but after defeating their general, he determined to keep the fruits of his victory to himself. Akbar marched against him in person, and accepted his submission, but he soon after requited this lenity by stabbing the vizier when at prayers in a room adjoining that occupied by the young king. For this atrocious deed Akbar ordered him to be thrown headlong into the Jumna. Abdoolla Khan, a haughty Uzbek, who had been received into the Mogul service, with many of his. countrymen, was then entrusted with the government of Malwa, but within a twelvemonth raised “the standard of revolt.” Akbar came down upon him with promptitude, and drove him ignominiously to seek shelter in the kingdom of Guzerat. This event created great discontent in the minds of the Uzbek officers, who were induced by the arts of Abdoolla to believe that Akbar was animated with a hereditary hatred of their tribe and had formed a resolution to disgrace them. The spirit of disaffection spread rapidly through the Mogul army. Asof Jah, one of its generals, had been sent to subjugate the little Hindoo principality of Gurra on the Nerbudda. It was then under the regency of the princess Doorgawuttee, renowned no less for her beauty than

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her valour.

Heroism of a Hindoo princess, 1564

She led her army in person against the invader, and maintained the conflict with the greatest heroism till she received a wound in her eye. The troops, missing her command, began to give way, when she, to avoid falling into the hands of the enemy, seized the weapon of the elephant driver and plunged it into her own bosom. Her exploits are still a favourite theme with the Hindoo bards. The booty obtained by this capture consisted of a hundred jars of gold coin, independently of jewels and gold and silver images, and Asof Jah appropriated the largest portion of it to his own use and then joined the hostile confederacy, which now included the most eminent of Akbar’s generals.

Revolt of Akbar’s brother, 1568

The danger of the emperor was extreme. It was as much a struggle for the throne, as the battle of Paniput, and the question at issue was, whether the empire should be Mogul or Uzbek. Akbar’s detachments were repeatedly defeated, but he maintained the conflict with unflinching resolution for two years. Just at this critical juncture, his brother Hakim ungratefully took advantage of his embarrassments, and endeavoured to wrest the province of Lahore from the crown. Akbar was obliged to quit the pursuit of the Uzbeks to meet this new revolt, which, however, he succeeded in crushing at once. On his return to the south, he found that the revolted generals had obtained possession of the districts of Allahabad and Oude, and were preparing to advance on the capital.

Akbar’s authority established, 1567

The rains had set in when all military operations are generally suspended; but he did not hesitate to march against them, and by the promptitude and vigour of his attack, completely broke the strength of the confederacy, and, at the age of twenty-five, had the happiness of seeing his authority firmly established throughout his dominions. Nothing gives us a higher idea of the real greatness of Akbar’s character, than the conflict which, at so early an age, he successfully maintained against his own mutinous troops and officers.

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Matrimonial alliances with the Rajpoot princes

Baber, with a liberality of spirit foreign to every preceding conqueror, had determined to strengthen his government by matrimonial alliances with the Hindoos. He encouraged his son Humayoon to espouse a daughter of Bhugwan Dass, the raja of Jeypore. Akbar, following his father’s example, allied himself with the same house, as well as with the ruling family of Marwar, or Joudhpore. At the same time he conferred an office of high dignity at his court on the raja of Jeypore. Thus the purest Hindoo blood was mingled with that of the Mahomedan conquerors, and the princes of Rajpootana gloried in these imperial alliances as conferring additional dignity on their families. But the orthodox house of Chittore, wrapped up in its religious pride and exclusiveness, disdained any such connection, and even excommunicated the rajas of Jeypore and Marwar; though Bappa, the founder of that family, considered by his countrymen as the “sun of Hindoo dignity,” married Mahomedan wives without number, and left a hundred and thirty circumcised children.

