ethics of civilization

BECK index
                                      India 30 BC To 1300
India 30 BC-320 CE
Gupta Empire and India 320-750
Plays of Bhasa, Kalidasa, and Bhavabhuti
Hindu Kingdoms 750-1000
Tibetan Buddhism
India and Muslim Invaders 1000-1300
Literature of Medieval India
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India 30 BC-320 CE
In the Andhra land Satavahana king Simuka overthrew the last Kanva king in 30 BC and according to the Puranas reigned for 23 years. The Andhras were called Dasyus in the Aitareya Brahmana, and they were criticized for being degraded Brahmins or outcastes by the orthodox. For three centuries the kingdom of the Satavahanas flourished except for a brief invasion by the Shaka clan of Kshaharata led by Bhumaka and Nahapana in the early 2nd century CE. The latter was overthrown as the Satavahana kingdom with its caste system was restored by Gautamiputra Satakarni about 125 CE; his mother claimed he rooted out Shakas (Scythians), Yavanas (Greeks and Romans), and Pahlavas (Parthians), and records praised Gautamiputra for being virtuous, concerned about his subjects, taxing them justly, and stopping the mixing of castes. His successor Pulumavi ruled for 29 years and extended Satavahana power to the mouth of the Krishna River.

Trade with the Romans was active from the first century CE when Pliny complained that 550 million sesterces went to India annually, mostly for luxuries like spices, jewels, textiles, and exotic animals. The Satavahana kingdom was ruled in small provinces by governors, who became independent when the Satavahana kingdom collapsed. An inscription dated 150 CE credits Shaka ruler Rudradaman with supporting the cultural arts and Sanskrit literature and repairing the dam built by the Mauryans. Rudradaman took back most of the territory the Satavahana king Gautamiputra captured from Nahapana, and he also conquered the Yaudheya tribes in Rajasthan. However, in the next century the warlike Yaudheyas became more powerful. The indigenous Nagas also were aggressive toward Shaka satraps in the 3rd century. In the Deccan after the Satavahanas, Takataka kings ruled from the 3rd century to the 6th.

Probably in the second half of the first century BC Kharavela conquered much territory for Kalinga in southeastern India and patronized Jainism. He was said to have spent much money for the welfare of his subjects and had the canal enlarged that had been built three centuries before by the Nandas. In addition to a large palace, a monastery was built at Pabhara, and caves were excavated for the Jains.

Late in the 1st century BC a line of Iranian kings known as the Pahlavas ruled northwest India. The Shaka (Scythian) Maues, who ruled for about 40 years until 22 CE, broke relations with the Iranians and claimed to be the great king of kings himself. Maues was succeeded by three Shaka kings whose reigns overlapped. The Parthian Gondophernes seems to have driven the last Greek king Hermaeus out of the Kabul valley and taken over Gandhara from the Shakas, and it was said that he received at his court Jesus' disciple Thomas. Evidence indicates that Thomas also traveled to Malabar about 52 CE and established Syrian churches on the west coast before crossing to preach on the east coast around Madras, where he was opposed and killed in 68.

However, the Pahlavas were soon driven out by Scythians Chinese historians called the Yue-zhi. Their Kushana tribal chief Kujula Kadphises, his son Vima Kadphises, and Kanishka (r. 78-101) gained control of the western half of northern India by 79 CE. According to Chinese history one of these kings demanded to marry a Han princess, but the Kushanas were defeated by the Chinese led by Ban Chao at the end of the 1st century. Kanishka, considered the founder of the Shaka era, supported Buddhism, which held its 4th council in Kashmir during his reign. A new form of Mahayana Buddhism with the compassionate saints (bodhisattvas) helping to save others was spreading in the north, while the traditional Theravada of saints (arhats) working for their own enlightenment held strong in southern regions. Several great Buddhist philosophers were favored at Kanishka's court, including Parshva, Vasumitra, and Ashvaghosha; Buddhist missions were sent to central Asia and China, and Kanishka was said to have died fighting in central Asia. Kushana power decreased after the reign of Vasudeva (145-176), and they became vassals in the 3rd century after being defeated by Shapur I of the Persian Sasanian dynasty.

In the great vehicle or way of Mahayana Buddhism the saint (bodhisattva) is concerned with the virtues of benevolence, character, patience, perseverance, and meditation, determined to help all souls attain nirvana. This doctrine is found in the Sanskrit Surangama Sutra of the first century CE. In a dialog between the Buddha and Ananda before a large gathering of monks, the Buddha declares that keeping the precepts depends on concentration, which enhances meditation and develops intelligence and wisdom. He emphasizes that the most important allurement to overcome is sexual thought, desire, and indulgence. The next allurement is pride of ego, which makes one prone to be unkind, unjust, and cruel. Unless one can control the mind so that even the thought of killing or brutality is abhorrent, one will never escape the bondage of the world. Killing and eating flesh must be stopped. No teaching that is unkind can be the teaching of the Buddha. Another precept is to refrain from coveting and stealing, and the fourth is not to deceive or tell lies. In addition to the three poisons of lust, hatred, and infatuation, one must curtail falsehood, slander, obscene words, and flattery.

Ashvaghosha was the son of a Brahmin and at first traveled around arguing against Buddhism until he was converted, probably by Parshva. Ashvaghosha wrote the earliest Sanskrit drama still partially extant; in the Shariputra-prakarana the Buddha converts Maudgalyayana and Sariputra by philosophical discussion. His poem Buddhacharita describes the life and teachings of the Buddha very beautifully.

The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana is ascribed to Ashvaghosha. That treatise distinguishes two aspects of the soul as suchness (bhutatathata) and the cycle of birth and death (samsara). The soul as suchness is one with all things, but this cannot be described with any attributes. This is negative in its emptiness (sunyata) but positive as eternally transcendent of all intellectual categories. Samsara comes forth from this ultimate reality. Multiple things are produced when the mind is disturbed, but they disappear when the mind is quiet. The separate ego-consciousness is nourished by emotional and mental prejudices (ashrava). Since all beings have suchness, they can receive instructions from all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and receive benefits from them. By the purity of enlightenment they can destroy hindrances and experience insight into the oneness of the universe. All Buddhas feel compassion for all beings, treating others as themselves, and they practice virtue and good deeds for the universal salvation of humanity in the future, recognizing equality among people and not clinging to individual existence. Thus the prejudices and inequities of the caste system were strongly criticized.

Mahayana texts were usually written in Sanskrit instead of Pali, and the Prajnaparamita was translated into Chinese as early as 179 CE by Lokakshema. This dialog of 8,000 lines in which the Buddha spoke for himself and through Subhuti with his disciples was also summarized in verse. The topic is perfect wisdom. Bodhisattvas are described as having an even and friendly mind, being amenable, straight, soft-spoken, free of perceiving multiplicity, and free of self-interest. Detached, they do not want gain or fame, and their hearts are not overcome by anger nor do they seek a livelihood in the wrong way. Like an unstained lotus in the water they return from concentration to the sense world to mature beings and purify the field with compassion for all living things. Having renounced a heavenly reward they serve the entire world, like a mother taking care of her child. Thought produced is dedicated to enlightenment. They do not wish to release themselves in a private nirvana but become the world's resting place by learning not to embrace anything. With a mind full of friendliness and compassion, seeing countless beings with heavenly vision as like creatures on the way to slaughter, a Bodhisattva impartially endeavors to release them from their suffering by working for the welfare of all beings.

Nagarjuna was also born into a Brahmin family and in the 2nd century CE founded the Madhyamika (Middle Path) school of Mahayana Buddhism, although he was concerned about Hinayanists too. He was a stern disciplinarian and expelled many monks from the community at Nalanda for not observing the rules. A division among his followers led to the development of the Yogachara school of philosophy. Nagarjuna taught that all things are empty, but he answered critics that this does not deny reality but explains how the world happens. Only from the absolute point of view is there no birth or annihilation. The Buddha and all beings are like the sky and are of one nature. All things are nothing but mind established as phantoms; thus blissful or evil existence matures according to good or evil actions.

Nagarjuna discussed ethics in his Suhrllekha. He considered ethics faultless and sublime as the ground of all, like the earth. Aware that riches are unstable and void, one should give; for there is no better friend than giving. He recommended the transcendental virtues of charity, patience, energy, meditation, and wisdom, while warning against avarice, deceit, illusion, lust, indolence, pride, greed, and hatred. Attaining patience by renouncing anger he felt was the most difficult. One should look on another's wife like one's mother, daughter or sister. It is more heroic to conquer the objects of the six senses than a mass of enemies in battle. Those who know the world are equal to the eight conditions of gain and loss, happiness and suffering, fame and dishonor, and blame and praise. A woman (or man), who is gentle as a sister, winning as a friend, caring as a mother, and obedient as a servant, one should honor as a guardian goddess (god). He suggested meditating on kindness, pity, joy, and equanimity, abandoning desire, reflection, happiness, and pain. The aggregates of form, perception, feeling, will, and consciousness arise from ignorance. One is fettered by attachment to religious ceremonies, wrong views, and doubt. One should annihilate desire as one would extinguish a fire in one's clothes or head. Wisdom and concentration go together, and for the one who has them the sea of existence is like a grove.

During the frequent wars that preceded the Gupta empire in the 4th century the Text of the Excellent Golden Light (Suvarnaprabhasottama Sutra) indicated the Buddhist attitude toward this fighting. Everyone should be protected from invasion in peace and prosperity. While turning back their enemies, one should create in the earthly kings a desire to avoid fighting, attacking, and quarreling with neighbors. When the kings are contented with their own territories, they will not attack others. They will gain their thrones by their past merit and not show their mettle by wasting provinces; thinking of mutual welfare, they will be prosperous, well fed, pleasant, and populous. However, when a king disregards evil done in his own kingdom and does not punish criminals, injustice, fraud, and strife will increase in the land. Such a land afflicted with terrible crimes falls into the power of the enemy, destroying property, families, and wealth, as men ruin each other with deceit. Such a king, who angers the gods, will find his kingdom perishing; but the king, who distinguishes good actions from evil, shows the results of karma and is ordained by the gods to preserve justice by putting down rogues and criminals in his domain even to giving up his life rather than the jewel of justice.

After 20 BC many kings ruled Sri Lanka (Ceylon) during a series of succession fights until Vasabha (r. 67-111 CE) of the Lambakanna sect established a new dynasty that would rule more than three centuries. Vasabha promoted the construction of eleven reservoirs and an extensive irrigation system. The island was divided briefly by his son and his two brothers, as the Chola king Karikala invaded; but Gajabahu (r. 114-36) united the country and invaded the Chola territory.

A treaty established friendly relations, and Hindu temples were built on Sri Lanka, including some for the chaste goddess immortalized in the Silappadikaram. Sri Lanka experienced peace and prosperity for 72 years, and King Voharika Tissa (r. 209-31) even abolished punishment by mutilation. However, when the Buddhist schism divided people, the king suppressed the new Mahayana doctrine and banished its followers. Caught in an intrigue with the queen, his brother Abhayanaga (r. 231-40) fled to India, and then with Tamils invaded Sri Lanka, defeated and killed his brother, took the throne, and married the queen. Gothabhaya (r. 249-62) persecuted the new Vetulya doctrine supported by monks at Abhayagirivihara by having sixty monks branded and banished. Their accounts of this cruelty led Sanghamitta to tutor the princes in such a way that when Mahasena (r. 274-301) became king, he confiscated property from the traditional Mahavihara monastery and gave it to Abhayagirivihara.

The Tamil epic poem called The Ankle Bracelet (Silappadikaram) was written about 200 CE by Prince Ilango Adigal, brother of King Shenguttuvan, who ruled the western coast of south India. Kovalan, the son of a wealthy merchant in Puhar, marries Kannaki, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy ship-owner. The enchanting Madhavi dances so well for the king that he gives her a wreath that she sells to Kovalan for a thousand gold kalanjus, making her his mistress. They sing songs to each other of love and lust until he notices hints of her other loves; so he withdraws his hands from her body and departs. Kovalan returns to his wife in shame for losing his wealth; but she gives him her valuable ankle bracelet, and they decide to travel to Madurai. Kannaki courageously accompanies him although it causes her feet to bleed. They are joined by the saintly woman Kavundi, and like good Jains they try not to step on living creatures as they walk. They meet a saintly man who tells them that no one can escape reaping the harvest grown from the seeds of one's actions.

In the woods a charming nymph tries to tempt Kovalan with a message from Madhavi, but his prayer causes her to confess and run away. A soothsayer calls Kannaki the queen of the southern Tamil land, but she only smiles at such ignorance. A priest brings a message from Madhavi asking for forgiveness and noting his leaving his parents. Kovalan has the letter sent to his parents to relieve their anguish. Leaving his wife with the saint Kavundi, Kovalan goes to visit the merchants, while Kavundi warns him that the merits of his previous lives have been exhausted; they must prepare for misfortune. Reaping what is sown, many fall into predicaments from pursuing women, wealth, and pleasure; thus sages renounce all desire for worldly things. A Brahmin tells Kovalan that Madhavi has given birth to his baby girl; he has done good deeds in the past, but he warns him he must pay for some errors committed in a past existence. Kovalan feels bad for wasting his youth and neglecting his parents. He goes to town to sell the ankle bracelet; a goldsmith tells him only the queen can purchase it, but the goldsmith tells King Korkai that he has found the man who stole his royal anklet. The king orders the thief put to death, and Kovalan is killed with a sword.

Kannaki weeping observes the spirit of her husband rise into the air, telling her to stay in life. She goes to King Korkai and proves her husband did not steal the anklet by showing him their anklet has gems not pearls. Filled with remorse for violating justice at the word of a goldsmith, the king dies, followed quickly in this by his queen. Kannaki goes out and curses the town as she walks around the city three times. Then she tears her left breast from her body and throws it in the dirt. A god of fire appears to burn the city, but she asks him to spare Brahmins, good men, cows, truthful women, cripples, the old, and children, while destroying evildoers. As the four genii who protect the four castes of Madurai depart, a conflagration breaks out. The goddess of Madurai explains to Kannaki that in a past life as Bharata her husband had renounced nonviolence and caused Sangaman to be beheaded, believing he was a spy. His wife cursed the killer, and now that action bore fruit. Kannaki wanders desolate for two weeks, confessing her crime. Then the king of heaven proclaims her a saint, and she ascends with Kovalan in a divine chariot.

King Shenguttuvan, who had conquered Kadambu, leaves Vanji and hears stories about a woman with a breast torn off suffering agony and how Madurai was destroyed. The king decides to march north to bring back a great stone on the crowned heads of two kings, Kanaka and Vijaya, who had criticized him; the stone is to be carved into the image of the beloved goddess. His army crosses the Ganges and defeats the northern kings. The saintly Kavundi fasts to death. The fathers of Kovalan and Kannaki both give up their wealth and join religious orders, and Madhavi goes into a Buddhist nunnery, followed later in this by her daughter. Madalan advises King Shenguttuvan to give up anger and criticizes him for contributing to war, causing the king to release prisoners and refund taxes. The Chola king notes how the faithful wife has proved the Tamil proverb that the virtue of women is of no use if the king fails to establish justice. Finally the author himself appears in the court of his brother Shenguttuvan and gives a list of moral precepts that begins:

Seek God and serve those who are near Him.
Do not tell lies.
Avoid slander.
Avoid eating the flesh of animals.
Do not cause pain to any living thing.
Be charitable, and observe fast days.
Never forget the good others have done to you.1

In a preamble added by a later commentator three lessons are drawn from this story: First, death results when a king strays from the path of justice; second, everyone must bow before a chaste and faithful wife; and third, fate is mysterious, and all actions are rewarded. Many sanctuaries were built in southern India and Sri Lanka to the faithful wife who became the goddess of chastity.

The Jain philosopher Kunda Kunda of the Digambara sect lived and taught sometime between the first and fourth centuries. He laid out his metaphysics in The Five Cosmic Constituents (Panchastikayasara). He noted that karmic matter brings about its own changes, as the soul by impure thoughts conditioned by karma does too. Freedom from sorrow comes from giving up desire and aversion, which cause karmic matter to cling to the soul, leading to states of existence in bodies with senses. Sense objects by perception then lead one to pursue them with desires or aversion, repeating the whole cycle. High ideals based on love, devotion, and justice, such as offering relief to the thirsty, hungry, and miserable, may purify the karmic matter; but anger, pride, deceit, coveting, and sensual pleasures interfere with calm thought, perception, and will, causing anguish to others, slander, and other evils. Meditating on the self with pure thought and controlled senses will wash off the karmic dust. Desire and aversion to pleasant and unpleasant states get the self bound by various kinds of karmic matter. The knowing soul associating with essential qualities is self-determined, but the soul led by desire for outer things gets bewildered and is other-determined.

Kunda Kunda discussed ethics in The Soul Essence (Samayasara). As long as one does not discern the difference between the soul and its thought activity, the ignorant will indulge in anger and other emotions that accumulate karma. The soul discerning the difference turns back from these. One with wrong knowledge takes the non-self for self, identifies with anger, and becomes the doer of karma. As the king has his warriors wage war, the soul produces, causes, binds, and assimilates karmic matter. Being affected by anger, pride, deceit, and greed, the soul becomes them. From the practical standpoint karma is attached in the soul, but from the real or pure perspective karma is neither bound nor attached to the soul; attachment to the karma destroys independence. The soul, knowing the karma is harmful, does not indulge them and in self-contemplation attains liberation. The soul is bound by wrong beliefs, lack of vows, passions, and vibratory activity. Kunda Kunda suggested that one does not cause misery or happiness to living beings by one's body, speech, mind, or by weapons, but living beings are happy or miserable by their own karma (actions). As long as one identifies with feelings of joy and sorrow and until soul realization shines out in the heart, one produces good and bad karma. Just as an artisan does not have to identify with performing a job, working with organs, holding tools, the soul can enjoy the fruit of karma without identifying.

In The Perfect Law (Niyamsara), Kunda Kunda described right belief, right knowledge, and right conduct that lead to liberation. The five vows are non-injury, truth, non-stealing, chastity, and non-possession. Renouncing passion, attachment, aversion, and other impure thoughts involves controlling the mind and speech with freedom from falsehood and restraining the body by not causing injury. The right conduct of repentance and equanimity is achieved by self-analysis, by avoiding transgressions and thoughts of pain and ill-will, and by self-contemplation with pure thoughts. Renunciation is practiced by equanimity toward all living beings with no ill feelings, giving up desires, controlling the senses, and distinguishing between the soul and material karma. A saint of independent actions is called an internal soul, but one devoid of independent action is called an external soul. The soul free from obstructions, independent of the senses, and liberated from good and bad karma is free from rebirth and eternal in the nirvana of perfect knowledge, bliss, and power.

Gupta Empire and India 320-750
After the disintegration in northern India in the third century CE, the Kushanas still ruled over the western Punjab and the declining Shakas over Gujarat and part of Malwa. Sri Lanka king Meghavarna (r. 301-28) sent gifts and asked permission to build a large monastery north of the Bodhi tree for Buddhist pilgrims that eventually housed more than a thousand priests. Sasanian king Shapur II fought and made a treaty with the Kushanas in 350, but he was defeated by them twice in 367-68. After two previous kings of the Gupta dynasty, Chandra-gupta I by marrying Kumaradevi, a Lichchhavi princess, inaugurated the Gupta empire in 320, launching campaigns of territorial conquest. This expansion was greatly increased by their son Samudra-gupta, who ruled for about forty years until 380, conquering nine republics in Rajasthan and twelve states in the Deccan of central India. Many other kingdoms on the frontiers paid taxes and obeyed orders. The Guptas replaced tribal customs with the caste system. Rulers in the south were defeated, captured, and released to rule as vassals. Local ruling councils under the Guptas tended to be dominated by commercial interests. In addition to his military abilities Samudra-gupta was a poet and musician, and inscriptions praised his charity.

His son Chandra-gupta II (r. 380-414) finally ended the foreign Shaka rule in the west so that his empire stretched from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. He allied his family with the Nagas by marrying princess Kubernaga; after marrying Vakataka king Rudrasena II, his daughter ruled as regent there for 13 years. In the south the Pallavas ruled in harmony with the Guptas. The Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien described a happy and prosperous people not bothered by magistrates and rules; only those working state land had to pay a portion, and the king governed without using decapitation or corporal punishments. Kumara-gupta (r. 414-55) was apparently able to rule this vast empire without engaging in military campaigns. Only after forty years of peace did the threat of invading Hunas (White Huns) cause crown prince Skanda-gupta (r. 455-67) to fight for and restore Gupta fortunes by defeating the Huns about 460. After a struggle for the Gupta throne, Budha-gupta ruled for at least twenty years until about 500. Trade with the Roman empire had been declining since the 3rd century and was being replaced by commerce with southeast Asia. The empire was beginning to break up into independent states, such as Kathiawar and Bundelkhand, while Vakataka king Narendra-sena took over some Gupta territory.

Gupta decline continued as Huna chief Toramana invaded the Punjab and western India. His son Mihirakula succeeded as ruler about 515; according to Xuan Zang he ruled over India, and a Kashmir chronicle credited Mihirakula with conquering southern India and Sri Lanka. The Chinese ambassador Song-yun in 520 described the Hun king of Gandara as cruel, vindictive, and barbarous, not believing in the law of Buddha, having 700 war-elephants, and living with his troops on the frontier. About ten years later the Greek Cosmas from Alexandria wrote that the White Hun king had 2,000 elephants and a large cavalry, but his kingdom was west of the Indus River. However, Mihirakula was defeated by the Malwa chief Yashodharman. The Gupta king Narasimha-gupta Baladitya was also overwhelmed by Yashodharman and was forced to pay tribute to Mihirakula, according to Xuan Zang; but Baladitya later defeated Mihirakula, saving the Gupta empire from the Huns. Baladitya was also credited with building a great monastery at Nalanda. In the middle of the 6th century the Gupta empire declined during the reigns of its last two emperors, Kumara-gupta III and Vishnu-gupta. Gupta sovereignty was recognized in Kalinga as late as 569.

In the 4th century Vasubandhu studied and taught Sarvastivadin Buddhism in Kashmir, analyzing the categories of experience in the 600 verses of his Abhidharma-kosha, including the causes and ways to eliminate moral problems. Vasubandhu was converted to the Yogachara school of Mahayana Buddhism by his brother Asanga. Vasubandhu had a long and influential career as the abbot at Nalanda.

As an idealist Vasubandhu, summing up his ideas in twenty and thirty verses, found all experience to be in consciousness. Seeds are brought to fruition in the store of consciousness. Individuals are deluded by the four evil desires of their views of self as real, ignorance of self, self-pride, and self-love. He found good mental functions in belief, sense of shame, modesty, absence of coveting, energy, mental peace, vigilance, equanimity, and non-injury. Evil mental functions he listed as covetousness, hatred, attachment, arrogance, doubt, and false view; minor ones included anger, enmity, concealment, affliction, envy, parsimony, deception, fraud, injury, pride, high-mindedness, low-mindedness, unbelief, indolence, idleness, forgetfulness, distraction, and non-discernment. For Vasubandhu life is like a dream in which we create our reality in our consciousness; even the tortures of hell have no outward reality but are merely projections of consciousness. Enlightenment is when mental obstructions and projections are transcended without grasping; the habit-energies of karma, the six senses and their objects, and relative knowledge are all abandoned for perfect wisdom, purity, freedom, peace, and joy. Vasubandhu wrote that we can know other minds and influence each other for better and worse, because karma is intersubjective.

In 554 Maukhari king Ishana-varman claimed he won victories over the Andhras, Sulikas, and Gaudas. A Gurjara kingdom was founded in the mid-6th century in Rajputana by Harichandra, as apparently the fall of empires in northern India caused this Brahmin to exchange scriptures for arms. Xuan Zang praised Valabhi king Shiladitya I, who ruled about 580, for having great administrative ability and compassion. Valabhi hosted the second Jain council that established the Jain canon in the 6th century. Valabhi king Shiladitya III (r. 662-84) assumed an imperial title and conquered Gurjara. However, internal conflicts as well as Arab invasion destroyed the Valabhi kingdom by about 735. The Gurjara kingdom was also overrun by Arabs, but Pratihara king Nagabhata is credited with turning back the Muslim invaders in the northwest; he was helped in this effort by Gurjara king Jayabhata IV and Chalukya king Avanijanashraya-Pulakeshiraja in the south.

After Thaneswar king Prabhakara-vardhana (r. 580-606) died, his son Rajya-vardhana marched against the hostile Malava king with 10,000 cavalry and won; but according to Banabhatta, the king of Malava, after gaining his confidence with false civilities, had him murdered. His brother Harsha-vardhana (r. 606-47) swore he would clear the earth of Gaudas; starting with 5,000 elephants, 2,000 cavalry, and 50,000 infantry, his army grew as military conquests enabled him to become the most powerful ruler of northern India at Kanauj. Somehow Harsha's conflicts with Valabhi and Gurjara led to his war with Chalukya king Pulakeshin II; but his southern campaign was apparently a failure, and Sindh remained an independent kingdom.

However, in the east according to Xuan Zang by 643 Harsha had subjugated Kongoda and Orissa. That year the Chinese pilgrim observed two great assemblies, one at Kanauj and the other a religious gathering at Prayaga, where the distribution of accumulated resources drew twenty kings and about 500,000 people. Xuan Zang credited Harsha with building rest-houses for travelers, but he noted that the penalty for breaching the social morality or filial duties could be mutilation or exile. After Gauda king Shashanka's death Harsha had conquered Magadha, and he eventually took over western Bengal. Harsha also was said to have written plays, and three of them survive. Xuan Zang reported that he divided India's revenues into four parts for government expenses, public service, intellectual rewards, and religious gifts. During his reign the university in Nalanda became the most renowned center of Buddhist learning. However, no successor of Harsha-vardana is known, and apparently his empire ended with his life.

Wang-Xuan-zi gained help from Nepal against the violent usurper of Harsha's throne, who was sent to China as a prisoner; Nepal also sent a mission to China in 651. The dynasty called the Later Guptas for their similar names took over Magadha and ruled there for almost a century. Then Yashovarman brought Magadha under his sovereignty as he also invaded Bengal and defeated the ruler of Gauda. In 713 Kashmir king Durlabhaka sent an envoy to the Chinese emperor asking for aid against invading Arabs. His successor Chandrapida was able to defend Kashmir against Arab aggression. He was described as humane and just, but in his ninth year as king he was killed by his brother Tarapida, whose cruel and bloody reign lasted only four years. Lalitaditya became king of Kashmir in 724 and in alliance with Yashovarman defeated the Tibetans; but Lalitaditya and Yashovarman could not agree on a treaty; Lalitaditya was victorious, taking over Kanauj and a vast empire. The Arabs were defeated in the west, and Bengal was conquered in the east, though Lalitaditya's record was tarnished when he had the Gauda king of Bengal murdered after promising him safe conduct. Lalitaditya died about 760. For a century Bengal had suffered anarchy in which the strong devoured the weak.

Arabs had been repelled at Sindh in 660, but they invaded Kabul and Zabulistan during the Caliphate of Muawiyah (661-80). In 683 Kabul revolted and defeated the Muslim army, but two years later Zabul's army was routed by the Arabs. After Al-Hajjaj became governor of Iraq in 695 the combined armies of Zabul and Kabul defeated the Arabs; but a huge Muslim army returned to ravage Zabulistan four years later. Zabul paid tribute until Hajjaj died in 714. Two years before that, Hajjaj had equipped Muslim general Muhammad-ibn-Qasim for a major invasion of Sindh which resulted in the chiefs accepting Islam under sovereignty of the new Caliph 'Umar II (717-20).

Pulakeshin I ruled the Chalukyas for about thirty years in the middle of the 6th century. He was succeeded by Kirtivarman I (r. 566-97), who claimed he destroyed the Nalas, Mauryas, and Kadambas. Mangalesha (r. 597-610) conquered the Kalachuris and Revatidvipa, but he lost his life in a civil war over the succession with his nephew Pulakeshin II (r. 610-42). Starting in darkness enveloped by enemies, this king made Govinda an ally and regained the Chalukya empire by reducing Kadamba capital Vanavasi, the Gangas, and the Mauryas, marrying a Ganga princess. In the north Pulakeshin II subdued the Latas, Malavas, and Gurjaras; he even defeated the mighty Harsha of Kanauj and won the three kingdoms of Maharashtra, Konkana, and Karnata. After conquering the Kosalas and Kalingas, an Eastern Chalukya dynasty was inaugurated by his brother Kubja Vishnuvardhana and absorbed the Andhra country when Vishnukundin king Vikramendra-varman III was defeated. Moving south, Pulakeshin II allied himself with the Cholas, Keralas, and Pandyas in order to invade the powerful Pallavas. By 631 the Chalukya empire extended from sea to sea. Xuan Zang described the Chalukya people as stern and vindictive toward enemies, though they would not kill those who submitted. They and their elephants fought while inebriated, and Chalukya laws did not punish soldiers who killed. However, Pulakeshin II was defeated and probably killed in 642 when the Pallavas in retaliation for an attack on their capital captured the Chalukya capital at Badami.

For thirteen years the Pallavas held some territory while Chalukya successors fought for the throne. Eventually Vikramaditya I (r. 655-81) became king and recovered the southern part of the empire from the Pallavas, fighting three Pallava kings in succession. He was followed by his son Vinayaditya (r. 681-96), whose son Vijayaditya (r. 696-733) also fought with the Pallavas. Vijayaditya had a magnificent temple built to Shiva and donated villages to Jain teachers. His son Vikramaditya II (r. 733-47) also attacked the Pallavas and took Kanchi, but instead of destroying it he donated gold to its temples. His son Kirtivarman II (r. 744-57) was the last ruler of the Chalukya empire, as he was overthrown by Rashtrakuta king Krishna I. However, the dynasty of the Eastern Chalukyas still remained to challenge the Rashtrakutas. In the early 8th century the Chalukyas gave refuge to Zoroastrians called Parsis, who had been driven out of Persia by Muslims. A Christian community still lived in Malabar, and in the 10th century the king of the Cheras granted land to Joseph Rabban for a Jewish community in India.

Pallava king Mahendra-varman I, who ruled for thirty years at the beginning of the 7th century lost northern territory to the Chalukyas. As a Jain he had persecuted other religions, but after he tested and was converted by the Shaivite mystic Appar, he destroyed the Jain monastery at Pataliputra. His son Narasimha-varman I defeated Pulakeshin II in three battles, capturing the Chalukya capital at Vatapi in 642 with the aid of the Sri Lanka king. He ruled for 38 years, and his capital at Kanchi contained more than a hundred Buddhist monasteries housing over 10,000 monks, and there were many Jain temples too. During the reign (c. 670-95) of Pallava king Parameshvara-varman I the Chalukyas probably captured Kanchi, as they did again about 740.

On the island of Sri Lanka the 58th and last king listed in the Mahavamsa was Mahasena (r. 274-301). He oversaw the building of sixteen tanks and irrigation canals. The first of 125 kings listed up to 1815 in the Culavamsa, Srimeghavanna, repaired the monasteries destroyed by Mahasena. Mahanama (r. 406-28) married the queen after she murdered his brother Upatissa. Mahanama was the last king of the Lambakanna dynasty that had lasted nearly four centuries. His death was followed by an invasion from southern India that limited Sinhalese rule to the Rohana region.

