The Glory of the Mughal Empire

[Bang Galore]

i think that is description of geographical neighboring regions, not part of their original dominion or native homeland, although occasionally there were short-lived satraps/tributaries of early persian empires set up in punjab.

They referred to it as part of their lands. Not surprising, the Avesta was composed when those people knew nothing of western Iran. It was this area (between Hapta Handu & Easter Iran + Afghanistan) that they were familiar with

 

[Ridd]

Yeah I can gather that much. His obsession just shows through his charade of superiority. Pathetic mind-set. I can understand other Indians talking about greatness of their ancestors and such like based on their history and heritage, but this guy from an insignificant corner of India talks as though he is the present day emperor of India. If he were to go live in Mumbai, Shiv Sena types would straighten him out in no time..... Wait... may be he has been straightened out, but it did not work for him and now he has to take his anger out on someone? Hmmm..... figures.

He ..he..The mughals tried to conquer the north east many times.It was only the ahoms with the help of many of it allied tribes that stopped the mighty mughals in their track.But then what would pakistanis know about defending themselves,they just have showed their backsides to every invader as long as anyone can remember.Insignificant? my ***.

 

[Aepsilons]

@Nihonjin1051 Taimur was not son of Gengis Khan. He claimed descent from Gengis Khan, but this is not conclusively settled as far as I know. What is sure is that Babur was descended from Mother's side from the great Khan. You are right about Babur in that he was a capable military leader. He could be cruel, but this was not his nature but rather a matter of necessity. Once when he ruled Samarqand, he saw a riot at City gates. His approach was to have arrows shot into the unruly mob. This was how things were such a long time ago. These days people are usually well-educated enough that one can reason with them perhaps, but back in those days when kings ruled by force such things were common.

@Chak Bamu ,

Babur was indeed a man of foresight and was capable in strategy, the army that he commanded were composed of men from different parts of the world; many of them were Persian, Afghani tribesmen, Mongols, Turkmen. In the campaign to Peshawar, he had to motivate his soldiers, many of whom were so used to the cool temperatures of Central Asia, to continue on despite the heat of India's summers. To success, he and his army of central asians were able to subjugate the Punjab and also defeated the Rajputs and made them into loyal allies. Contrary to what others say, Mughals , especially under the reign of Babur , Hamuyan, Akbar -- they actually contributed a sense of acceptance. Rajputs , who were always Hindus , remained Hindu and practice the religion of their forefathers without persecution from Mughals. In fact, Mughal princes would marry Rajput princesses and thus the court culture of Mughal Emperors were transferred onto the Rajputs and to an extent even in Delhi.

Let's be objective when we compare the Babur's actions to that of another of his kinsmen, Hulagu Khan, who led the Mongol invasion in the Siege of Baghdad. Khan was notorious for his brutality committed on soldiers of the Abassid Caliphate. In fact when Hulagu Khan's forces took Baghdad, instead of offering surrender terms to Al-Musta'sim Billah, or even offered to give him clemency and mercy. Hulagu Khan had the Caliph tied to his horse and dragged all throughout Baghdad until the Caliph was literally dragged and stamped to death by the hooves of Mongol horses. Let us compare that with Babur, shall we?

Babur started his campaign in November 1525, when he reached Peshaar he got the news that Daulat Khan Lodi had switched sides and drove out Ala-ud-Din. Babur then marched onto Lahore to confront Daulat Khan Lodi, only to see Daulat's army melt away at their approach. Daulat surrendered and was pardoned, thus within three weeks of crossing the Indus Babur became the master of Punjab.

Babur, unlike Hulagu, gave mercy to his opponent and pardoned him. So it is incorrect to make a blank judgment on Babur that he and his kin were excessively brutal or unmerciful. Compared to actions committed by other Mongol Lords, Babur was a saint.

Lastly, I find it rather interesting that some posters here keep on claiming Babur and the Mughals as foreign invaders. I mean, most of humans are invaders, India is the amalgamation of foreign invaders that have in a way contributed to the overall entity, and genetic make up of the people. Present day Indians and Pakistanis are not 'pure', but a mix of ethnicities. If we really want to refer to the 'pureness' of indigenous people in the subcontinent , I would say that the 'pure' Indians are the Dravidians, who are literally of another race. These are the people that inhabit the Andaman islands and parts of Southern India. The rest of the people in India are a mixture of Aryan peoples and Dravidian. And these are the caucasoids, the people that make up North East India's 7 states were never really considered part of 'Bharat', but were independent states that had much closer ties with Austroloids and Austronesians of continental South East Asia. These had more genetic and cultural similarities with the Mon Khmer who made up the Khmer Empire, also with the Tai peoples that settled and ruled what was the Sukkothai Empire, Lan Xang Kingdom and the Ayuthaya Kingdom.