Attack on the raja of Chittore, 1568

Akbar, having reduced his military aristocracy to submission, determined to chastise the raja of Chittore for having given encouragement to the king of Malwa. The throne was then filled by Oody Sing, the degenerate son of the renowned Rana Sunga. On the approach of the Moguls, he fled to the hills, and left the defence of his capital to Jeymul, the Rajpoot chief of Bednore, esteemed by his countrymen the bravest of the brave. Akbar, with a powerful artillery, made his approaches in the most scientific mode, closely resembling the practice of modern Europe. The siege of Chittore was protracted by the genius and valour of Jeymul, but he was at length slain by a bolt from the bow of Akbar, while inspecting the ramparts. His death deprived the garrison of all confidence, and they determined to sell their lives as dear as possible. The women threw themselves on the funeral pile of the raja, and the men rushed frantically on the weapons of the Moguls, and perished

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to the number of 8,000. With that generosity of character which distinguished Akbar, he erected a statue to the memory of his heroic foe in the most conspicuous place of his palace at Delhi.

Capture and abandonment of Chittore, 1668

The fall of Chittore – which from that period was abandoned for the new capital, Oodypore, called by the founder after his own name – was considered the most fatal blow which had fallen for ages on that royal house. The remembrance of this event has been perpetuated throughout India by a most remarkable practice. Akbar estimated the golden ornaments taken from the Rajpoots at seventy-four maunds and a-half. The numerals, 74½, were therefore deemed accursed. The Rajpoots, and more particularly the Marwarees, are now the largest and most enterprizing mercantile community in India, and their commercial correspondence bears the impress of these figures, signifying that “the sin of the slaughter of Chittore is invoked on any one. who violates the secrecy of the letter.” The practice has now become universal throughout India.

Conquest of Guzerat, 1574

Akbar’s next enterprize was one of greater magnitude. The province of Guzerat, enlarged by the conquests of Bahadoor Shah about forty years before this period, and enriched by maritime commerce, was estimated to yield a revenue of five crores of rupees, and to be equal to the support of 200,000 troops; but it had been a prey to faction since his death. Four weak and profligate monarchs had filled the throne in thirty-six years. The distraction of the kingdom had been increased by the arrival of the Mirzas, as they are styled by the native historians, a family connected with Akbar by the ties of blood, who had revolted against his authority, and, having been driven out of his dominions, transferred their intrigues to Guzerat. Etimad Khan, originally a Hindoo slave, who now managed the government in the name of Mozuffer the Third, seeing no other mode of quelling the factions in the country, invited Akbar to take possession of it. The emperor proceeded with a powerful army to Puttun, where that feeble monarch advanced to meet

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him, and resigned his crown without an effort; and Guzerat, after two centuries and a-half of independence, was again annexed to the crown of Delhi. As soon, however, as Akbar returned to his capital with a large portion of his army, Mirza Hussein, the most turbulent of the brothers, raised a new revolt, and the imperial generals were reduced to great straits, and obliged to act on the defensive. The rains had set in, but Akbar was ready for action at all seasons. He immediately dispatched a force of 2,000 choice cavalry from Agra, and followed it with 300 of his own guards, marching, in that season, no less than four hundred and fifty miles in nine days. The rapidity and vigour of his movements confounded the rebels; they suffered a signal defeat, and the subjugation of the province was completed.

Orissa conquered by the Afghans, 1550

The attention of Akbar was next directed to the recovery of Bengal, but before narrating this expedition, it is necessary to advert to the fortunes of the neighbouring kingdom of Orissa. That country had been governed by the family of the Guju-putees, or lords of the elephant, from a very remote period of Hindoo history. About 400 years before the time under review, the throne was occupied by the dynasty of the Gunga-bungsus. The princes of this race expended the revenues of the country in the erection of the most magnificent temples, and extended their authority from the river Hooghly to the Godavery, and on one occasion carried their arms as far south as Conjeveram, in the vicinity of Madras. A little before the period of Akbar’s accession, the king of Golconda, who was endeavouring to extend his power over the Hindoo tribes on the sea coast, attacked the king of Orissa, Mookund Rao, the last of his race; at the same time, Soliman, the king of Bengal, sent his general Kala-pahar with a large body of Afghan cavalry, to invade it from the north. The valour of the raja was of little avail; he was defeated and slain in 1558, and this venerable Hindoo monarchy, which had never before felt the shock of a Mahomedan invasion, was extinguished, and

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the Afghans parcelled the country out in jaygeers among themselves. The native inhabitants, who had enjoyed the undisturbed exercise of their religion from time immemorial, were now to taste the bitterness of persecution. Balashpahar was a brahmin by birth, but had embraced the religion of the Prophet to obtain the hand of a princess of Gour, and now became a relentless oppressor of his former creed. So terrific did he appear to the Hindoos, that it was popularly reported that the legs and arms of the idols dropped off at the sound of his awful kettle-drum. He made every effort to root out Hindooism; he persecuted the priests, and confiscated the religious endowments which had accumulated during twenty generations of devout monarchs; he pulled down the temples, and erected mosques with the materials, and seized the image of Jugunnath, which he committed to the flames on the banks of the Ganges.