Buddhaghosha was converted to Buddhism and went to Sri Lanka during the reign of Mahanama. There he translated and wrote commentaries on numerous Buddhist texts. His Visuddhimagga explains ways to attain purity by presenting the teachings of the Buddha in three parts on conduct, concentration, and wisdom. Buddhaghosha also collected parables and stories illustrating Buddhist ethics by showing how karma brings the consequences of actions back to one, sometimes in another life. One story showed how a grudge can cause alternating injuries between two individuals from life to life. Yet if no grudge is held, the enmity subsides. In addition to the usual vices of killing, stealing, adultery, and a judge taking bribes, occupations that could lead to hell include making weapons, selling poison, being a general, collecting taxes, living off tolls, hunting, fishing, and even gathering honey. The Buddhist path is encouraged with tales of miracles and by showing the benefits of good conduct and meditation.

The Moriya clan chief Dhatusena (r. 455-73) improved irrigation by having a bridge constructed across the Mahavali River. He led the struggle to expel the foreigners from the island and restored Sinhalese authority at Anuradhapura. His eldest son Kassapa (r. 473-91) took him prisoner and usurped the throne but lost it with his life to his brother Moggallana (r. 491-508), who used an army of mercenaries from south India. He had the coast guarded to prevent foreign attacks and gave his umbrella to the Buddhist community as a token of submission. His son Kumara-Dhatusena (r. 508-16) was succeeded by his son Kittisena, who was quickly deposed by the usurping uncle Siva. He was soon killed by Upatissa II (r. 517-18), who revived the Lambakanna dynasty and was succeeded by his son Silakala (r. 518-31). Moggallana II (r. 531-51) had to fight for the throne; but he was a poet and was considered a pious ruler loved by the people. Two rulers were killed as the Moriyas regained power. The second, Mahanaga (r. 569-71), had been a rebel at Rohana and then its governor before becoming king at Anuradhapura. Aggabodhi I (r. 571-604) and Aggabodhi II (r. 604-14) built monasteries and dug water tanks for irrigation. A revolt by the general Moggallana III (r. 614-19) overthrew the last Moriya king and led to a series of civil wars and succession battles suffered by the Sri Lanka people until Manavamma (r. 684-718) re-established the Lambakanna dynasty.

Included in a didactic Tamil collection of "Eighteen Minor Poems" are the Naladiyar and the famous Kural. The Naladiyar consists of 400 quatrains of moral aphorisms. In the 67th quatrain the wise say it is not cowardice to refuse a challenge when men rise in enmity and wish to fight; even when enemies do the worst, it is right not to do evil in return. Like milk the path of virtue is one, though many sects teach it. (118) The treasure of learning needs no safeguard, for fire cannot destroy it nor can kings take it. Other things are not true wealth, but learning is the best legacy to leave one's children. (134) Humility is greatness, and self-control is what the gainer actually gains. Only the rich who relieve the need of their neighbors are truly wealthy. (170) The good remember another's kindness, but the base only recall fancied slights. (356)

The Tamil classic, The Kural by Tiru Valluvar, was probably written about 600 CE, plus or minus two centuries. This book contains 133 chapters of ten pithy couplets each and is divided into three parts on the traditional Hindu goals of dharma (virtue or justice), artha (success or wealth), and kama (love or pleasure). The first two parts contain moral proverbs; the third is mostly expressions of love, though there is the statement that one-sided love is bitter while balanced love is sweet. Valluvar transcends the caste system by suggesting that we call Brahmins those who are virtuous and kind to all that live.

Here are a few of Valluvar's astute observations on dharma. Bliss hereafter is the fruit of a loving life here. (75) Sweet words with a smiling face are more pleasing than a gracious gift. (92) He asked, "How can one pleased with sweet words oneself use harsh words to others?"2 Self-control takes one to the gods, but its lack to utter darkness. (121) Always forgive transgressions, but better still forget them. (152) The height of wisdom is not to return ill for ill. (203) "The only gift is giving to the poor; all else is exchange." (221) If people refrain from eating meat, there will be no one to sell it. (256) "To bear your pain and not pain others is penance summed up." (261) In all the gospels he found nothing higher than the truth. (300) I think the whole chapter on not hurting others is worth quoting.

The pure in heart will never hurt others even for wealth or renown.
The code of the pure in heart is not to return hurt for angry hurt.
Vengeance even against a wanton insult does endless damage.
Punish an evil-doer by shaming him with a good deed, and forget.
What good is that sense which does not feel and prevent
all creatures' woes as its own?
Do not do to others what you know has hurt yourself.
It is best to refrain from willfully hurting anyone, anytime, anyway.
Why does one hurt others knowing what it is to be hurt?
The hurt you cause in the forenoon self-propelled
will overtake you in the afternoon.
Hurt comes to the hurtful; hence it is
that those don't hurt who do not want to be hurt.3

Valluvar went even farther when he wrote, "Even at the cost of one's own life one should avoid killing." (327) For death is but a sleep, and birth an awakening. (339)

In the part on artha (wealth) Valluvar defined the unfailing marks of a king as courage, liberality, wisdom and energy. (382) The just protector he deemed the Lord's deputy, and the best kings have grace, bounty, justice, and concern. "The wealth which never declines is not riches but learning." (400) "The wealth of the ignorant does more harm than the want of the learned." (408) The truly noble are free of arrogance, wrath, and pettiness. (431) "A tyrant indulging in terrorism will perish quickly." (563) "Friendship curbs wrong, guides right, and shares distress." (787) "The soul of friendship is freedom, which the wise should welcome." (802) "The world is secure under one whose nature can make friends of foes." (874) Valluvar believed it was base to be discourteous even to enemies (998), and his chapter on character is also worth quoting.

All virtues are said to be natural to those who acquire character as a duty.
To the wise the only worth is character, naught else.
The pillars of excellence are five-love, modesty,
altruism, compassion, truthfulness.
The core of penance is not killing, of goodness not speaking slander.
The secret of success is humility;
it is also wisdom's weapon against foes.
The touchstone of goodness is to own one's defeat even to inferiors.
What good is that good which does not return good for evil?
Poverty is no disgrace to one with strength of character.
Seas may whelm, but men of character will stand like the shore.
If the great fail in nobility, the earth will bear us no more.4

Kamandaka's Nitisara in the first half of the 8th century was primarily based on Kautilya's Arthashastra and was influenced by the violence in the Mahabharata, as he justified both open fighting when the king is powerful and treacherous fighting when he is at a disadvantage. Katyayana, like Kamandaka, accepted the tradition of the king's divinity, although he argued that this should make ruling justly a duty. Katyayana followed Narada's four modes of judicial decisions as the dharma of moral law when the defendant confesses, judicial proof when the judge decides, popular custom when tradition rules, and royal edict when the king decides. Crimes of violence were distinguished from the deception of theft. Laws prevented the accumulated interest on debts from exceeding the principal. Brahmins were still exempt from capital punishment and confiscation of property, and most laws differed according to one's caste. The Yoga-vasishtha philosophy taught that as a bird flies with two wings, the highest reality is attained through knowledge and work.

The famous Vedanta philosopher Shankara was born into a Brahmin family; his traditional dates are 788-820, though some scholars believe he lived about 700-50. It was said that when he was eight, he became an ascetic and studied with Govinda, a disciple of the monist Gaudapala; at 16 he was teaching many in the Varanasi area. Shankara wrote a long commentary on the primary Vedanta text, the Brahma Sutra, on the Bhagavad-Gita, and on ten of the Upanishads, always emphasizing the non-dual reality of Brahman (God), that the world is false, and that the atman (self or soul) is not different from Brahman.

Shankara traveled around India and to Kashmir, defeating opponents in debate; he criticized human sacrifice to the god Bhairava and branding the body. He performed a funeral for his mother even though it was considered improper for a sannyasin (renunciate). Shankara challenged the Mimamsa philosopher Mandana Mishra, who emphasized the duty of Vedic rituals, by arguing that knowledge of God is the only means to final release, and after seven days he was declared the winner by Mandana's wife. He tended to avoid the cities and taught sannyasins and intellectuals in the villages. Shankara founded monasteries in the south at Shringeri of Mysore, in the east at Puri, in the west at Dvaraka, and in the northern Himalayas at Badarinath. He wrote hymns glorifying Shiva as God, and Hindus would later believe he was an incarnation of Shiva. He criticized the corrupt left-hand (sexual) practices used in Tantra. His philosophy spread, and he became perhaps the most influential of all Hindu philosophers.

In the Crest-Jewel of Wisdom Shankara taught that although action is for removing bonds of conditioned existence and purifying the heart, reality can only be attained by right knowledge. Realizing that an object perceived is a rope removes the fear and sorrow from the illusion it is a snake. Knowledge comes from perception, investigation, or instruction, not from bathing, giving alms, or breath control. Shankara taught enduring all pain and sorrow without thought of retaliation, dejection, or lamentation. He noted that the scriptures gave the causes of liberation as faith, devotion, concentration, and union (yoga); but he taught, "Liberation cannot be achieved except by direct perception of the identity of the individual with the universal self."5 Desires lead to death, but one who is free of desires is fit for liberation. Shankara distinguished the atman as the real self or soul from the ahamkara (ego), which is the cause of change, experiences karma (action), and destroys the rest in the real self. From neglecting the real self spring delusion, ego, bondage, and pain. The soul is everlasting and full of wisdom. Ultimately both bondage and liberation are illusions that do not exist in the soul.

Plays of Bhasa, Kalidasa, and Bhavabhuti
Indian drama was analyzed by Bharata in the Natya Shastra, probably from the third century CE or before. Bharata ascribed a divine origin to drama and considered it a fifth Veda; its origin seems to be from religious dancing. In the classical plays Sanskrit is spoken by the Brahmins and noble characters, while Prakrit vernaculars are used by others and most women. According to Bharata poetry (kavya), dance (nritta), and mime (nritya) in life's play (lila) produce emotion (bhava), but only drama (natya) produces "flavor" (rasa). The drama uses the eight basic emotions of love, joy (humor), anger, sadness, pride, fear, aversion, and wonder, attempting to resolve them in the ninth holistic feeling of peace. These are modified by 33 less stable sentiments he listed as discouragement, weakness, apprehension, weariness, contentment, stupor, elation, depression, cruelty, anxiety, fright, envy, arrogance, indignation, recollection, death, intoxication, dreaming, sleeping, awakening, shame, demonic possession, distraction, assurance, indolence, agitation, deliberation, dissimulation, sickness, insanity, despair, impatience, and inconstancy. The emotions are manifested by causes, effects, and moods. The spectators should be of good character, intelligent, and empathetic.

Although some scholars date him earlier, the plays of Bhasa can probably be placed after Ashvaghosha in the second or third century CE. In 1912 thirteen Trivandrum plays were discovered that scholars have attributed to Bhasa. Five one-act plays were adapted from situations in the epic Mahabharata. Dutavakya has Krishna as a peace envoy from the Pandavas giving advice to Duryodhana. In Karnabhara the warrior Karna sacrifices his armor by giving it to Indra, who is in the guise of a Brahmin. Dutaghatotkacha shows the envoy Ghatotkacha carrying Krishna's message to the Kauruvas. Urubhanga depicts Duryodhana as a hero treacherously attacked below the waist by Bhima at the signal of Krishna. In Madhyama-vyayoga the middle son is going to be sacrificed, but it turns out to be a device used by Bhima's wife Hidimba to get him to visit her. Each of these plays seems to portray didactically heroic virtues for an aristocratic audience. The Mahabharata also furnishes the episode for the Kauravas' cattle raid of Virata in the Pancharatra, which seems to have been staged to glorify some sacrifice. Bhasa's Abhisheka follows the Ramayana closely in the coronation of Rama, and Pratima also reworks the Rama story prior to the war. Balacharita portrays heroic episodes in the childhood of Krishna.

In Bhasa's Avimaraka the title character heroically saves princess Kurangi from a rampaging elephant, but he says he is an outcast. Dressed as a thief, Avimaraka sneaks into the palace to meet the princess, saying,

Once we have done what we can even failure is no disgrace.
Has anyone ever succeeded by saying, "I can't do it"?
A person becomes great by attempting great things.6

He spends a year there with Kurangi before he is discovered and must leave. Avimaraka is about to jump off a mountain when a fairy (Vidyadhara) gives him a ring by which he can become invisible. Using invisibility, he and his jester go back into the palace just in time to catch Kurangi before she hangs herself. The true parentage of the royal couple is revealed by the sage Narada, and Vairantya king Kuntibhoja gives his new son-in-law the following advice:

With tolerance be king over Brahmins.
With compassion win the hearts of your subjects.
With courage conquer earth's rulers.
With knowledge of the truth conquer yourself.7

Bhasa uses the story of legendary King Udayana in two plays. In Pratijna Yaugandharayana the Vatsa king at Kaushambi, Udayana, is captured by Avanti king Pradyota so that Udayana can be introduced to the princess Vasavadatta by tutoring her in music, a device which works as they fall in love. The title comes from the vow of chief minister Yaugandharayana to free his sovereign Udayana; he succeeds in rescuing him and his new queen Vasavadatta. In Bhasa's greatest play, The Dream of Vasavadatta, the same minister, knowing his king's reluctance to enter a needed political marriage, pretends that he and queen Vasavadatta are killed in a fire so that King Udayana will marry Magadha princess Padmavati. Saying Vasavadatta is his sister, Yaugandharayana entrusts her into the care of Padmavati, because of the prophecy she will become Udayana's queen. The play is very tender, and both princesses are noble and considerate of each other; it also includes an early example of a court jester. Udayana is still in love with Vasavadatta, and while resting half asleep, Vasavadatta, thinking she is comforting Padmavati's headache, gently touches him. The loving and grieving couple are reunited; Padmavati is also accepted as another wife; and the kingdom of Kaushambi is defended by the marriage alliance.

Bhasa's Charudatta is about the courtesan Vasantasena, who initiates a love affair with an impoverished merchant, but the manuscript is cut off abruptly after four acts. However, this story was adapted and completed in The Little Clay Cart, attributed to a King Sudraka, whose name means a little servant. In ten acts this play is a rare example of what Bharata called a maha-nataka or "great play." The play is revolutionary not only because the romantic hero and heroine are a married merchant and a courtesan, but because the king's brother-in-law, Sansthanaka, is portrayed as a vicious fool, and because by the end of the play the king is overthrown and replaced by a man he had falsely imprisoned. Vasantasena rejects the attentions of the insulting Sansthanaka, saying that true love is won by virtue not violence; she is in love with Charudatta, who is poor because he is honest and generous, as money and virtue seldom keep company these days. Vasantasena kindly pays the gambling debts of his shampooer, who then becomes a Buddhist monk. Charudatta, not wearing jewels any more, gives his cloak to a man who saved the monk from a rampaging elephant.

Vasantasena entrusts a golden casket of jewelry to Charudatta, but Sharvilaka, breaking into his house to steal, is given it so that he can gain the courtesan girl Madanika. So that he won't get a bad reputation, Charudatta's wife gives a valuable pearl necklace to her husband, and he realizes he is not poor because he has a wife whose love outlasts his wealthy days. Madanika is concerned that Sharvilaka did something bad for her sake and tells him to restore the jewels, and he returns them to Vasantasena on the merchant's behalf, while she generously frees her servant Madanika for him.

Charudatta gives Vasantasena the more valuable pearl necklace, saying he gambled away her jewels. As the romantic rainy season approaches, the two lovers are naturally drawn together. Charudatta's child complains that he has to play with a little clay cart as a toy, and Vasantasena promises him a golden one. She gets into the wrong bullock cart and is taken to the garden of Sansthanaka, where he strangles her for rejecting his proposition. Then he accuses Charudatta of the crime, and because of his royal influence in the trial, Charudatta is condemned to be executed after his friend shows up with Vasantasena's jewels. However, the monk has revived Vasantasena, and just before Charudatta's head is to be cut off, she appears to save him. Sharvilaka has killed the bad king and anointed a good one. Charudatta lets the repentant Sansthanaka go free, and the king declares Vasantasena a wedded wife and thus no longer a courtesan.

Although he is considered India's greatest poet, it is not known when Kalidasa lived. Probably the best educated guess has him flourishing about 400 CE during the reign of Chandragupta II. The prolog of his play Malavika and Agnimitra asks the audience to consider a new poet and not just the celebrated Bhasa and two others. In this romance King Agnimitra, who already has two queens, in springtime falls in love with the dancing servant Malavika, who turns out to be a princess when his foreign conflicts are solved. The king is accompanied throughout by a court jester, who with a contrivance frees Malavika from confinement by the jealous queen. The only female who speaks Sanskrit in Kalidasa's plays is the Buddhist nun, who judges the dance contest and explains that Malavika had to be a servant for a year in order to fulfill a prophecy that she would marry a king after doing so. In celebration of the victory and his latest marriage, the king orders all prisoners released.

In Kalidasa's Urvashi Won by Valor, King Pururavas falls in love with the heavenly nymph Urvashi. The king's jester Manavaka reveals this secret to the queen's maid Nipunika. Urvashi comes down to earth with her friend and writes a love poem on a birch-leaf. The queen sees this also but forgives her husband's guilt. Urvashi returns to paradise to appear in a play; but accidentally revealing her love for Pururavas, she is expelled to earth and must stay until she sees the king's heir. The queen generously offers to accept a new queen who truly loves the king, and Urvashi makes herself visible to Pururavas. In the fourth act a moment of jealousy causes Urvashi to be changed into a vine, and the king in searching for her dances and sings, amorously befriending animals and plants until a ruby of reunion helps him find the vine; as he embraces the vine, it turns into Urvashi. After many years have passed, their son Ayus gains back the ruby that was stolen by a vulture. When Urvashi sees the grown-up child she had sent away so that she could stay with the king, she must return to paradise; but the king gives up his kingdom to their son so that he can go with her, although a heavenly messenger indicates that he can remain as king with Urvashi until his death.

The most widely acclaimed Indian drama is Kalidasa's Shakuntala and the Love Token. While hunting, King Dushyanta is asked by the local ascetics not to kill deer, saying, "Your weapon is meant to help the weak not smite the innocent."8 The king and Shakuntala, who is the daughter of a nymph and is being raised by ascetics, fall in love with each other. The king is accompanied by a foolish Brahmin who offers comic relief. Although he has other wives, the king declares that he needs only the earth and Shakuntala to sustain his line. They are married in the forest, and Shakuntala becomes pregnant. Kanva, who raised her, advises the bride to obey her elders, treat her fellow wives as friends, and not cross her husband in anger even if he mistreats her. The king returns to his capital and gives his ring to Shakuntala so that he will recognize her when she arrives later. However, because of a curse on her from Durvasas, he loses his memory of her, and she loses the ring. Later the king refuses to accept this pregnant woman he cannot recall, and in shame she disappears. A fisherman finds the ring in a fish; when the king gets it back, his memory of Shakuntala returns. The king searches for her and finds their son on Golden Peak with the birthmarks of a universal emperor; now he must ask to be recognized by her. They are happily reunited, and their child Bharata is to become the founding emperor of India.

An outstanding political play was written by Vishakhadatta, who may also have lived at the court of Chandragupta II or as late as the 9th century. Rakshasa's Ring is set when Chandragupta, who defeated Alexander's successor Seleucus in 305 BC, is becoming Maurya emperor by overcoming the Nandas. According to tradition he was politically assisted by his minister Chanakya, also known as Kautilya, supposed author of the famous treatise on politics, Artha Shastra. Rakshasa, whose name means demon, had sent a woman to poison Chandragupta, but Chanakya had her poison King Parvataka instead. Rakshasa supports Parvataka's son Malayaketu; Chanakya cleverly assuages public opinion by letting Parvataka's brother have half the kingdom but arranges for his death too. Chanakya even pretends to break with Chandragupta to further his plot.

Chanakya is able to use a Jain monk and a secretary by pretending to punish them and have Siddarthaka rescue the secretary; with a letter he composed written by the secretary and with Rakshasa's ring taken from the home of a jeweler who gave Rakshasa and his family refuge, they pretend to serve Malayaketu but make him suspect Rakshasa's loyalty and execute the allied princes that Rakshasa had gained for him. Ironically Rakshasa's greatest quality is loyalty, and after he realizes he has been trapped, he decides to sacrifice himself to save the jeweler from being executed. By then Malayaketu's attack on Chandragupta's capital has collapsed from lack of support, and he is captured. Chanakya's manipulations have defeated Chandragupta's rivals without a fight, and he appoints chief minister in his place Rakshasa, who then spares the life of Malayaketu. Chanakya (Kautilya) announces that the emperor (Chandragupta) grants Malayaketu his ancestral territories and releases all prisoners except draft animals.

Ratnavali was attributed to Harsha, who ruled at Kanauj in the first half of the 7th century. This comedy reworks the story of King Udayana, who though happily married to Vasavadatta, is seduced into marrying her Simhalese cousin Ratnavali for the political motivations contrived by his minister Yaugandharayana. Ratnavali, using the name Sagarika as the queen's maid, falls in love with the king and has painted his portrait. Her friend then paints her portrait with the king's, which enamors him after he hears the story of the painting from a mynah bird that repeats the maidens' conversation. Queen Vasavadatta becomes suspicious, and the jester is going to bring Sagarika dressed like the queen, who learning of it appears veiled herself to expose the affair. Sagarika tries to hang herself but is saved by the king. The jealous queen puts Sagarika in chains and the noose around the jester's neck. Yet in the last act a magician contrives a fire, and the king saves Sagarika once again. A necklace reveals that she is a princess, and the minister Yaugandharayana explains how he brought the lovers together.

Also attributed to Harsha: Priyadarshika is another harem comedy; but Joy of the Serpents (Nagananda) shows how prince Jimutavahana gives up his own body to stop a sacrifice of serpents to the divine Garuda. A royal contemporary of Harsha, Pallava king Mahendravikarmavarman wrote a one-act farce called "The Sport of Drunkards" (Mattavilasa) in which an inebriated Shaivite ascetic accuses a Buddhist monk of stealing his begging bowl made from a skull; but after much satire it is found to have been taken by a dog.

Bhavabhuti lived in the early 8th century and was said to have been the court poet in Kanauj of Yashovarman, a king also supposed to have written a play about Rama. Bhavabhuti depicted the early career of Rama in Mahavira-charita and then produced The Later Story of Rama. In this latter play Rama's brother Lakshmana shows Rama and Sita murals of their past, and Rama asks Sita for forgiveness for having put her through a trial by fire to show the people her purity after she had been captured by the evil Ravana. Rama has made a vow to serve the people's good above all and so orders Sita into exile because of their continuing suspicions. Instead of killing the demon Sambuka, his penance moves Rama to free him. Sita has given birth to two sons, Lava and Kusha, and twelve years pass. When he heard about his daughter Sita's exile, Janaka gave up meat and became a vegetarian; when Janaka meets Rama's mother Kaushalya, she faints at the memory. Rama's divine weapons have been passed on to his sons, and Lava is able to pacify Chandraketu's soldiers by meditating. Rama has Lava remove the spell, and Kusha recites the Ramayana taught him by Valmiki, who raised the sons. Finally Sita is joyfully reunited with Rama and their sons.

Malati and Madhava by Bhavabhuti takes place in the city of Padmavati. Although the king has arranged for Nandana to marry his minister's daughter Malati, the Buddhist nun Kamandaki manages eventually to bring together the suffering lovers Madhava and Malati. Malati has been watching Madhava and draws his portrait; when he sees it, he draws her too. Through the rest of the play they pine in love for each other. Malati calls her father greedy for going along with the king's plan to marry her to Nandana, since a father deferring to a king in this is not sanctioned by morality nor by custom. Madhava notes that success comes from education with innate understanding, boldness combined with practiced eloquence, and tact with quick wit. Malati's friend Madayantika is attacked by a tiger, and Madhava's friend Makaranda is wounded saving her life. In their amorous desperation Madhava sells his flesh to the gods, and he saves the suicidal Malati from being sacrificed by killing Aghoraghanta, whose pupil Kapalakundala then causes him much suffering. Finally Madhava and Malati are able to marry, as Makaranda marries Madayantika. These plays make clear that courtly love and romance were thriving in India for centuries before they were rediscovered in Europe.

Hindu Kingdoms 750-1000
The Rashtrakuta Dantidurga married a Chalukya princess and became a vassal king about 733; he and Gujarat's Pulakeshin helped Chalukya emperor Vikramaditya II repulse an Arab invasion, and Dantidurga's army joined the emperor in a victorious expedition against Kanchi and the Pallavas. After Vikramaditya II died in 747, Dantidurga conquered Gurjara, Malwa, and Madhya Pradesh. This Rashtrakuta king then confronted and defeated Chalukya emperor Kirtivarman II so that by the end of 753 he controlled all of Maharashtra. The next Rashtrakuta ruler Krishna I completed the demise of the Chalukya empire and was succeeded about 773 by his eldest son Govinda II. Absorbed in personal pleasures, he left the administration to his brother Dhruva, who eventually revolted and usurped the throne, defeating the Ganga, Pallava, and Vengi kings who had opposed him.

The Pratihara ruler of Gurjara, Vatsaraja, took over Kanauj and installed Indrayudha as governor there. The Palas rose to power by unifying Bengal under the elected king Gopala about 750. He patronized Buddhism, and his successor Dharmapala had fifty monasteries built, founding the Vikramashila monastery with 108 monks in charge of various programs. During the reign of Dharmapala the Jain scholar Haribhadra recommended respecting various views because of Jainism's principles of nonviolence and many-sidedness. Haribhadra found that the following eight qualities can be applied to the faithful of any tradition: nonviolence, truth, honesty, chastity, detachment, reverence for a teacher, fasting, and knowledge. Dharmapala marched into the Doab to challenge the Pratiharas but was defeated by Vatsaraja. When these two adversaries were about to meet for a second battle in the Doab, the Rashtrakuta ruler Dhruva from the Deccan defeated Vatsaraja first and then Dharmapala but did not occupy Kanauj.

Dhruva returned to the south with booty and was succeeded by his third son Govinda III in 793. Govinda had to defeat his brother Stambha and a rebellion of twelve kings, but the two brothers reconciled and turned on Ganga prince Shivamira, whom they returned to prison. Supreme over the Deccan, Govinda III left his brother Indra as viceroy of Gujarat and Malava and marched his army north toward Kanauj, which Vatsaraja's successor Nagabhata II had occupied while Dharmapala's nominee Chakrayudha was on that throne. Govinda's army defeated Nagabhata's; Chakrayudha surrendered, and Dharmapala submitted. Govinda III marched all the way to the Himalayas, uprooting and reinstating local kings.

Rashtrakuta supremacy was challenged by Vijayaditya II, who had become king of Vengi in 799; but Govinda defeated him and installed his brother Bhima-Salukki on the Vengi throne about 802. Then Govinda's forces scattered a confederacy of Pallava, Pandya, Kerala, and Ganga rulers and occupied Kanchi, threatening the king of Sri Lanka, who sent him two statues. After Govinda III died in 814, Chalukya Vijayaditya II overthrew Bhima-Salukki to regain his Vengi throne; then his army invaded Rashtrakuta territory, plundering and devastating the city of Stambha. Vijayaditya ruled for nearly half a century and was said to have fought 108 battles in a 12-year war with the Rashtrakutas and the Gangas. His grandson Vijayaditya III ruled Vengi for 44 years (848-92); he also invaded the Rashtrakuta empire in the north, burning Achalapura, and it was reported he took gold by force from the Ganga king of Kalinga. His successor Chalukya-Bhima I was king of Vengi for 30 years and was said to have turned his attention to helping ascetics and those in distress. Struggles with his neighbors continued though, and Chalukya-Bhima was even captured for a time.

Dharmapala's son Devapala also supported Buddhism and extended the Pala empire in the first half of the 9th century by defeating the Utkalas, Assam, Huns, Dravidas, and Gurjaras, while maintaining his domain against three generations of Pratihara rulers. His successor Vigrahapala retired to an ascetic life after ruling only three years, and his son Narayanapala was also of a peaceful and religious disposition, allowing the Pala empire to languish. After the Pala empire was defeated by the Rashtrakutas and Pratiharas, subordinate chiefs became independent; Assam king Harjara even claimed an imperial title. Just before his long reign ended in 908 Narayanapala did reclaim some territories after the Rashtrakuta invasion of the Pratihara dominions; but in the 10th century during the reign of the next three kings the Pala kingdom declined as principalities asserted their independence in conflicts with each other.

Chandella king Yashovarman invaded the Palas and the Kambojas, and he claimed to have conquered Gauda and Mithila. His successor Dhanga ruled through the second half of the 10th century and was the first independent Chandella king, calling himself the lord of Kalanjara. In the late 8th century Arab military expeditions had attempted to make Kabul pay tribute to the Muslim caliph. In 870 Kabul and Zabul were conquered by Ya'qub ibn Layth; the king of Zubalistan was killed, and the people accepted Islam. Ghazni sultan Sabutkin (r. 977-97) invaded India with a Muslim army and defeated Dhanga and a confederacy of Hindu chiefs about 989.

South of the Chandellas the Kalachuris led by Kokkalla in the second half of the 9th century battled the Pratiharas under Bhoja, Turushkas (Muslims), Vanga in east Bengal, Rashtrakuta king Krishna II, and Konkan. His successor Shankaragana fought Kosala, but he and Krishna II had to retreat from the Eastern Chalukyas. In the next century Kalachuri king Yuvaraja I celebrated his victory over Vallabha with a performance of Rajshekhara's drama Viddhashalabhanjika. Yuvaraja's son Lakshmanaraja raided east Bengal, defeated Kosala, and invaded the west. Like his father, he patronized Shaivite teachers and monasteries. Near the end of the 10th century Kalachuri king Yuvaraja II suffered attacks from Chalukya ruler Taila II and Paramara king Munja. After many conquests, the aggressive Munja, disregarding the advice of his counselor Rudraditya, was defeated and captured by Taila and executed after an attempted rescue.

In 814 Govinda III was succeeded as Rashtrakuta ruler by his son Amoghavarsha, only about 13 years old; Gujarat viceroy Karkka acted as regent. Three years later a revolt led by Vijayaditya II, who had regained the Vengi throne, temporarily overthrew Rashtrakuta power until Karakka reinstated Amoghavarsha I by 821. A decade later the Rashtrakuta army defeated Vijayaditya II and occupied Vengi for about a dozen years. Karkka was made viceroy in Gujarat, but his son Dhruva I rebelled and was killed about 845. The Rashtrakutas also fought the Gangas for about twenty years until Amoghavarsha's daughter married a Ganga prince about 860. In addition to his military activities Amoghavarsha sponsored several famous Hindu and Jain writers and wrote a book himself on Jain ethics. Jain kings and soldiers made an exception to the prohibition against killing for the duties of hanging murderers and slaying enemies in battle. He died in 878 and was succeeded by his son Krishna II, who married the daughter of Chedi ruler Kokkalla I to gain an ally for his many wars with the Pratiharas, Eastern Chalukyas, Vengi, and the Cholas.

Krishna II died in 914 and was succeeded by his grandson Indra III, who marched his army north and captured northern India's imperial city Kanauj. However, Chandella king Harsha helped the Pratihara Mahipala regain his throne at Kanauj. Indra III died in 922; but his religious son Amoghavarsha II had to get help from his Chedi relations to defeat his brother Govinda IV, who had usurped the throne for fourteen years. Three years later in 939 Krishna III succeeded as Rashtrakuta emperor and organized an invasion of Chola and twenty years later another expedition to the north. The Rashtrakutas reigned over a vast empire when he died in 967; but with no living issue the struggle for the throne, despite the efforts of Ganga king Marasimha III, resulted in the triumph of Chalukya king Taila II in 974. That year Marasimha starved himself to death in the Jain manner and was succeeded by Rajamalla IV, whose minister Chamunda Raya staved off usurpation. His Chamunda Raya Purana includes an account of the 24 Jain prophets.

