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Authors: Indu Sundaresan
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of the Persian script upon the disk on his skin. He stared at his image for a long time, his fingers brushing over the writing on his face, then glanced at the royal seal in his hand. Impressed on the heavy gold were the names of his ancestors—Timur the Lame, Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, and in the very center his own, Shah Jahan, the King of the World.
Eunuchs and slaves moved around in his apartments soundlessly as he went to the balcony attached to his rooms and stood in the morning sunlight. From here he could see the dusty plains around Burhanpur stretching out for miles, a few splashes of green where trees grew with dogged determination, low hills on the horizon. He owned all of this land, as far as he could see, and so much more of India—Kabul and Lahore in the northwest, Kashmir in the north, Bengal in the east, and here in the south pushing against the edge of the Deccan kingdoms. The Emperor laid the seal on its side upon the balustrade of the balcony and watched the chunk of gold glow, faint smears of ink darkening the grooves and furrows of the writing upon it. It had been hard won, this Empire of his, with a bloody history he had engraved upon his heart, along with which came the knowledge that nothing worthwhile was achieved easily.
Some hundred years before, in April of 1526, an upstart Timurid prince had brought his twenty-five-thousand-strong army in battle to the plains of Panipat near Delhi. His name was Babur. In that battle, Babur, with his pathetically small army, met the one-hundred-thousand-strong forces of Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, who was the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate—and routed them by firing with muskets from behind a barricade of carts on the battlefield. With that stunning victory over the Lodi king, Babur became the first Emperor of Mughal India. With the conquest came the vast wealth of Hindustan—gold coins, jewels of magnificent luster and value, trim and well-fed horses to populate an immense cavalry, war elephants, and an astounding and new collection of subjects, who looked strange and spoke in stranger tongues—all prostrated at the feet of the new Emperor.
But Emperor Babur hated Hindustan—he loathed the heat, found the topography too flat, too uninteresting, and yearned all the while for his gardens in Kabul until he died four years later.
Babur’s eldest son, Humayun, became Emperor after him and found that his father had bequeathed upon him an unsteady Empire and also three half brothers, who thought themselves as much sovereign as the eldest son. Ten years later, beset by family troubles, he was driven out of India by Sher Shah Sur, who set up court in Delhi instead. It would take Humayun fourteen more years to set foot in Hindustan again with the help of the Shah of Persia, and when he did, in 1554, it was only to rule for two short years before he died. His son Akbar was only thirteen years old when Humayun died and already on campaign far from his father’s side.
Emperor Akbar ruled for forty-nine years, expanding the boundaries of the Empire his grandfather had laid the foundations for well beyond Emperor Babur’s imagining. He conquered kingdoms and married daughters, nieces, and sisters of the vassal kings to demand thus their everlasting fealty to his Mughal crown. He built monuments, tombs, and forts, palaces and entire cities so lavish that they would survive for hundreds of years. He was a great king, a good king, a just king, known for his liberality, his generosity, even his patronage of arts and culture.
When Emperor Akbar died, in 1605, only his oldest son, Jahangir, was alive, and he ascended the throne when he was thirty-eight years old after a long and bitter struggle with his father (and indeed with one of his own sons) to feel the heft of the Mughal crown on his head. When Jahangir became Emperor, his father bestowed upon him—the first of the Mughal Emperors to be given this bounty—a more or less peaceful Empire, a firm throne, and an
Eunuchs and slaves moved around in his apartments soundlessly as he went to the balcony attached to his rooms and stood in the morning sunlight. From here he could see the dusty plains around Burhanpur stretching out for miles, a few splashes of green where trees grew with dogged determination, low hills on the horizon. He owned all of this land, as far as he could see, and so much more of India—Kabul and Lahore in the northwest, Kashmir in the north, Bengal in the east, and here in the south pushing against the edge of the Deccan kingdoms. The Emperor laid the seal on its side upon the balustrade of the balcony and watched the chunk of gold glow, faint smears of ink darkening the grooves and furrows of the writing upon it. It had been hard won, this Empire of his, with a bloody history he had engraved upon his heart, along with which came the knowledge that nothing worthwhile was achieved easily.
Some hundred years before, in April of 1526, an upstart Timurid prince had brought his twenty-five-thousand-strong army in battle to the plains of Panipat near Delhi. His name was Babur. In that battle, Babur, with his pathetically small army, met the one-hundred-thousand-strong forces of Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, who was the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate—and routed them by firing with muskets from behind a barricade of carts on the battlefield. With that stunning victory over the Lodi king, Babur became the first Emperor of Mughal India. With the conquest came the vast wealth of Hindustan—gold coins, jewels of magnificent luster and value, trim and well-fed horses to populate an immense cavalry, war elephants, and an astounding and new collection of subjects, who looked strange and spoke in stranger tongues—all prostrated at the feet of the new Emperor.
But Emperor Babur hated Hindustan—he loathed the heat, found the topography too flat, too uninteresting, and yearned all the while for his gardens in Kabul until he died four years later.
Babur’s eldest son, Humayun, became Emperor after him and found that his father had bequeathed upon him an unsteady Empire and also three half brothers, who thought themselves as much sovereign as the eldest son. Ten years later, beset by family troubles, he was driven out of India by Sher Shah Sur, who set up court in Delhi instead. It would take Humayun fourteen more years to set foot in Hindustan again with the help of the Shah of Persia, and when he did, in 1554, it was only to rule for two short years before he died. His son Akbar was only thirteen years old when Humayun died and already on campaign far from his father’s side.
Emperor Akbar ruled for forty-nine years, expanding the boundaries of the Empire his grandfather had laid the foundations for well beyond Emperor Babur’s imagining. He conquered kingdoms and married daughters, nieces, and sisters of the vassal kings to demand thus their everlasting fealty to his Mughal crown. He built monuments, tombs, and forts, palaces and entire cities so lavish that they would survive for hundreds of years. He was a great king, a good king, a just king, known for his liberality, his generosity, even his patronage of arts and culture.
When Emperor Akbar died, in 1605, only his oldest son, Jahangir, was alive, and he ascended the throne when he was thirty-eight years old after a long and bitter struggle with his father (and indeed with one of his own sons) to feel the heft of the Mughal crown on his head. When Jahangir became Emperor, his father bestowed upon him—the first of the Mughal Emperors to be given this bounty—a more or less peaceful Empire, a firm throne, and an
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