Akbar invades Bengal, 1576

The attention of Akbar was drawn to Bengal, even while he was engaged in the subjugation of Guzerat. Under the successor of Shere Shah, the Afghan governor had assumed independence, and four kings reigned in Bengal during a period of thirty years, of whom the most distinguished was Soliman, the conqueror of Orissa. In the height of his prosperity, he had the wisdom to acknowledge the supremacy of the emperor. But his successor, Daood Khan, a debauchee and a coward, who ascended the throne in 1573, finding himself at the head of an army which was estimated, by oriental exaggeration, at 140,000 infantry, 40,000 cavalry, and 20,000 guns of all sizes, considered himself a match for Akbar, and while he was engaged in Guzerat attacked and captured a fort above Ghazeepore. Akbar immediately ordered a large army to proceed to the conquest of Bengal. Ghazeepore, which was strongly garrisoned. submitted after a brave resistance, and the king fled to Orissa, where he made one bold stand for his throne. He was defeated, but allowed to retain Orissa, as a feudatory of Delhi. The year after, on the withdrawal of a portion of the imperial

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troops, he invaded Bengal, but was defeated and slain, and his head sent to the emperor. With Daood Khan, in 1576, terminated the line of Afghan kings in Bengal, who had reigned in succession over it for two hundred and thirty-six years. During the sovereignty of these foreigners, not only was every office of value bestowed on their countrymen, but the whole of the land was parcelled out among them in jaygeers, and the natives of the country were employed only as managers, or cultivators, of the estates.

Revolt of the Mogul officers, 1577

The jaygeers of the discomfited Afghans were seized by the victorious Mogul officers. Akbar was resolved, however, to introduce the same fiscal economy into Bengal which he had established in other provinces. But when his revenue officers called on the Mogul jaygeerdars to account for the revenues they collected, and to furnish a muster of the troops they were bound to maintain, they rose in a body in Bengal and Behar, and 30,000 of Akbar’s finest cavalry appeared in arms against him. His new conquest was for the time lost, and the spirit of disaffection spread to the neighbouring province of Oude. Finding it difficult, in this emergency, to trust any of his Mogul officers, he sent an army of Rajpoots, under the celebrated Hindoo raja Toder Mull, who succeeded in giving a severe blow to the revolt; but the war languished for a time, and was terminated by Azim Khan, whose success was ()wing as much to the offer of a compromise, as to the vigour of his arms. The Afghans in Orissa took advantage of this confusion, and recovered their footing in the lower provinces of Bengal. The great Rajpoot raja Man Sing, the near relative of the emperor, was sent to quell this formidable revolt, which was not effected without great difficulty; and it was not till the year 1592, after a dozen battles and seventeen years of conflict, that the authority of Akbar was conclusively established in a province which, a century and a half later, was at once and finally conquered by Clive in one decisive action.

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Destruction of Gour, cir 1660

It was a short time previous to the invasion of Bengal by Akbar, that the ancient city of Gour was depopulated and abandoned, after having existed more than twenty centuries. It was admirably situated on the confines of Bengal and Behar for the government of both these provinces; it had been the capital of a hundred kings, by whom it was successively adorned with the most superb edifices. It extended along the banks of the Ganges, and was defended from the encroachments of the river by a stone embankment, not less than fifteen miles in length. This magnificent city, the seat of wealth and luxury, was suddenly humbled to the dust by some pestilential disease, which has never been satisfactorily explained. The establishments of government were transferred, in the first instance, to Tondah, and then to Rajmahal.

