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In 1505 a small Turkoman chieftain, Baber, a descendant of Timur and therefore of Jengis, was forced after some years of warfare and some temporary successes—for a time he held Samarkand—to fly with a few followers over the Hindu Kush to Afghanistan. There his band increased, and he made himself master of Cabul. He assembled an army, accumulated guns, and then laid claim to the Punjab, because Timur had conquered it a hundred and seven years before. He pushed his successes beyond the Punjab. India was in a state of division, and quite ready to welcome any capable invader who promised peace and order. After various fluctuations of fortune Baber met the Sultan of Delhi at Panipat (1525), ten miles north of that town, and though he had but 25,000 men, provided, however, with guns, against a thousand elephants and four times as many men—the numbers, by the by, are his own estimate—he gained a complete victory. He ceased to call himself King of Cabul, and assumed the title of Emperor of Hindustan. "This," he wrote, "is quite a different world from our countries." It was finer, more fertile, altogether richer. He conquered as far as Bengal, but his untimely death in 1530 checked the tide of Mongol conquest for a quarter of a century, and it was only after the accession of his grandson Akbar that it flowed again. Akbar subjugated all India as far as Berar, and his great-grandson Aurungzeb (1658-1707) was practically master of the entire peninsula. This great dynasty of Baber (1526-1530), Humayun (1530-1556), Akbar (1556-1605), Jehangir (1605-1628), Shah Jehan (1628-1658), and Aurungzeb (1658-1707), in which son succeeded father for six generations, this "Mogul (= Mongol) dynasty," marks the most splendid age that had hitherto dawned upon India. Akbar next perhaps to Asoka, was one of the greatest of Indian monarchs, and one of the few royal figures that approach the stature of great men.

To Akbar it is necessary to give the same distinctive attention that we have shown to Charlemagne or Constantine the Great.