The Great Moghuls

270 Pages·1971·48.079 MB·English

by  Bamber Gascoigne

Moghul
Spv t I
vp5<- V- v*»w& •: ' r^-r
IIt ej/t.LjtL' •" Tsc*^" ■ a C "•■'■■x.■:;.- | 1 W "■*%■ •::.
i Vv \\ ••• ■ x.
11 fsfjsg'f ,
" % i -, ■■
.
. - / **i[j •• - . >■3#- / t * „;^§i
r'i .
iWS^^r • ISfc ’-* . • -< ««
**V " •; ww. '&T- : -,v; /• * * *.••■ «•-. ’ -v
r
iy ^ |ffi Jl-x
jfl - -w’^
fi .v'li •■■' gaSffi>:j^ifcwHBag
• BSSHKr'’-
*
,: i.t ■ ' 'l .
5*^®2fflW8g» ifc'
. 1
' :***;~^ . .•_ : >
$15.00
The Great Moghul was the title given by
Europeans in the seventeenth century to the
emperors of India, rich it seemed beyond the
wildest dreams of bourgeois London or
Amsterdam. They were, reported one traveler,
the 'greatest masters of precious stones that
inhabit the whole earth'; other visitors
brought back news of their sumptuous
palaces and cities, their elaborate ceremonies,
their ruthless family struggles for succession
— but also of their love of learning and
science, their patronage of all forms of art,
and, in some cases, of their personal charm.
As a single family, expert in the uses of
power and patronage, they compare well even
with the Medicis. The first six Great Moghuls,
father to son for six generations, ruled India
from 1526 to 1707. Their personal involve¬
ment fostered the exquisite and sophisticated
Moghul school of painting, the architecture
of which the Taj Mahal is only one example
among many, and the system of administra¬
tion which stabilized the greater part of India
and was largely adopted by the British.
They were also, as individuals, most
interesting characters. Babur, the founder of
the dynasty, was a soldier-poet who has left a
famous volume of personal memoirs; Huma-
yun, the one apparent failure, lost his father's
empire, largely through his love of opium and
astrology; Akbar, the most forceful of them
all, regained the empire and put it on a firm
footing, trying even to harness into one
nation the volatile Hindu and Muslim com¬
munities of India. Jahangir, indolent and
dominated by his queen, Nur Jahan, was
addicted to art as well as alcohol and brought
Moghul painting to its perfection; Shah
Jahan did the same for architecture, building
magnificent marble quarters for himself and
his harem, and, for his dead wife, Mumtaz
Mahal, her famous monument, the Taj Mahal;
Aurangzeb, a passionately orthodox Muslim,
reversed Akbar's principles of toleration and
presided with relentless energy and self-
denial over the gradual dissolution of the
empire. If the word 'mogul' has passed into
the English language as a synonym for a man
of great wealth and power, it is only one
among many tributes to this remarkable
'^family.
i»■*f f A-q't mMS M,P.M>S(ArO\t.ih
Photographs by Christina Gascoigne
if
rnrnmm
The Great Moghuls
Bamber Gascoigne
Harper & Row, Publishers
New York • Evanston • San Francisco • London
u, h * *
t
Text and illustrations copyright© 1971 by
Bamber and Christina Gascoigne
First U.S. edition 1971
All rights reserved under International and
Pan-American Copyright Conventions
Published in the United States by
Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., New York
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in
the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and
reviews. For information address Harper & Row, Publishers,
Inc., 49 East 33d Street, New York, N.Y. 10016
This book was designed and produced in Great Britain by
George Rainbird Ltd.
Marble Arch House, 44 Edgware Road, London W2
House Editor: Yorke Crompton
Designer: Michael Mendelsohn
Filmset in 11/12^ pt Apollo by Westerham Press Ltd
Printed and bound by
Dai Nippon Printing Company Ltd.
Tokyo, Japan
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-152348
■ ■
>
*

?:;
5
=
For the many friends in India and Pakistan
who helped us on our way
Authors' Note
It would be impossible to list here the many people who helped us on our travels
with advice, facilities or hospitality—so to them we dedicate the book. For de¬
tailed assistance before our departure we would like to thank Mrs Vibha Pandhi,
the Director of the Government of India Tourist Board in London, and Mr Abdul
Qayyum, the Press Counsellor at the Pakistan High Commission in London; and
we are grateful to their many colleagues who continued to provide us with every
sort of official help throughout our journey in both countries. Among the many
museums and libraries and private collections where we worked, we would like
to thank for their help and cooperation the staffs of the Prince of Wales Museum
in Bombay, the National Museum in Delhi, the Palace Museums at Jaipur and
Alwar, the Raza Library at Rampur, the'Khuda Bakhsh Library and the Jalan
Collection at Patna, the Calico Museum at Ahmedabad, the Lahore Museum, the
State Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow, the Hermitage in Leningrad, the Chester
Beatty Library in Dublin, the Bodleian at Oxford, and the Victoria and Albert
Museum, the British Museum, the London Library and the India Office Library
in London. For detailed advice we are particularly grateful to Douglas Matthews
at the London Library; to Peter Avery of King's College, Cambridge; to Dashrath
Patel of the National Design Institute in Ahmedabad; and above all to Robert
Skelton, of the Victoria and Albert Museum, who gave us invaluable help at every
stage of planning and completing the work. For permission to photograph and to
reproduce their material we thank all the museums and libraries credited in the
notes to the illustrations (pp. 258-9). And finally our journey would have been
impossible without the kind cooperation of Granada Television in rearranging
recording dates.
B. and C.G.
Contents
%
'*V'
Prologue 11
1 Babur 15
2 Humayun 47
3 Akbar 75
4 Jahangir 131
5 ShahJahan 181
6 Aurangzeb 215
Epilogue 245
Genealogy 250
Map of Moghul Jndia 251
Bibliography 252
W:
Notes on the Illustrations 258
Index (with map references)4 260
Color Illustrations
1 The tomb of Timur at Samarkand 17
2 Fourteenth-century tile-work at Samarkand 18
3 The entrance to the Gazurgah at Herat 27
4 The remains of the citadel at Kandahar 28-9
5 A page of birds from Babur's memoirs 30
6 Babur laying out a garden in India 39
7 The tiled wall of the palace at Gwalior 40
8 The so-called Ship Palace at Mandu 45
9 The fifteenth-century Friday Mosque at Mandu 46
10 The grave of Humayun's aunt Khanzada at Kabul 55
11 A Moghul turban-box 56
12 A shaikh, painted by Bichitr 61
13 A Himalayan blue-throated barbet,
painted by Mansur 62
14 A shield said to have belonged to Akbar 71
15 Akbar receiving the submission of a rebel 72-3
16 The sandstone wall of the fort at Agra 74
17 A palace in the fort of Chitor 83
18 The Panj Mahal at Fatehpur Sikri 84
19 Inside the so-called Palace of Jodh Bai
at Fatehpur Sikri i 01
20 The central pillar in the diwan-i-khas
at Fatehpur Sikri 102
21 Shaikhs at Ajmer, painted by Manohar 111
22 A detail from one of Akbar's tiger hunts 112-13
23 Jahangir and Christ in a Moghul album 114
24 The fish-pool at Vernag 123
25 The south gateway to Akbar's tomb at Sikandra 124
26 Jahangir snubbing James I of England and
the Sultan of Turkey, by Bichitr 129
27 Jahangir edging Shah Abbas of Persia into the
Mediterranean, by Abul Hassan 130