Conquest of Cashmere, 1587

The next important event in the reign of Akbar was the conquest of Cashmere, by his brother-in-law, the raja of Jeypore, when the Mahomedan king of that province was enrolled among the nobles of the court, and this lovely valley, the paradise of Asia, became the summer retreat of the emperors of Delhi. The attempt which Akbar was required to make, soon after, to curb the highland tribes around the plain of Peshawur, proved far more arduous. These wild mountaineers, of whom the Eusufzies and the Khyberees were the most considerable and most turbulent, had been for ages the plague of every successive ruler of the province. It was their hereditary belief that the fastnesses of the mountains had been bestowed on them by the Creator, to enable them to levy contributions on the industry of the plains. Every form of conciliation and coercion had been employed in vain to restrain their inroads, On this occasion Akbar sent an army against them, under the joint command of his foster brother, and his great personal friend and favourite, the Hindoo raja Beerbull. Their troops were decoyed into the defiles and cut off, and, to the infinite regret of the emperor, Beerbull was among the slain. So complete

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was the disgrace, that according to the historian of this reign, of 40,000 horse and foot, who entered the hills, scarcely an individual escaped. Such wholesale destruction would appear incredible, if we had not witnessed an example of it in the same scene in our own day. The task of subjugating them was then committed to the rajas Toder Mull and Man Sing, who established military posts in the hills, and cut off the supplies of the mountaineers from the plains, and thus imposed some restraint on their violence. They became, however, as troublesome a century after, in the days of Aurungzebe, as they had been in the time of Akbar, and it is only since the establishment of British authority at Peshawur, that they have felt themselves in the presence of a master.

Conquest of Sinde and Candahar, 1591–94

Akbar, having no other war on his hands, proceeded to annex the kingdom of Sinde to his dominions, and soon after re-conquered the province of Candahar. Thus, after a series of conflicts, which extended over a period of twenty-five years, Akbar saw himself the undisputed monarch of all his hereditary territories beyond the Indus, and of all the principalities which had ever belonged to the crown of Delhi, north of the Nerbudda, and it only remained to extend his authority over the Deccan. A brief notice of the events in that region, during the sixteenth century, will form a suitable introduction to the Mogul expedition, on which Akbar now entered.

History of the Deccan in the 16th century

It has been stated in a previous chapter that on the decline of the Bahminy kingdom, the governors of the different provinces threw off their allegiance, and that at the period of Baber’s invasion, five separate kingdoms had been established in the Deccan, at Beejapore, Ahmednugur, Golconda, Beder, and Berar.

The kingdoms of Beder and Berar

Of these Beder, the most insignificant, was gradually absorbed by its more powerful neighbours. Berar was scarcely of more weight in the politics of the Deccan, and was extinguished about the year 1572 by the Nizam Shahee ruler of Ahmednugur. The kingdom of Golconda,

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which was sometimes called Telingana, as comprising the districts of that extinct Hindoo monarchy, was consolidated by Koolee Kootub Shah, who claimed homage on the ground of being lineally descended from Japhet, the son of Noah.

Kingdom of Golconda

His reign extended over sixty years, during which he was employed, as he delighted to say, “in spreading the banners of the Faith, and reducing the infidels from the borders of Telingana to Masulipatam and Rajahmundry.” Year after year he took the field against the Hindoos, reducing their villages to ashes, and turning their temples into mosques. Though the kings of Golconda mixed freely in the intrigues of the two other princes of the Deccan, and were always ready to enter the lists against them when plunder or territory was to be gained, their attention was more particularly directed to the subjugation of the Hindoo districts lying between the eastern border of their kingdom and the Bay of Bengal.

Kingdoms of Beejapore and Ahmednugur

The two states of Beejapore and of Ahmednugur, called the Adil Shahee, and the Nizam Shahee, which bordered on each other, were incessantly engaged in mutual hostility. Within the circle of those kingdoms was included the region inhabited by the Mahrattas, the rise and importance of whose power is to be attributed primarily to the perpetual warfare in which these royal families were involved. As early as 1499, we find a body of 5,000 Mahrattas enlisted in the service of one of them, and throughout the sixteenth century, their armies were strengthened by Mahratta contingents, consisting of five, ten, and sometimes even twenty thousand troops. Not a few of the Mahratta families, which subsequently rose to distinction, traced the origin of their dignity to these appointments. There was as yet no bond of national unity among them, and their mercenary weapons were sold to the highest bidder, even though their own countrymen might be in the opposite ranks. As the object of the kings of the Deccan was to inflict the greatest amount of havoc on their

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opponents, the aid of men who were bandits by birth and profession, must have been invaluable.