So I deign to say that invaders and 'foreign' peoples have been influencing India and the subcontinent since time immemorial. I would even say that invasion and foreign influence is not limited to the subcontinent only, the same can be said in East Asia, South East Asia, The Americans (North, Central ans South), and even in Europe.


Regards,
I remain,
@Nihonjin1051

 

[Dem!god]

The Expanse of the Moghul Empire

thats a wrong pic....mughal were never in the south...

 

[Ridd]

Assam is North east, Indian.

North East India,genius.

 

[sahaliyan]

You're right my friend, just read into the Xibes now. What I am also impressed with was the fact that despite the Qing assimilation into overall Chinese culture when they took the Mandate of Heaven, they retained their distinctively Manchu military organization. Especially the use of the 8 Banner system, which defined the Qing Military Machine for centuries to come. I remember when Qianlong Emperor made war with Hsinbyushin in Burma, he implemented the banner systems when trying to march through the thicket. Its interesting to see that the descendents of the bannermen still are able to preserve their identity, culture (language and writing). It's romantic in a way...



I empathize with you, my friend, and thank you for sharing your input.

The field of Manchuria

 

[SarthakGanguly]

Just to note one example of their contribution:

Fathullah Shirazi who worked for Akbar the Great in the Mughal Empire, developed a volley gun.
Considered one of the most remarkable feats in metallurgy, the seamless globe was invented in Kashmir by Ali Kashmiri ibn Luqman in 998 AH( 1589-90), and twenty other such globes were later produced in Lahore and Kashmir during Mughal time.It was believed by modern metallurgists to be technically impossible to produce metal gloves without any seams.These Mughal metallurgists pioneered the method of wax casting while producing these seamless globes.

As for contribution in the field of botany, namely agricultural science, I reference the works of Dr. Kanuja Kumari, Ph.D (2012):

Agriculture science has existed in India since ancient times. India has been an agricultural country from time immemorial and has played a major role in determining the economic condition of any period. The Indian peasantry formed the backbone of the economy and the economic setup. Agriculture science and its development has been a continous process . The Rigveda says “ Get rid of gambling and then learn the art of Farming.” The techniques of cultivation was present in Rigvedic period and went on progressing in the early medieval and Mughal period. The cropping patterns, irrigation facilities, water management manures had developed in the Mughal period. The measurement system , the land revenue system had reached to another level during the reign of Akbar. He introduced the Ain- i- Dahsala system to make the land revenue system more organised and to enhance the tax collection of the empire. The agriculture science determined the socio- economic condition of the farmers.


Reference:
Kumari, Kanuja (2012). Agricultural Period during the Mughal Period and its Socio-Economic Impact. International Journal of Humanities and Applied Sciences. Retrieved from:
http://psrcentre.org/images/extraimages/IJHAS013025.pdf

So these -
i. Fathullah Shirazi built the volley gun.
ii. Administrative reforms in the agricultural sector.

Yup - great technological progress indeed.

 

[Aepsilons]

The field of Manchuria

Hi Brother @sahaliyan ,

So Beautiful, man, the expanse of the land is picturesque. I read into the economy of classical period Manchuria , there was always a heavy agricultural presence there , namely the harvesting of wheat, barley, flax seeds, and also a heavy importance of sheep, goats. The pictures you shared, bro, remind me of the farmland that run throughout my own native Hokkaido. The cooler temperatures of Manchuria (North East China) is similar to that of Northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Here a farm in Obihiro, Hokkaido Prefecture:

Note: In Northern Japan, we put a lot of emphasis also in cattle, sheep, goats, animal grazing, and people also harvest wheat, not like the people in southern Japan and mainland Japan that emphasize rice farming. Also, unlike other Japanese, we in Hokkaido put emphasis on beef, and bovine farming. Not so much on fish... ha ha! . Actually Bear meat is also very popular in Hokkaido (which is not popular at all in other parts of Japan!).

Sheep in Hokkaido !

Wheat farm in Hokkaido Prefecture, Northern Japan.

Hokkaido farm



Looks almost like Manchuria eh?

 

[अखण्ड भारत!!!]

I already did actually.


Do those Indian Empires have anything close coming to this?

No hard feelings

But you should know that Ottoman and Safavid painting who were also Turkic have Asiatic looking people because that is what Turkic peoples are. Look at Turkic countries in Central Asia.