In the north in the middle of the 9th century the Pratiharas were attacked by Pala emperor Devapala; but Pratihara king Bhoja and his allies defeated Pala king Narayanapala. Bhoja won and lost battles against Rashtrakuta king Krishna II. The Pratiharas were described in 851 by an Arab as having the finest cavalry and as the greatest foe of the Muslims, though no country in India was safer from robbers. Bhoja ruled nearly a half century, and his successor Mahendrapala I expanded the Pratihara empire to the east. When Mahipala was ruling in 915 Al Mas'udi from Baghdad observed that the Pratiharas were at war with the Muslims in the west and the Rashtrakutas in the south, and he claimed they had four armies of about 800,000 men each. When Indra III sacked Kanauj, Mahipala fled but returned after the Rashtrakutas left. In the mid-10th century the Pratiharas had several kings, as the empire disintegrated and was reduced to territory around Kanauj.

A history of Kashmir's kings called the Rajatarangini was written by Kalhana in the 12th century. Vajraditya became king of Kashmir about 762 and was accused of selling men to the Mlechchhas (probably Arabs). Jayapida ruled Kashmir during the last thirty years of the 8th century, fighting wars of conquest even though his army once deserted his camp and people complained of high taxes. Family intrigue and factional violence led to a series of puppet kings until Avanti-varman began the Utpala dynasty of Kashmir in 855. His minister Suvya's engineering projects greatly increased the grain yield and lowered its prices. Avanti-varman's death in 883 was followed by a civil war won by Shankara-varman, who then invaded Darvabhisara, Gurjara, and Udabhanda; but he was killed by people in Urasha, who resented his army being quartered there. More family intrigues, bribery, and struggles for power between the Tantrin infantry, Ekanga military police, and the Damara feudal landowners caused a series of short reigns until the minister Kamalavardhana took control and asked the assembly to appoint a king; they chose the Brahmin Yashakara in 939.

Yashakara was persuaded to resign by his minister Parvagupta, who killed the new Kashmir king but died two years later in 950. Parvagupta's son Kshemagupta became king and married the Lohara princess Didda. Eight years later she became regent for their son Abhimanyu and won over the rebel Yashodhara by appointing him commander of her army. When King Abhimanyu died in 972, his three sons ruled in succession until each in turn was murdered by their grandmother, Queen Didda; she ruled Kashmir herself with the help of an unpopular prime minister from 980 until she died in 1003.

In the south the Pandyas had risen to power in the late 8th century under King Nedunjadaiyan. He ruled for fifty years, and his son Srimara Srivallabha reigned nearly as long, winning victories over the Gangas, Pallavas, Cholas, Kalingas, Magadhas, and others until he was defeated by Pallava Nandi-varman III at Tellaru. The Pandya empire was ruined when his successor Varaguna II was badly beaten about 880 by a combined force of Pallavas, western Gangas, and Cholas. The Chola dynasty of Tanjore was founded by Vijayalaya in the middle of the 9th century. As a vassal of the Pallavas, he and his son Aditya I helped their sovereign defeat the Pandyas. Aditya ruled 36 years and was succeeded as Chola king by his son Parantaka I (r. 907-953). His military campaigns established the Chola empire with the help of his allies, the Gangas, Kerala, and the Kodumbalur chiefs. The Pandyas and the Sinhalese king of Sri Lanka were defeated by the Cholas about 915. Parantaka demolished remaining Pallava power, but in 949 the Cholas were decisively beaten by Rashtrakuta king Krishna III at Takkolam, resulting in the loss of Tondamandalam and the Pandya country. Chola power was firmly established during the reign (985-1014) of Rajaraja I, who attacked the Kerala, Sri Lanka, and the Pandyas to break up their control of the western trade.

When the Pandyas invaded the island, Sri Lanka king Sena I (r. 833-53) fled as the royal treasury was plundered. His successor Sena II (r. 853-87) sent a Sinhalese army in retaliation, besieging Madura, defeating the Pandyas, and killing their king. The Pandya capital was plundered, and the golden images were taken back to the island. In 915 a Sinhalese army from Sri Lanka supported Pandyan ruler Rajasimha II against the Cholas; but the Chola army invaded Sri Lanka and apparently stayed until the Rashtrakutas invaded their country in 949. Sri Lanka king Mahinda IV (r. 956-72) had some of the monasteries burnt by the Cholas restored. Sena V (r. 972-82) became king at the age of twelve but died of alcoholism. During his reign a rebellion supported by Damila forces ravaged the island. By the time of Mahinda V (r. 982-1029) the monasteries owned extensive land, and barons kept the taxes from their lands. As unpaid mercenaries revolted and pillaged, Mahinda fled to Rohana. Chola king Rajaraja sent a force that sacked Anuradhapura, ending its period as the capital in 993 as the northern plains became a Chola province. In 1017 the Cholas conquered the south as well and took Mahinda to India as a prisoner for the rest of his life.

In India during this period Hindu colleges (ghatikas) were associated with the temples, and gradually the social power of the Brahmins superseded Buddhists and Jains, though the latter survived in the west. Jain gurus, owning nothing and wanting nothing, were often able to persuade the wealthy to contribute the four gifts of education, food, medicine, and shelter. In the devotional worship of Vishnu and Shiva and their avatars (incarnations), the Buddha became just another avatar for Hindus. Amid the increasing wars and militarism the ethical value of ahimsa (non-injury) so important to the Jains and Buddhists receded. The examples of the destroyer Shiva or Vishnu's incarnations as Rama and Krishna hardly promoted nonviolence. Village assemblies tended to have more autonomy in south India. The ur was open to all adult males in the village, but the sabha was chosen by lot from those qualified by land ownership, aged 35-70, knowing mantras and Brahmanas, and free of any major crime or sin. Land was worked by tenant peasants, who usually had to pay from one-sixth to one-third of their produce. Vegetarian diet was customary, and meat was expensive.

Women did not have political rights and usually worked in the home or in the fields, though upper caste women and courtesans could defy social conventions. Women attendants in the temples could become dancers, but some were exploited as prostitutes by temple authorities. Temple sculptures as well as literature were often quite erotic, as the loves of Krishna and the prowess of the Shiva lingam were celebrated, and the puritanical ethics of Buddhism and Jainism became less influential.

Feminine creative energy was worshiped as shakti, and Tantra in Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism celebrated the union of the sexual act as a symbol of divine union; their rituals might culminate in partaking of the five Ms - madya (wine), matsya (fish), mamsa (flesh), mudra (grain), and maithuna (coitus). Although in the early stages of spiritual development Tantra taught the usual moral avoidance of cruelty, alcohol, and sexual intercourse, in the fifth stage after training by the guru secret rites at night might defy such social taboos. Ultimately the aspirant is not afraid to practice openly what others disapprove in pursuing what he thinks is true, transcending the likes and dislikes of earthly life like God, to whom all things are equal. However, some argued that the highest stage, symbolized as the external worship of flowers, negates ignorance, ego, attachment, vanity, delusion, pride, calumniation, perturbation, jealousy, and greed, culminating in the five virtues of nonviolence (ahimsa), control of the senses, charity, forgiveness, and knowledge.

The worker caste of Sudras was divided into the clean and the untouchables, who were barred from the temples. There were a few domestic slaves and those sold to the temples. Brahmins were often given tax-free grants of land, and they were forbidden by caste laws to work in cultivation; thus the peasant Sudras provided the labor. The increasing power of the Brahmin landowners led to a decline of merchants and the Buddhists they often had supported.

Commentaries on the Laws of Manu by Medhatithi focused on such issues as the duty of the king to protect the people, their rights, and property. Although following the tradition that the king should take up cases in order of caste, Medhatithi believed that a lower caste suit should be taken up first if it is more urgent. Not only should a Brahmin be exempt from the death penalty and corporal punishment, he thought that for a first offense not even a fine should be imposed on a Brahmin. Medhatithi also held that in education the rod should only be used mildly and as a last resort; his attitude about a husband beating his wife was similar. Medhatithi believed that a woman's mind was not under her control, and that they should all be guarded by their male relations. He upheld the property rights of widows who had been faithful but believed the unfaithful should be cast out to a separate life. Widow suicide called sati was approved by some and criticized by others. During this period marriages were often arranged for girls before they reached the age of puberty, though self-choice still was practiced.

The Jain monk Somadeva in his Nitivakyamrita also wrote that the king must chastise the wicked and that kings being divine should be obeyed as a spiritual duty. However, if the king does not speak the truth, he is worthless; for when the king is deceitful and unjust, who will not be? If he does not recognize merit, the cultured will not come to his court. Bribery is the door by which many sins enter, and the king should never speak what is hurtful, untrustworthy, untrue, or unnecessary. The force of arms cannot accomplish what peace does. If you can gain your goal with sugar, why use poison? In 959 Somadeva wrote the romance Yashastilaka in Sanskrit prose and verse, emphasizing devotion to the god Jina, goodwill to all creatures, hospitality to everyone, and altruism while defending the unpopular practices of the Digambara ascetics such as nudity, abstaining from bathing, and eating standing up.

Tibetan Buddhism
The indigenous Bon religion of Tibet was animistic and included the doctrine of reincarnation. Tradition called Namri Songtsen the 32nd king of Tibet. His 13-year-old son Songtsen Gampo became king in 630. He sent seventeen scholars to India to learn the Sanskrit language. The Tibetans conquered Burma and in 640 occupied Nepal. Songtsen Gampo married a princess from Nepal and also wanted to marry a Chinese princess, but so did Eastern Tartar (Tuyuhun) ruler Thokiki. According to ancient records, the Tibetans recruited an army of 200,000, defeated the Tartars, and captured the city of Songzhou, persuading the Chinese emperor to send his daughter to Lhasa in 641. Songtsen Gampo's marriage to Buddhist princesses led to his conversion, the building of temples and 900 monasteries, and the translation of Buddhist texts. His people were instructed how to write the Tibetan dialect with adapted Sanskrit letters. Songtsen Gampo died in 649, but the Chinese princess lived on until 680. He was succeeded by his young grandson Mangsong Mangtsen, and Gar Tongtsen governed as regent and conducted military campaigns in Asha for eight years. Gar Tongtsen returned to Lhasa in 666 and died the next year of a fever. A large military fortress was built at Dremakhol in 668, and the Eastern Tartars swore loyalty.

During a royal power struggle involving the powerful Gar ministers, Tibet's peace with China was broken in 670, and for two centuries their frontier was in a state of war. The Tibetans invaded the Tarim basin and seized four garrisons in Chinese Turkestan. They raided the Shanzhou province in 676, the year Mangsong Mangtsen died. His death was kept a secret from the Chinese for three years, and a revolt in Shangshong was suppressed by the Tibetan military in 1677. Dusong Mangje was born a few days after his royal father died. The Gar brothers led their armies against the Chinese. During a power struggle Gar Zindoye was captured in battle in 694; his brother Tsenyen Sungton was executed for treason the next year; and Triding Tsendro was disgraced and committed suicide in 699, when Dusong defeated the Gar army. Nepal and northern India revolted in 702, and two years later the Tibetan king was killed in battle. Tibetan sources reported he died in Nanzhao, but according to the Chinese he was killed while suppressing the revolt in Nepal.

Since Mes-Agtshom (also known as Tride Tsugtsen or Khri-Ide-btsug-brtan) was only seven years old, his grandmother Trimalo acted as regent. Mes-Agtshom also married a Chinese princess to improve relations; but by 719 the Tibetans were trading with the Arabs and fighting together against the Chinese. In 730 Tibet made peace with China and requested classics and histories, which the Emperor sent to Tibet despite a minister's warning they contained defense strategies. During a plague in 740-41 all the foreign monks were expelled from Tibet. After the imperial princess died in 741, a large Tibetan army invaded China. Nanzhao, suffering from Chinese armies, formed an alliance with Tibet in 750. Mes-Agtshom died in 755, according to Tibetan sources by a horse accident; but an inscription from the following reign accused two ministers of assassinating him. During Trisong Detsen's reign (755-97) Tibetans collected tribute from the Pala king of Bengal and ruled Nanzhao. In 763 a large Tibetan army invaded China and even occupied their capital at Chang'an. The Chinese emperor promised to send Tibet 50,000 rolls of silk each year; but when the tribute was not paid, the war continued. In 778 Siamese troops fought with the Tibetans against the Chinese in Sichuan (Szech'uan). Peace was made in 783 when China ceded much territory to Tibet. In 790 the Tibetans regained four garrisons in Anxi they had lost to Chinese forces a century before.

After Mashang, the minister who favored the Bon religion, was removed from the scene, Trisong Detsen sent minister Ba Salnang to invite the Indian pandit Shantirakshita to come from the university at Nalanda in Nepal. The people believed that Bon spirits caused bad omens, and Shantirakshita returned to Nepal. So Ba Salnang invited Indian Tantric master Padmasambhava, who was able to overcome the Bon spirits by making them take an oath to defend the Buddhist religion. Shantirakshita returned and supervised the building of a monastery that came to be known as Samye. He was named high priest of Tibet, and he introduced the "ten virtues." When Padmasambhava was unable to refute the instantaneous enlightenment doctrine of the Chinese monk Hoshang, Kamalashila was invited from India for a debate at Samye that lasted from 1792 until 1794. Kamalashila argued that enlightenment is a gradual process resulting from study, analysis, and good deeds. Kamalashila was declared the winner, and King Trisong Detsen declared Buddhism the official religion of Tibet.

Padmasambhava founded the red-hat Adi-yoga school and translated many Sanskrit books into Tibetan. A mythic account of his supernatural life that lasted twelve centuries was written by the Tibetan lady Yeshe Tsogyel. As his name implies, Padmasambhava was said to have been born miraculously on a lotus. His extraordinary and unconventional experiences included being married to 500 wives before renouncing a kingdom, several cases of cannibalism, surviving being burned at the stake, killing butchers, attaining Buddhahood, and teaching spirits and humans in many countries. In the guise of different famous teachers he taught people how to overcome the five poisons of sloth, anger, lust, arrogance, and jealousy.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead was first committed to writing around this time. Its title Bardol Thodol more literally means "liberation by hearing on the after-death plane." Similar in many ways to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, it likely contains many pre-Buddhist elements, as it was compiled over the centuries. The first part, chikhai bardo, describes the psychic experiences at the moment of death and urges one to unite with the all-good pure reality of the clear light. In the second stage of the chonyid bardo karmic illusions are experienced in a dream-like state, the thought-forms of one's own intellect. In the sidpa bardo, the third and last phase, one experiences the judgment of one's own karma; prayer is recommended, but instincts tend to lead one back into rebirth in another body. The purpose of the book is to help educate one how to attain liberation in the earlier stages and so prevent reincarnation.

Muni Tsenpo ruled Tibet from 797 probably to 804, although some believed he ruled for only eighteen months. He tried to reduce the disparity between the rich and poor by introducing land reform; but when the rich got richer, he tried two other reform plans. Padmasambhava advised him, "Our condition in this life is entirely dependent upon the actions of our previous life, and nothing can be done to alter the scheme of things."9 Muni Tsenpo had married his father's young wife to protect her from his mother's jealousy; but she turned against her son, the new king, and poisoned him; some believed he was poisoned because of his reforms. Since Muni Tsenpo had no sons, he was succeeded by his youngest brother Sadnaleg; his other brother Mutik Tsenpo was disqualified for having killed a minister in anger. During Sadnaleg's reign the Tibetans attacked the Arabs in the west, invading Transoxiana and besieging Samarqand; but they made an agreement with Caliph al-Ma'mun.

When Sadnaleg died in 815, his ministers chose his Buddhist son Ralpachen as king over his irreligious older brother Darma. After a border dispute, Buddhists mediated a treaty between Tibet and China in 821 that reaffirmed the boundaries of the 783 treaty. Ralpachen decreed that seven households should provide for each monk. By intrigues Darma managed to get his brother Tsangma and the trusted Buddhist minister Bande Dangka sent into exile; then Be Gyaltore and Chogro Lhalon, ministers who were loyal to Darma, went and murdered Bande Dangka. In 836 these same two pro-Bon ministers assassinated King Ralpachen and put Darma on the throne. They promulgated laws to destroy Buddhism in Tibet and closed the temples. Buddhist monks had to choose between marrying, carrying arms as hunters, becoming followers of the Bon religion, or death. In 842 the monk Lhalung Palgye Dorje assassinated King Darma with an arrow and escaped. That year marked a division in the royal line and the beginning of local rule in Tibet that lasted more than two centuries. Central Tibet suffered most from Darma's persecution, but Buddhism was kept alive in eastern and western Tibet. Buddhists helped Darma's son (r. 842-70) gain the throne, and he promoted their religion. As their empire disintegrated into separate warring territories, Tibetan occupation in Turkestan was ended by Turks, Uighurs, and Qarluqs.

In 978 translators Rinchen Zangpo and Lakpe Sherab invited some Indian pandits to come to Tibet, and this marked the beginning of the Buddhist renaissance in Tibet. Atisha (982-1054) was persuaded to come from India in 1042 and reformed the Tantric practices by introducing celibacy and a higher morality among the priests. He wrote The Lamp that Shows the Path to Enlightenment and founded the Katampa order, which was distinguished from the old Nyingmapa order of Padmasambhava. Drogmi (992-1074) taught the use of sexual practices for mystical realization, and his scholarly disciple Khon Konchog Gyalpo founded the Sakya monastery in 1073.

The Kagyupa school traces its lineage from the celestial Buddha Dorje-Chang to Tilopa (988-1069), who taught Naropa (1016-1100) in India. From a royal family in Bengal, Naropa studied in Kashmir for three years until he was fourteen. Three years later his family made him marry a Brahmin woman; they were divorced after eight years, though she became a writer too. In 1049 Naropa won a debate at Nalanda and was elected abbot there for eight years. He left to find the guru he had seen in a vision and was on the verge of suicide when Tilopa asked him how he would find his guru if he killed the Buddha. Naropa served Tilopa for twelve years during which he meditated in silence most of the time. However, twelve times he followed his guru's irrational suggestions and caused himself suffering. Each time Tilopa pointed out the lesson and healed him, according to the biography written about a century later. The twelve lessons taught him about the ordinary wish-fulfilling gem, one-valueness, commitment, mystic heat, apparition, dream, radiant light, transference, resurrection, eternal delight (learned from Tantric sex), mahamudra (authenticity), and the intermediate state (between birth and death). Naropa then went to Tibet where he taught Marpa (1012-96), who brought songs from the Tantric poets of Bengal to his disciple Milarepa.

Milarepa was born on the Tibetan frontier of Nepal in 1040. When he was seven years old, Milarepa's father died; his aunt and uncle taking control of the estate, his mother and he had to work as field laborers in poor conditions. When he came of age, his sister, mother, and he were thrown out of their house. So Milarepa studied black magic, and his mother threatened to kill herself if he failed. Milarepa caused the house to fall down, killing 35 people. Next his teacher taught him how to cause a hail storm, and at his mother's request he destroyed some crops. Milarepa repented of this sorcery and prayed to take up a religious life. He found his way to the lama Marpa the translator, who said that even if he imparted the truth to him, his liberation in one lifetime would depend on his own perseverance and energy. The lama was reluctant to give the truth to one who had done such evil deeds. So he had Milarepa build walls and often tear them down, while his wife pleaded for the young aspirant. Frustrated, Milarepa went to another teacher, who asked him to destroy his enemies with a hail storm, which he did while preserving an old woman's plot.

Milarepa returned to his guru Marpa and was initiated. Then he meditated in a cave for eleven months, discovering that the highest path started with a compassionate mood dedicating one's efforts to universal good, followed by clear aspiration transcending thought with prayer for others. After many years Milarepa went back to his old village to discover that his mother had died, his sister was gone, and his house and fields were in ruins. Describing his life in songs, Milarepa decided, "So I will go to gain the truth divine, to the Dragkar-taso cave I'll go, to practice meditation."10 He met the woman to whom he was betrothed in childhood, but he decided on the path of total self-abnegation. Going out to beg for food he met his aunt, who loosed dogs on him; but after talking he let her live in his house and cultivate his field. Milarepa practiced patience on those who had wronged him, calling it the shortest path to Buddhahood. Giving up comfort, material things, and desires for name or fame, he meditated and lived on nettles and water. He preached on the law of karma, and eventually his aunt was converted and devoted herself to penance and meditation. His sister found his nakedness shameful, but Milarepa declared that deception and evil deeds are shameful, not the body. Believing in karma, thoughts of the misery in the lower worlds may inspire one to seek Buddhahood.

It was said that Milarepa had 25 saints among his disciples, including his sister and three other women. In one of his last songs he wrote, "If pain and sorrow you desire sincerely to avoid, avoid, then, doing harm to others."11 Many miraculous stories are told of his passing from his body and the funeral; Milarepa died in 1123, and it was claimed that for a time no wars or epidemics ravaged the Earth. The biography of his life and songs was written by his disciple Rechung.

A contemporary of Milarepa, the life of Nangsa Obum was also told in songs and prose. She was born in Tibet, and because of her beauty and virtue she was married to Dragpa Samdrub, son of Rinang king Dragchen. She bore a son but longed to practice the dharma. Nangsa was falsely accused by Dragchen's jealous sister Ani Nyemo for giving seven sacks of flour to Rechung and other lamas. Beaten by her husband and separated from her child by the king, Nangsa died of a broken heart. Since her good deeds so outnumbered her bad deeds, the Lord of Death allowed her to come back to life. She decided to go practice the dharma; but her son and a repentant Ani Nyemo pleaded for her to stay. She remained but then visited her parents' home, where she took up weaving.

After quarreling with her mother, Nangsa left and went to study the sutras and practice Tantra. The king and her husband attacked her teacher Sakya Gyaltsen, who healed all the wounded monks. Then the teacher excoriated them for having animal minds and black karma, noting that Nangsa had come there for something better than a Rinang king; her good qualities would be wasted living with a hunter; they were trying to make a snow lion into a dog. The noblemen admitted they had made their karma worse and asked to be taught. Sakya replied that for those who have done wrong repentance is like the sun rising. They should think about their suffering and the meaninglessness of their lives and how much better they will be in the field of dharma. Dragchen and his father retired from worldly life, and Nangsa's 15-year-old son was given the kingdom.

Machig Lapdron (1055-1145) was said to be a reincarnation of Padmasambhava's consort Yeshe Tsogyel and of an Indian yogi named Monlam Drub. Leaving that body in a cave in India the soul traveled to Tibet and was born as Machig. As a child, she learned to recite the sutras at record speed, and at initiation she asked how she could help all sentient beings. In a dream an Indian teacher told her to confess her hidden faults, approach what she found repulsive, help those whom she thinks cannot be helped, let go of any attachment, go to scary places like cemeteries, be aware, and find the Buddha within. A lama taught her to examine the movement of her own mind carefully and become free of petty dualism and the demon of self-cherishing. She learned to wander and stay anywhere, and she absorbed various teachings from numerous gurus. She married and had three children but soon retired from the world. By forty she was well known in Tibet, and numerous monks and nuns came from India to challenge her; but she defeated them in debate. It was said that 433 lepers were cured by practicing her teachings.

A book on the supreme path of discipleship was compiled by Milarepa's disciple Lharje (1077-1152), who founded the Cur-lka monastery in 1150. This book lists yogic precepts in various categories. Causes of regret include frittering life away, dying an irreligious and worldly person, and selling the wise doctrine as merchandise. Requirements include sure action, diligence, knowledge of one's own faults and virtues, keen intellect and faith, watchfulness, freedom from desire and attachment, and love and compassion in thought and deed directed to the service of all sentient beings. "Unless the mind be disciplined to selflessness and infinite compassion, one is apt to fall into the error of seeking liberation for self alone."12 Offering to deities meat obtained by killing is like offering a mother the flesh of her own child. The virtue of the holy dharma is shown in those, whose heavy evil karma would have condemned them to suffering, turning to a religious life.

The black-hat Karmapa order was founded in 1147 by Tusum Khyenpa (1110-93), a native of Kham who studied with Milarepa's disciples. This sect claims to have started the system of leadership by successive reincarnations of the same soul, later adopted by the Dalai and Panchen Lamas. In 1207 a Tibetan council decided to submit peacefully to Genghis Khan and pay tribute. After the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, the Tibetans stopped paying the tribute, and the Mongols invaded in 1240, burning the Rating and Gyal Lhakhang monasteries and killing five hundred monks and civilians. In 1244 Sakya Pandita (1182-1251) went to Mongolia, where he initiated Genghis Khan's grandson Godan. Sakya Pandita instructed him in the Buddha's teachings and persuaded him to stop drowning the Chinese to reduce their population. Sakya Pandita was given authority over the thirteen myriarchies of central Tibet and told the Tibetan leaders it was useless to resist the Mongols' military power. He is also credited with devising a Mongolian alphabet. After Sakya Pandita died, the Mongols invaded Tibet in 1252. After Godan died, Kublai in 1254 invested Phagpa as the supreme ruler in Tibet by giving him a letter that recommended the monks stop quarreling and live peaceably. Phagpa conducted the enthronement of Kublai Khan in 1260. Phaga returned to Sakya in 1276 and died four years later.

In 1282 Dharmapala was appointed imperial preceptor (tishri) in Beijing. The Sakya administrator Shang Tsun objected to Kublai Khan's plans to invade India and Nepal, and the yogi Ugyen Sengge wrote a long poem against the idea, which Kublai Khan abandoned. After Tishri Dharmapala died in 1287, the myriarchy Drikhung attacked Sakya; but administrator Ag-len used troops and Mongol cavalry to defeat them, marching into Drikhung territory and burning their temple in 1290. Kublai Khan had been a patron of Buddhism in Tibet, but he died in 1295. After his death the influence of the Mongols in Tibet diminished.

India and Muslim Invaders 1000-1300
Between 1000 and 1027 Ghazni ruler Mahmud invaded India with an army at least twelve times. About 15,000 Muslims took Peshawar and killed 5,000 Hindus in battle. Shahi king Jayapala was so ashamed of being defeated three times that he burned himself to death on a funeral pyre. In 1004 Mahmud's forces crossed the Indus River, then attacked and pillaged the wealth of Bhatiya. On the way to attack the heretical Abu-'l-Fath Daud, Mahmud defeated Shahi king Anandapala. Daud was forced to pay 20,000,000 dirhams and was allowed to rule as a Muslim if he paid 20,000 golden dirhams annually. Mahmud's army again met Anandapala's the next year; after 5,000 Muslims lost their lives, 20,000 Hindu soldiers were killed. Mahmud captured an immense treasure of 70,000,000 dirhams, plus gold and silver ingots, jewels, and other precious goods. After Mahmud defeated the king of Narayan and the rebelling Daud, Anandapala made a treaty that lasted until his death, allowing the Muslims passage to attack the sacred city of Thaneswar. In 1013 Mahmud attacked and defeated Anandapala's successor Trilochanapala, annexing the western and central portions of the Shahi kingdom in the Punjab. Next the Muslims plundered the Kashmir valley, though Mahmud was never able to hold it.

To attack Kanauj in the heart of India, Mahmud raised a force of 100,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry. Most Hindu chiefs submitted, but in Mahaban nearly 5,000 were killed, causing Kulachand to kill himself. Next the Muslims plundered the sacred city of Mathura, destroying a temple that took two centuries to build and estimated to be worth 100,000,000 red dinars. After conquering more forts and obtaining more booty, Mahmud ordered the inhabitants slain by sword, the city plundered, and the idols destroyed in Kanauj that was said to contain almost 10,000 temples. In 1019 Mahmud returned to Ghazni with immense wealth and 53,000 prisoners to be sold as slaves.

When Mahmud's army returned again to chastise Chandella ruler Vidyadhara for killing the submitting Pratihara king Rajyapala, the resistance of Trilochanapala was overcome, making all of Shahi part of Mahmud's empire. Although he had 45,000 infantry, 36,000 cavalry, and 640 elephants, Vidyadhara fled after a minor defeat. The next year Mahmud and Vidyadhara agreed to a peace. 50,000 Hindus were killed in 1025 defending the Shaivite temple of Somanatha in Kathiawar, as Mahmud captured another 20,000,000 dirhams. In his last campaign Mahmud used a navy of 1400 boats with iron spikes to defeat the Jats with their 4,000 boats in the Indus. Mahmud's soldiers often gave people the choice of accepting Islam or death. These threats and the enslavement of Hindus by Muslims and the Hindus' consequent attitude of considering Muslims impure barbarians (mlechchha) caused a great division between these religious groups.

During this time Mahipala I ruled Bengal for nearly half a century and founded a second Pala empire. In the half century around 1100 Ramapala tried to restore the decreasing realm of the Palas by invading his neighbors until he drowned himself in grief in the Ganges. Buddhists were persecuted in Varendri by the Vangala army. In the 12th century Vijayasena established a powerful kingdom in Bengal; but in spite of the military victories of Lakshmanasena, who began ruling in 1178, lands were lost to the Muslims and others early in the 13th century.

Military campaigns led by the Paramara Bhoja and the Kalachuri Karna against Muslims in the Punjab discouraged Muslim invasions after Punjab governor Ahmad Niyaltigin exacted tribute from the Thakurs and plundered the city of Banaras in 1034. Bhoja and a Hindu confederacy of chiefs conquered Hansi, Thaneswar, Nagarkot, and other territories from the Muslims in 1043. Bhoja also wrote 23 books, patronized writers, and established schools for his subjects. Karna won many battles over various kingdoms in India but gained little material advantage. About 1090 Gahadavala ruler Chandradeva seems to have collaborated with the Muslim governor of the Punjab to seize Kanauj from Rashtrakuta ruler Gopala. In the first half of the 12th century Gahadavala ruler Govindachandra came into conflict with the Palas, Senas, Gangas, Kakatiyas, Chalukyas, Chandellas, Chaulukyas, the Karnatakas of Mithila, and the Muslims.

The Ghuzz Turks made Muhammad Ghuri governor of Ghazni in 1173; he attacked the Gujarat kingdom in 1178, but his Turkish army was defeated by the Chaulukya king Mularaja II. Chahamana Prithviraja III began ruling that year and four years later defeated and plundered Paramardi's Chandella kingdom. In 1186 Khusrav Malik, the last Yamini ruler of Ghazni, was captured at Lahore by Muhammad Ghuri. The next year the Chahamana king Prithviraja made a treaty with Bhima II of Gujarat. Prithviraja's forces defeated Muhammad Ghuri's army at Tarain and regained Chahamana supremacy over the Punjab. Muhammad Ghuri organized 120,000 men from Ghazni to face 300,000 led by Prithviraja, who was captured and eventually executed as the Muslims demolished the temples of Ajmer in 1192 and built mosques. From there Sultan Muhammad Ghuri marched to Delhi, where he appointed general Qutb-ud-din Aybak governor; then with 50,000 cavalry Muhammad Ghuri defeated the Gahadavala army of Jayachandra before leaving for Ghazni. Prithviraja's brother Hariraja recaptured Delhi and Ajmer; but after losing them again to Aybak, he burned himself to death in 1194.

Next the local Mher tribes and the Chaulukya king of Gujarat, Bhima II, expelled the Turks from Rajputana; but in 1197 Aybak invaded Gujarat with more troops from Ghazni, killing 50,000 and capturing 20,000. In 1202 Aybak besieged Chandella king Paramardi at Kalanjara and forced him to pay tribute. In the east a Muslim named Bakhtyar raided Magadha and used the plunder to raise a larger force that conquered much of Bengal; his army slaughtered Buddhist monks, thinking they were Brahmins. However, the Khalji Bakhtyar met tough resistance in Tibet and had to return to Bengal where he died. The Ghuri dynasty ended soon after Muhammad Ghuri was murdered at Lahore in 1206 by his former slave Aybak, who assumed power but died in 1210.