The Hindoo kingdom of Beejuynugur

To the south of the three Deccan kingdoms, lay the territories of the great Hindoo monarch of Beejuynugur, who exercised authority, more or less complete, over all the Hindoo chiefs in the south. The kings of this race had incessantly waged war with the powerful Bahminy sovereigns, and on the extinction of their power, were always engaged either in alliance or in war with some one of the Deccan kings, the ally of one year being frequently the foe of the next. The revenues of Beejuynugur, which were said to have been enriched by the commerce of sixty seaports, on both coasts, enabled the king to maintain a force with which no other single state was able to cope. Ram Raja, the reigning monarch in the middle of the sixteenth century, had recently wrested several districts from Beejapore; he had also overrun Telingana, blockaded the capital, and constrained the king to make large concessions. His growing power gave just alarm to the Mahomedan kings of Beejapore, Ahmednugur, Golconda, and Beder, and they resolved to suspend their mutual jealousies and form a general confederacy to extinguish it. This was nothing less than a conflict for supremacy between the Hindoo and the Mahomedan powers in the Deccan. Ram Raja, then seventy years of age, called up to his aid all his Hindoo feudatories as far as Ceylon, and was enabled to assemble an army, consisting, on the most moderate computation, of 70,000 horse. 90,000 foot, 2,000 elephants, and 1,000 pieces of cannon.

Battle of Tellicotta, 25 Jan, 1565

The great and decisive battle was fought on the 25th of January, at Tellicotta, about twenty miles north of Beejuynugur, and terminated in the total defeat and capture of the raja, and the slaughter, according to the Mahomedan historian, of 100,000 infidels. The aged raja was put to death in cold blood, and his head was preserved as a trophy at Beejapore, and annually exhibited to the people for two hundred years on the anniversary of his death. The

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capital was plundered of all its treasures, and gradually sunk to insignificance. The power of the Hindoos in the Deccan was irretrievably broken, but the confederate monarchs were prevented from following up their victory by mutual dissensions, and the brother of the raja was thus enabled to save some portion of the territory, and to establish his court at Penconda. The capital was subsequently transferred to Chundergiree, which has been rendered memorable in the history of British India as the town where, seventy-four years after the battle of Tellicotta, the descendant of the raja granted the English the first acre of land they ever possessed in India, and on which they erected the town of Madras.

The Portuguese during the 16th century

During the sixteenth century, the Portuguese made little effort to extend their conquests into the interior of the country. They were content with being masters of the sea, from which they swept all the fleets of India and Arabia, and with the monopoly of the commerce between Europe and India. There are, therefore, few events of any consequence in their history. It was about thirty years after they had landed at Calicut that they determined to obtain possession of the harbour of Diu at all hazards. A large expedition was fitted out, consisting of 400 vessels, with a force of 22,000 men, of whom 5,000 were said to be European soldiers and sailors; but it was defeated by the artillery and the extraordinary talents of Roomy Khan, the great engineer officer of the Guzerat army. Here it may be useful to note, that the Portuguese, on their arrival in India, found the native princes furnished with artillery fully equal to their own, and in some cases superior to it. The engineers in the native armies, who came from Constantinople and Asia Minor, and usually bore the title of Roomy, were skilled in every branch of the science of artillery, and few battles were fought without the aid of field guns. It was Roomy Khan who, in 1549, cast, or constructed, the great gun at Ahmednugur – now called the Beejapore gun – the calibre of which was 28 inches and the weight 40 tons. In 1535,