Wait for 100 years,that structure will be in the river

 

[M.AsfandYar]

In one of his couplet Bahadur Shah had lamented on the irony of his fate thus:
Umr-e-daraaz maang ke laye the char din/Do aarzu mein kat gaye, do intezar mein
Hai kitna badnasseb Zafar dafn ke liye/Do gaz zameen bhi mil na saki koo-e-yaar mein.
Na kisii kii ankh ka nur na kisii ke dil ka qarar hun/Jo kisii ke kam na a sake main vo ek musht-e-Gubar hun
Na to main kisii ka habiib hun na to main kisii ka raqiib hun/Jo bigar gaya vo nasiib hun jo ujar gaya vo dayar hun
hamane duniyaa mein aake kyaa dekha/dekhaa jo kucch so Khvaab-saa dekhaa/hai to insaan Khaak kaa putlaa/lekin paanii ka bulbulaa dekhaa)

I had requested for a long life a life of four days/Two passed by in pining, and two in waiting/How unlucky is Zafar! For burial/Even two yards of land were not to be had, in the land (of the) beloved./My life gives no ray of light, I bring no solace to heart or eye/Out of dust to dust again, of no use to anyone am I/Barred the door of the fate for me, bereft of my dear ones am I/The spring of a flower garden ruined/Alas, my autumn wind am I/I came into the world and what did I see?/Whatever I saw was just like a dream/Man is moulded from clay but/I saw him as a bubble of water.


Reference: The last days of Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar in Burma | TwoCircles.net





Why is the body of the Emperor still in Myanmar? He should be moved back to the place of his birth. imho.

That is so simple Urdu, I was not expecting this. I read some poetry of Iqbal and couldnt grasp all of it but this was nothing, i mean it is so old after all.

 

[Aepsilons]

That is so simple Urdu, I was not expecting this. I read some poetry of Iqbal and couldnt grasp all of it but this was nothing, i mean it is so old after all.

If you like that, then I recommend the poems of Mirza Ghalib.

 

[kalu_miah]

@Chak Bamu ,

Babur was indeed a man of foresight and was capable in strategy, the army that he commanded were composed of men from different parts of the world; many of them were Persian, Afghani tribesmen, Mongols, Turkmen. In the campaign to Peshawar, he had to motivate his soldiers, many of whom were so used to the cool temperatures of Central Asia, to continue on despite the heat of India's summers. To success, he and his army of central asians were able to subjugate the Punjab and also defeated the Rajputs and made them into loyal allies. Contrary to what others say, Mughals , especially under the reign of Babur , Hamuyan, Akbar -- they actually contributed a sense of acceptance. Rajputs , who were always Hindus , remained Hindu and practice the religion of their forefathers without persecution from Mughals. In fact, Mughal princes would marry Rajput princesses and thus the court culture of Mughal Emperors were transferred onto the Rajputs and to an extent even in Delhi.

Let's be objective when we compare the Babur's actions to that of another of his kinsmen, Hulagu Khan, who led the Mongol invasion in the Siege of Baghdad. Khan was notorious for his brutality committed on soldiers of the Abassid Caliphate. In fact when Hulagu Khan's forces took Baghdad, instead of offering surrender terms to Al-Musta'sim Billah, or even offered to give him clemency and mercy. Hulagu Khan had the Caliph tied to his horse and dragged all throughout Baghdad until the Caliph was literally dragged and stamped to death by the hooves of Mongol horses. Let us compare that with Babur, shall we?

Babur started his campaign in November 1525, when he reached Peshaar he got the news that Daulat Khan Lodi had switched sides and drove out Ala-ud-Din. Babur then marched onto Lahore to confront Daulat Khan Lodi, only to see Daulat's army melt away at their approach. Daulat surrendered and was pardoned, thus within three weeks of crossing the Indus Babur became the master of Punjab.

Babur, unlike Hulagu, gave mercy to his opponent and pardoned him. So it is incorrect to make a blank judgment on Babur that he and his kin were excessively brutal or unmerciful. Compared to actions committed by other Mongol Lords, Babur was a saint.