The struggle for power was won by Aybak's son-in-law Iltutmish, who defeated and killed Aybak's successor. Then in 1216 Iltutmish captured his rival Yildiz, who had been driven by Khwarezm-Shah from Ghazni to the Punjab; the next year he expelled Qabacha from Lahore. In 1221 Mongols led by Genghis Khan pushed Khwarezm-Shah and other refugees across the Indus into the Punjab. Iltutmish invaded Bengal and ended the independence of the Khalji chiefs; but he met with Guhilot resistance in Rajputana before plundering Bhilsa and Ujjain in Malwa. Chahadadeva captured and ruled Narwar with an army of over 200,000 men, defeating Iltutmish's general in 1234, but he was later defeated by the Muslim general Balban in 1251. After Qabacha drowned in the Indus, Iltutmish was recognized as the Baghdad Caliph's great sultan in 1229 until he died of disease seven years later.

Factional strife occurred as Iltutmish's daughter Raziyya managed to rule like a man for three years before being killed by sexist hostility; his sons, grandson, and the "Forty" officials, who had been his slaves, struggled for power and pushed back the invading Mongols in 1245. After Iltutmish's son Mahmud became king, the capable Balban gained control. In 1253 the Indian Muslim Raihan replaced Balban for a year until the Turks for racist reasons insisted Balban and his associates be restored. When Mahmud died childless in 1265, Balban became an effective sultan. He said, "All that I can do is to crush the cruelties of the cruel and to see that all persons are equal before the law."13 Mongols invaded again in 1285 and killed Balban's son; two years later the elderly Balban died, and in 1290 the dynasty of Ilbari Turks was replaced by the Khalji Turks with ties to Afghanistan.

Chola king Rajendra I (r. 1012-44) ruled over most of south India and even invaded Sumatra and the Malay peninsula. His son Rajadhiraja I's reign (1018-52) overlapped his father's, as he tried to put down rebellions in Pandya and Chera, invading western Chalukya and sacking Kalyana. Cholas were criticized for violating the ethics of Hindu warfare by carrying off cows and "unloosing women's girdles." Rajadhiraja was killed while defeating Chalukya king Someshvara I (r. 1043-68). In the Deccan the later Chalukyas battled their neighbors; led by Vikramaditya, they fought a series of wars against the powerful Cholas. After battling his brother Vikramaditya, Someshvara II reigned 1068-76; in confederacy with Chaulukya Karna of Gujarat, he defeated the Paramara Jayasimha and occupied Malava briefly. Becoming Chalukya king, Vikramaditya VI (r. 1076-1126) invaded the Cholas and took Kanchi some time before 1085.

When the Vaishnavites Mahapurna and Kuresha had their eyes put out, probably by Kulottunga I in 1079, the famous philosopher Ramanuja took refuge in the Hoysala country until Kulottunga died. Ramanuja modified Shankara's nondualism in his Bhasya and emphasized the way of devotion (bhakti). He believed the grace of God was necessary for liberation. Although he practiced initiations and rituals, Ramanuja recognized that caste, rank, and religion were irrelevant to realizing union with God. He provided the philosophical reasoning for the popular worship of Vishnu and was thought to be 120 when he died in 1137.

In Sri Lanka the Sinhalese harassed the occupying Chola forces until they withdrew from Rohana in 1030, enabling Kassapa VI (r. 1029-40) to govern the south. When he died without an heir, Cholas under Rajadhiraja (r. 1043-54) regained control of Rajarata. After 1050 a struggle for power resulted in Kitti proclaiming himself Vijayabahu I (r. 1055-1110). However, in 1056 a Chola army invaded to suppress the revolt in Rohana. Vijayabahu fled to the hills, and his army was defeated near the old capital of Anuradhapura; yet he recovered Rohana about 1061. The Chola empire was also being challenged by the western Chalukyas during the reign (1063-69) of Virarajendra. The new Chola king Kulottunga I (r. 1070-1120), after being defeated by Vijayabahu, pulled his forces out of Sri Lanka. Vijayabahu took over the north but had to suppress a rebellion by three brothers in 1075 near Polonnaruwa. After his envoys to the Chalukya king at Karnataka were mutilated, Vijayabahu invaded Chola around 1085; but he made peace with Kulottunga in 1088. Vijayabahu restored irrigation and centralized administration as he patronized Buddhism. Vijayabahu was succeeded by his brother Jayabahu I; but a year later Vikramabahu I (r. 1111-32) took control of Rajarata and persecuted monks while the sons of Vijayabahu's sister Mitta ruled the rest of Sri Lanka.

The Hoysala king Vinayaditya (r. 1047-1101) acknowledged Chalukya supremacy; but after his death, the Hoysalas tried to become independent by fighting the Chalukyas. Kulottunga ordered a land survey in 1086. The Cholas under Kulottunga invaded Kalinga in 1096 to quell a revolt; a second invasion in 1110 was described in the Kalingattupparani of court poet Jayangondar. After Vikramaditya VI died, Vikrama Chola (r. 1118-1135) regained Chola control over the Vengi kingdom, though the Chalukyas ruled the Deccan until the Kalachuri king Bijjala took Kalyana from Chalukya king Taila III in 1156; the Kalachuris kept control for a quarter century. Gujarat's Chalukya king Kumarapala was converted to Jainism by the learned Hemachandra (1088-1172) and prohibited animal sacrifices, while Jain king Bijjala's minister Basava (1106-67) promoted the Vira Shaiva sect that emphasized social reform and the emancipation of women. Basava disregarded caste and ritual as shackling and senseless. When an outcaste married an ex-Brahmin bride, Bijjala sentenced them both, and they were dragged to death in the streets of Kalyana. Basava tried to convert the extremists to nonviolence but failed; they assassinated Bijjala, and the Vira Shaivas were persecuted. Basava asked, "Where is religion without loving kindness?" Basava had been taught by Allama Prabhu, who had completely rejected external rituals, converting some from the sacrifice of animals to sacrificing one's bestial self.

In his poem, The Arousing of Kumarapala, which describes how Hemachandra converted King Kumarapala, Somaprabha warned Jains from serving the king as ministers, harming others and extorting their fortunes that one's master may take. In the mid-12th century the island of Sri Lanka suffered a three-way civil war. Ratnavali arranged for her son Parakramabahu to succeed childless Kitsirimegha in Dakkinadesa. Parakramabahu defeated and captured Gajabahu (r. 1132-53), taking over Polonnaruwa. However, his pillaging troops alienated the people who turned to Manabharana. Parakramabahu allied with Gajabahu, becoming his heir, and defeated Manabharana. Parakramabahu I (r. 1153-86) restored unity but harshly suppressed a Rohana rebellion in 1160 and crushed Rajarata resistance in 1168. He used heavy taxation to rebuild Pulatthinagara and Anuradhapura that had been destroyed by the Cholas. The Culavamsa credits Parakramabahu with restoring or building 165 dams, 3910 canals, 163 major tanks, and 2376 minor tanks. He developed trade with Burma. Sri Lanka aided a Pandya ruler in 1169 when Kulashekhara Pandya defeated and killed Parakrama Pandya, seizing Madura; but Chola king Rajadhiraja II (r. 1163-79) brought the Pandya civil war to an end. This enabled larger Chola armies to defeat the Sri Lanka force by 1174. Parakramabahu was succeeded by his nephew, who was slain a year later by a nobleman by trying to usurp the throne. Parakramabahu son-in-law Nissankamalla stopped that and ruled Sri Lanka for nine years. He also was allied with the Pandyas and fought the Cholas.

During the next eighteen years Sri Lanka had twelve changes of rulers, though Nissankamalla's queen, Kalyanavati reigned 1202-08. Four Chola invasions further weakened Sri Lanka. Queen Lilavati ruled three different times and was supported by the Cholas. In 1212 the Pandyan prince Parakramapandu invaded Rajarata and deposed her; but three years later the Kalinga invader Magha took power. The Culavamsa criticized Magha (r. 1215-55) for confiscating the wealth of the monasteries, taxing the peasants, and letting his soldiers oppress the people. Finally the Sinhalese alliance with the Pandyas expelled Magha and defeated the invasions by Malay ruler Chandrabanu. When his son came again in 1285, the Pandyan general Arya Chakravarti defeated him and ruled the north, installing Parakramabahu III (r. 1287-93) as his vassal at Polonnaruwa. Eventually the capital Polonnaruwa was abandoned; the deterioration of the irrigation system became irreversible as mosquitoes carrying malaria infested its remains. The Tamil settlers withdrew to the north, developing the Jaffna kingdom. Others settled in the wet region in the west, as the jungle was tamed.

Hoysala king Ballala II proclaimed his independence in 1193. Chola king Kulottunga III (r. 1178-1216) ravaged the Pandya country about 1205, destroying the coronation hall at Madura; but a few years later he was overpowered by the Pandyas and saved from worse defeat by Hoysala intervention, as Hoysala king Ballala II (r. 1173-1220) had married a Chola princess. In the reign (1220-34) of Narasimha II the Hoysalas fought the Pandyas for empire, as Chola power decreased. Narasimha's son Someshvara (r. 1234-63) was defeated and killed in a battle led by Pandya Jatavarman Sundara. Chola king Rajendra III (r. 1246-79) was a Pandyan feudatory from 1258 to the end of his reign. The Cholas had inflicted much misery on their neighbors, even violating the sanctity of ambassadors. The Pandyas under their king Maravarman Kulashekhara, who ruled more than forty years until 1310, overcame and annexed the territories of the Cholas and the Hoysalas in 1279 and later in his reign gained supremacy over Sri Lanka.

The dualist Madhva (1197-1276) was the third great Vedanta philosopher after Shankara and Ramanuja. Madhva also opened the worship of Vishnu to all castes but may have picked up the idea of damnation in hell from missionary Christians or Muslims. He taught four steps to liberation: 1) detachment from material comforts, 2) persistent devotion to God, 3) meditation on God as the only independent reality, and 4) earning the grace of God.

Marco Polo on his visit to south India about 1293 noted that climate and ignorant treatment did not allow horses to thrive there. He admired Kakatiya queen Rudramba, who ruled for nearly forty years. He noted the Hindus' strict enforcement of justice against criminals and abstention from wine, but he was surprised they did not consider any form of sexual indulgence a sin. He found certain merchants most truthful but noted many superstitious beliefs. Yet he found that ascetics, who ate no meat, drank no wine, had no sex outside of marriage, did not steal, and never killed any creature, often lived very long lives. Marco Polo related a legend of brothers whose quarrels were prevented from turning to violence by their mother who threatened to cut off her breasts if they did not make peace.

Nizam-ud-din Auliya was an influential Sufi of the Chishti order that had been founded a century before. He taught love as the means to realize God. For Auliya universal love was expressed through love and service of humanity. The Sufis found music inflamed love, and they interpreted the Qur'an broadly in esoteric ways; the intuition of the inner light was more important to them than orthodox dogma. Auliya was the teacher of Amir Khusrau (1253-1325), one of the most prolific poets in the Persian language. Many of Khusrau's poems, however, glorified the bloody conquests of the Muslim rulers so that "the pure tree of Islam might be planted and flourish" and the evil tree with deep roots would be torn up by force. He wrote,

The whole country, by means of the sword of our holy warriors,
has become like a forest denuded of its thorns by fire.
The land has been saturated with the water of the sword,
and the vapors of infidelity have been dispersed.
The strong men of Hind have been trodden under foot,
and all are ready to pay tribute.
Islam is triumphant; idolatry is subdued.
Had not the law granted exemption from death
by the payment of poll-tax,
the very name of Hind, root and branch,
would have been extinguished.
From Ghazni to the shore of the ocean
you see all under the dominion of Islam.14

In 1290 the Khalji Jalal-ud-din Firuz became sultan in Delhi but refused to sacrifice Muslim lives to take Ranthambhor, though his army defeated and made peace with 150,000 invading Mongols. Genghis Khan's descendant Ulghu and 4,000 others accepted Islam and became known as the "new Muslims." This lenient sultan sent a thousand captured robbers and murderers to Bengal without punishment. His more ambitious nephew 'Ala-ud-din Khalji attacked the kingdom of Devagiri, gaining booty and exacting from Yadava king Ramachandra gold he used to raise an army of 60,000 cavalry and as many infantry. In 1296 he lured his uncle into a trap, had him assassinated, and bribed the nobles to proclaim him sultan. Several political adversaries were blinded and killed. The next year 'Ala-ud-din sent an army headed by his brother Ulugh Khan to conquer Gujarat; according to Wassaf they slaughtered the people and plundered the country. Another 200,000 Mongols invaded in 1299, but they were driven back. Revolts by his nephews and an old officer were ruthlessly crushed. Money was extorted; a spy network made nobles afraid to speak in public; alcohol was prohibited; and gatherings of nobles were restricted. Orders were given that Hindus were not to have anything above subsistence; this prejudicial treatment was justified by Islamic law.

Literature of Medieval India
In addition to his three plays we also have four poems by Kalidasa. The Dynasty of Raghu is an epic telling the story not only of Rama but of his ancestors and descendants. King Dilipa's willingness to sacrifice himself for a cow enables him to get a son, Raghu. Consecrated as king, Raghu tries to establish an empire with the traditional horse sacrifice in which a horse for a year is allowed to wander into other kingdoms, which must either submit or defend themselves against his army. His son Aja is chosen by the princess Indumati. Their son Dasharatha has four sons by three wives; but for killing a boy while hunting, he must suffer the banishment of his eldest son Rama, whose traditional story takes up a third of the epic. His son Kusha restores the capital at Ayodhya; but after a line of 22 kings Agnivarna becomes preoccupied with love affairs before dying and leaving a pregnant queen ruling as regent.

Another epic poem, The Birth of the War-god tells how the ascetic Shiva is eventually wooed by Parvati, daughter of the Himalaya mountains, after the fire from Shiva's eye kills the god of Love and she becomes an ascetic. After being entertained by nymphs, Shiva restores the body of Love. Their son Kumara is made a general by the god Indra; after their army is defeated by Taraka's army, Kumara kills the demon Taraka. Kalidasa's elegy, The Cloud-Messenger, describes how the Yaksha Kubera, an attendant of the god of Wealth, who has been exiled from the Himalayas to the Vindhya mountains for a year, sends a cloud as a messenger to his wife during the romantic rainy season. Kalidasa is also believed to be the author of a poem on the six seasons in India.

Bana wrote an epic romance on the conquests of Harsha in the 7th century and another called Kadambari. Bana was not afraid to criticize the idea of kings being divine nor the unethical and cruel tactics of the political theorist Kautilya. Bana was one of the few Indian writers who showed concern for the poor and humble.

About the 6th or 7th century Bhartrihari wrote short erotic poems typical of those later collected into anthologies. He reminded himself that virtue is still important.

Granted her breasts are firm, her face entrancing,
Her legs enchanting - what is that to you?
My mind, if you would win her, stop romancing.
Have you not heard, reward is virtue's due?15

Torn between sensual and spiritual love, Bhartrihari found that the charms of a slim girl disturbed him. Should he choose the youth of full-breasted women or the forest? Eventually he moved from the dark night of passion to the clear vision of seeing God in everything. He noted that it is easier to take a gem from a crocodile's jaws or swim the ocean or wear an angry serpent like a flower in one's hair or squeeze oil from sand, water from a mirage, or find a rabbit's horn than it is to satisfy a fool whose opinions are set. Bhartrihari asked subtle questions.

Patience, better than armor, guards from harm.
And why seek enemies, if you have anger?
With friends, you need no medicine for danger.
With kinsmen, why ask fire to keep you warm?
What use are snakes when slander sharper stings?
What use is wealth where wisdom brings content?
With modesty, what need for ornament?
With poetry's Muse, why should we envy kings?16

The erotic poetry of Amaru about the 7th century often expressed the woman's viewpoint. When someone questioned her pining and faithfulness, she asked him to speak softly because her love living in her heart might hear. In another poem the narrator tries to hide her blushing, sweating cheeks but found her bodice splitting of its own accord. This poet seemed to prefer love-making to meditation. The erotic and the religious were combined in 12th century Bengali poet Jayadeva's "Songs of the Cowherd" (Gita Govinda) about the loves of Krishna. A poet observed that most people can see the faults in others, and some can see their virtues; but perhaps only two or three can see their own shortcomings.

In the late 11th century Buddhist scholar Vidyakara collected together an anthology of Sanskrit court poetry, Treasury of Well-Turned Verse (Subhasitaratnakosa), with verses from more than two hundred poets, mostly from the previous four centuries. Although it begins with verses on the Buddha and the bodhisattvas Lokesvara and Manjughosa, Vidyakara also included verses on Shiva and Vishnu. One poet asked why a naked ascetic with holy ashes needed a bow or a woman. (103) After these chapters the poetry is not religious, with verses on the seasons and other aspects of nature. Love poetry is ample, and it is quite sensual, though none of it is obscene. Women's bodies are described with affection, and sections include the joys of love as well as the sad longing of love-in-separation. An epigram complains of a man whose body smells of blood as his action runs to slaughter because his sense of right and wrong is no better than a beast's. Only courage is admired in a lion, but that makes the world seem cheap. (1091) Another epigram warns that the earth will give no support nor a wishing tree a wish, and one's efforts will come to nothing for one whose sin accumulated in a former birth. (1097) Shardarnava described peace in the smooth flow of a river; but noting uprooted trees along the shore, he inferred concealed lawlessness. (1111)

Dharmakirti's verses describe the good as asking no favors from the wicked, not begging from a friend whose means are small, keeping one's stature in misfortune, and following in the footsteps of the great, though these rules may be as hard to travel as a sword blade. (1213) Another poet found that he grew mad like a rutting elephant when knowing little he thought he knew everything; but after consorting with the wise and gaining some knowledge, he knew himself a fool, and the madness left like a fever. (1217) Another proclaimed good one who offers aid to those in distress, not one who is skillful at keeping ill-gotten gains. (1226) A poet noted that countless get angry with or without a cause, but perhaps only five or six in the world do not get angry when there is a cause. (1236) The great guard their honor, not their lives; fear evil, not enemies; and seek not wealth but those who ask for it. (1239) Small-minded people ask if someone is one of them or an outsider, but the noble mind takes the whole world for family. (1241) An anonymous poet asked these great questions:

Can that be judgment where compassion plays no part,
or that be the way if we help not others on it?
Can that be law where we injure still our fellows,
or that be sacred knowledge which leads us not to peace?17

A poet advised that the wise, considering that youth is fleeting, the body soon forfeited and wealth soon gone, lays up no deeds, though they be pleasurable here, that will ripen into bitter fruit in future lives. (1686)

Although collected from ancient myths and folklore, the eighteen "great" Puranas were written between the 4th and 10th centuries. Originally intended to describe the creation of the universe, its destruction and renewal, genealogies, and chronicles of the lawgivers and the solar and lunar dynasties, they retold myths and legends according to different Vaishnavite and Shaivite sects with assorted religious lore. The Agni Puranam, for example, describes the avatars Rama and Krishna, religious ceremonies, Tantric rituals, initiation, Shiva, holy places, duties of kings, the art of war, judicature, medicine, worship of Shiva and the Goddess, and concludes with a treatise on prosody, rhetoric, grammar, and yoga. Much of this was apparently taken from other books.

The early Vishnu Purana explains that although all creatures are destroyed at each cosmic dissolution, they are reborn according to their good or bad karma; this justice pleased the creator Brahma. In this Purana Vishnu becomes the Buddha in order to delude the demons so that they can be destroyed. The gods complain that they cannot kill the demons because they are following the Vedas and developing ascetic powers. So Vishnu says he will bewitch them to seek heaven or nirvana and stop evil rites such as killing animals. Then reviling the Vedas, the gods, the sacrificial rituals, and the Brahmins, they went on the wrong path and were destroyed by the gods. The Vishnu Purana describes the incarnations of Vishnu, including his future life as Kalkin at the end of the dark age (Kali yuga) when evil people will be destroyed, and justice (dharma) will be re-established in the Krita age. The gradual ethical degeneration is reflected in the change in Hindu literature from the heroic Vedas to the strategic epics and then to deception and demonic methods in the Puranas. The Padma Purana explains the incarnations of Vishnu as fulfilling a curse from lord Bhrigu, because Vishnu killed his wife. Thus Vishnu is born again and again for the good of the world when virtue has declined. By appearing as a naked Jain and the Buddha, Vishnu has turned the demons away from the Vedas to the virtue (dharma) of the sages.

The most popular of all the Puranas, the Srimad Bhagavatam was attributed to the author of the Mahabharata, Vyasa, given out through his son Suta. However, scholars consider this work emphasizing the way of devotion (bhakti) one of the later great Puranas and ascribe it to the grammarian Vopadeva. Bhagavatam retells the stories of the incarnations of the god Vishnu with special emphasis on Krishna. Even as a baby and a child the divine Krishna performs many miracles and defeats demons. The young Krishna is not afraid to provoke the wrath of the chief god Indra by explaining that happiness and misery, fear and security, result from the karma of one's actions. Even a supreme Lord must dispense the fruits of others' karma and thus is dependent on those who act. Thus individuals are controlled by their dispositions they have created by their former actions. Karma, or we might say experience, is the guru and the supreme Lord. Brahmins should maintain themselves by knowledge of the Veda, Kshatriyas by protecting the country, Vaishyas by business, and Sudras by service. Krishna also notes that karma based on desire is the product of ignorance, of not understanding one's true nature.

The king who is listening to the stories of Krishna asks how this Lord could sport with other men's wives; but the author excuses these escapades by explaining that although the superhuman may teach the truth, their acts do not always conform to their teachings. The intelligent understand this and follow only the teachings. The worshiping author places the Lord above good and evil and claims that the men of Vajra did not become angry at Krishna because they imagined their wives were by their sides all the time. Krishna also fought and killed many enemies, "as the lord of the jungle kills the beasts."18 He killed Kamsa for unjustly appropriating cows. Krishna fought the army of Magadha king Jarasandha seventeen times and presented the spoils of war to the Yadu king. He killed Satadhanva over a gem. Krishna carried off by force and thus wed Rukmini by the demon mode. Several other weddings followed, and Krishna's eight principal queens were said to have bore him ten sons each. The author claimed he had 16,000 wives and lived with them all at the same time in their own apartments or houses.

In the 18th battle Jarasandha's army finally defeated Krishna's, and it was said that he captured 20,800 kings; but Krishna got Bhima to kill Jarasandha, and all the confined Kshatriyas were released. Krishna cut off the head of his foe Sishupala with his razor-sharp discus; he also destroyed the Soubha and killed Salva, Dantavakra and his brother. Although the methods of action (karma) and knowledge (jnani) are discussed in relation to Samkhya philosophy and yoga, in the Bhagavatam the practice of devotion (bhakti) to God in the form of Krishna is favored as the supreme means of salvation. The great war between the Kurus and the Pandavas is explained as Krishna's way of removing the burden of the Earth. Krishna tells his own people, the Yadus, to cross the sea to Prabhasa and worship the gods, Brahmins, and cows. There rendered senseless by Krishna's illusion (maya), they indulge in drink and slaughter each other. Krishna's brother Balarama and he both depart from their mortal bodies, Krishna ascending to heaven with his chariot and celestial weapons.

Before the 11th century seventy stories of "The Enchanted Parrot" were employed to keep a wife entertained while her husband was away so that she would not find a lover. A charming parrot satirizes women, comparing them to kings and serpents in taking what is near them. The proverb is quoted that when the gods want to ruin someone they first take away one's sense of right and wrong, and the listener is warned not to set one's heart on riches gained by wickedness nor on an enemy one has humiliated. When the husband returns, the parrot is freed from the curse and flies to heaven amid a rain of flowers.

In the late 11th century Somadeva added to the Great Story (Brihat-katha) of Gunadhya to make the Ocean of the Streams of Story (Katha-sarit-sagara) collection of more than 350 stories in Sanskrit verse. The author noting that jealousy interferes with discernment, a king orders a Brahmin executed for talking with his queen; but on the way to his punishment, a dead fish laughs because while so many men are dressed as women in the king's harem an innocent Brahmin is to be killed. The narrator tells the king this and gains respect for his wisdom and release for the Brahmin. The author also notes that for the wise, character is wealth. Somadeva recounts the legendary stories of Vatsa king Udayana and his marriages to Vasavadatta and the Magadhan princess Padmavati. The former is commended for cooperating in the separation in Yaugandharayana's scheme; he says she is a real queen because she does not merely comply with her husband's wishes but cares for his true interests.

An eminent merchant sends his son to a courtesan to learn to beware of immorality incarnate in harlots, who rob rich young men blinded by their virility. Like all professionals, the prostitute has her price but must guard against being in love when no price is paid. She must be a good actress in seducing and milking the man of his money, deserting him when it is gone, and taking him back when he comes up with more money. Like the hermit, she must learn to treat them all equally whether handsome or ugly. Nonetheless the son is taken in by a courtesan and loses all his money, but he contrives to get it back by using a monkey trained to swallow money and give it back on cue.

From Somadeva also comes the Vampire's Tales of "The King and the Corpse." In an unusual frame for 25 stories a king is instructed to carry a hanged corpse inhabited by a vampire, who poses a dilemma at the conclusion of each tale. For example, when heads are cut off and are put back on each other's bodies, which person is which? After becoming orphans the oldest of four Brahmin brothers tries to hang himself; but he is cut down and saved by a man who asks him why a learned person should despair when good fortune comes from good karma and bad luck from bad karma. The answer to unhappiness, then, is doing good; but to kill oneself would bring the suffering of hell. So the brothers combine their talents to create a lion from a bone; but the lion kills them, as their creation was not intelligent but evil. The last brother, who brought the lion's completed body to life, is judged most responsible by the king because he should have been more aware of what would result.

Notes
1. Prince Ilango Adigal, Shilappadikaram, tr. Alain Daniélou, p. 202.
2. Tiruvalluvar, The Kural tr. P. S. Sundarum, 99.
3. Ibid., 311-320.
4. Ibid., 981-990.
5. Shankara, Crest-Jewel of Wisdom tr. Mohini M. Chatterji, 58.
6. Bhasa, Avimaraka tr. J. L. Masson and D. D. Kosambi, p. 73.
7. Ibid., p. 130-131.
8. Kalidasa, Shakuntala tr. Michael Coulson, 1:11.
9. Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa tr. Kazi Dawa-Samdup, p. 176.
10. Ibid., p. 253.
11. Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines tr. Kazi Dawa-Samdup, p. 75.
12. Majumdar, R. C., An Advanced History of India, p. 292.
13. Speaking of Shiva tr. A. K. Ramanujan, p. 54.
14. Elliot, H. M., The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians, Vol. 3, p. 546.
15. Poems from the Sanskrit tr. John Brough, p. 58.
16. Ibid., p. 71.
17. An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry tr. Daniel H. H. Ingalls, 1629.
18. Srimad Bhagavatam tr. N. Raghunathan, 10:44:40, Vol. 2 p. 321.


Copyright © 1998-2004 by Sanderson Beck
This chapter has been published in the book INDIA & Southeast Asia to 1800.
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Vedas and Upanishads
Mahavira and Jainism
Buddha and Buddhism
Political and Social Ethics of India
Hindu Philosophy
Literature of India
India 30 BC to 1300
Delhi Sultans and Rajas 1300-1526
Mughal Empire 1526-1707
Marathas and the English Company 1707-1800
British India 1800-1848
British India's Wars 1848-1881
India's Renaissance 1881-1905
India's Freedom Struggle 1905-1918
Gandhi and India 1919-1941
Tibet, Nepal, and Ceylon 1800-1941
Burma, Malaya, and the British 1800-1941
Siam, Cambodia, and Laos 1800-1941
Vietnam and the French 1800-1941
Indonesia under the Dutch 1800-1941
Philippines under Spain and the US 1800-1941
Pacific Islands to 1875
Summary and Evaluation
Bibliography
ETHICS OF CIVILIZATION Index
Chronological Index
BECK index

BECK index
                                Delhi Sultans and Rajas 1300-1526
Delhi Sultanate 1300-1526
Barani on Politics of the Delhi Sultanate
Independent North India 1401-1526
Independent South India 1329-1526
Kabir and Chaitanya
Nanak and Sikhism
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Delhi Sultanate 1300-1526
'Ala-ud-din Khalji (r. 1296-1316) took power by raiding wealthy Devagiri in the Deccan region, and he expanded and centralized the Delhi Sultanate. According to the historian Barani, after his authority was established, 'Ala-ud-din arrested the former officers of Jalal-ud-din who had joined him; some were imprisoned, some were blinded, and others were killed. His imperial army subjugated Rajasthan and Ranthambhor, gaining tribute to finance his administration. In 1303 at Chitor 30,000 surrendered and were slain by swords. 'Ala-ud-din's conquest of Chitor was later romanticized by his desire to possess the queen there. After a horde of 120,000 Mongol cavalry led by Targhi raided Delhi, 'Ala-ud-din organized a standing army for defense that included 475,000 cavalry. To pay for this, he increased taxes to fifty percent of the produce and imposed price controls and rationing in Delhi to control inflation. After a small army was sent to conquer Mandu, invading Mongols were badly defeated as the prisoners were beheaded.

Rich Devagiri was defeated and plundered again for withholding tribute and with Ramachandra's cooperation became a base of operations in the Deccan for southern invasions. After besieging and taking Siwana, Jalor, and Warangal, the Khalji army, led by the Sultan's Indian slave commander Malik Kafur, invaded Ma'bar from Devagiri in 1311. They returned with immense amounts of gold and other booty even though the Pandya princes did not submit. After the Mongol commander Abachi tried to kill Kafur, Khalji had him executed. Believing that thousands of Mongols in Delhi were conspiring to kill him, the Sultan ordered all Mongols arrested, and about 20,000 were reported to have been executed. When Ramachandra died and his successor Singhana II asserted independence, Kafur's army defeated and killed the Devagiri king, though not all the Yadava kingdom was subjugated. 'Ala-ud-din used a labor force of 70,000 Hindus for construction projects. As the Sultan's health declined, Kafur arranged to have ambitious family members killed. The historian Barani wrote that the conflict between Malik Kafur and the heir Khidr Khan's uncle Alp Khan destroyed 'Ala-ud-din's regime. The Sultan connived at Alp Khan's murder in the palace, and Khidr Khan was imprisoned.

When 'Ala-ud-din died in 1316, Kafur became regent for a child of six; but his plot to blind 'Ala-ud-din's third son Mubarak led to his own death instead. Mubarak began his reign by proclaiming an amnesty, rewarding his loyal soldiers, and making a Gujarat slave Hasan Khusrau Khan prime minister (wazir). After a plot to assassinate him failed, Mubarak began executing prominent relatives, including the able governor of Gujarat, Zafar Khan. The Delhi sultanate became independent of the Baghdad caliphate as Mubarak declared himself head of the Muslim faith. After campaigning in the south, Khusrau returned to Delhi to have Sultan Mubarak assassinated. Khusrau Khan executed hostile nobles and married a wife of Mubarak. However, a revolt led by Dipalpur governor Ghazi Tughluq raised an army that defeated Khusrau's forces; Khusrau was beheaded; and in 1320 the new Sultan was called Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq Shah.

