Daily Lecture and Discussion Notes Chapter 8, Section 3

Did You Know? Empires do not subsume all peoples in their conquered territories. The North Indian Nagas are a non-Hindu culture, long noted for their independence, courage in battle, and talent as dancers and musicians. Until recently they lived as slashand- burn agriculturists in dense jungle. They were headhunters. In Mogul paintings, the Naga were depicted as ferocious hunters dressed in leaves, and their images were used to frighten illbehaved children.

I. The Mogul Dynasty (pages 255–256)

A. Babur founded the Mogul Empire. He inherited some of Timur Lenk’s empire. As a youth he seized Kabul in 1504. Thirteen years later, his troops crossed the Khyber Pass to India.

B. His forces usually were outnumbered, but they had advanced weapons, including artillery. Babur captured Delhi, against an army ten times the size of his, and established his power in North India.

C. Babur died in 1530 at the age of 47 while continuing conquests in North India.

II. The Reign of Akbar (pages 256–257)

A. Babur’s grandson Akbar came to the throne at 14 years of age. By 1605, he had brought Mogul rule to most of India.

B. Akbar’s military success was due to a large extent from using heavy artillery to overpower his foes’ stone fortresses. The Moguls were good negotiators as well.

C. Akbar’s great empire was a collection of semi-independent states held together by the emperor’s power. Akbar is known as a humane ruler. A Muslim, he tolerated other religions. One of his wives was a Hindu, and he welcomed the Christian Jesuits as advisers at his court. Daily Lecture and Discussion Notes Chapter 8, Section 3

D. The upper ranks of the administration were filled with non-native Muslims, but lowerranking officials generally were Hindus. He gave them plots of land for temporary use. These local officials, called zamindars, collected taxes and were quite powerful in their regions.

E. Akbar’s reign was progressive by the standards of the day. All peasants paid one-third of their harvest to the state. Taxes were reduced or suspended if the weather was unfavorable to farming. Trade and manufacturing flourished because of the peace and stability of the Akbar Era. Foreign trade especially prospered. Textiles, spices, and tropical foods were exchanged for gold and silver. Arabs handled much of the trade because the Indians and Mogul rulers did not care for sea travel.

III. Decline of the Moguls (page 257)

A. Akbar’s son, Jahangir, succeeded him in 1605. At first he continued to strengthen the central government’s control over his large empire. His grip weakened under the influence of one of his wives, who used her position to enrich her family. Her niece married her husband’s third son, who became his successor, Shah Jahan.

B. Shah Jahan ruled form 1628 to 1658. He expanded the empire through successful campaigns in the Deccan Plateau and against the city of Samarkand.

C. Shah Jahan failed to deal with growing domestic problems. His wars and building projects strained the imperial treasury, and he raised taxes. The majority of his subjects lived in poverty. While Shah Jahan was quite ill, his two sons struggled for power. His son Aurangzeb killed his brother, imprisoned Shah Jahan, and assumed power.

D. Aurangzeb is one of the most controversial rulers in Indian history. He tried to rid India of what he considered social ills: the Hindu practice of suttee (cremating a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre), levying illegal taxes, gambling, and drinking alcohol. He banned building new Hindu temples and forced Hindus to convert to Islam.

E. His policies led to domestic unrest. The increasingly divided India was vulnerable to foreign attack. In 1739, the Persians sacked and burned Delhi. Daily Lecture and Discussion Notes Chapter 8, Section 3

IV. The British in India (pages 258–259)

A. British trading posts were established at Surat, Fort William (now the city of Calcutta), and Chennai (Madras) by 1650. From Chennai, British shipped cotton goods to the East Indies, trading them for spices.

B. The French tried to suppress British trade in India, but the British were saved by the military genius of Sir Robert Clive, who eventually became the chief representative of the East India Company. The East India Company was private but empowered by the British Crown to act on its behalf. The French were beaten and restricted to holding one fort and a handful of small territories.

C. Clive consolidated British control in Bengal, where Fort William was located. In 1757, the British under Clive’s leadership defeated a Mogul army in the Battle of Plassey in Bengal. As part of the spoils of victory, the East India Company received the right to collect taxes from lands surrounding Calcutta.

D. In the late eighteenth century, the East India Company moved inland from its coastal strongholds. This expansion made British merchants and officials very rich, and Britain was in India to stay.

V. Society and Daily Life in Mogul India (pages 259–260)

A. Because Muslim and Hindu cultures mixed in India, ordinary life could be complicated in India during this time, as the treatment of women in Mogul India shows.

B. Women had an active political role, sometimes even fighting in wars, in Mogul tribal society. In Mogul India, aristocratic women often received salaries, owned land, and took part in business.

C. Simultaneously, women lived under the restrictions of Islamic law. Further, suttee continued despite efforts to eradicate it, as did the Hindu custom of child marriage. Daily Lecture and Discussion Notes Chapter 8, Section 3

D. Awealthy landed nobility and merchant class emerged during the Mogul era. Many prominent Indians had trading ties with foreigners such as the British, which temporarily worked to India’s benefit.

E. Outside of cities, people lived in mud huts and had few, paltry possessions.

VI. Mogul Culture (page 260)

A. The Moguls blended Persian and Indian styles in a beautiful, new architecture. The famous Taj Mahal in Agra, built by Shah Jahan in the mid-seventeenth century, best exemplifies this style.

B. The outside surfaces of the Taj Mahal are decorated with cut-stone geometric patterns, delicate black tracery, or inlays of colored precious stones in floral mosaics. It combines monumental size, blinding brilliance, and delicate lightness, all at once.

C. Painting also flourished in the Mogul period and combined the Persian and Indian styles. Akbar established a state workshop for artists, who created the Mogul school of painting called the “Akbar style.” It portrayed humans in action, something generally absent from Persian art. Akbar encouraged artists to use European artistic devices, such as Renaissance perspective and lifelike portraits.

D. Because Mogul emperors were dedicated patrons of the arts, many artists went to India. It was said that the Moguls would reward a poet with his weight in gold.