The gray stone of the narrow Khyber Pass has witnessed many dramas over the centuries. One of them took place 500 years ago – in 1526. That year Babur, a warrior from Central Asia, stormed through the mountain pass with his soldiers. Before him lay the vast Indian subcontinent. Babur knew it offered immense riches.
Could he succeed in conquering it?
Agriculture along the Ganges and the Indus yielded several harvests a year. In the capital, Delhi, the rulers lived in splendor and luxury. Compared with the drier lands of Central Asia, India appeared far more prosperous. In the sixteenth century the subcontinent was a major producer of cotton, silk, indigo, spices, sugar, and precious stones. Indian textiles were exported in enormous quantities to the Middle East, East Africa, and Southeast Asia, and silver flowed in as payment. Historians suggest that India at that time accounted for roughly a quarter of the world’s total production.
Babur’s forces advanced rapidly toward Delhi. The decisive battle took place just north of the city, where he defeated the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate, then the most powerful kingdom on the subcontinent. Thus he became the first emperor of the magnificent Mughal Empire, which would endure for more than three hundred years. Afterwards he wrote that the victory was the result of “God’s grace and the proper organization of our troops.”
Babur was no accidental conqueror. He was a descendant of both Timur and Genghis Khan, yet for years he had failed to regain his ancestors’ realms in Central Asia. He therefore turned his gaze southward, first toward Afghanistan, then the Khyber Pass and India. As he led his forces through the pass, he followed in the footsteps of earlier conquerors – but with new means, such as firearms and field artillery. The sultan mustered a far larger army and a great number of fearsome war elephants, but when the gunpowder smoke cleared, the sultan’s warriors lay scattered across the battlefield.
The road to Delhi now lay open. The following years were nevertheless difficult. Many princes refused to bow to the new rulers, and Babur’s soldiers were repeatedly forced into the field. Once again the casualties were heavy.
On his path to power Babur took the time to write a remarkable diary, the Baburnama. He recorded his notes continuously, which gives them a sense of immediacy and intimacy. Sitting beneath an orange tree in one of Delhi’s gardens, I find myself reading the book. “In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate,” he begins. “In the month of Ramadan in the year 899 (1494), in the twelfth year of my age, I became ruler of the land of Fergana.”
The fertile Fergana Valley lies in what is today Uzbekistan. Babur describes his homeland with affection, for there were running waters, green fields, vineyards, and a pleasant climate.
In the pages that follow he recounts victories and defeats, mostly the latter, until he marches triumphantly into Delhi. We encounter a warrior who sees thousands die, but also a man who reflects on his experiences. He offers beautiful poems and sensitive descriptions of nature, of animals and flowers, even insects. “The land of Hindustan is vast, rich in people and rich in crops,” he writes on a February day in 1526.
By Hindustan he roughly meant what we today call India. Yet as he comes to know the country better, he grows increasingly critical, and eventually concludes:
“Hindustan is a country of few charms. Its people are not handsome. They have no social intercourse; they neither visit nor receive visits. They have no genius or capacity; no politeness or courtesy. In handicrafts and work there is neither form nor symmetry, method nor quality. There are no good horses, no good dogs, no grapes, no musk melons or first-rate fruits; no ice or cold water; no good bread or cooked food in the bazaars; no hot baths, no colleges, and no candles or torches.”
Babur’s mood is not improved by the fact that the inhabitants hate their new masters. It is summer and scorching hot when his force approaches the city of Agra south of Delhi, and strong winds whip sand and dust in every direction. When the soldiers finally enter the city, it proves empty of both people and food.
The troops are thirsty and starving, and morale sinks day by day. Many say they want to return home, but Babur admonishes them: “After many years of toil, and by God’s grace, we have defeated our enemies to take their vast lands. What now compels us to turn back? Shall we return to Kabul and end in poverty?”
Babur reminds them that India, despite its many negative aspects, is immensely rich in gold, silver, and other valuables. Therefore they must stay. Most of the soldiers obey him, but Babur himself – before dying four years later – asked to be buried in Kabul. Today we find his simple grave in a terraced garden on the hillside southwest of the city. Yet he would probably have preferred to be laid to rest in Samarkand, the magnificent heart of Central Asia.
As he wrote in one of his poems:
I have left Samarkand and left my heart there.
India gave me a kingdom, but not peace of mind.
The mountains I loved are far away,
and in foreign soil even victory has no taste.
Babur was succeeded by his son Humayun, who rests precisely here, in the garden where I have settled down. His mausoleum rises in the midst of the green expanse and is one of Delhi’s major tourist attractions. It was built in the latter half of the sixteenth century at the initiative of Humayun’s widow, Haji Begum, who engaged Persian architects for the task. It was a deliberate choice, for she wished to give the Mughal Empire a monument that more clearly linked the dynasty to Persian-Islamic culture.
The term “Mughal” is derived from “Mongol.” It is nevertheless incorrect to describe the Mughals as a single people. Rather, they were a ruling elite composed of several ethnic and cultural groups originating in Central Asia.
The Mughal Empire lasted from 1526 to 1857, and Babur is remembered as the first of its twenty emperors. Historians’ judgment of him is largely positive. Since he ruled for only four years, he did not have time to leave deep marks, yet he was, after all, the founder; without him nothing would have happened.
Some Mughal emperors are commonly described as “great,” others not. What the “great” ones have in common is that they ruled during the first two hundred years; the others came later. The distinction reflects the prevailing view of the empire’s development: that it began well but ended badly.
The Mughal golden age came in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries under the emperors Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb. At that time the empire was at its largest. An efficient administration ensured enormous tax revenues, and the economy flourished. Militarily it had no rivals in the region. It may have reached its cultural zenith under Emperor Shah Jahan, who left behind a large number of architectural masterpieces, above all the famous Taj Mahal.
Shah Jahan ruled from 1628 to 1658. The Taj Mahal, located near the city of Agra south of Delhi, was begun early in his reign. After his favorite wife died in 1631, he resolved to give her the most beautiful – and most magnificent – resting place under heaven. Thousands of craftsmen took part in the work, which lasted more than twenty years. Today the Taj Mahal is regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful buildings, and several million people visit it each year. The mausoleum is especially admired for its gleaming white marble, balance, and harmony.
The garden that surrounds it expresses an idea rooted in Persian and Islamic cosmology. In the Qur’an, paradise is described as a place of order, coolness, and eternal life. In the garden leading to the Taj Mahal, we find all these elements. The four channels represent the rivers of paradise, the reflecting pools heaven and eternity, while the mausoleum at the end stands for paradise itself.
The turning point came with the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707. He left behind an empire at the height of its geographical extent, but also a state apparatus strained to the breaking point. Decades of costly wars in the south and east had exhausted the army and drained the treasury. The empire had simply become too large to be governed effectively from Delhi. At the same time European trading companies, especially the British East India Company, entered the scene – and imperial power was further weakened.
In 1858 the British deposed the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar. By then imperial authority had been reduced to nothing. Or as I read in a book: “His authority scarcely extended beyond the Red Fort in Delhi.”
The British later took him to Burma, where he spent the rest of his life in captivity. Before he passed away in 1862, he wrote a poem about his bitter fate: “Not even two yards of land in my homeland were granted to me.”
