Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/819

795 HISTORY.] INDIA 795 land, or the imperial demesne, and jaglr lands, granted revenue free or at quit rent in reward for services, also dates from the time of Akbar. As regards his military system, Akbar invented a sort of feudal organization, by which every tributary raja took his place by the side of his own Mughal nobles. In theory it was an aristocracy based only upon military command ; but practically it accom plished the object at which it aimed by incorporating the hereditary chiefships of Rajputana among the mush room, ^.eations of a Mahometan despotism. Musalmans and liindus were alike known only as mansal/ddrs or commanders of so many horse, the highest title being that of amir (ameer), corrupted by European travellers into umrah or omrah. The third and last of Akbar s char acteristic measures were those connected with religious innovation, about which it is difficult to speak with pre cision. The necessity of conciliating the proud warriors of Rajputana had taught him toleration from his earliest diys. His favourite wife was a Rajput princess, and another wife is said to have been a Christian. O.ut of four hundred and fifteen of his mansabddrs whose names are recorded, as many as fifty-one were Hindus. Start ing from the broad ground of general toleration, Akbar was gradually led on by the stimulus of cosmopolitan discussion to question the truth of his inherited faith. The counsels of his friend Abul Fazl, coinciding with that sense of superhuman omnipotence which is bred of despotic power, led him at last to promulgate a new state religion, based upon natural theology, and comprising the best practices of all known creeds. In this strange faith Akbar himself was the prophet, or rather the head of the church. Every morning he worshipped the sun in public, as being the representative of the divine soul that animates the universe, while he was himself worshipped by the ignorant multitude. Akbar died in 1605, in his sixty-third year. He lies buried beneath a plain slab in the magnificent mausoleum which lie had reared at Sikandra, near his capital of Agra. As his name is still cherished in India, so his tomb is still honoured, being covered by a cloth presented by Lord Northbrook when viceroy in 1873. .jir. The reign of Jahangir, his son, extended from 1605 to 1627. It is chiefly remarkable for the influence exercised over the emperor byhis favourite wife, surnamed Nur Mahal, or the Light of the Harem. The currency was struck in her name, and in her hands centred all the intrigues that made up the work of administration. She lies buried by the side of her husband at Lahore, whither the seat of govern ment had been moved by Jahangfr, just as Akbar had previously transferre I it from Delhi to Agra. It was in the reign of Jahangfr that the English first established themselves at Surat, and also sent their first embassy to the Mughal court. Jahangir was succeeded by his son Shah Jahan, who had rebelled against his father, as Jahangir had rebelled against Akbar. Shah Jahan s reign is generally regarded as the period when the Mughal empire attained its greatest magnificence, though not its greatest extent of territory. He founded the existing city of Delhi, which is still known to its Mahometan inhabitants as Jahanabad. At Delhi also he erected the celebrated peacock throne; but his favourite place of residence was Agra, where his name will ever be associated with the marvel of Indian architecture, the Taj Mahal. That most chaste and most ornamental of buildings was erected by Shah Jahan as the mausoleum of his favourite wife Mumtaz Mahal, and he himself lies by her side. It is said that twenty thousand workmen laboured on the work for twenty years. Besides the Taj, Shah Jahan also built at Agra within the old fort the palace and the pearl mosque, both of which, like the Taj, have been preserved to be objects of admiration to tho present day. Shah Jahan had four sons, whose fratricidal wars for the succession during their father s lifetime H would be tedious to dwell upon. Suffice it to say that Aurangzeb, by mingled treachery and violence, supplanted or overthrew his brothers and proclaimed himself emperor in 1658, while Shah Jahan was yet alive. Aurangzeb s long reign, from 1658 to 1707, may be Auran-zeb. regarded as representing both the culminating point of Mughal power and the beginning of its decay. Unattrac tive as his character was, it contained at least some elements of greatness. None of his successors on the throne was anything higher than a debauchee or a. puppet. He was the first to conquer the independent sultans of the Deccan, and to extend his authority to the extreme south. But even during his lifetime two new Hindu nationalities were being formed in the Marhattas and the Sikhs ; while im mediately after his death the nawabs of the Deccan, of Oudh, and of Bengal raised themselves to practical in dependence. Aurangzeb had indeed enlarged the empire, but he had not strengthened its foundations. During the reign of his father Shah Jahan he had been viceroy of the Deccan or rather of the northern portion only, which had been annexed to the Mughal empire since the reign of Akbar. His early ambition was to conquer the Mahometan kings of Bijapur and Golconda, who, since the downfall of Vijayanagar, had been practically supreme over the south. This object was not accomplished without many tedious Rise of campaigns, in which Sivaji, the founder of the Marhatta Marhatta confederacy, first comes upon the scene. In name Sivaji P^ er - was a feudatory of the house of Bijapur, on whose behalf he held the rock-foits of his native Ghats ; but in fact he found his opportunity in playing off the Mahometan powers against one another, and in rivalling Aurangzeb himself in the art of treachery. In 1680 Sivaji died, and his son and successor, Sambhaji, was betrayed to Aurai gzeb and put to death. The rising Marhatta power was thus for a time checked, and the Mughal armies were set free to operate in the eastern Deccan. In 1686 the city of Bijapur was taken by Aurangzeb in person, and in the following year Golconda also fell. No independent power then remained in the south, though the numerous local chieftains, known as pdlcydrs and nail s, never formally submitted to the Mughal empire. During the early years of his reign Aurangzeb had fixed his capital at Delhi, while he kept his dethroned father, Shah JahAn, in close confine ment at Agra. In 1682 he set out with his army on his victorious march into the Deccan, and from that time until his death in 1707 he never again returned to Delhi. In this camp life Aurangzeb may be taken as representative of one aspect of the Mughal rule, which has been pictur esquely described by European travellers of that day. They agree in depicting the emperor as a peripatetic sovereign, and the empire as held together by its military high ways no less than by the strength of its armies.^ The great road running across the north of the peninsula, from Dacca in the east to Lahore in the west, is generally attributed to the Afghan usurper, Sher Shah. The other roads branching out southward from Agrn, to Surat and Burhanpur and Golconda, were undoubtedly the work of Mughal times. Each of these roads was laid out with avenues of trees, with wells of water, and with frequent sardis or rest-houses. Constant communication between the capital and remote cities was maintained by a system of foot-runners, whose aggregate speed is said to have surpassed that of a horse. Commerce was conducted by means of a caste of bullock-drivers, whose occupation in India is hardly yet extinct. iv.-line On the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the decline of the M,,giial Mughal empire set in with extraordinary rapidity. Ten en pire.