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Bahadoor Shah, the king of Guzerat, was driven from his throne by Humayoon, and took refuge at Diu, where the Portuguese, after their repulse, had succeeded in forming an establishment. There he entered into a treaty with them, granting permission to erect a fortress in return for a contingent of 50 European officers and 450 soldiers, with whose aid he was enabled to reconquer his kingdom on the departure of Humayoon. The disputes which arose regarding this fortification, and the tragic event in which they ended, have been already narrated. The fortress was completed in 1538, and contributed to strengthen the power of the Portuguese, who had now become the terror of the eastern seas through the superiority of their naval equipments. It became, therefore, the interest of all the Mahomedan powers in Asia to extirpate them, and the Grand Seigneur at Constantinople entered into a combination with the king of Guzerat to accomplish this object. The Turkish admiral sailed from Suez to Diu, with a force of 7,000 men and a superb train of artillery. A body of 20,000 men co-operated with them from Guzerat. Sylveira, the Portuguese Commander, had only a force of 600 men, but defended himself with such gallantry, that the siege is one of the most remarkable transactions in the history of the Portuguese. When, at length, forty alone of the garrison remained fit for duty, and there was no prospect before them but an unconditional surrender, the Mahomedans, exhausted by this long and fruitless siege, drew off their troops, and Diu was saved.

Combined attack on Goa, and the Portuguese settlements, 1570

The greatest event of this century, however, was the siege of Goa, in 1570. The kings of Beejapore and of Ahmednugur formed a coalition with the Zamorin of Calicut to expel the Portuguese from the coasts of India, each of the confederates engaging to attack the settlements contiguous to his dominions. Ali Adil came down upon Goa, with a force of 100,000 infantry, 35,000 cavalry, and 350 pieces of cannon; Don Luis, the governor, was able only to muster 1,600 men, including

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the monks; but he obliged the king to raise the siege with ignominy, after ten months had been wasted, and 12,000 of his troops slain. Mortiza Nizam Shah of Ahmednugur, descended the ghauts with an army scarcely less numerous, composed of natives of Turkey, Persia, Khorasan, and Ethiopia, and attacked the port of Choul, in the neighbourhood of Bombay, but he was repulsed at all points, and 3,000 of his troops perished in the assault. The Zamorin, at the same time, laid siege to the port of Chale, but it was rescued from danger by the timely arrival of reinforcements from Goa. The Portuguese, having thus repulsed the most formidable attempt made on their settlements since they became a power in India, constrained the discomfited princes to sue for peace, and retained their supremacy in the Indian ocean, and on the coasts of India to the close of the century, when they had to encounter the rivalry of the new power introduced by the Dutch, to which they were obliged eventually to succumb.

Akbar’s views on the Deccan, 1595

Akbar, having consolidated his empire to the north of the Nerbudda, resolved to conquer the Deccan. There can be little doubt that this movement was dictated simply by the “lust of territorial aggrandisement,” and that it is open to all the censure which English historians have bestowed on it. Yet aggression had been the normal principle of every government, since the Mahomedans “turned their face to India,” in the year 1000; perhaps even long before that period; and if the enterprise of Akbar had been crowned with success, it would doubtless have been an incomparable benefit to India.

It is difficult to imagine a more deplorable condition than that of the unhappy provinces of the Deccan during the whole of the sixteenth century. The kings seem to have had no occupation but war. Scarcely a year passed in which the villages were not subjected to rapine, and the fair fruits of industry blasted by their wanton irruptions. No government, however tyrannical, could have inflicted anything like the wretchedness occasioned by these unceasing devastations.

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So inestimable is the blessing conferred by a strong government in India, in putting down intestine war, and giving repose and confidence to the people, that it appears mere affectation to inquire into the origin of its rights, which, in nine cases out of ten, will be found to be as valid as those of the power it subverts.

Akbar enters the Ahmednugur state, 1595

On the death of Boorhan Nizam Shah, the king of Ahmednugur, in 1595, four rival factions arose in the state, the most powerful of which called in the aid of the Moguls. Akbar, who had long been watching an opportunity of interfering in the affairs of the Deccan, readily accepted the overture, and lost no time in sending forward two armies. But before they could reach the capital, another revolution had placed the power of the state in the hands of Chand Sultana. She was a princess of Ahmednugur, who had been bestowed in marriage in 1564 on Ali Adil Shah of Beejapore, to bind him to the alliance then formed by the Mahomedan kings against the raja of Beejuynugur. On his death she returned to her native country, and now assumed the regency on behalf of her nephew, Bahadoor Nizam Shah.