Tughluq restored some administration to the Delhi sultanate by appointing honest governors and reducing taxation to one-tenth of the gross produce, while his son and successor conquered the Pandyas in the south and took Madura. Tughluq invaded and annexed Bengal and Tirhut but died when a pavilion collapsed on him. Muhammad bin Tughluq ruled from his father's death in 1325 until 1351. Muhammad had to fight rebellions by his nephew Gurshasp and the king of Kampili. Multiplying taxes in the Doab led to thousands dying in famine; those who tried to leave their homes were punished. Muhammad bin Tughluq was also criticized for forcing people to move from Delhi to a new capital at Devagiri renamed Daulatabad. He was unable to suppress a rebellion that broke out in Madura of Ma'bar in 1334. A confederacy of 75 Hindu chiefs led by Kapaya Nayaka, Hoysala king Ballala III, and Chalukya Somadeva rose up south of the Krishna River and in Andhra and Telingana, defeating Muslim forces that had to abandon Warangal. Vijayanagar became independent in 1336 and would in forty years take over the independent sultanate of Madura that was established at this time. Bengal became independent in 1338.

In Kampili people withheld taxes and surrounded the Muslim governor in his headquarters. The Sultan's imperial army conquered Nagarkot the next year. When they invaded Qarachal in the Himalayan region, the Hindus found refuge in the mountains and attacked the army that had been devastated by disease until only three officers remained, according to Ibn Battuta, a judge in Delhi at the time. Rebellions in the Jat and Rajput regions were put down though, and the leaders were taken to Delhi to become Muslims. The generous but vindictive Muhammad Tughluq told the historian Barani that the more people opposed him, the greater would be the punishments. Attempting to crush rebellion, Muhammad bin Tughluq approved when his Malwa governor 'Aziz beheaded eighty centurions for being "foreigners"; but this caused more insurrection in Daulatabad and Gujarat. Foreign emirs about to suffer the same fate revolted and took over most of Maharashtra. While the Sultan spent the rest of his life suppressing the Gujarat rebellion led by Taghi, an independent Bahmani kingdom was established in the Deccan in 1347.

Muhammad bin Tughluq was praised by Muslim historians for his learning and for providing hospitals and housing for widows and orphans. Though he was kind and just to Muslims, he often had Hindus refusing to convert tortured and killed. The Sultan had at least 20,000 Turkish slaves and kept 1200 musicians in his service in addition to a thousand slave musicians. He threatened to kill any who played music for anyone else. One day he killed nine people, including one musician, for failing to say prayers in congregation.

The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta, hearing that Delhi sultan Muhammad Tughluq gave his guests greater gifts than he received, borrowed money so that he could present more than thirty horses and white slaves. On his way to Delhi in 1334 Battuta's caravan was attacked by 82 Hindu bandits; they fought them off, killing 13. At Delhi Muhammad's army was crushing a peasant tax rebellion. Battuta was given a stipend of 5,000 silver dinars from the revenue of two and half villages. While the average Hindu family lived on 5 dinars a month and soldiers were paid about 20, Battuta was given 12,000 a year with a 12,000 advance to be a judge even though he had no experience in law and could hardly speak Persian; two Hanafi scholars were appointed to assist him. Battuta noticed that every day hundreds of people came chained and fettered to be executed, tortured, or beaten. He reported that when 300 men stayed behind the army going to fight Hindus in the mountains, they were all taken and killed. In spite of his salary, Battuta ran his debts up to 55,000, which he got the Sultan to pay for him. When a servant was accused of stealing and drinking wine and said he had not drunk wine for eight years, Battuta ordered eighty lashes, the shari'a punishment for imbibing wine.

A Chisti Sufi named Shihab al-Din was tortured and beheaded by the Sultan for refusing to appear in court and then for calling him a tyrant. Because Battuta had visited this shaikh, four slaves were ordered to guard him. Battuta fasted for several days, praying and reading the Qur'an. After a penitent five months in a Sufi retreat, he requested leave to go on pilgrimage, but a few weeks later the Sultan appointed him an ambassador to the Mongol court of China. The gifts he was to take included 200 Hindu slaves. On the Doab plain they were attacked by Hindu insurgents; the imperial cavalry killed all 4,000 of them while losing 78 men, according to Battuta, who was separated, captured, and barely escaped being killed by brigands. Battuta also luckily escaped the drowning fate of most of the embassy when a Chinese junk sank off Calicut harbor in 1342. Battuta eventually made his way to the southern Maldive islands, where he was appointed chief judge and plotted for political supremacy by marrying four prominent women. He horrified the natives by ordering the right hand of a thief cut off according to Islamic law, and he could get the women to wear clothes above the waist only in his courtroom. Finally he made it to Ma'bar, where he observed Muslim rulers impaling Hindus in violation of the Qur'an.

Muhammad Tughluq's cousin Firuz Shah was sultan from 1351 to 1388. He began by remitting oppressive taxes and canceling the bloody punishments of the previous regime. Firuz tried twice between 1353 and 1359 with large military campaigns to regain the independent sultanate of Bengal but failed. Bengal prospered under the reign (1359-89) of Sikander. In 1360-61 the army of Firuz massacred men in Orissa, enslaved women, and destroyed the famous Jagannatha temple at Puri. With 90,000 cavalry he set out to avenge the insurrections by the chiefs of Sind. He replaced Gujarat governor Nizam-ul-Mulk for failing to send supplies and guides with Zafar Khan but then chose Damaghani because he promised to send more money. Rebellion of zamindars (landowners) in Etawa was put down in 1377; three years later many Hindus were killed, and 23,000 were captured and enslaved after Katehr king Kharku murdered the Sayyid Badaun governor and his two brothers.

Firuz wrote a book about royal duties and educated and trained slaves; it was said he had 180,000 slaves for his maintenance and comfort. To improve irrigation Firuz had four major canals constructed and 150 wells dug. Historian Firishta credited him with building 50 dams, 30 reservoirs, 40 mosques, 30 colleges, 20 palaces, 200 towns, 100 hospitals, and 150 bridges. He simplified the legal system and decreased the use of spies. To atone for the sins of Muhammad Tughluq, he sent gifts to the heirs of those who had been killed or mutilated. He provided clerical work for the unemployed and established a free hospital near Delhi. However, Firuz also severely discriminated against Hindus, making even Brahmins pay a poll tax from which Muslims were exempt, and no position of influence was held by a Hindu. He also punished heretic Shi'is and burned their books.

At age eighty Firuz associated prince Muhammad Khan in his rule and had his competent chief minister Khan Jahan killed in 1370; but Muhammad allowed a civil war, and the dying Firuz selected his grandson Ghiyas-ud-din as his successor. He neglected state affairs for debauchery and imprisoned his brother, causing his cousin Abu Bakr to have him killed and take the throne. Meanwhile Muhammad Khan oppressed the people of the Doab. During the prolonged civil war as several fought for power in Delhi, Gujarat governor Farhat-ul-Mulk became independent in 1390. Eventually Mallu Iqbal Khan Lodi killed Muqarrab Khan in his house and marched into Delhi in the name of Sultan Mahmud in 1398.

Aware of the civil wars in India, Tatar conqueror Timur the Lame reached Kabul by March 1398. The Tatars then crossed the Indus River to war with infidels for a heavenly reward and to plunder their wealth for worldly gain, besieging Multan for six months. By December, Timur had reached Delhi. With ten thousand men he ravaged the countryside, slaughtering the refugees from Dipalpur, because they had killed the garrison of Pir-Muhammad. The wives and children were captured to become Muslims or slaves, and their property became spoils for the victors. Concerned that his 100,000 prisoners might join his enemies during the battle, this is what it was recorded Timur did:

I directly gave my command for the Tawachis
to proclaim throughout the camp that
every man who had infidel prisoners was to put them to death,
and whoever neglected to do so should himself be executed
and his property given to the informer.
When this order became known to the ghazis of Islam,
they drew their swords and put their prisoners to death.
100,000 infidels, impious idolaters, were on that day slain.
Maulana Nasir-ud din 'Umar, a counselor and man of learning,
who, in all his life, had never killed a sparrow,
now, in execution of my order, slew with his sword
fifteen idolatrous Hindus, who were his captives.1

A few days later Mahmud and Mallu with 50,000 men opposed the invaders, but they were defeated; Mallu fled to Baran and Mahmud to Gujarat. The next day the Tatar army entered Delhi, and the city was pillaged of immense wealth. Then the Tatar army marched north, slaughtering, raping, and plundering Hindus. In Siwalik, Timur bragged that he won twenty consecutive victories in a month in spite of often being greatly outnumbered. He appointed Khizr Khan governor of Multan, Lahore, and Dipalpur, and in March 1399 crossed back across the Indus.

As Gujarat, Malwa, Jaunpur, and many others were independent, Mallu administered little more than a devastated Delhi. Mahmud returned to Delhi after Mallu died in 1405 and ruled a small kingdom until his death in 1412. Khizr Khan marched on Delhi, defeated Daulat Khan Lodi, and founded the Sayyid dynasty in 1414. The capital recovered as he helped the poor resettle. Shortly before his death in 1421 Khizr Khan raided Mewat. He was succeeded by his son Mubarak Shah (r. 1421-34), who turned back early Mughal incursions. The Delhi kingdom declined during the reigns of Muhammad Shah (1434-45) and 'Ala-ud-din 'Alam Shah (1445-51). During the decline of the Delhi sultanate, the kingdom of Jaunpur rose to equal power under Ibrahim Sharqi (r. 1402-40) and his son Mahmud Shah, who invaded Bengal and Orissa.

'Ala-ud-din 'Alam Shah retired in 1452 so that Afghan Buhlul Khan could take over the Delhi sultanate. Buhlul was a Lodi chief who had become more powerful than Muhammad Shah while helping him in the invasion of Malwa. He put the minister Hamid Khan in prison and fought off Mahmud Shah Sharqi of Jaunpur in 1452. Five years later Mahmud was defeated and killed by his brother Husain. Jaunpur then waged war continuously against Buhlul, who had less men and resources but won by military skill and annexed part of Jaunpur by 1479. Buhlul thus revived the Delhi sultanate with an Afghan confederacy. He appointed his son Barbak Shah viceroy of Jaunpur in 1486 and died three years later. Barbak was so far away from Delhi that his brother Nizam became Sultan Sikander Shah (r. 1489-1517). Barbak rejected his rule but was defeated. Sikander restored his brother as governor; but after Barbak failed to quell rebellions, he was arrested and replaced. Sikander used diplomacy to control most of the region and made a treaty with Bengal's 'Ala-ud-din Husain Shah. Muslim historians praised him for being kind to the poor, patronizing learning, dispensing justice impartially, founding the city of Agra in 1504, and maintaining economic prosperity with low prices; but religious intolerance did cause him to raze Hindu temples and erect mosques.

Sikander's son Ibrahim (r. 1517-26) came into conflict with Afghan immigrants who expected equality with their Afghan ruler. When his younger brother Jalal Khan tried to divide the kingdom in the east, Ibrahim defeated him and had him executed. Ibrahim also imprisoned his own ally A'zam Hamayun Sarwani, causing his son Islam Khan Sarwani to lead a revolt with 40,000 men; but Ibrahim would not compromise, and in the battle Islam Khan and 10,000 Afghans were killed. While Ibrahim was fighting rebels in the east, Punjab governor Daulat Khan Lodi appealed to Babur, the Mughal ruler in Kabul. Ibrahim's army was defeated in 1524, and he was killed two years later when Babur took over with the help of Mewar, which under Sanga (r. 1509-28) had become the most powerful kingdom in northern India. Sanga hoped to become Sultan, but Babur decided to stay.


The caste system infected the Muslims, as they essentially formed a top caste of Arabs, Turks, Afghans, and Persians over an upper caste of Hindu converts and two occupational castes, one of which was considered "unclean." Women of upper caste Hindus were secluded in purdah as well as the Muslim women, though the poor who worked were not much affected by this. Some radical Muslim mystics called Sufis were not afraid to challenge orthodox doctrine and customs for liberal ideals. The poll tax imposed on Hindus for "permission" to live in their homeland by Muslim rulers and the many restrictions on their behavior severely separated these two religious groups in a way that the tolerant spiritual tradition of India never knew before. Many Muslims considered it lawful to take the lives and possessions of Hindus for even minor infractions. Ibn Battuta observed that half the crops of the "protected" Hindus were taken by the state. He described horrible cruelties perpetrated against Hindus by the sultan of Ma'bar, whose death he believed God hastened, and he noted that communal violence between Muslims and Malabar residents was frequent.

For all their forced conversions of others to Islam, the Muslims believed that anyone renouncing Islam or persuading anyone to do so deserved death. Many Hindus treated Muslims as polluted untouchables, as the hatred became mutual. Though the Muslims did not have the social prejudices of the caste system, their religious intolerance persecuted Hindus. The Hindus generally followed the bigotry of the traditional caste customs, but they were usually much more tolerant of religious differences. The mystical Sufis had much influence on the Hindu mystics.

The sultan and his provincial governors exercised autocratic power by using the military to enforce their will. They also made the laws and judged them, appointing Muslim qazis, who judged according to the Qur'an. Sultans and governors often relied on their vizier or prime minister. He oversaw the departments of the military, appeals, correspondence, slaves, and justice. 'Ala-ud-din Khalji founded a department of tax collection, and Sultan Tughluq created a department of agriculture. Firuz Shah is credited with starting departments for charity and pensions. The laws were severe, and the penalties of death and mutilation were common; torture was used to get confessions. Governmental administration was enhanced by the increasing use of paper for documentation. Muslim merchants controlled most of the overseas trade. India had a favorable balance of trade, acquiring precious metals, horses for military use, black slaves and ivory from Africa, and other consumption items. Their main exports were cotton cloth, spices, narcotics, and agricultural commodities. Hindu communities had a long tradition of guilds and crafts based on caste that developed commerce. Sultans at Delhi employed as many as 4,000 weavers of silk for royal income.

Barani on Politics of the Delhi Sultanate
The major book on the political philosophy of the Delhi Sultanate is the Principles of Government (Fatawa-i Jahandari) by the historian Khwaja Zia-ud-din Barani. He was an aristocratic Muslim but was unable to get a post in the government of 'Ala-ud-din Khalji. Barani did serve in the court of Muhammad bin Tughluq from the tenth year of his reign; but when Firuz Shah became Sultan, the seventy-year-old Barani was imprisoned five months for supporting the rebellion of Khwaja-i Jahan and had his property confiscated.

Barani spent his last eight or nine years in poverty writing his famous history Tarikh-i Firuz Shahi, which covers the first century of the Delhi Sultanate up to 1357, and his political treatise. Because of his extreme poverty he had to write both of these works mostly from memory. Hoping to improve his situation, his history of Firuz Shah's early reign is filled with praise and flattery even for policies he criticized elsewhere. In his history Barani recalled specific conversations he had with Sultan Tughluq. In one he was asked about capital punishment, and to the three crimes for which the Prophet prescribed capital punishment-apostasy, murder, and adultery-Barani added the four crimes kings must punish with the death penalty as conspiracy to rebel, rebellion, aiding the king's enemies, and disobedience that endangers the state. Tughluq replied that he was executing people for every slight disobedience and planned to continue doing so until they perished or their rebellion ended. After the Sultan had crushed a rebellion in the Deccan, Barani wrote that he did not have the courage to say that he believed the Sultan's excessive capital punishments had caused hatred and the rebellion.

Barani complained that Tughluq appointed Hindus and men of low birth to high offices. He definitely looked at Muslim government from the perspective of his aristocratic class, and he very much resented the Muslim slaves (sultani) in the government and hated Hindus even more. His bias was so strong that he even considered religious piety the privilege of good birth. He argued that state offices should be hereditary. Barani also hated philosophers, scientists, heretics, and low-born Muslims as well as Hindus, against whom he advocated war. Yet the economic system of India was primarily managed by the upper caste Hindus. Although his own history was based on his personal observations and is respected, his erroneous ideas of other history seem to have been based on many histories that were fabricated to make money and which naturally have been lost as worthless.

In his work on government, Fatawa-i Jahandari, Barani used the sultan Mahmud of Ghazni as his spokesman and thus was not able to give examples later than the 11th century. Barani emphasized the importance of good counsel and listed the conditions of good consultation as frank expression by counselors, who should be permanent, aware of state secrets, and have perfect security. The king should begin by keeping his opinions secret. Discussion should be held before eating in order to have clear heads, and unanimous decisions by the counselors are recommended. To avoid tyranny the king should make correct determinations for the general welfare and avoid weakness in carrying them out. Although rulers are not perfect, Barani believed they need force and authority to enforce justice among the people. A king is allowed some injustice in regard to expenditure in order to maintain himself. Barani emphasized the importance of grading the ranks of the officials in order to elevate the worthy nobles, and he argued that elevating the base-born is a disgraceful mistake. Kings are obligated to appoint intelligence officers. Because of the demonic in the world, Barani believed that early days of the four pious Caliphs were past.

Barani believed that prices should be controlled according to the costs of production; this would especially aid the efficiency of the army as well as others. Barani wanted to establish Islamic truth at the center, but he knew that falsehood could not be completely destroyed. Yet to honor theism he advocated slaughtering the Brahmins in India. He also urged prohibiting the education of the lower orders lest they become more capable. These offensive polices are contrasted to the qualities he listed that the wise have recommended for judges which begins with kinship with the oppressed, desire to protect the weak, hatred of the unjust, and enmity to oppressors. A good judge has no feeling of revenge, does not tolerate wrongs, trembles lest the innocent be punished, is not influenced by anyone, does not seek approval, does not consider harm to himself, is incapable of self-deception, is stern for the claims of others but forgiving for one's personal concerns, does not obligate himself to others, and he instinctively rejects deceptions, lies, false excuses, and tricks.

A king must recognize the rights of the people. The king should not interfere with the punishments of Islamic law (shari'at), but the death penalty in political trials should only be inflicted in extreme cases. The king must also establish and enforce permanent state laws. First, these must protect the religion of Islam. Second, sins and shameful deeds must be suppressed. Third, rules of the shari'at must be enforced. Fourth, justice must be enforced. Barani added to this the right of those of noble birth to govern, and he held that non-Muslims are to be considered enemies and could be plundered by force. The permanent state laws should be made with the benefit of counsel from men of learning and intelligence. The king should be characterized by high resolve, which to Barani meant generosity not miserliness. He warned that if the king afflicts his subjects with exactions that are too harsh, they will be unable to comply and will rebel. All religions consider severe exactions wrong, and they are injurious to the state. The king must have contradictory qualities in order to be able to handle the virtuous and the wicked.

To justify the privileges of the high-born, Barani argued that merits are apportioned to souls and that aptitude is hereditary. He believed that only those in the nobler professions are capable of virtues such as kindness, generosity, valor, truthfulness, keeping promises, protecting other classes, loyalty, justice, gratitude, and fear of God. He held that protecting the old families was to the advantage of the king. The king should avoid the five mean qualities of falsehood, changeability, deception, wrath, and promotion of the unjust. Barani noted that Mu'awiya established Muslim monarchy by organizing a governing class from noble Arab clans, by giving the ruler the right to nominate his successor, and by organizing a group of religious scholars. Although Barani favored hereditary rights, he was unable to define a noble family.


The discrimination that the Muslims practiced against the Hindus and other non-Muslims in India is clearly defined in the following passage about the treatment of what they called "protected people" (zimmis) from the work of the Sufi Shaikh Hamadani, who took Islam to Kashmir:

There is another mandate relating to those subjects who are unbelievers and protected people (zimmis). For their governance, the observance of those conditions which the Caliph 'Umar laid in his agreement for establishing the status of the fire-worshippers and the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) and which gave them safety is obligatory on rulers and governors. Rulers should impose these conditions on the zimmis of their dominions and make their lives and their property dependent on their fulfillment. The twenty conditions are as follows:

1. In a country under the authority of a Muslim ruler, they are to build no new homes for images or idol temples.
2. They are not to rebuild any old buildings which have been destroyed.
3. Muslim travelers are not to be prevented from staying in idol temples.
4. No Muslim who stays in their houses will commit a sin if he is a guest for three days, if he should have occasion for the delay.
5. Infidels may not act as spies or give aid and comfort to them.
6. If any of their people show any inclinations toward Islam, they are not to be prevented from doing so.
7. Muslims are to be respected.
8. If zimmis are gathered together in a meeting and Muslims appear, they are to be allowed at the meeting.
9. They are not to dress like Muslims.
10. They are not to give each other Muslim names.
11. They are not to ride on horses with saddle and bridle.
12. They are not to possess swords and arrows.
13. They are not to wear signet rings and seals on their fingers.
14. They are not to sell and drink intoxicating liquor openly.
15. They must not abandon the clothing which they have had as a sign of their state of ignorance so that they may not be distinguished from Muslims.
16. They are not to propagate the customs and usages of polytheists among Muslims.
17. They are not to build their homes in the neighborhood of those of Muslims.
18. They are not to bring their dead near the graveyards of Muslims.
19. They are not to mourn their dead with loud voices.
20. They are not to buy Muslim slaves.

At the end of the treaty it is written that if zimmis infringe any of these conditions, they shall not enjoy security and it shall be lawful for Muslims to take their lives and possessions as though they were the lives and possessions of unbelievers in a state of war with the faithful.2

Independent North India 1401-1526
In the Rajput states the heroic Hammir led a revolt about 1340 to recover Mewar. Marwar became independent under Chunda (r. 1390-1422), who made an alliance with Mewar. After his father Mokal was murdered while going to fight invading Gujarat in 1433, the renowned Kumbha became Rana and ruled Mewar for nearly forty years. Ranamalla gained the throne of Mandor and brought reforms to Marwar for a decade before he was assassinated in 1438. His son Jodha (r. 1438-88) had seventeen sons, and they fought over the throne when he died; Suja won the struggle in 1491, and Ganga emerged triumphant in 1515 and ruled Marwar until 1532. Mewar fought off attacks by Muslim-ruled Gujarat in the late 1450s. Khumba was a poet but was assassinated by his son Udaya Karan. The horrified nobles placed Udaya's brother Rayamalla on the throne of Mewar, and he was succeeded by his warrior son Sanga (r. 1509-28). He made Mewar the most powerful Rajput state with a series of victorious wars. Sanga called in the help of Babur against the Delhi sultan; but the invading Mughals refused to leave and founded their empire in India in 1526.

In independent Malwa, Hushang Shah (r. 1406-35) poisoned his weak father, invaded Gujarat twice without success, stole 75 elephants from Orissa king Bhanudeva IV, and captured Kherla's king. His son murdered and blinded his relatives and was soon deposed by his minister Mahmud Khalji (r. 1436-69), who fought unsuccessful wars with Gujarat, Delhi, Chitor, the Bahmani, and Mewar. In 1466 Mahmud did manage to ravage Ellichpur. His son Ghiyas-ud-din (r. 1469-1500) was more peaceful, being preoccupied with his harem of 1600 women. His sons quarreled over the throne, and Nasir-ud-din ruled badly for eleven years. Nasir's chosen son Mahmud II (r. 1511-31) faced external threats and internal strife between Hindus and Muslims after he appointed the Rajput chief Medini Rai. In 1517 after Medini Rai refused to be dismissed, Mahmud escaped to Gujarat, whose king Muzaffar with his army helped restore Mahmud as king of Malwa. Medini Rai was helped by an army led by Chitor's Maharana Sanga which captured wounded Mahmud, who was released but lost Malwa territory.

In Bengal the Brahmin Ganesh took power but soon abdicated to his son Jadu, who converted to Islam and ruled as Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Shah from about 1415 to his death in 1431. Nasir-ud-din Mahmud Shah (r. 1437-59) ruled peacefully but may have lost territory to Orissa. Rukn-ud-din Barbak Shah (r. 1459-74) maintained many Abyssinian (Ethiopian) slaves, and some of them held high offices. When Jalal-ud-din Fath Shah (r. 1481-87) punished the excesses of the Abyssinians, the commander of the palace guards assassinated him and took the throne. Six months later he was replaced by the Abyssinian commander of the army, setting a Bengal precedent that the one killing the king's murderer had the right to rule. Abyssinian rule ended when the tyrannical Sultan Muzaffar was overthrown by his minister 'Ala-ud-din Husain Shah (r. 1493-1519). He disbanded the royal guards and expelled Abyssinians from the kingdom of Bengal. Husain reigned over a more peaceful era, though he fought a protracted war to regain lost provinces from Orissa and invaded Assam in 1498. His son Nusrat Shah (r. 1519-32) conquered Tirhut and patronized Bengali literature.

Gujarat governor Muzaffar declared independence from Delhi in 1401. Two years later he was imprisoned by his son Tatar Khan, who wanted to march on Delhi; but Tatar was poisoned by his uncle Shams Khan. He restored Muzaffar, who was recognized as shah before being succeeded by his grandson Ahmad Shah (1411-43). In 1414 he began destroying Hindu temples throughout Gujarat, provoking rebellions by Hindu kings to form a league and appeal to Sultan Hushang of Malwa. Ahmad's army dispersed the Hindu kings and invaded Malwa three times by 1422 to punish Hushang. In 1426 Ahmad suppressed the resistance of Idar, whose ruler Rao Punja was killed fighting in the hills two years later. In 1429 Jhalawar king Kanha got Bahmani shah Ahmad to invade Gujarat; but after plundering Nandurbar, the Deccan army was defeated and fled to Daulatabad. The war lasted two years, and Gujarat annexed territory. During this strife Ahmad did manage to build the city of Ahmadabad. He was succeeded by his son Muhammad Shah II, who continued the battles against Hindu rebels and died in 1451. Qutb-ud-din Ahmad Shah (r. 1451-58) also fought Hindu rebellions by Maharana Kumbha and encroachment by Malwa sultan Mahmud Khalji. Sultan Qutb-ud-din invaded Mewar in 1456 and again two years later.

Ahmad's grandson Mahmud Begarha (r. 1458-1511) protected the infant Bahmani king Nizam Shah by driving off the invading Malwa forces of Mahmud Khalji in 1461. Six years later Gujarat's Mahmud Begarha invaded the territory of Girnar king Mandalika. In a second attack in 1469 Mahmud forced Mandalika to accept Islam, and his kingdom was annexed to Gujarat. Mahmud fought Hindus so often that in 1480 his advisors conspired to replace him with his son; but Mahmud promised to go on pilgrimage to Mecca and in 1482 attacked Champaner to gain the needed funds. He stayed to plunder the country and after a long siege captured Pavagarh two years later. The proud Raja Jayasimha refused to convert to Islam and was finally executed as his son accepted Islam. Mahmud renamed Champaner Muhammadabad and was called Begarha for having conquered the two forts of Girnar and Champaner. The Bahmani kingdom returned a favor by helping Begarha to suppress the piracy of Bahadur Gilani in 1494. Begarha invaded Khandesh in 1498 to force them to pay their tribute to Gujarat. Mahmud Begarha tried to limit Portuguese power by allying with Egyptian sultan Qansauh-al-Ghauri. After an initial victory at sea in 1508, the Muslim fleet was defeated the next year near the island of Diu. Begarha ended his alliance with Egypt and released Portuguese prisoners. Begarha was an intolerant Sunni and refused to receive a Persian ambassador. Begarha's son Muzaffar II (r. 1511-26) fought the Rajputs but was criticized for not punishing criminals.

Kashmir was under the Delhi sultanate until Mubarak Shah was assassinated in 1320. Then a Buddhist prince from Ladakh named Rinchan killed his Hindu rival Ram Chand and claimed the throne. Rinchan converted to Islam but died in 1323. Shahmir led the farming landlords and made the Hindu Udayanadeva the ruler of Kashmir and married him to the princess Kota Rani. When Mongols invaded, Udayanadeva fled; but Kota Rani and Shahmir rallied the country to defeat the enemy. Udayanadeva returned but had lost popular support. Shahmir backed Rinchan's son Haidar; but Kota Rani was governing and planned to continue after her husband died in 1339 with support from Bhatta Bhikshana. Shahmir had Bhatta murdered and besieged the Queen until Kota agreed to marry him. Either she was imprisoned, or according to Persian historians she committed suicide on her wedding night. Shahmir proclaimed himself Sultan Shamsuddin, and Kashmir became a Muslim state. He exterminated the rebellious Lavanyas, replacing them with soldiers from the Magre and Chak tribes. Shamsuddin tried to rule justly by only taxing produce at one-sixth. After establishing order he turned the government over to his two sons before dying in 1342.

Shamsuddin's sons fought a civil war in Kashmir until Jamshed was defeated and killed in 1344 when Ali Sher took the throne as Ala-ud-din. He was succeeded by his son Shahab-ud-din (r. 1356-74), who invaded his neighbors and crushed any internal resistance. During the reign of Qutb-ud-din (r. 1374-89) about 600 politically oriented Sufis led by Saiyid Ali Hamadani fled from Timur and entered Kashmir in 1379. Hamadani propagated the Kubrawiya order of Sufis, trying to influence the Sultan and transform Kashmir. The Hindu mystic Lal Ded preached against idolatry and the Tantra of Shaivas. She emphasized self-abnegation in the Supreme by means of yoga and discarded formal Sanskrit rituals, promoting instead education in the vernacular for the masses. She was one of the pioneers of Hindu-Muslim unity by human brotherhood in the unity of God, and this harmonized with the Islam taught by the Sufi Hamadani, who left Kashmir and died in 1384. Lal Ded died about 1390, but she was said to have nurtured Nund Ryosh, who spread the teaching of brotherhood between Muslims and Hindus in his poetry, which was appreciated by Muslims under the name Noorud Din.

The death of Sultan Qutb-ud-din in 1389 was followed by a regency and struggle for power. By 1393 Saiyid Muhammad Hamadani and his fanatical followers had won over young Sultan Sikander. In 1399 Timur's envoys demanded 30,000 horses and an immense amount of silver from Kashmir. Saiyids led by Suha Bhatta persuaded Sikander to demolish and plunder Hindu temples. During a reign of terror Hindus had to choose between exile, death, or converting to Islam, though eventually they were allowed to pay the jizya tax. Large mosques were built from the materials taken from demolished Hindu temples. Suha Batta continued to act as prime minister for Sikander's son Ali Shah (r. 1413-20), and more Hindus were driven out of Kashmir; but after Suha Bhatta died in 1420, a revolt of the Khukhar tribe, led by Jasrath, defeated and killed Ali Shah.

Kashmir was then ruled by Ali Shah's brother Zain-ul-'Abidin (r. 1420-70). Jasrath and his Khukhars helped Kashmir expand into the Punjab and western Tibet. After Raja Bhimdev died in 1423, Jammu became Kashmir's ally. Jasrath made a treaty with Bahlul Lodi in 1441. Zain-ul-'Abidin worked to undo the previous wrongs against Hindus by recalling Brahmins, allowing those forced into Islam to return to their Hindu faith, and proclaiming religious tolerance. Temples were repaired and new ones built; the jizya and cremation taxes were repealed; stipends were even restored to learned Brahmins; and the poisoning of cows was stopped. Local administrators were not allowed to exact money illegally, and the peasants gained needed tax relief as only one-sixth of the land's produce was taken. During the famine of 1460 farmers were given aid, and debts to bankers were voided. For irrigation many canals were built. Excessive prices were prevented by government control. The Sultan ended the death penalty for theft or minor crimes. Theft was reduced by fining the village headman whenever a robbery occurred. Zain-ul-'Abidin founded schools using Persian language. Residential schools were non-sectarian and were endowed with support for teachers, books, clothing, and food. Zain-ul-'Abidin patronized artisans, saints, scholars, poets, and musicians. The Sultan's court became a center of Hindu and Muslim culture as his fame spread.