Lastly, I find it rather interesting that some posters here keep on claiming Babur and the Mughals as foreign invaders. I mean, most of humans are invaders, India is the amalgamation of foreign invaders that have in a way contributed to the overall entity, and genetic make up of the people. Present day Indians and Pakistanis are not 'pure', but a mix of ethnicities. If we really want to refer to the 'pureness' of indigenous people in the subcontinent , I would say that the 'pure' Indians are the Dravidians, who are literally of another race. These are the people that inhabit the Andaman islands and parts of Southern India. The rest of the people in India are a mixture of Aryan peoples and Dravidian. And these are the caucasoids, the people that make up North East India's 7 states were never really considered part of 'Bharat', but were independent states that had much closer ties with Austroloids and Austronesians of continental South East Asia. These had more genetic and cultural similarities with the Mon Khmer who made up the Khmer Empire, also with the Tai peoples that settled and ruled what was the Sukkothai Empire, Lan Xang Kingdom and the Ayuthaya Kingdom.

So I deign to say that invaders and 'foreign' peoples have been influencing India and the subcontinent since time immemorial. I would even say that invasion and foreign influence is not limited to the subcontinent only, the same can be said in East Asia, South East Asia, The Americans (North, Central ans South), and even in Europe.


Regards,
I remain,
@Nihonjin1051

Your sense of history of South Asia is quite accurate. But note that you will not find many Indian non-Muslims agreeing with your realistic view of history. I call it the delusion of sore looser syndrome. It would be ok if it did not affect other people, but unfortunately they are bent on revenge. That is why there was partition in 1947, as Muslim majority areas decided not to live under a majority rule of these kind of delusional people that actually intend to do harm, because of what imaginary views they have invented about a remote past, to massage their ego and add fuel to the fire of Hindutva nationalism.

The other thing I want to point out is that every time there was an encounter between East Asians and non East Asians, the East Asians have won. And North East Asians have won against South East Asians, provided that all other factors were equal. So this should tell you something about which side your country should choose in the long term.

So Xiongnu won against Saka's and Scythians, while both were nomadic tribes. Nomadics of course won against sedentary people almost always. The genetic foot print of Nomadic East Asians encompass almost all of Asia and some part of Europe. Europe got saved from a devastating Mongol invasion because of untimely death of Ogedei Khan, many people claim. If Ogedei Khan died just a few month later, world history would have been different, in my opinion.

Mongol invasion of Europe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"In A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill wrote:

But Asia too was marching against the West. At one moment it had seemed as if all Europe would succumb to a terrible menace looming up from the East. Heathen Mongol hordes from the heart of Asia, formidable horsemen armed with bows, had rapidly swept over Russia, Poland, Hungary, and in 1241 inflicted simultaneous crushing defeats upon the Germans near Breslau and upon European cavalry near Buda. Germany and Austria at least lay at their mercy. Providentially in this year the Great Khan died in Mongolia; the Mongol leaders hastened back the thousands of miles to Karakorum, their capital, to elect his successor, and Western Europe escaped.[34]"

In South Asia, North East Asian genes are limited mainly to Muslims who have some foreign Central Asian descent. The North East of South Asia has East Asian people, but they have no connection with Turkic or Mongol nomads from Siberia, mostly it is from neighboring East Asians - Tibetans, Tibeto Burmans or Tai type people, as you already pointed out.

 

[mughal arslan shah mirza]

@Chak Bamu
When talking about Aurangzeb , I just wanted to point out that many analysts have talked about the wars between him and the Muslim Shia sultanates of the extreme-south that imbalanced the empire. There is a lot of propaganda against the mughals from butt-hurt people , Sir, and you can be sure that I ain't buying it lol.
And you're very right that they were very open-minded when it comes to cultural administration. The views regarding Aurangzeb annexing the south are not MINE but of the analysts that I've read.

@sahaliyan

We have a manchu brother on . . How strong is machu identity in China? I'm guessing that there's a lot of intermarriage between manchus and other ethnicites. Are some manchus semi-nomadic in China?

@Nihonjin1051

Brother, if you're interested in the history of sub-continent, then you have to read about Porus, a punjabi raja who fought against Alexander and his army of Greeks/macedonians. There's a town in Punjab, Pakistan called phalian . Alexander's horse is putated to have died there .Historic scene from those battles is on youtube.

[youtube]

@Alienoz_TR

It's said that the language 'chagatay turkic' is extinct but I would assume that it was relatively similar to current-day uzbek or Turkmen. Interesting that you can read Baburnama and understand some of it

 

[mughal arslan shah mirza]

[youtube]

 

[IND151]

The Expanse of the Moghul Empire

The map looks wrong.

Adilashai (the dynasty which controlled bijapur) and Kutubshahi (the dynasty which ruled Golconda) were independent and by the time Mughlas won them, Maratha Confederacy controlled 1/3 Maharashtra.

The Maratha War of Independence