The celebrated Chand Sultana, 1595

This celebrated woman, the favourite heroine of the Deccan, the subject of a hundred ballads, determined to defend the city to the last extremity, and persuaded the rival factions to merge their differences in a combined effort against the common foe. The Moguls had constructed three mines, two of which she countermined; the third blew up, carrying away a portion of the wall, and many of her principal officers prepared to desert the defence. The Sultana flew to the spot in full armour, with a veil over her countenance, and a drawn sword in her hand, and recalled the troops to a sense of their duty. Combustibles of every description were thrown into the breach, and so heavy a fire was directed against it, that the besiegers were constrained to retire. During the night she superintended in person the repairs of the wall. It is a popular and favourite tradition, that when the shot was exhausted, she loaded the guns with

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copper, then with silver, and then with gold, and did not pause till she had begun to fire away her jewels. The allies whom she had importuned to aid her, were now approaching; the Mogul camp began to be straitened for provisions, and prince Morad, the son of Akbar, who commanded the army, offered to retire on obtaining the cession of the province of Berar.

She cedes Berar to the Moguls, 1596

Chand, having little confidence in the fidelity of her troops or of her allies, was constrained to accede to these terms.

Battle of Soneput, Jan, 1597

Within a year of this convention, the kings of Beejapore, Ahmednugur, and Golconda formed an alliance to drive the Moguls back across the Nerbudda, and brought an army of 60,000 men into the field. An action was fought at Soneput, which lasted two days, without any decisive result, though both parties claimed the victory. Dissensions at length broke out among the officers of the Mogul army, and Akbar, who had resided for fourteen years in the countries bordering on the Indus, felt the necessity of proceeding in person to the Deccan. On reaching Boorhanpore he sent an army to lay siege again to Ahmednugur. The government of the Sultana, which she had maintained with great difficulty, was now distracted by factions, and feeling the city to be incapable of defence, she endeavoured to make the best terms in her power with the Moguls. The populace, inflamed by her enemies, rushed into her chamber and put her to death. But they soon had reason to deplore their ingratitude. The Mogul army stormed and plundered the city, giving no quarter to the defenders, and the young king and his family were sent as state prisoners to Gwalior.

Capture of Ahmednugur, July, 1600

The fall of the capital did not, however, ensure the submission of the kingdom, and it was not incorporated with the Mogul dominions till thirty-seven years after this period. Soon after, Akbar deprived his vassal, the king of Candesh, of all authority, and that kingdom was re-annexed to the Mogul empire.

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Last four years of Akbar’s reign, 1601–1605

This was the last event of importance in the reign of Akbar, who returned to the capital in 1601. The close of his life was embittered by the misconduct of his son Selim, then thirty years of age, a prince not altogether destitute of that talent, which for a century and a half distinguished the family of Baber, both in the cabinet and in the field, but violent and vindictive, and the slave of wine. The emperor had declared him heir to the throne, but he was so impatient to occupy it, as to take up arms against his father, which, however, he was induced to lay down by a fond and paternal letter, and a grant of the provinces of Bengal and Orissa. He had contracted an inveterate hatred of Abul Fazil, one of the most illustrious officers of Akbar’s camp, and, after the death of raja Beerbull, his most intimate friend. Prince Selim caused him to be assassinated by a zemindar of Bundlecund. Abul Fazil was equally eminent as a general, a statesman, and a historian; and Akbar is indebted for his renown in no small degree to the pen of his noble historian.

Akbar’s death, 13th Oct 1605

In September, 1605, Akbar began to feel the approach of death. The profligacy of Selim had induced an influential body of courtiers, among whom was raja Man Sing, to contemplate the elevation of his son Khusro, a minor, to the throne; but Akbar nipped the project in the bud. He summoned his courtiers and his son around his couch, and ordered the prince to bind his favourite scymetar to his side as a token that the empire had been bequeathed to him, and recommended his personal friends and the ladies of the harem to his protection. Then, addressing the omrahs around him, he asked forgiveness for any offence he might have given them; a priest was soon after introduced, and Akbar repeated the confession of faith, and died in the odour of Mahomedan sanctity, though he had lived the life of a heretic.

Akbar was not only the ornament of the Mogul dynasty

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but incomparably the greatest of all the Mahomedan rulers of India.