Zain-ul-'Abidin's son Haidar Shah was an alcoholic and allowed Luli to persecute the Brahmins and take back the land Haidar's father had given them. After Haidar Shah slipped while carousing and died, the minister Malik Ahmad set up Haidar's son Hasan (r. 1472-84) as sultan. He revived the liberal policies of his grandfather, but the nobles feuded during his reign. Bahram Khan was defeated in a civil war at Dulipura. Kashmir with Jammu, Rajauri, and Punch defeated the forces of Tatar Khan Lodi in 1480 and sacked Sialkot. To pay for the war Hasan Shah debased the currency. Saiyid Mirak Hasan Baihaqi disregarded Hasan Shah's dying wish to have his son Fath Khan succeed him and became regent for Hasan's seven-year-old son Muhammad Shah. Struggles for power caused these two to alternate as Muhammad was replaced by Fath Khan in 1487, was restored in 1499, was replaced by Fath Khan once more in 1505, and was restored yet again in 1516. Muhammad was deposed again in 1528 and was restored for a fourth reign in 1530. This era in Kashmir has been called a time of political gangsters.


In central Tibet the power of Sakya waned during the reign (1305-22) of Danyi Zangpo Pal, who had seven wives. Four of his sons established separate palaces. Changchub Gyaltsen was born in 1302 and was educated at Sakya for ten years before he returned to govern Nedong in 1322. He attacked Yazang to try to regain the territories his uncle had taken over. The dispute dragged on until Changchub emerged victorious in 1351. Sakya was asked to mediate, and Changchub allowed himself to be arrested, telling his people at Nedong not to give in no matter what happened to him. Changchub was released, and his rights were restored. By 1354 Changchub controlled all of Tibet except Sakya. His rival Wangtson murdered the Sakya lama in 1358; but Changchub imprisoned Wangtson, deposed the new lama, and replaced four hundred officials. Changchub reorganized Tibet into districts, dividing the land among the farmers equally and fixing the tax at one-sixth of the crops. Roads and bridges were built, and travelers were so well protected that it was said an old woman could carry gold safely anywhere in Tibet. The Mongol custom of execution without a hearing was replaced by investigations before sentencing. A book was published with instructions for villages to defend themselves from attacks and diseases. Changchub died in 1364, and his successors were monks from his Phamo Drupa family of southern Tibet and governed well. They replaced the Sakyapa administration, while the Karmapas, still allied with China, ruled in Kham and southeast Tibet.

The Phamo Drupa ruler Drakpa Gyaltsen (r. 1385-1432) was called the Gongma and patronized Buddhism in Lhasa. Insisting on monastic discipline and an ethical, gradual path, Tsongkhapa (1357-1419) founded the Ganden monastery and the Gelugpa order in 1409, attempting to unify the Mahayana and Tantra schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He had many teachers, and most of them taught each other in a reciprocal teacher-disciple relationship. In his "Abbreviated Points of the Graded Path" Tsongkhapa recommended generosity as a hope to sentient beings and the best way to cut the knot of miserliness. He believed moral discipline is the water to wash away the stains of faulty actions. Patience is the best adornment for the powerful and the perfect ascetic practice for those tormented by delusions; the wise accustom themselves to be patient. He considered meditative concentration the royal power over the mind. Tsongkhapa said that as a yogi he practiced each of these virtues, and he encouraged those seeking liberation to cultivate themselves in the same way.

Two of Tsongkhapa's disciples founded monasteries in Lhasa at Drepung in 1416 and Sera in 1419. While Gongma Drakpa Jungne (r. 1433-44) was devoting himself to religious activities, the Rinpung family gained influence in Tsang when Dondup Dorje conquered Shigatse in 1435. Gelugpa monks blocked efforts to build a Karmapa monastery in Lhasa. Tsongkhapa's nephew Gedun Truppa was a leading disciple; he founded the Trashilhunpo monastery in 1447 and was its abbot when he died in 1474. Tibetans believed that his soul reincarnated as the monk Gedun Gyatso (1475-1542). In 1481 Rinpung leader Donyo Dorje led an attack on Lhasa that failed. Ministers deposed Gongma Kunga Legpa and enthroned Chen-nga Tsenyepa, allowing him to marry. In 1492 Donyo Dorje invaded U and seized three districts. Upset by three executions in 1498, Donyo Dorje captured Lhasa and dismissed the administrator. The Tsang princes through the red-hat Karmapas controlled Lhasa until 1517, but after that there were many battles. Gedun Gyatso founded the Chokhorgyal monastery in 1509.


Independent South India 1329-1526
Ala-ud-din Bahman Shah founded an independent Muslim kingdom in the Deccan in 1347 that attacked Warangal in 1350. He was succeeded in 1358 by his son Muhammad Shah, who fought a defensive war against the allied Hindu states of Vijayanagara and Telingana, forcing them both to make treaties and pay tribute. His son 'Ala-ud-din Mujahid invaded the Vijayanagara kingdom, failed, and ruled the Bahmani kingdom only three years before he was murdered by his cousin Daud in 1378. Daud was soon murdered in revenge and was replaced by his brother Muhammad II (r. 1378-97), who loved peace and learning and managed to avoid foreign wars. When his succeeding son Ghiyas-ud-din appointed immigrant Persians to high offices, he was assassinated within two months. However, Muhammad II's cousin Taj-ud-din Firuz (r. 1397-1422) was able to encourage wider participation and oversee cultural development. He married several Hindu women and appointed Brahmins to high offices. After a major defeat by the forces of Vijayanagara in 1420, the dying Firuz abdicated to his brother Ahmad (r. 1422-36). He annexed most of Telingana in 1425 by defeating and killing the Velema ruler of Warangal; but the Bahmani kingdom was defeated by independent Gujarat in 1430, and learned men devised a peace. His son Ahmad II (r. 1436-58) fought two wars with Vijayanagara but defeated Khandesh in 1438. This gave immigrants (pardesis) more influence; but resentful Deccanis massacred many of them in 1446, though Ahmad II did punish responsible Deccanis.

Humayun (r. 1458-61) was such a cruel tyrant that he was apparently murdered by his servants while intoxicated. During the reign (1463-82) of young Muhammad III, prime minister Mahmud Gawan took control and expanded the Bahmani empire, especially in the west, where the port of Goa was gained. He increased the Sultan's control by breaking up the four provinces into eight with direct military command, but he tried to divide offices between the rival Deccanis and pardesis. After a devastating famine, Muhammad invaded Orissa in 1478. Three years later they plundered lucrative temples in Vijayanagara. Resentful nobles accused the upstart Mahmud Gawan of treason, and the alcoholic Muhammad had him executed and died in remorse the next year. The leading conspirator Malik Na'ib was regent for young Shihab-ud-Din Mahmud (r.1482-1518); but conflicts between Deccanis and the pardesis caused the Abyssinian governor of Bidar to put to death Malik in 1486. The next year Deccanis made an attempt on Mahmud's life, and he reacted by letting the pardesis slaughter Deccanis. Governors began ignoring Mahmud's request to put down rebellions. The divided country suffered local wars. In 1501 Sultan Mahmud declared annual holy war (jihad) against Vijayanagara, but in 1509 their new king Krishna Deva Raya defeated the Muslim Bahmanis. The last Bahmani ruler Kalimullah Shah failed to get help from Babur and died in 1527.


The Delhi sultanate did not hold south India very long. After the fall of Kampili in 1327, the captured brothers Harihara and Bukka were taken to Delhi and converted to Islam before returning as governors of Kampili. The liberation of southern India from Muslim rule began as soon as Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq left the region in 1329. The Sultan returned to suppress rebellion at Warangal in 1334; but a cholera epidemic caused him to retreat to Daulatabad, allowing the governor of Ma'bar to declare the independent Madura sultanate the next year. The strong Hindu chief Ballala III forced the Muslim governor of Warangal to flee to Delhi.

Advised by Vidyaranya to follow Hindu dharma, Harihara and Bukka renounced Islam and in 1336 founded what came to be called the Vijayanagara kingdom after the City of Victory they built. Harihara I became king, and Bukka's army conquered Hoysala in 1343 after its king Ballala III had been treacherously killed by the forces of Madura's sultan. Ten years later the Hindu allies defeated the Madura sultan and put Sambuvaraya back on that throne, though eventually Bukka I (r. 1356-77) took over the Tamil country. Vijayanagara's long series of border wars with the Bahmanis began in 1358. When a dispute arose between Vaisnavas and Jains, Bukka took the opportunity to proclaim in Vijayanagara the equal protection of all religions including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He replaced regionally governing nephews with his sons and generals to maintain central authority.

Bukka was succeeded as Vijayanagara king by his son Harihara II (r. 1377-1404), who suppressed his relatives and conquered the western ports of Goa, Chaul, and Dabhol on the commercially important Malabar coast; then he fought to extend his empire to the east coast as well. A major war with the Muslim Bahmani kingdom forced the Vijayanagara army to retreat from the Krishna River to the capital as many Hindus were slaughtered; they made an uneasy peace in 1399 as widespread famine devastated the Deccan. Vijayanagara king Devaraya I won a succession struggle against his two brothers and spent most of his reign (1406-22) fighting Bahmani sultans, the Velamas of Rachakonda, and the Reddis of Kondavidu; he imported horses from Arabia and Persia and was the first Hindu to employ Turkish archers. Devaraya II (r. 1422-46) reconquered lost Reddi territory by winning over the Velamas and defeating the Gajapatis; he also fought a series of wars with the Bahmani kingdom and gained tribute from Sri Lanka. The demands his soldiers made on farmers, merchants, and artisans caused these traditional rivals of the Tamil plain to unite and revolt in 1429. To strengthen his army against Bahmani attacks, Devaraya II made Muslims eligible for the army and tolerated the practice of Islam. He centralized the power of the Vijayanagara state by controlling the traditional chiefs.

However, Vijayanagara royal rule decreased under his son Mallikarjuna (r. 1446-65) and his cousin Virupaksha (r. 1465-85) as they lost territory to the Bahmanis while governors asserted more independence. Orissa's Kapilendra and Purushottama (r. 1467-97) fought a series of wars with Vijayanagara even though both kingdoms were ruled by Hindus. Purushottama took advantage of turmoil in the Bahmani realm to reconquer Udayagiri for Orissa in 1481. Narasimha Saluva of Chandragiri seized the throne of Vijayanagara, fought to consolidate his power, and pushed back encroachments by Orissa. When he died in 1490, Narasimha appointed his prime minister Narasa Nayaka regent for his two young sons, and he invaded the declining Bahmani sultanate. Narasa also defeated rebellions and captured Madura. He was succeeded by his son Vira Narasimha (r. 1503-09) as the two Saluva princes were killed. Vira relieved people by abolishing the marriage tax.

Vira's brother Krishna Deva Raya (r. 1509-29) increased the power of the Vijayanagara kingdom by subordinating chieftains. In 1512 he captured Raichur in Bijapur. The Vaisnava mystic Chaitanya had persuaded Orissa's Prataparudra (r. 1497-1540) not to invade the Muslim kingdom of Bengal for having destroyed Hindu temples in Orissa; but Prataparudra came into conflict with Vijayanagara by attacking Kanchi. In a five-year war Krishna Deva won back territory from Orissa, but he gave everything north of the Krishna River back when he made peace in 1518 and married an Orissa princess. During this war Bijapur regained Raichur; but Krishna Deva recaptured it in 1520. He was known to make sure the wounded were cared for after a battle, and he is also credited with reducing taxes. Forests were cut down so that more land could be cultivated. Krishna Deva allowed the Portuguese to trade in Vijayanagara so he could gain horses. He patronized learning and respected all Hindu sects; he especially sponsored the flourishing of literature in Telegu. He wrote that he tried to rule justly by appointing capable ministers, extracting metals from mines, taxing moderately, crushing his enemies by force, protecting all his subjects, ending the mixing of castes, elevating the Brahmins, strengthening his fortress, and purifying his cities.

Agriculture flourished in the Vijayanagara empire. They exported cloth, rice, iron, saltpeter, sugar and spices for horses, elephants, pearls, copper, coral, mercury, china, silks, and velvet. High duties were charged on imported cloth and oil to protect local products. The upper classes lived very well, but the poor were heavily taxed. The wealthy often had several wives, who often burned themselves to death on their husband's funeral pyre in ritual sati. Temples used their wealth to give loans to individuals and villages, increasing it by charging 12-30% interest. The guilds of artisans were not as powerful as those of the merchants, but landowners and officials at court had even more power than the merchants.


Sri Lanka was being ruled by the Pandyan king Kulasekera (r. 1268-1308); but civil war and invasion by Muslims ended the Pandya kingdom by 1323. Bhuvanekabahu II (r. 1293-1302) seized power at Kurunegala and was succeeded by his son Parakramabahu IV (r. 1302-26); but by the end of his reign rebellion became turmoil. In the 1340s and 1350s two brothers tried to rule the south at the same time until a nephew Vikramabahu III (r. 1357-74) gained the throne and came to terms with Marttanda in north Sri Lanka. The trading Alaghkkonaras migrated from southern India. The chief minister Nissanka Alaghkkonara and his two brothers consorted with Vikramabahu's sister; their son was Bhuvanekabahu V (r. 1372-1408), though Nissanka was the real ruler until he died in 1386. His son Vira Alakasvera took power, lost it, and regained it in 1399; but struggle for control weakened the Alakasvera family.

The Chinese explorer Zhenghe (Cheng Ho) arrived to get the Buddha's tooth relic but left without it in 1406. Zhenghe came back five years later, abducted Vira Alakasvera, and took him to China. By the time the captives were brought back, Parakramabahu VI (r. 1411-65) had taken power; he sent envoys to China with tribute five times. He established a capital at Kotte in 1415 and on his second attempt drove the Jaffna king off Sri Lanka. Parakramabahu was the last king to govern the entire island. About 1432 King Devaraya II of Vijayanagara invaded northern Sri Lanka but was stopped by Parakramabahu's forces in the south. Late in his reign Parakramabahu crushed an insurrection led by Jotiya Sitana in the Gampola mountains but let a Gampola prince govern there.

A succession struggle and a protracted Sinhalese rebellion disturbed Sri Lanka, which was eventually divided by three regional rulers. Senasammata Vikramabahu (r. 1469-1511) held the highlands. Northern Jaffna was ruled by Pararajasekeran (r. 1478-1519). After Bhuvanekabahu VI died in 1477, his son Vira Parakramabahu (r. 1477-89) faced revolts; these were quelled by Dharma Parakramabahu IX (r. 1489-1513) as they tried to govern the southwest. A major succession struggled occurred when Vijayabahu VI (r. 1513-21) tried to leave his throne to his youngest son by his second wife; but the three older princes by his first wife got the Udarata ruler Jayavira (r. 1511-52) to help them assassinate their father and divided his kingdom. Bhuvanekabahu VII (r. 1521-51) let his younger brother Mayadunne (r. 1521-81) govern Sitavaka.



Portuguese ships led by Vasco da Gama landed near Calicut on May 17, 1498, and Hindus of the Zamorin kingdom welcomed them. A larger fleet of thirteen vessels led by Cabral returned two years later; but irritated Muslims destroyed their factory, killing 53 men. Cabral retaliated by bombarding Calicut and burning its wooden houses. Vasco da Gama brought twenty ships in 1502, plundering and sinking a Muslim pilgrim vessel with all on board. He seized other ships and attacked Calicut, where he ordered the Zamorin to banish Muslims; he also built a factory at Cochin. When the Portuguese ships blocked the Red Sea trade so that their king could monopolize spices, the Egyptian Mamluk sultan complained to the Pope and threatened to harass Christians in Palestine. Imports of spices by Venice had already dropped drastically.

Afonso d'Albuquerque arrived the next year with three squadrons and fortified Colchin. Francisco de Almeida was appointed the first Portuguese viceroy in 1505. The next year in a sea battle the Portuguese massacred Muslim crews. The Portuguese maintained a military advantage at sea, because Indian ships were not strong enough to use cannons. The Egyptian sultan sent a fleet to join a Muslim alliance, and they defeated a Portuguese fleet in 1508; but the next year Viceroy Almeida devastated the Muslim fleet near Diu off the Gujarat coast. The Gujarat sultan released prisoners and allowed the Portuguese to build a fort on Diu. Albuquerque replaced Almeida as governor in November 1509. He followed the Portuguese king's instruction to destroy Calicut and forced all ships to put in at Goa, which he conquered in 1510, killing 6,000 Muslims. He called a council to approve building a fort and encouraged the Portuguese to marry Indian wives by giving them lands, houses, and cattle. Albuquerque conquered Melaka in 1511; he failed to take the key gateway to the Red Sea at Aden in 1513 but took the trading center for the Persian Gulf at Hurmuz before he died in 1515.

The Portuguese first landed at Sri Lanka's capital Kotte in 1506. Vijayabahu VI (r. 1513-21) let the Portuguese build a fort at Colombo in 1518 and agreed to pay tribute, but increasing demands led to war that by 1521 forced the Portuguese to keep their agreement. The Portuguese had a maritime empire in India, and 60% of their revenues came from customs duties. They tried to enforce their commercial monopoly by killing Muslim offenders. Ironically the military costs of trying to control the market caused such high prices that the Portuguese made less profit than if they had used their sea route for lower prices in a free market. Portugal made enemies and bankrupted its government with the military and administrative costs. The Portuguese fought frequently with the zamorins of Calicut and the sultan of Gujarat.

Kabir and Chaitanya
The traditional dates of Kabir are 1398-1518. Some scholars have speculated that 1398 was chosen as the birth date of Kabir to account for his having known Ramananda; so they accept 1440 as a more reasonable date for his birth. Charlotte Vaudeville doubted the incident with Sikander Lodi and argued that people claimed he died in 1518 to explain that; so she suggested he died in the mid-15th century. Kabir was the son of a Muslim weaver and lived in the suburbs of Benares. As a poor Muslim, Hindus considered him of the lowest caste. His name means "Most High" and was said to have been picked at random from the Qur'an. When he was a child, his tears once prevented his father from sacrificing an animal at a religious festival. As a young man, Kabir wanted to study with the great Vaisnava saint Ramananda, who refused to look at Muslims or low-caste Hindus. So Kabir laid down on the steps by the Ganges River, where Ramananda bathed and accidentally stepped on him. Ramananda exclaimed his mantra "Ram Ram," and Kabir took this for his initiation as his disciple. Eventually Ramananda allowed his gifted disciple to come out from behind a curtain and changed his policy about admitting those of low caste or from other religions.

Kabir took up his father's craft of weaving and worked at the loom for the rest of his life. He married and raised a son and a daughter. Kabir accepted disciples from all castes from the lowest to kings. He traveled extensively, and his poems contain words from various languages and dialects. One stanza on Kabir in Nabhaji's Bhakta-mala is considered particularly authentic. It has been translated as follows:

Never did Kabir accept the distinctions of caste
or the four stages of life,
nor did he revere the six philosophies.
"Religion devoid of love is heresy," he declared.
"Yoga and penance, fasting and alms-giving are,
without meditation, empty," he affirmed.
Ramaini, sabdi and sakhi he employed to impart his message-
to Hindus and Turks alike.
Without preference, without prejudice,
he said only what was beneficial to all.
Subduing the world,
he uttered not words to please or flatter others.
Such was Kabir, who refused to accept the bias of the caste system
or the supremacy of the six philosophies.3

Kabir taught the unity of God and religion. In his own practice he used both Hindu and Islamic methods. By the Hindu term "Rama" he meant "the One in whom we get joy," not the incarnation of Vishnu. He also used the Islamic term "Rahim," which means "the supremely merciful One."

Kabir told Dharam Das that the idols he was worshipping must be used for weighing, because they could not answer prayer. On another occasion he warned Dharam Das that the wood he was putting in a sacrificial fire had insects and worms that were being burned. Dharam Das wanted to see Kabir again and so spent most of his money providing meals for sadhus (wandering ascetics) in yajnas (sacrifices) at Benares; but Kabir did not come, because he did not want him to think that devotees could be bought with wealth. After spending his money, Dharam Das was going to commit suicide; but he met Kabir, who initiated him and his wife. Dharam Das eventually became Kabir's successor in his hometown of Bandhogarh.

Kabir taught many Muslims and Hindus of all castes for seventy years. He encouraged them to search their own hearts to find God within themselves. He considered religious rituals of little value, because they are like making God into a plaything. He said that all souls are sprung from the seed of God. The king of Benares was a student of Kabir, and so for a long time he was protected. Sultan Sikander Lodi (r. 1489-1517) was also impressed by Kabir's holiness; but resentful qadis (judges) and pandits (teachers) accused Kabir of blasphemy for ridiculing their rituals and scriptures. Sikander ordered Kabir chained and drowned; but the waves broke the chains. Neither would an elephant trample on Kabir. It was even said that he escaped from a fire. When Sikander realized his error, Kabir immediately forgave him, saying that forgiveness is the game the saints play. Many people came to Benares in order to die in the holy city; but Kabir went to Magahar, which was believed to be so cursed that those dying there reincarnated as donkeys. Magahar suffered from lack of water; but when Kabir was there, the river began to flow. After his death the Muslims wanted to bury Kabir's body, and the Hindus wanted to cremate it; but according to an often repeated legend they found nothing but flowers, which they divided for burial and burning.

Kabir was apparently a vegetarian. In a poem on true asceticism he criticized the hypocrisy of those who preach to others but do no work. He wrote that boiled pulse and rice with a little salt is a good meal and asked who would cut his own throat to eat meat with his bread. The Brahmin is not the guru of a devotee, because he got entangled in the four Vedas and died. Those killing living beings violently call it lawful according to the Qur'an; but they will have to answer God and account for their violent crimes. To use violence is tyranny, and God will take you to task. Kabir said that he had dissolved into bodiless bliss; he lived free from fear and caused fear to none.

Kabir's poetry emphasizes the love of God, whom he referred to as his husband. He advised being truthful and so natural. Truth is found in one's heart, not in outward religious rituals nor in sects nor vows nor religious garb nor pilgrimages. He wrote that truth is revealed in love, strength, and compassion. He encouraged people to conquer hatred and extend their love to all humanity, for God lives in all. In five poems Kabir warned about the following five passions: the poison of lust, the fire of anger, the witch of avarice, the bonds of attachment, and the malady of ego (selfishness). In a poem from the Bijak he suggested that Brahmins give up their caste pride and seek nirvana. When Kabir died, his disciples asked his son to start another sect; but Kamal said that his father had struggled during his life against sectarianism, and he would not destroy that ideal. Yet many of his disciples founded sects based on the teachings of Kabir.


Chaitanya was born as Vishvambhara during an eclipse of the moon in February 1486 at Navadvipa in west Bengal. He was boisterous with a strong temper and was especially dear to his mother after his elder brother Vishvarup left home to become a sannyasin (ascetic). Vishvambhara studied in a Sanskrit school and became a teacher of grammar but would dispute on any subject. His first wife died of a snake bite, and he married again. In 1508 he went to Gaya and was initiated and given the Krishna mantra by the reclusive saint Ishvarapuri. He suddenly became a God-intoxicated devotee, incessantly repeating the name of Krishna with deep emotion, occasionally even falling into trances. His pupils found that he would usually only talk of Krishna.

In Navadvipa, Vishvambhara persuaded the Vaisnavas to sing of Krishna. Advaita recognized him as his master and began chanting the Vishnu-purana. Nityananda became his closest follower, and in June 1509 Vishvambhara accepted leadership of the group and was called Chaitanya. When he gave Advaita a boon, he asked that he share his bhakti (devotion) without regard to sex, caste or education; Chaitanya agreed. Before he had met other Vaisnavas by calling them master and falling at their feet; now Chaitanya called them his slaves and put his foot on their chests. He said he was lord of the universe, and his devotees, believing him an incarnation of Vishnu (Krishna), sang his coronation song.

Chaitanya began preaching in public and was acclaimed for reforming two drunken Brahmins. In the evening they staged dramas about Krishna. His emotional worship recited the names of Hari and Krishna. Some people were disgusted by these demonstrations in the streets and got the Muslim governor to ban the kirtana singing. At Nadiya in Bengal the Muslim qazi (judge) ordered their musical instruments broken and threatened all who joined them. Chaitanya defied the order by continuing, and so many people joined the singing that the qazi was intimidated and rescinded the order; the irate Chaitanya let a mob wreck the official's house, but they were stopped from burning it. After becoming calm, Chaitanya sent for the qazi and had a friendly conversation with him.

After angrily chasing a student with a stick, Chaitanya decided to become a monk. He promised his mother that he would be her son in two more incarnations. He used a mantra he had heard in a dream and was initiated as a sannyasin by Keshav Bharati, who named him Sri-Krishna-Chaitanya. After roaming in ecstasy for a few days, Chaitanya said it was not proper for a monk to live with his family in his birthplace, and so he decided to live in nearby Puri. Sarvabhauma taught Chaitanya the philosophy of non-dualist (Advaita) Vedanta. However, after a few discussions, Chaitanya convinced his teacher to practice devotion (bhakti). In 1510 Chaitanya left to travel alone and search in south India for his brother Vishvarup. In the capital of Vijayanagara he conversed with its governor Ramananda-raya, and they spent a night in fervent ecstasy. After reaching Rameshvaram, Chaitanya went north to Gujarat. When Chaitanya returned, Orissa king Prataparudra had heard of Sarvabhauma's conversion and invited Chaitanya to live in a house near the home of the chief priest of the Jagannatha temple in Puri, and he lived there the rest of his life. At the chariot festival Chaitanya would dance in ecstasy to personify devotion. King Prataparudra asked to be his servant and saw a vision of six-armed Vishnu.

After traveling to Bengal and Vrindavana, Chaitanya returned to Puri, where many pilgrims came to see him. The great Vaisnava teacher Vallabha also came to visit Chaitanya and asked him why he chanted the name of Krishna since he considered himself his wife, and Chaitanya replied that a chaste wife always obeys her husband. Chaitanya did not use luxuries, and eventually the lack of sleep and nourishment affected his health. The last dozen years of his life before his death in 1533 were spent in mystical ecstasy devoted to his beloved Krishna with frequent trances. These experiences became his demonstration of his faith and love. Somehow these had a powerful influence on many people, and Bengali literature became much more devotional. Muslims were converted; Chaitanya accepted devotees from all castes and allowed marriage and secular occupations. Chaitanya believed that the devotional love of bhakti worship could chasten even the most impure. Chaitanya did not initiate anyone and had no formal disciples; but his mission was carried on by his organization under the leadership of Nityananda in Bengal.

Nanak and Sikhism
Nanak was born on April 15, 1469 near Lahore. His father Kalu was in the Kshatriya caste; but under the Muslims they were not allowed to be in the military. Kalu was a shopkeeper and record-keeper for a landlord, who had converted to Islam. Nanak learned arithmetic and accounting from his father, reading and writing in Devnagri from a Brahmin, and Persian and Arabic from a Maulvi. Nanak had a tendency to give away his father's goods to the poor and quarreled with him. When Nanak was 16, his older sister's husband got him a job in the store of Daulat Khan Lodi, the governor of Jalandhar Doab. Two years later Nanak married the daughter of a Punjab merchant, and they had two sons, Sri Chand in 1494 and Lakhmi Das in 1496; they would be raised by his sister and her husband. On the November full moon of 1496 Nanak had an enlightening experience. Thus his birthday is often celebrated at that time. His message "There is no Hindu; there is no Muslim" has several layers of meaning, implying human and religious unity and also that those who call themselves one or the other are not truly so. When the Qazi of Sultanpur Lodi complained about his message, Nanak sang that his devotees are ever joyous; for they learn how to end sorrow and sin.

In 1499 Nanak's father sent the Muslim minstrel Mardana to persuade his son to stay at his post. Instead he became Nanak's closest disciple, and they began traveling. Nanak often joined the Muslims in their prayers. He suggested that the first prayer should be to speak the truth, the second to ask for lawfully earned daily bread, the third to practice charity, the fourth to purify the mind, and the fifth to adore and worship God. Nanak preached to the Hindus against idol worship and caste distinctions. He personally dined with those of low caste, and he raised the status of women. To the Muslims he emphasized Gan-singing praises of God, Dan-charity for all, Ashnan-purification by bathing, Seva-serving humanity, and Simran-constantly praying to God. Nanak abstained from eating animal food. After spending two years in the southwest Punjab, from 1501 to 1514 Nanak traveled to the southeast in India. In Delhi he and Mardana were arrested for violating Sikander Lodi's order against preaching in public; but their singing in jail caused such a disturbance that they were soon released. In Benares, Nanak may have met Kabir, for their teachings are very similar. From 1515 to 1517 he was in the Himalayas and went as far as Tibet. About 1520 Nanak traveled to Mecca, probably by sea, and many believe he visited Baghdad on his way home that took him through Iran and Afghanistan.

The hymns of Nanak indicate that he witnessed Babur's third invasion of the Punjab in the winter of 1521, for he complained about the raping of women and how Yama (Death) came disguised as the great Mughal Babur. In the fourth invasion of 1524 Nanak saw the city of Lahore given over to death and violence for four hours. After the fifth invasion of 1526 Nanak lamented the dark age of the sword in which kings are butchers, and goodness has fled. He also referred to kings as tigers and their officials as dogs that eat carrion. The subjects blindly pay homage out of ignorance as if they were dead. The jewel of the Lodi kingdom had been wasted by dogs. A wealthy devotee donated land on the bank of the Ravi, and the village of Kartarpur was built for Nanak and his disciples. Nanak lived there from 1522 until his death on September 22, 1539. Nanak did not consider himself an avatar or a prophet but a guru who could help people find God. Before he died, Nanak named Angad to be his successor as Guru.

Nanak's songs were later collected together in the Adi Granth that became the scripture for the Sikh religion. His basic teaching about God is summarized in the Mul Mantra, which indicates that God is one, the truth, the creator, fearless, without ill will, immortal, unborn, self-existent, and is realized by grace through the Guru.

The Mul Mantra is followed by the longer Jap Ji, which Nanak wrote about 1520. Jap Ji means "meditation for a new life." It begins by noting that God can not be comprehended by reason nor by outward silence, and one cannot buy contentment with all the riches in the world. The way to know the truth is to make God's will one's own. All things are manifestations of God's will, which is beyond description. By communing with the divine Word and meditating on God's glory one may find salvation by divine grace. The Word washes away all sin and sorrow and bestows virtue. By practicing the Word one rises into universal consciousness, develops understanding of the whole creation, transcends death, and also guides others. Yet no one can describe the condition of the one who has made God's will one's own. People carry their deeds with them wherever they go, because one reaps what one has sown. The highest religion is universal brotherhood that considers all equals. Nanak sang that you should conquer your mind, for overcoming self is victory over the world. Wealth and supernatural powers distract one from God. The world operates by the two opposite principles of union and separation. Everyone is judged according to one's actions. Jap Ji concludes,

Make chastity your furnace, patience your smithy,
The Master's word your anvil, and true knowledge your hammer.
Make awe of God your bellows and with it kindle the fire of austerity,
And in the crucible of love, melt the nectar Divine,
Only in such a mint, can man be cast into the Word.
But they alone who are favored by Him, can take unto this Path,
O Nanak, on whom He looks with Grace, He fills with Everlasting Peace.

Air is the Master, Water the father, and the Earth the mother,
Day and night are the two nurses in whose lap the whole world is at play.
Our actions: good and evil, will be brought before His court,
And by our own deeds, shall we move higher or be cast into the depths.
Those who have communed with the Word, their toils shall end.
And their faces shall flame with glory,
Not only shall they have salvation,
O Nanak, but many more shall find freedom with them.4

In the musical Asa di Var Nanak emphasized the oneness of God, the importance of repeating the divine Name and completely surrendering to God's will. He believed that only God and the Guru are without error. A record is kept of everyone's actions. The virtuous are treated well and remain in heaven, but the sinners transmigrate for the punishment that may educate them. Nanak advised his followers to give charity secretly and be humble. God frees people through the true Guru. Faithful disciples worship God patiently, shun evil, eat and drink moderately, and are detached from the world. Love and humility are the most essential qualities of worship. God's justice is impartial to all, rich or poor, high or low. Nanak also used Kabir's metaphor of God as his beloved husband in his Bara Maha that poetically describes the months of the year and the communion of disciples with God.

Nanak showed the way by which all people could escape from the misery of a selfish life and reincarnation. The divine order (Hukam) can be perceived when the Guru awakens in the person the voice of God within. The sound of this Word (Shabd) or Name (Nam) of God can be heard in loving meditation so that the essence of God and the creation is communicated through human experience. By practicing this discipline (Simran) the devotee ascends to higher levels until the ineffable oneness of God is attained. Like Kabir, Nanak rejected all external forms of rituals, ceremonies, caste distinctions, scriptures, and all the dualities of the human mind. Because all are equal, one should not fear any human being but only God. Nanak fostered community kitchens in Sikh temples so that all devotees regardless of caste could eat free meals together. His religion was also equally available to women.

Nanak believed that God is personal and that one can have a personal relationship with God, but he did not worship incarnations of God such as avatars or anthropomorphic conceptions. Asceticism, celibacy, penance, and fasting do not necessarily bring one closer to God. The inward way is open to all, including those with a family life. For Nanak the one God is both nirguna and saguna, meaning both absolute and conditioned, both manifest and unmanifest. The selfishness (haumai) of lust, anger, avarice, attachment, and pride must be overcome. The Guru is the ladder or the vehicle by which one reaches God. Nanak recognized the law of karma by which individuals reap what they sow, and the goal is to attain liberation from the cycle of reincarnation. The grace of God enables one to transcend the law of karma and become free. Loving meditation on God is the way to do this. Like Jesus, Nanak compared the name of God to a seed that must be planted in the field of the body, plowed by the mind through actions, irrigated with effort, leveled with contentment, and fenced with humility.

Nanak described an ascent through five stages. The first is realizing one's connection with God and beginning discipline; the second is acquiring knowledge and understanding; the third is effort; the fourth is God's grace that comes to the fully devoted disciple; and the fifth is truth and the merging of the disciple into the one God. The discipline of Simran means being devoted to the good and also implies good actions. Nanak wrote that among the low his caste was the lowest, and he proclaimed that God lives in all souls. For Nanak the good person is free of hatred and malice, never thinks one is wronged, resists evil, injustice, and tyranny, and looks on all others as superiors. One should earn one's living by labor and share those earnings with those in need. He noted that all humans are conceived and born from women. Nanak criticized the custom of sati. A sati is one who dies from the shock of her husband's death, not by climbing on her husband's funeral pyre.

Notes
1. Elliot, H. M., The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians, Vol. 3, p. 436.
2. Shaikh Hamadani, Zakhirat ul-Mulik, folios 94a-95a quoted in Sources of Indian Tradition, Vol. 1, p. 481-482 and in The Delhi Sultanate, p. 619-620.
3. Nabhadas, Bhaktamal, Chhappaya 60 quoted in Sethi, V. K., Kabir: The Weaver of God's Name, p. 4.
4. Nanak, Guru, Jap Ji tr. Kirpal Singh. Delhi, 1972, p. 164-165.
5. Quoted in The Mughul Empire ed. R. C. Majumdar, p. 115.
6. Ain-I-Akbari III, p. 383, 384 quoted in Krishnamurti, R., Akbar: The Religious Aspect, p. 97-98.


Copyright © 2004 by Sanderson Beck
This chapter has been published in the book INDIA & Southeast Asia to 1800.
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Vedas and Upanishads
Mahavira and Jainism
Buddha and Buddhism
Political and Social Ethics of India
Hindu Philosophy
Literature of India
India 30 BC to 1300
Delhi Sultans and Rajas 1300-1526
Mughal Empire 1526-1707
Marathas and the English Company 1707-1800
British India 1800-1848
British India's Wars 1848-1881
India's Renaissance 1881-1905
India's Freedom Struggle 1905-1918
Gandhi and India 1919-1941
Tibet, Nepal, and Ceylon 1800-1941
Burma, Malaya, and the British 1800-1941
Siam, Cambodia, and Laos 1800-1941
Vietnam and the French 1800-1941
Indonesia under the Dutch 1800-1941
Philippines under Spain and the US 1800-1941
Pacific Islands to 1875
Summary and Evaluation
Bibliography
ETHICS OF CIVILIZATION Index
BECK index

BECK index
                                      Mughal Empire 1526-1707
Mughal Conquest of India 1526-56
Akbar's Tolerant Empire 1556-1605
Jahangir and Shah Jahan 1605-58
Aurangzeb's Intolerant Empire 1658-1707
Kashmir and Tibet 1526-1707
Southern India 1526-1707
European Trade with Mughal India
Tulsidas and Maharashtra Mystics
Sikhs 1539-1708
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Mughal Conquest of India 1526-56
Delhi Sultanate 1300-1526
Independent North India 1401-1526
Zahir ud-Din Muhammad Babur was the founder of the Mughal empire in India. His father was a direct descendant of the powerful Timur, and his mother was from the family of Genghis Khan. Babur was born February 14, 1483 and was only eleven when he inherited his father's kingdom of Farghana (in modern Uzbekistan). It took him three years to win control of Samarqand from his cousin. A rebellion at Farghana caused him to lose both, but Babar regained Farghana in 1498 and Samarqand two years later from the Uzbek chief Shaibani Khan. His struggle with the Uzbeks kept Babur busy for a dozen years. With help from Mongols, Babur crossed the Hindu Kush and conquered Kabul in 1504. The next year he went through the Khyber Pass, crossed the Indus and raided the Afghans near Tarbila. In 1507 Shaibani Khan attacked Khurasan and captured Herat. Babur left Qandahar and went east on a second raid. When Shaibani withdrew from Qandahar, Babur proclaimed himself Padishah (Emperor). Iran's Safavid ruler Shah Isma'il defeated the army of Shaibani, who was killed in 1510. Babur made an alliance with the Persians, who helped him take Bukhara. His cousin had driven away the Uzbeks, and Babur marched into Samarqand. Uzbeks led by Shaibani's nephew did defeat Babur twice at Bukhara in 1512. Babur retired to Kabul, and little is known of him until he began his conquest of India in 1519.

In his Memoirs Babur wrote that he invaded India five times. A prince once quoted Sa'di that ten dervishes can sleep on one rug, but two princes cannot rest in one climate. Babur replied that a dervish given a loaf of bread would share half of it; but a prince gaining a country would covet another. He returned from Peshawar in order to secure Kabul and besiege Qandahar, which finally surrendered in 1522. Two years later Babur crossed the Indus and defeated the Lodi's Afghan army near Lahore. Daulat Khan was not satisfied with what Babur gave him, but Dilawar Khan accepted rule over Sultanpur; 'Alam Khan claimed the Delhi crown and was given Dipalpur. When Daulat Khan took Dipalpur, 'Alam Khan fled to Kabul and ceded Lahore to Babur; but while Babur was fighting the Uzbeks, 'Alam Khan joined Daulat Khan and attacked Ibrahim Lodi's camp at Delhi. However, their army was routed and dispersed as 'Alam Khan escaped.

When Babur marched on Delhi, he wrote that he had an army of 12,000; but some say he had twice that with the Indians that had joined. Babur may have exaggerated the army of Ibrahim Lodi which he estimated at 100,000 with a thousand elephants. Babur used at least two cannons and match-lock guns when he won the important battle at Panipat in 1526. Ibrahim Lodi and 15,000 of his men were killed. Babur was proclaimed emperor of Hindustan and went from Delhi to Agra, which his son Humayun had captured. Babur sent Humayun to fight the Rajputs, and he took Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Kalpi, and Gwalior. In another major battle Babur's army defeated 80,000 Rajputs led by Rana Sanga of Mewar at Khanua in 1527. In Malwa the leader Medini Rai fought desperately as Chanderi was taken by force in January 1528. Biban defeated a Mughal force and escaped to Bengal, and in the east Ibrahim's brother Mahmud Lodi in Bihar gathered an army of 100,000. In his third major victory Babur defeated them at Gogra after crossing the Ganges in 1529. Babur wrote his Memoirs and some poetry in Turki, poems in Persian, and a treatise on Islamic law. Babur's son Humayun became ill; but the ailing Babur offered his life for his son's and died on December 30, 1530. Humayun recovered and became the second Mughal emperor.

Babur's dying advice to Humayun was to be generous to his brothers. Kamran governed Kabul and Qandahar; Askari and Hindal were allowed to administer portions of India. Within a year Askari had helped Kamran take over the Punjab from Humayun's governor. In Gujarat after Muzaffar II's son Sikander was murdered, his brother Bahadur Shah came out of exile, executed the murderer, and gained the throne of Gujarat by sending a force to defeat and kill his brother Latif Khan. In 1528 Sultan Bahadur Shah invaded the Deccan, returning to Ahmadabad two years later. The Portuguese attacked the coast of Gujarat in 1530 but could not capture the island of Diu. Gujarat's Bahadur Shah annexed Malwa and besieged the Rajput fortress of Chitor.

When Humayun defeated rebelling Afghans in 1532, Sher Khan came over to his side. The aggressive Bahadur Shah took over Malwa and forced the Rana of Mewat to submit in 1533. His Gujarat army captured Chitor in 1535; the women and children burned themselves in jauhar, and the last men fought to their deaths. Bahadur tried to maintain friendly relations with both the Sur house and the Mughal Humayun; but his Gujarat and Malwa armies were destroyed trying to keep Humayun out of Malwa in 1535. Humayun then invaded Gujarat and took the Champaner fort with immense treasure, chasing Bahadur Shah all the way to the island of Diu. Bahadur Shah resumed ruling Gujarat after the Mughals left in May 1536, but the next year he was lured into a meeting with the Portuguese and was killed trying to escape. Bahadur Shah had no heir, and the Portuguese took Diu during the struggle for power in Gujarat. With help from a Turkish armada of 66 ships the Gujarat army attacked Diu in 1538, but conflicts between their generals resulted in defeat and departure of the Turks. Mewar's Maharana Vikramaditya had fled Chitor but upon returning was murdered by Vanavir in 1536. Vanavir also tried to murder the prince Uday Singh, but his loyal nurse helped him escape and let Vanavir kill her own son in his place. Uday Singh gathered forces and ended Vanavir's usurpation by defeating him near Maholi in 1540. Uday Singh fought futile wars with Marwar's Maldev.


Farid was named Sher Khan for having killed a tiger. He rose to become the governor of Bihar and defeated an attack from Bengal. While Humayun was in Gujarat, Sher Khan gained part of Bengal and much gold when Mahmud Shah sued for peace. In 1537 Sher Shah invaded Bengal and besieged Gaur, reducing it while Humayun was besieging Chunar. While Humayun entered Gaur in 1538, Sher Shah took over Mughal territories in north Bihar, Jaunpur, and Kanauj, blocking Humayun from Delhi as Hindal retreated and claimed the throne, heading toward Delhi; but his brother Kamran made Hindal submit at Agra. When Humayun tried to go to Agra, he was defeated by Sher Khan and his Afghan fighters in 1539. Humayun barely survived, and his demoralized Mughal army was defeated again by Sher Khan the next year at Kanauj.

Humayun escaped and went to Lahore while Sher Khan went back to Gaur to destroy the remnant of the Mughal army and imprison a rebelling governor. Sher Khan became Sher Shah and organized his empire while Humayun, unable to get help from his brothers, fled all the way to the Safavid court in Iran. After subjugating Malwa in 1542, Sher Shah invaded central India. He promised to let those capitulating at Fort Raisin go unmolested, but the Afghans treacherously attacked the Rajputs, who killed their own women and children to protect them from disgrace. Sher Shah also used forged letters before defeating Marwar ruler Maldev in a bloody battle in 1544. While capturing a fort in Kalinjar, Sher Shah was killed by a gunpowder explosion in 1545.

Sher Shah has been admired by many for setting up a brilliant administrative system. He held centralized power but divided the empire into 47 sarkars for administration. Each sarkar was made up of villages that each had two officers, a treasurer, a writer of Hindi, and a writer of Persian to keep accounts. Sher Shah was experienced at surveying land. Considering agriculture most important, he made sure farmers had what they needed, though he taxed them at one-fourth of their produce, preferably in cash. The coins he minted became the standard for centuries. He reformed tariffs by having customs collected only at frontiers and places of sale. Several long roads were built and were lined with shade trees and provided with rest stations that also served as post-houses for communication. Local leaders were expected to police their communities or face the consequences. Sher Shah administered justice equally to high and low, judging many cases himself. He disciplined soldiers and reduced corruption by paying fair salaries. Sher Shah's energetic leadership is strongly contrasted to the indolent Humayun, who was criticized for letting opium delay his actions.

Sher Shah was succeeded by his son Jalal Khan, who took the name Islam Shah Sur and continued his father's administrative system. However, he suspected that his older brother 'Adil Khan wanted the throne. Islam Shah had already put to death Kalinjar's Kirat Singh and seventy of his officers. When Islam Shah tried to arrest 'Adil Khan, he fled. So many were imprisoned and had their property confiscated that nobles became suspicious, and tribal jealousies revived, especially among the Niyazis, who retreated to Kashmir but were annihilated by the Chak tribe.

In 1545 Humayun promised to promote the Shi'a faith and was given 14,000 Persian soldiers. They besieged Qandahar, and Bairam Khan was sent to Kabul, where Askari surrendered. The Persians took over Qandahar and would not help Humayun; so he broke his agreement and drove them out. Hindal joined Humayun as he headed back to Kabul, and his other brother Kamran fled after many of his men deserted to Humayun. He and Kamran fought over Kabul for several years until Humayun had Kamran blinded and sent to Mecca in 1553. When ailing Islam Shah learned that Humayun had crossed the Indus, he went to meet him but died in Gwalior in 1554. His 12-year-old son Firuz Shah was murdered by Sher Shah's brother Nizam, who seized the throne as Muhammad 'Adil Shah. He vainly tried to win loyalty from the Afghan nobles by bestowing treasure and titles, but he aroused their fears by executing two of his supporters. This caused the empire to break into regions ruled by his relatives. Ibrahim Khan Sur attacked 'Adil Shah and captured Delhi. Though outnumbered, Sikander Shah came from the Punjab and defeated Ibrahim Shah to take Delhi and Agra in 1555.

At the same time Humayun invaded India and captured Lahore. Like his father Babur, Humayun had cut down on his use of opium, renounced alcohol, and even became a vegetarian for a year in order to purify himself for his conquest. Sikandar sent 30,000 cavalry; but they were defeated by the Mughal archers led by Bairam Khan. Sikandar Shah himself led 80,000 cavalry, but he was defeated by the smaller Mughal army led by Humayun at Sirhind. 'Adil Shah's general Himu defeated Ibrahim's Afghans and then Bengal's Shams-ud-din Muhammad Shah, whose army was also on the march. Humayun occupied Delhi and Agra in July; but on January 24, 1556, he fell down the stairs of his Delhi library and died.


After Muzaffar II's son Sikander was murdered, another son Bahadur Shah came out of exile, executed the murderer, and gained the throne of Gujarat by sending a force to defeat and kill his brother Latif Khan. In 1528 Sultan Bahadur Shah invaded the Deccan, returning to Ahmadabad two years later. The Portuguese attacked the coast of Gujarat in 1530 but could not capture the island of Diu. The aggressive Bahadur Shah also took over Malwa and forced the Rana of Mewat to submit in 1533. He tried to maintain friendly relations with both the Sur house and the Mughal Humayun; but his Gujarat and Malwa armies were destroyed trying to keep Humayun out of Malwa in 1535. Humayun then invaded Gujarat and took the Champaner fort with immense treasure. Bahadur Shah resumed ruling Gujarat after the Mughals left in May 1536, but the next year he was lured into a meeting with the Portuguese and was killed trying to escape. Bahadur Shah had no heir, and the Portuguese took Diu during the struggle for power in Gujarat. With help from a Turkish armada of 66 ships the Gujarat army attacked Diu in 1538, but conflicts between their generals resulted in defeat and departure of the Turks.

Akbar's Tolerant Empire 1556-1605
Humayun's 13-year-old son Akbar was in the Punjab when his father died but was proclaimed emperor. The Hindu general Himu occupied Agra and took Delhi from its governor Tardi Beg, proclaiming himself Raja Vikramaditya. Bairam Khan executed Tardi Beg while Akbar was hunting. In November 1556 Himu's army outnumbered the Mughal forces at Panipat; but after an arrow penetrated his eye, Akbar's army was victorious, capturing Himu's 1500 elephants. Bairam Khan and Akbar beheaded Himu. Young Akbar entered Delhi, and Bairam Khan sent Pir Muhammad to gain Himu's treasure and to drive Haji Khan out of Alwar. Akbar and Bairam Khan forced Sikandur Sur to leave the Mankot fort and flee to Bengal, and then they occupied Lahore and gained Multan in the Punjab. A Mughal siege of Gwalior for a year forced it to surrender in early 1558. After gaining Ajmer, the gateway to Rajasthan, Akbar returned to Delhi. The remaining Sur prince Ibrahim was defeated, and Jaunpur was annexed. Bairam Khan aroused resentment by dismissing his rival Pir Muhammad and appointing a Shi'a theologian as religious minister. Using his female relatives, in 1560 Akbar was able to remove Bairam Khan, who agreed to go on pilgrimage to Mecca. He resented being packed off by Pir Muhammad and had to be defeated by Atga Khan. On his way through Gujarat, Bairam Khan was murdered by an Afghan avenging his father's death.

Adham Khan and Pir Muhammad led the invasion of Malwa. When Adham Khan did not send the spoils to Akbar, the young Emperor went to make sure he did. Akbar did the same thing to Khan Zaman after he defeated some Afghans. In 1562 Akbar made a pilgrimage to Ajmer and married a Hindu princess. Akbar abolished the enslavement and forced conversion to Islam of war prisoners and their families. After the murder of prime minister Atga Khan, Akbar hit Adham Khan with his fist and had him thrown from a terrace twice so that he was dead. The Emperor re-appointed Mun'im Khan; but to make sure no one person controlled him, Akbar made the decisions and had them carried out by four ministers for financial, military, judicial and religious affairs, and household, which included buildings, roads, and canals. He ended pilgrimage taxes on Hindus and the hated jiziya poll tax on non-Muslims. Akbar fell in love with the beautiful wife of Shaikh 'Abdul-Wasi at Delhi and reminded him that according to the law of Genghis Khan, a husband must divorce any woman the Emperor desired. The Shaikh did so, and at her urging Akbar began searching for other noble beauties. This angered his subjects so much that the Emperor was wounded by an arrow in an assassination attempt. After that, Akbar no longer molested the wives and daughters of his subjects.

Akbar was intent on creating an empire. Among his "Happy Sayings" he wrote, "A monarch should be ever intent on conquest; otherwise his enemies rise in arms against him."5 He sent Kara governor Asaf Khan to subdue the kingdom of Gondwana in 1564, but he too failed to send all the captured elephants to Akbar. That year while Akbar married a Khandesh princess, another Uzbek, Malwa governor Abdullah Khan, revolted. Khan Zaman was descended from Babur's Uzbek nemesis Shaibani, and he resented the Persians at Akbar's court. After defeating Afghans in Bihar, Khan Zaman dismissed Akbar's messengers. Iskandar Khan and Ibrahim Khan joined the Uzbek revolt and defeated a Mughal army at Kanauj. Akbar marched out of Agra with a large army to chastise the Uzbeks but forgave them in 1566 when Khan Zaman negotiated. When Akbar's half-brother Muhammad Hakim was driven out of Kabul by a Badakshani army, Timurid nobles proclaimed him emperor and attacked Delhi while Hakim was besieging Lahore. Loyal Mughals forced the Timurid princes (Mirzas) to retreat to Mewar and Rajasthan while Akbar forced his brother Hakim to fall back to Kabul. Akbar then attacked the Uzbeks by the Ganges; Khan Zaman was killed, and Bahadur Khan was captured and executed. Akbar marched to Allahabad and sacked Benares for closing its gates to him.

Nobles struggled for power in Gujarat as the boy Sultan Mahmud III was on the throne. A second siege of Diu had failed in 1547. Mahmud was kind to Muslims but oppressed the Hindus. In 1554 the young noble Burhan and his attendants murdered Mahmud, his prime minister Asafkhan, and twelve nobles; but Burhan was quickly cut down while sitting on the throne. I'timad Khan acted as regent for the young Sultan Ahmad Shah III. When Khandesh sultan Mubarak Shah invaded and tried to claim the throne of Gujarat, Nasir-ul-mulk took the opportunity to capture Ahmadabad; but I'timad Khan with help from Saiyad Mubarak managed to regain control. I'timad Khan did not like Ahmad Shah mixing with foreigners and had him killed in 1561, replacing him with a twelve-year-old named Muzaffar Shah III. I'timad Khan tried to deflect the powerful Changiz Khan by suggesting he invade Nandurbar, and he did so; but after failing to take Thalner, Changiz Khan turned his army on Ahmadabad and defeated I'timad Khan in 1567. Changiz Khan was murdered by Jhujhar Khan while playing polo, and I'timad Khan returned to power the next year. The death of Saiyad Miran in 1572 caused dissension in Gujarat, enabling Akbar's Mughal army to invade and take over the country. I'timad Khan and other nobles were named governors, and Akbar departed; but he had to come back the next year and defeated a larger force, ending Gujarat independence in 1573.

Akbar had his army encircle an area sixty miles in diameter near Lahore and herd the wild animals together. In five days about 15,000 animals were killed by arrows, muskets, spears, and swords. At Thanesar the Emperor observed a spectacle in which 300 feuding Sanyasis defeated 500 rival Jogis in a performance battle in which many were killed. When Akbar besieged Mewar's capital of Chitor in 1567, Maharana Udai Singh fled to the hills. After Akbar killed Jaimall with a musket shot, Rajput women sacrificed themselves in the fire of jauhar. As the fortress of Chitor fell, 30,000 were slaughtered, according to Abul Fazl's estimate. Kaviraj Shyamaldas reported that 39,000 died fighting, and Akbar executed the remaining one thousand. A thousand Kalpi musketeers managed to escape by pretending they were Mughals removing prisoners. Using such force as well as diplomacy, Akbar was able to bring the Rajputs into his empire. In 1569 Ranthambhor and Kalinjar submitted, and the next year Akbar married Bikaner and Jaisalmer princesses. Mewar's Udai Singh died in 1572, but his son Pratap raised a large army that was defeated by the Mughals in 1576 at Haldighat. Pratap escaped and survived until 1597, but Mewar suffered as he ordered killed any farmer who cultivated food for the occupying Mughal army. The fortresses of Chitor and Ranthambhor were added to the imperial bulwarks at Lahore, Agra, Allahabad, and Ajmer.

Two sons were born to Akbar in Sikri near Agra. The Emperor came there often to visit the Sufi saint Salim Chisti, who died in 1571. That year Akbar decided to make Sikri his capital. The next year he invaded Gujarat and occupied its capital Ahmadabad. Akbar had to go back in 1573 and with a force of only 3,000 overcame 15,000. Controlling Gujarat had great economic benefits and opened the way to sea voyages for Mecca pilgrimages. The Emperor instituted several reforms. Horses were branded according to the Khalji fashion revised by Sher Shah. Land assignments were changed into reserves, but this experiment lasted only five years. Officers were ranked in 33 grades according to how many horsemen they commanded from ten to 10,000, making local officers responsible for recruiting, pay, and command. Akbar urged his judges to be lenient with people, because sometimes they are hardened by punishment. When Afghan Sulaiman Karrani's son Daud Karrani became ruler of Bengal in 1572, he no longer recognized the authority of Akbar, who invaded in 1574. Daud fled to Orissa, where Akbar's general Mun'im Khan defeated him at Tukaroi. Daud tried to recover Bengal the next year but was defeated and killed in 1576. Yet Bengal nobles and Afghans continued to resist Mughal domination for the next thirty years of Akbar's reign, and Orissa was not annexed until 1592.

At Sikri in 1575 Akbar began sponsoring Thursday night debates on religion and theology in a House of Worship he had built; at first they concentrated on Islam. Akbar inquired into the behavior of religious authorities. Abdulla of Sultanpur shifted his wealth into his wife's hands temporarily in order to avoid giving the annual fortieth to charity. In another "monstrous slaughter" of wild animals that had been encircled in 1578 Akbar suddenly canceled the hunt and ordered all the animals set free; in a spiritual frenzy he distributed charity and gave gold to faqirs. Now Akbar included philosophers, Hindus, materialists, Jains, Christians, Jews, and Parsis in the discussions. Reason was used to examine various practices of the religions. Akbar had difficulty accepting Christianity's doctrines of the trinity and the incarnation. He eclectically accepted what was common to most religions while rejecting what was not essential. Here are a few of his sayings:

1. The source of misery is self-aggrandizement and unlawful desires.
2. The sorrows of men arise from their seeking their fortune before its destined time, or above what is decreed for them.
3. The concerns of men are personal to themselves, but through the predominance of greed and passion they intrude upon others.
4. Clemency and benevolence are the source of happiness and length of days.
5. The difficulty is to live in the world and refrain from evil, for the life of a recluse is one of bodily ease.
6. Men through blindness do not observe what is around them intent only on their own advantage.6

In 1579 Akbar removed the leading preacher and had himself proclaimed the supreme arbiter of all religious issues, making the reluctant Islamic legal scholars ('ulamas) sign the document. He came to believe in reincarnation, and under Zoroastrian influence he established sacred fire in the palace. Yet he disliked the dualism of light and dark, doubting the existence of Satan. He was influenced by Sufi Suhrawardi's theology of illumination and even began worshipping the sun by facing east in prayer. Akbar investigated and reformed previous pious land grants. The prohibition against repairing or building new temples was revoked as was the death penalty for apostatizing Muslims, who had been forcibly converted. Akbar's religious policy was known as universal toleration. As Hindus were appointed to high positions, Muslims became more resentful.

The revolt broke out in Bengal and Bihar, where Governor Muzaffar Khan Turbati reduced the pay of troops, enforced the branding of horses to prevent fraud, and revoked the unauthorized alienation of land. Early in 1580 Bengal officers proclaimed Akbar's half brother Mirza Hakim of Kabul emperor, and the chief judge in Jaunpur called upon Muslims to rise against Akbar. Loyal Mughal troops quickly regained Bihar, and Akbar led an army of 50,000 horsemen that drove Hakim out of Kabul. Akbar forgave his brother, but Kabul remained a problem until Hakim died in 1585. Resistance in Bihar and Bengal continued until the Afghans finally made peace in 1586, and the remaining rebels were crushed the next year. In 1582 finance minister Todar Mall revised the revenue system for surveying lands and fixing rates to make them more consistent. Akbar had divided his empire into twelve provinces, but this was increased to fifteen by the end of his reign as Berar, Khandesh, and Ahmadnagar were added.

Two Jesuit priests were invited from Goa in 1580, and Antonio Monserrate tutored Akbar's son Murad. The unorthodox Akbar stopped sponsoring caravans to Mecca. Two years later a Jain delegation persuaded him to renounce hunting, abstain from eating meat most of the year, and greatly limit the days on which animals could be slaughtered. After summoning a general council, Akbar wrote and promulgated his Divine Faith (Din-I-Ilahi) that suggested a rational and ethical mysticism without priests and books. Akbar apparently did not read but had things read to him. Since the empire had only one head, he believed it also should have one set of religious laws for all. The goal was union of the soul with God, and the ethics called for giving charity, sparing animals, permitting widows to remarry, and prohibiting child marriage, incest and forced sati. He encouraged monogamy, chastity, and restrictions on gambling and drinking. Akbar's new faith only gained about two dozen prominent converts. Like the initiation of Sufis to their masters, disciples had to place their head on the Emperor's feet and swear they would sacrifice their life, property, religion, and honor to serve their master. Disciples were to follow Akbar's rule of universal toleration for all religions.

The Dabistan lists ten virtues Akbar recommended that can be summarized as liberality, patience, abstinence from worldly desires, freedom from violence and acquisitiveness, meditating on the consequence of actions, prudence, gentle speaking, giving precedence to others, valuing the Supreme Being more than creatures, purifying the soul and yearning for God by limiting eating, drinking, dress, and marriage. Akbar also advised refraining from lust, sensuality, slaughter, deceit, oppression, intimidation, foolishness, and hunting. It is clear that he emphasized ethics more than rituals, worship, and belief. One did not have to give up one's own religion in order to adopt Akbar's Divine Faith. The purpose of gaining disciples was to instruct them in the service of God, not to gain personal attendants.

Akbar called his religious system Divine Monotheism. He conceived of the one God as a power and essence that is omnipresent as well as a personal being. Reason was the main faculty Akbar advised people to employ. Knowledge from books he considered worse than useless if it is not applied in an active life of good works. The extremes of asceticism and indulgence in worldly pleasures should be avoided. He rejected pre-ordained rewards in heaven or punishments in hell. Rather he believed in the transmigration of souls and their gradual evolution that provide complex rewards and punishments beyond human comprehension. Akbar agreed with Abul Fazl's Sufi conception of the soul as a divine essence. The goal of life is to find spiritual perfection, and Akbar did recommend prayer and meditation. Yet in response to a drought in 1574 he had suggested that the omniscient Creator already knows our every thought, and his mercy does not depend on our appeals.

Akbar transferred his capital to Lahore in 1585. The next year a Mughal army of 5,000 invaded and annexed Kashmir; but some rebels led by Yaqub did not surrender until Akbar went to Srinigar in 1589. In 1586 Yusufzais and Mandars gave the Mughal army its worst defeat when they killed 8,000 retreating soldiers in the Karakar Pass. Akbar promised not to intervene as the Uzbeks invaded Safavid Khurasan, and the Uzbek king Abdullah Khan said he would not support the Afghan tribes. Akbar maintained friendly relations with the Uzbeks and also Persian Shah 'Abbas (r. 1587-1629) by being neutral in their conflicts. The trade route from Kabul through the Khyber Pass provided Lahore markets with horses, fruit, silk, porcelain, and precious metals in exchange for Indian spices, textiles, and other goods. In 1590 Akbar appointed Khan Khanan to govern Multan and conquer Sind. In 1595 the Persian commandant of Qandahar defected to the Mughals, and 'Abdullah Khan surrendered it to Akbar. The northern portion of the empire was also secured that year as Baluchistan was annexed. The Uzbeks ceased to be a threat when 'Abdullah Khan died in 1598.

Akbar began his Deccan campaign by sending envoys to Khandesh, Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, and Golconda in 1591. The Ahmadnagar Sultanate was invaded by Prince Murad in 1595. The war was prolonged, and commander Murad died of alcoholism in 1599. In his last campaign Akbar led the army that stormed the fortress of Ahmadnagar in 1600. The Emperor then invaded Khandesh, which surrendered the next year. Akbar appointed his son Daniyal viceroy of the Deccan. While Akbar was in the south, his oldest son Salim tried to seize the fortress at Agra but failed to take it. After Akbar returned to Agra, Salim marched 30,000 cavalry against the capital. His father wrote him a letter offering him Bengal and Orissa, but Salim returned to Allahabad. In 1602 the Emperor sent his biographer Abul Fazl, but Salim had him attacked and killed. Empress Salima Sultan Begam and other women made peace between father and son, and Salim returned to court in 1604. He was temporarily denied opium and wine but succeeded after Akbar's death in October 1605.