Akbar’s character and civil institutions

Few princes ever exhibited greater military genius or personal courage. He never fought a battle which he did not win, or besieged a town which he did not take; yet he had no passion for war, and as soon as he had turned the tide of victory by his skill and energy, he was happy to leave his generals to complete the work, and to hasten back to the more agreeable labours of the cabinet. The glories of his reign rest not so much on the extent of his conquests, though achieved by his personal talent, as on the admirable institutions by which his empire was consolidated. The superiority of his civil administration was owing not to his own genius alone, but also to the able statesmen whom, like Queen Elizabeth, he had the wisdom to collect around him.

His religious views and his toleration

In the early period of his career he was a devout follower of the Prophet, and was at one time bent on a pilgrimage to his tomb, the aspiration of every Mahomedan; but about the twenty-fifth year of his reign he began to entertain sentiments incompatible with fidelity to the Koran. He professed to reject all prophets, priests, and ceremonies, and to take simple reason as the guide of his thoughts and the rule of his actions. The first article of his creed was, “There is no God but one, and Akbar is his prophet.” Whether he ever intended to become the founder of a new creed may admit of controversy; but all his measures tended to discourage the religion of the Prophet. He changed the era of the Hejira; he restrained the study of Arabic and of Mahomedan theology; and he wounded the dearest prejudices of the faithful by proscribing the beard. Nothing but the ascendancy of his character, and his dazzling success in war and in peace, could have preserved the throne amidst the discontents produced among his own chiefs by these heterodox measures. Among a people with whom persecution was considered the most sacred of duties, Akbar adopted the principle not only of religious toleration, but, what has been found a more difficult task even in the most enlightened Christian communities,

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of religious equality. He formed the magnanimous resolution of resting the strength of his throne on the attachment of all his subjects, whether they belonged to the established religion of the state or not. He disarmed the hostility and secured the loyalty of the Hindoos by allowing them to share the highest civil offices and military commands with the Mahomedans, and thus placed himself a century ahead of the Stuarts in England. He abolished the odious jezzia, or capitation tax; he issued an edict permitting Hindoo widows to marry; he discouraged suttees to the full extent of his power, and he abolished the practice of reducing captives to slavery.

His revenue reforms

Under the supervision of the great financier of the age, the raja Toder Mull, Akbar radically remodelled the revenue system of the empire He caused all the lands to be measured according to a uniform standard, and with the most perfect instruments procurable. He divided them, according to their character and fertility, into three classes, and fixed the demand of the state generally at one-third the annual produce, and then commuted it to a money payment. He abolished all arbitrary ceases, and made the settlement for ten years, and with the cultivators themselves, to the exclusion of all middlemen. It is questionable therefore whether, during his reign, there were any zemindars in India at all, and whether those who afterwards assumed their prerogatives were, at this period, and for more than a century after, anything beyond mere officials employed in collecting the public dues.

Division of the empire

The whole empire was divided into fifteen provinces, or soubahs: – Cabul, beyond the Indus; Lahore, Mooltan, Delhi, Agra, Oude, Allahabad, Ajmere, Guzerat, Malwa, Behar, and Bengal; and south of the Nerbudda, Candesh, Berar, and Ahmednugur. Each province was placed under a soobadar, who was entrusted with full powers, civil and military, and assisted by a dewan, or minister of finance, who, though nominated by the emperor, was

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accountable to the soobadar. The military duties of each province were entrusted to a fouzdar, who also commanded the police force, and was responsible for the peace of the country. Civil law was administered by a Mahomedan chief justice, assisted by local judges, and the decisions were invariably in accordance with the precepts of Mahomedan law.

The military system and the economy of his court

The military system of Akbar was the least perfect of all his arrangements, and his extraordinary success is to be attributed more to the weakness of his opponents than to the superiority of his own army. He perpetuated the great military error of paying the commanders for their soldiers by the head, which created an irresistible temptation to make false musters, and to fill the ranks with ragamuffins. The same organization which pervaded the various offices of state was carried into all the establishments of his court, down to the department of the fruits and the flowers, the perfumery, the kitchen, and the kennel, which were regulated to the minutest details under the personal directions of the emperor. Every establishment was maintained upon a scale of imperial magnificence. He never had fewer than 12,000 horses and 5,000 elephants in his own stables, independently of those required for hawking, and hunting, and war. During his progress through the provinces his camp was a great moving city, and the eye was dazzled by the sight of the royal tents surmounted with gilt cupolas, and enriched with the most gorgeous ornaments.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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