In Mughal society the Emperor was all powerful as the supreme state authority making the laws, commanding the military, and overseeing the judicial system. Akbar also became the supreme religious authority and no longer deferred to the Caliph. Muslims still maintained an aristocratic and wealthy class over the Hindu castes, but their lands and titles were not hereditary. This often resulted in less care for their estates. Many slaves served them, and nobles could retreat into their private harems of women. The chief cities of India were considered as wealthy as any in Europe.

Jahangir and Shah Jahan 1605-58
A week after his father's death, Salim took the throne as Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27). To win popular support he immediately issued twelve edicts to do the following:

1. Certain local taxes are to be prohibited.
2. Wells are to be dug and cultivation promoted in poor areas where theft has been common.
3. Packages of merchants and inheritances are to be protected.
4. Making or selling liquor is prohibited although he admitted he has been drinking since he was eighteen.
5. Confiscating houses and mutilation punishments are banned.
6. Officers shall not seize lands by force.
7. The royal treasury will fund the building of hospitals and hiring of doctors.
8. In honor of his father animals are not to be slaughtered on Thursdays or Sundays.
9. Sunday is to be respected as the first day of creation.
10. Officers of his father's servants are confirmed.
11. Lands devoted to prayer are confirmed.
12. All prisoners are given amnesty and are to be released.

Some scholars doubt these edicts had much effect. The murderer of Abul Fazl was promoted. Shaykh Farid, known as Nawab Murtaza Khan, persuaded the new emperor to promise to uphold Islamic law. When he learned that Muslim girls were marrying Hindus and converting, he prohibited it. Yet he also made the forced conversion of Hundus illegal. Even though he drank and used opium himself, Jahangir prohibited the public sale of wine and bhang (cannabis), castration of children in Bengal and Assam, gambling, and sati (widow suicide). The Portuguese had introduced tobacco to India, and Jahangir banned smoking in 1618; but five years later Surat began exporting tobacco.

Jahangir's oldest son Khusrau had been favored by some to succeed Akbar, and he rebelled in 1606 by hiring an army of 12,000 with money he took from an imperial treasure caravan. They besieged Lahore, but Jahangir's imperial army soon forced them to scatter. Khusrau was caught and had to witness the impaling of his followers. The fifth Sikh guru Arjun refused to pay a fine and was tortured to death for having helped the fleeing Khusrau, who was imprisoned. Other Sikhs were apparently not persecuted because of this. However, Jains were accused of disturbances after their leader Man Singh supported Khusrau's rebellion. When Jahangir went to Kabul to direct the campaign against the Safavids at Qandahar, Khusrau plotted to assassinate his father. Several conspirators were executed, and the Emperor had his son blinded. However, Khusrau lived on in captivity and regained some sight.

Jahangir sent his son Parwiz to subdue Mewar, but the Sisodia ruler evaded the imperial army year after year. When Persia's Shah 'Abbas I had Qandahar besieged in 1606, Jahangir sent a Mughal army that chased them away. In 1611 Emperor Jahangir married a Persian widow of one of his officers who was given the name Nur Jahan, meaning "Light of the World," and as his favorite wife she became a very influential political leader. Her father Itimad-ud-daula became prime minister. In 1612 Jahangir's second son Khurram married the daughter of her brother Asaf Khan. Nur Jahan restrained Jahangir's drinking, and she supported his patronage of learning, art, and charity. As empress she handled more administrative work than he did, especially in his later years. She helped more than 500 destitute orphan girls get married. Jahingir had disciples who wore his picture, and he promoted the best commanders with noble titles and gifts.

In 1608 Islam Khan became governor of Bengal and moved to crush Musa Khan, leader of the twelve bhuiyas (landowners). The Mughal army captured Musa Khan's capital at Sonargaon in 1611, and three months later Musa Khan, his brothers, and allies submitted to the imperialists. Other rebelling Afghans in Bengal were finally defeated by imperial troops the next year, and Bengal was annexed to the Mughal empire as a province in 1613. That year Jahangir moved his capital from Agra to Ajmer, and he sent Khurram on a campaign into Rajasthan. Mewar women and children were captured and sold as slaves until Rana Amar Singh (r. 1597-1620) negotiated a peace with Khurram in 1614, promising not to repair the Chitor fortress. The Portuguese seized four Mughal ships in 1613, causing Jahangir to cancel their privileges and close the churches in Agra and Lahore; but within two years the Jesuits gained reconciliation. In the Deccan the states of Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, and Golconda fought each other during the first century of the Mughal empire. Guerrilla warfare by the Marathas that was ably led by the Abyssinian Malik 'Ambar kept the Mughals from securing Ahmadnagar. The southern boundary of the Mughal empire left by Akbar was not advanced until forces led by Khurram defeated Malik 'Ambar in 1616. However, guerrilla resistance continued after the main Mughal forces withdrew.

In 1615 Mughals used force to take over Khokhar diamond mines of Bihar, and in 1617 they annexed part of Orissa and Kishtwar, south of Kashmir. In the northeast Shan people had been moving down from Burma for two centuries. These Ahoms along the Brahmaputra River had become Hindus but without its caste and ritual restrictions. Ahom leaders mobilized their men into the military or used them as forced labor to build roads and irrigation systems. They fought annual battles against the Mughal armies in the northeastern jungles. Prince Khurram led the attacks on the petty kingdoms in the Himalayas and captured the Kangra fort in 1618.

Khurram refused to lead another Deccan campaign until Jahangir agreed to transfer Khusrau to the custody of Nur Jahan's brother Asaf Khan. While the Emperor toured Mandu and Gujarat for several years, his son Khurram got Malik 'Ambar to surrender control of Berar and Ahmadnagar. Nur Jahan countered the growing power of Khurram by marrying her daughter by a previous marriage to Jahangir's youngest son Shahryar in 1620. Malik 'Ambar renounced the treaty and encouraged Bijapur and Golconda to revolt against the Mughals. Khurram insisted that Khusrau accompany him, and within six months his army forced Bijapur and Golconda to pay indemnities. When he learned that Jahangir was ill in 1621, he had Khusrau secretly killed and reported that he had died of illness.

Nur Jahan lost an ally when her father died in January 1622. Two months later Persian shah Abbas besieged and captured Qandahar. Khurram refused to leave the Deccan unless he was given full command. So Jahangir sent his son Shahryar to Qandahar and gave him some of Khurram's jagir tax lands. Jahangir's imperial court was in Kashmir, and Khurram rebelled by leading his Deccan army north and was supported by Malwa and Gujarat; but Mahabat Khan's loyal army defeated the Deccan forces near Fathpur Sikri in 1623. Khurram retreated to Malwa and got one million rupees from the Gujarat treasury to re-supply his army. Jahangir and Nur Jahan moved the imperial army back to Ajmer, regained control of Gujarat and drove Khurram out of Malwa. Khurram retreated to Asir and Golconda. He won a battle to control Bengal briefly, but he was defeated near Allahabad. Khurram took refuge with his previous enemy Malik 'Ambar, who was fighting Bijapur and the Mughals. The depressed Khurram became ill; he agreed to become governor of the Deccan, surrendered two forts, and sent his sons Dara Shukoh and Aurangzeb as hostages to the Mughal court. After Malik 'Ambar died in 1626, Maharashtra fell into turmoil with numerous assassinations.

During this rebellion alcoholic Prince Parwiz was supported by Mahabat Khan and challenged Nur Jahan's hopes for Shahryar. She complained that Jahangir had not approved the marriage of Mahabat's daughter; the son-in-law was arrested and beaten, and the dowry was confiscated. Angry Mahabat led an army of 4,000 Rajput troops to the court and captured Emperor Jahangir and Nur Jahan. They proceeded to Kabul, where Nur Jahan and Asaf Khan mobilized troops and local nobles against the Rajputs. Jahangir pretended to comply; but when the Emperor was reviewing his troops, Mahabat Khan decided to flee to Khurram in the Deccan. Alcoholism caused the death of Prince Parwiz in 1626; he died in the Deccan, and some suspected Khurram. Jahangir went again to Kashmir to improve his health; but he died on his way back near Lahore in October 1627. Vizier Asaf Khan supported Khurram and took control of his mother Nur Jahan and her three young sons. He got nobles to proclaim Khusrau's young son Dawar Bakhsh as emperor. Shahryar used seven million rupees in the Lahore treasury to mobilize an army to fight his cousin; but he was defeated. Shahryar was captured and blinded. Khurram sent a message to Asaf Khan to blind or kill Shahryar, Dawar Bakhsh, and other male Timurid cousins. In January 1628 Asaf Khan imprisoned Dawar Bakhsh and proclaimed Khurram as Emperor Shah Jahan. Then he had his brother executed along with Shahryar and two nephews of Jahangir.


Shah Jahan made Asaf Khan vizier and Mahabat Khan governor of Ajmer. He ruled from the Agra fortress built by Akbar until his new imperial capital at Delhi called Shahjahanabad was completed in 1648. Afghan noble Khan Jahan Lodi had been close to Jahangir; but just before Jahangir's death it was reported that he had received 300 gold hun for persuading Mughal officials to give their positions over to Ahmadnagar officers and to retire to Burhanpur. In 1629 Khan Jahan Lodi and his family secretly fled to the Nizam Shah Murtaza II of Ahmadnagar. Shah Jahan sent three armies after him and moved his court to Burhanpur. Battles devastated the countryside, and famine followed. In 1630 Khan Jahan Lodi was defeated and fled toward the Punjab, but he was trapped and killed along with his two sons. An investigation also caused Bundela emir Jujhar Singh to flee the court, and the Mughal army killed 3,000 Bundela troops in battle. Shah Jahan pardoned Jujhar Singh, who paid an indemnity of 15 lakhs (1.5 million) rupees and forty war elephants. After Jujhar Singh raided his Gond neighbor in 1634, the Emperor sent another army led by his 16-year-old son Aurangzeb to invade Bundela. Two of Jujhar's sons and a grandson became Muslims; an older son who refused to convert was killed; and the fleeing Jujhar was killed by Gonds. The Gond raja was forced to pay an indemnity and an annual tribute of twenty elephants, and at Urchha the Mughals found the Bundela treasure worth ten million rupees. Shah Jahan ordered the massive Hindu temple of Bir Singh Dev demolished, and a mosque was built on the site.

Shah Jahan accepted orthodox Islam, and in 1633 he blocked the repair and construction of churches and Hindu temples. Conversion to Hinduism or Christianity was prohibited. The Mughal state sponsored two pilgrim ships from Gujarat to the Hijaz each year, and he sent two scholars with charity for the poor in Mecca and Medina. Shah Jahan abolished the extreme prostration that had been demanded at court by Akbar and Jahangir. Instead of discipleship he expected a family kind of loyalty from his officers and thus called them khanazads, meaning "born to the house." The Emperor commissioned the Peacock Throne that contained gems worth ten million rupees. After his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal died during childbirth in 1631, Shah Jahan ordered architects and builders to construct the famous Taj Mahal marble tomb that took seventeen years to complete. Intended as an allegory of the day of judgment, the gateways and gardens symbolize the celestial paradise. An even more ambitious building project, the palace fortress at Shahjahanabad, was begun in 1639 and cost six million silver rupees. Opposite the fortress the Jama Masjid mosque could contain thousands of worshipers. A free hospital and a religious school (madrasa) were built next to the mosque. During his reign the Mughal treasury funded building projects costing about 29 million rupees. Yet the expenditures for war were much greater than this.

Shah Jahan made Kasim 'Ali Khan governor of Bengal and ordered him to punish the Portuguese. His army besieged Hughli for three months in 1632 and captured the fort. Thousands of Portuguese were killed; prisoners had to accept Islam, and young women were put in harems. Prince Muhammad Shuja governed Bengal 1639-59. After Mahabat Khan, the Mughal governor of the Deccan, besieged and captured the Daulatabad fort to complete the conquest of Ahmadabad in 1633, the Shi'a state of Golconda recognized Mughal hegemony in 1635; but Shi'a Bijapur had to be invaded before they submitted. In 1637 Shah Jahan sent his son Aurangzeb to govern the Deccan, and the next year with an army he annexed the Rajput kingdom of Baglana. In Sind on the northwestern border, punitive campaigns killed and sold into slavery thousands from the Baluch and other tribes so that the Mughals could collect taxes in cash. Sufis controlling tombs and holy places were given tax-free land grants for mediating disputes on behalf of the Mughal empire. The murder of an Assamese Muslim trader in 1636 provoked an Ahom-Mughal war that after losses on both sides ended in a treaty two years later. Aurangzeb had financial difficulties in the Deccan and was dismissed in 1644, but he was appointed governor of Gujarat the next year.

When Uzbek ruler Nazar Muhammad Khan asked for Mughal aid in a civil war against his son Abdul Aziz, Shah Jahan sent his son Murad with an army of 60,000 men. In 1646 Murad and his co-commander Ali Mardan Khan occupied Balkh with little resistance and grabbed 12 million rupees in treasure. Prince Murad left after a month, and the Emperor sent his vizier Sa'dullah Khan, followed by Aurangzeb from Gujarat. Shah Jahan moved his court to Kabul for support. The Mughal army found they could not live off such barren land, because the grain fields and fruit orchards had been devastated by the civil war. In October 1647 Aurangzeb handed over Balkh to Nazar Muhammad Khan and retreated, as the Mughals suffered thousands of casualties from harassing Uzbeks and Turkmen tribes. Two years of war had only moved the northern Mughal border about fifty kilometers north of Kabul. Mughal records indicated that Shah Jahan spent forty million rupees trying to conquer kingdoms with revenues far less than that.

The Persian commander of Qandahar, Ali Mardan Khan, owed Persian shah Safi money and had switched sides to the Mughals in 1638. Shah Jahan gratefully accepted the valued caravan-route city and appointed him governor of Kashmir. After the Mughal disaster in Balkh, Persian shah Abbas II besieged Qandahar and reconquered it in 1649. In the next four years Shah Jahan launched three major campaigns against Qandahar; but their artillery was inadequate, and the cost of these failures was about thirty to forty thousand men killed and 35 million rupees.

In 1647 historian Abdul Hamid Lahori summarized the first twenty years of Shah Jahan's reign. The treasury accumulated by Akbar had been depleted by Jahangir. Shah Jahan put thirty million rupees or one-seventh of all revenues into the imperial treasury. His reserves in coin and jewelry grew to 95 million rupees. He had already spent about 25 million on building projects, and cash salaries for 200,000 cavalry and 40,000 musketeers cost 16 million rupees per year. Since the time of Akbar fifty years before, the Mughal empire had grown in size, population, and prosperity, doubling the total revenues. The Emperor, his sons, and other nobles had dominating power and wealth such that the top 73 persons controlled 37.6 percent of the total revenues in the empire. Of the top mansabdars, 353 were Muslims, and only ninety were Hindus.

In 1653 Aurangzeb went back to the Deccan as viceroy and found it in poor condition. With the help of Persian revenue officer Murshid Quli Khan they recruited leaders and settlers for deserted villages, and they gave loans for seed, cattle, digging wells, and constructing irrigation while assuring security. Within five years most of the land was being cultivated, and prosperity had been restored. The 1636 treaty allowed the states of Golconda and Bijapur to expand to the south, and both did so in the 1640s. The Persian merchant Muhammad Sa'id by trading diamonds and other gems rose to become the chief minister of Golconda and was given the title Mir Jumla. By letter Aurangzeb suggested to Mir Jumla that they could take over Golconda for the Mughal empire. When the Golconda sultan 'Abdullah Qutb Shah arrested his son for insolent behavior in 1655, Mir Jumla appealed to Aurangzeb, who got a letter from his father Shah Jahan demanding the son's release. Without waiting for a reply, Aurangzeb sent his son Muhammad Sultan to invade Golconda, and he entered Hyderabad in January 1656. 'Abdullah Qutb Shah appealed to Shah Jahan, and Prince Dara Shukoh persuaded the Emperor to make Aurangzeb withdraw his forces. Aurangzeb's son married 'Abdullah Qutb Shah's daughter, and Mir Jumla became Mughal vizier. When the Bijapur ruler 'Adil Shah died in November, Aurangzeb used the opportunity to take over this kingdom too even though it had not been a vassal state. Again Dara Shukoh and the Emperor persuaded Aurangzeb to restrain himself, and he merely extorted a war indemnity.

In September 1657 Shah Jahan fell ill with strangury and made his last will. All four of his sons by Mumtaz Mahal struggled for the Mughal throne. The oldest Dara Shukoh resided at court and was his father's favorite. He studied Vedanta, Talmud, the New Testament, and Sufi writings. He made Persian translations of the Atharva Veda and 52 Upanishads. He became a disciple of the Qadiri Sufis Mulla Mir (d. 1635) and Mullah Shah Badakshi (d. 1661). Dara's Persian book The Mingling of Two Oceans discussed the essential unity of Hinduism and Islam, and he had it translated into Sanskrit for Hindus. Dara also liked to hold discussions with three Jesuit priests and the Hindu saint Babalal Vairagi. Because of these activities the traditional 'ulama (Muslim scholars) considered him an apostate. The second son Muhammad Shuja governed Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, but he preferred an easy life. Aurangzeb studied the Qur'an, Islamic law, writings of al-Ghazali, and with Naqshbandi shaikhs but was an ambitious conqueror. The fourth son Murad Bakhsh governed Gujarat and Malwa, but he indulged in drinking.

Dara Shukoh tried to keep the Emperor's illness secret, but his censorship aroused suspicion. Shuja crowned himself at Rajmahal and moved toward Agra, but an army led by Dara's son Sulaiman Shukoh from Delhi forced him to flee. Murad also crowned himself and prepared for war in Gujarat. Aurangzeb was negotiating a peace treaty with Bijapur and wrote letters in cipher to Murad and Shuja, promising Murad the Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Sind. In February 1658 Aurangzeb began marching north with his Deccan army, which defeated Shah Jahan's army that retreated to Delhi. In 1654 Mewar's Raj Singh (r. 1652-80) had submitted to the Mughals and let Sa'dullah Khan destroy his fort at Chitor; but when he visited the court, Shah Jahan took four districts from him. So now when Aurangzeb promised to restore the four districts, Raj Singh supported him. Dara's reorganized army of 50,000 was defeated near Agra in April by Aurangzeb's superior artillery and tactics. Dara fled, and Aurangzeb besieged his father in the Agra fort, depriving him of water until he surrendered on June 8. Dara went to Lahore, and Aurangzeb pursued him. He invited Murad to his camp for dinner and took him prisoner on June 25.

Aurangzeb's Intolerant Empire 1658-1707
Aurangzeb crowned himself at Delhi on July 21, 1658, calling himself 'Alamgir, meaning "Conqueror of the World." Prince Dara Shukoh fled south to Gujarat while Aurangzeb defeated Shuja's Bengal army in December. Dara acquired funds and 20,000 men in Gujarat, but they were defeated by Aurangzeb's army in March 1659. Aurangzeb ascended his father's throne at Shahjahanabad in June. Dara was caught and condemned by the 'ulama for apostasy and idolatry before he and his youngest son were executed on August 30. Shuja fled to Arakan, where he was killed for plotting against its king in 1660. After an attempted rescue of Murad in 1661, he was beheaded for a murder he had previously committed. Suleiman Shukoh was captured and drugged with opium until he died in 1662. The civil war depressed the revenues of the empire, and limited rainfall resulted in famine. Aurangzeb ordered free kitchens in the cities to dispense cooked food. Shah Jahan remained a prisoner until he died in 1666. A revolt in Palamau by Daud Khan in 1661 was put down, and it became a district of the Bihar province.

During the civil war, in the northeast Kuch Bihar ruler Prem Narayan rebelled, and Ahom king Jayadhwaj Sinha invaded Kamrup and occupied Gauhati. In 1660 Aurangzeb sent Mir Jumla to govern Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. He reorganized the administration to increase revenue and imposed Mughal authority, moving the provincial capital east from Rajmahal to Dacca. In November 1661 Mir Jumla declared holy war on Assam with 42,000 men and several hundred ships. The Kuch Bihar ruler fled from Kathalbari, which Mir Jumla renamed Alamgirnagar as the capital of the annexed kingdom. The raja's son converted to Islam to serve the Mughals. The Mughal army marched on to Kamrup and seized the Ahom capital at Garghaon in March 1662, as the Ahom ruler fled, leaving behind granaries of rice, guns, munitions, and armed river boats. Yet the Mughals suffered from lack of supplies, guerrilla attacks, and an epidemic. The Ahom Swargadeo agreed to be a Mughal vassal. However, Mir Jumla died of illness in March 1663; conflicts over the peace treaty arose, and Ahom regained autonomy in Kamrup by the 1680s. In 1664 the Mughals' Bengal governor Shaista Khan (r. 1664-88), son of Asaf Khan, used a navy to free thousands of Bengali slaves at Chatgaon. Two years later he captured that fort and changed the name of the town to Islamabad.

In the northwest the Yusufzai chief Bhagu proclaimed himself ruler in 1667, but his resistance was quelled by an imperial army of 9,000 led by Muhammad Amin Khan. In 1672 Akmal Khan crowned himself king of the Afridis and closed the Khyber pass. They massacred a Mughal army between Peshawar and Kabul. Khatak leader Kush-hal wrote poetry to inspire their revolution against the Mughals, and another imperial army was ambushed the next winter. In June 1674 Aurangzeb himself led the campaign, and he negotiated by offering rebel leaders honors and rewards to protect the trade routes. Amin Khan was appointed governor at Kabul in 1677, and his payments to the chiefs for serving the Mughals kept a diplomatic peace for the next twenty years. His wife Sahibji, daughter of 'Ali Mardan Khan, wisely advised him to pursue a conciliatory policy.

Aurangzeb followed the Hanafi school of Islamic law and even spent seven years memorizing the Qur'an. Having deposed and imprisoned his father, he tried to absolve himself by sending gifts to the rulers of Mecca and Medina in 1659. That year he appointed a muhtasib as a censor to enforce Islamic laws such as those against blasphemy, liquid intoxicants, and gambling. Cultivation of cannabis was prohibited, but opium and ganja were not banned. Dancing girls and public women were ordered to get married or leave the realm. He dismissed court musicians and abolished celebration of the Iranian new year festival. When musicians protested by holding a funeral for Music he had killed, Aurangzeb remarked that he hoped she was well buried. In the tenth year of his reign he ended the official chronicles, and the next year he stopped appearing on a balcony every morning for the darshan (personal) worship that Akbar had begun. All the legal opinions (fatwa) during his reign were collected into a book. His main advisors became the chief judge (qazi) and the supervisor of pious charity. He contributed generously to repair mosques and support religious charities. In 1672 he took back all the grants that had been given to Hindus, though this was not always enforced. He made land grants hereditary in 1690. The 'ulama was often corrupt; Wahhab Bohra was qazi for sixteen years and retired with 3.3 million rupees he had obtained from bribes.

Aurangzeb's policies discriminated against non-Muslims. In 1665 custom duties for Muslims were set at 2.5 percent, but the rates for Hindus were doubled to five percent. Two years later the duty on Muslim traders was abolished. Provincial governors and revenue officials were ordered to dismiss Hindu officers and replace them with Muslims; this also was not enforced in many areas. His 1669 edict ordered demolished all temples recently built or repaired contrary to Islamic law. Bir Singh Bundela had paid over three million rupees to build the Kesev Rai temple at Mathura, but it was torn down. A Surat qazi extorted money from Hindu merchants by threatening them with forcible conversion or defacement of Hindu shrines. After a converted Bania was forcibly circumcised by the qazi and committed suicide, 8,000 men protested by leaving Surat. They were welcomed in Ahmadabad; but eventually the Emperor promised them freedom of religion, and they returned to their homes.

In 1669 Jat peasants led by Gokla of Tilpat took up arms against the empire and killed the abusive faujdar (officer) of Mathura and ravaged Sadabad. Gokla's rebellion grew to 20,000 before they were defeated by an imperial army reinforced by Aurangzeb himself. Gokla was put to death, and his relatives converted to Islam. In 1671 Aurangzeb dismissed all the Hindu officers from his revenue department. The next year Satnamis rebelled in Narnaul and Mewat; 2,000 were killed when they were crushed by the Mughal army. Aurangzeb often offered gifts and honors to induce people to convert to Islam. Sikh resistance to an order to demolish their temples led to the arrest of Guru Tegh Bahadur; he refused to convert, was convicted of blasphemy, and was beheaded in 1675.

In 1679 Aurangzeb revived the jiziya income tax on non-Muslims, and thousands in Delhi protested in front of the Emperor's balcony. A few days after many were trampled by elephants, they began paying the tax. Although Rajputs in imperial service were exempt from paying the jiziya, their subjects were not. As Rajput nobles lost their privileges, discontent increased. After the death of Maharaja Jaswant Singh Rathor in December 1678, Aurangzeb caused turmoil in Marwar by trying to annex it and raise the prince Ajit Singh in his harem as a Muslim, but Durgadas Rathor escaped with Ajit Singh to Mewar. The Emperor sent an army led by Prince Muhammad Akbar, and they occupied the capital Udaipur, destroying temples. The Rana and cavalry fled to the hills and began a guerrilla campaign. Aurangzeb went back to Ajmer in 1680, leaving Prince Akbar in charge at Chitor; but he rebelled against his father, crowning himself emperor. Akbar with Rajput support from the Rathors and Sisodias marched on Ajmer; but Aurangzeb sent a letter to his son to be intercepted that implied betrayal of the Rajputs, causing them to depart. Akbar had to flee but was given refuge by Durgadas and the Rajputs who learned they were tricked. The Rana of Mewar negotiated a peace that recognized Ran Jai Singh as ruler, and they agreed to pay the jiziya for Mewar. In Marwar resistance against the Mughals continued for a generation. Durgadas stayed in the Deccan for six years and then fought with Ajit against the Mughals for a decade.

Aurangzeb reacted to the threat of Shivaji in Maratha by making peace with Mewar so that he could move his imperial army south to the Deccan. Aurangzeb sent armies into the Maratha kingdom every year; they were able to plunder and burn villages but could not assault the fortresses. In 1684 he sent a Mughal army of 80,000 led by princes Azam and Shah Alam to besiege Bijapur, which was defended by Sikander Adil Shah and a garrison of 30,000 for fifteen months before they surrendered. Meanwhile Shah Alam led the invasion of Golconda; mobs in Hyderabad looted their own city while others fled to the Golconda fort. Sultan Abul Hasan Qutb Shah agreed to dismiss his two Brahmin ministers, pay a war indemnity, and cede territory. The two ministers were murdered by Muslims. When their heads were sent to Aurangzeb, he withdrew the Mughal army to Bijapur.

In October 1686 the English sacked Hughli in Bengal but evacuated it the next year. In 1688 Aurangzeb's navy was fighting English traders on the west coast, but by the end of the next year he had pardoned them and made peace. In 1690 Bengal viceroy Ibrahim Khan invited English agent Job Charnock to found Calcutta. Farther down the east coast the Dutch operated from Pulicat, the English in Madras, and the French at Pondicherry. Refugees from the Mughal-Maratha wars fled into these fortresses. In 1695 English pirates led by Henry Bridgeman plundered 5.2 million rupees and raped the women on the ship Ganj-i Sawai near Surat. Angry Aurangzeb authorized an attack on Bombay which failed. In 1702 the Emperor tried to ban all Mughal trade with the English, Dutch, and French companies.

In 1685 about 4,000 rebels proclaimed Prince Akbar emperor, but his attempt to take Ahmadnagar the next year failed. While Akbar and a few followers chartered a ship and fled to the Persian court in February 1687, the Mughals besieged Golconda. A traitor opened the gate for the assault, and the famous treasure of the Qutb Shahs was found to have more than sixty million rupees in gold and silver. Some Muslim clerics complained that the Emperor made war on fellow Muslims. Aurangzeb appointed a muhtasib to enforce Islamic law and ordered Hindu temples demolished and mosques built. Because his son Shah Alam had tried to negotiate secretly with Sikander Adil Shah and with Abul Hasan Qutb Shah, Aurangzeb had him imprisoned for the next seven years. Aurangzeb sent the Golconda noble Muqarrab Khan to hunt down and kill Shambhaji. Bijapur, Golconda, and Maratha were annexed as Mughal provinces.

In the north Sahibji succeeded her husband Amin Khan in 1698 for two years until Prince Shah Alam arrived in Kabul. In the northeast Gadadhar Singh became king of Ahom in 1681, and the next year in the battle at Itakhuli his forces drove the Mughal imperialists back a hundred kilometers. By the end of Aurangzeb's reign, Ahom king Rudra Singh (r. 1696-1714) was preparing to invade Bengal, where a revolt had broken out in 1696, when Rahim Khan called himself Rahim Shah and led a large army. Aurangzeb sent his grandson Azim-ud-din with cavalry that defeated and killed Rahim Shah near Burdwan in 1698. Preparing for a succession struggle, Azim-ud-din refused to send surplus funds to the Deccan. So in 1701 the Emperor sent Kartalab Khan as diwan (financial administrator) for Bengal, and by stopping the prevalent embezzling he accumulated ten million rupees, which he sent to Aurangzeb in 1702. Prince Azim-ud-din tried to kill Kartalab Khan, and the Emperor had his grandson transferred while honoring Kartalab with the title Murshid Quli Khan and making him governor of Orissa.

Zulfiqar Khan began the siege of Jinji in 1690. While Maratha leader Rajaram was besieged on and off there for eight years, Santaji Ghorpade and others led Maratha raids. Aurangzeb moved his camp in the Deccan between Puna and Bijapur until he established his court at Brahmapuri (renamed Islamapuri) in 1695. That year he sent his son Shah Alam to govern the northwest, and all Hindus except for Rajputs were forbidden to ride on elephants or horses or to carry arms. In 1698 Durgadas restored Akbar's son Buland Akhtar to Aurangzeb, who granted him and Ajit Singh rank (mansab) and tax income (jagir). After five years of truce, the Marwar struggle began again in 1701 when Aurangzeb ordered Durgadas killed for not obeying his summons. After Ajit quarreled with Durgadas, Aurangzeb gave Durgadas his old Gujarat position back in 1705; but the following year a Maratha invasion of Gujarat persuaded Durgadas to rejoin Ajit's quest for independence. Still living in tents, the Emperor ordered a wall built around Islamapuri in 1699. That year Aurangzeb began besieging forts and took a major one each year until he became ill after taking Wagingera in 1705; meanwhile the Marathas were taking back at least as many forts as the Mughals had gained. Lack of rain 1702-04 and the devastating wars caused famine and pestilence that killed two million people. A year before he died in 1707, Aurangzeb regretted his wars and tried to make peace with the Marathas by offering to release Shahuji, but it was too late. After Aurangzeb died, Ajit Singh led his Rathor army to Jodhpur, where he defeated the imperial troops and took over Marwar.

The religious persecution in Aurangzeb's policies and the resulting Maratha war destroyed the Mughal empire. Many officers refused to engage the enemy, and others paid cash or offered services to the Hindus. Peasants were driven off the land as villages were burned, and merchants and caravans suffered from banditry. The Mughals had an imperial army of 170,000 men, but they still could not make the empire of mostly Hindus submit. The imperial treasure was exhausted, and salaries for soldiers and officials were three years in arrears. The religious zeal of Aurangzeb had been intolerant of other cultural activities, and historians regretfully recalled the better eras of Akbar and Shah Jahan. Hindus were disadvantaged economically and had little personal freedom. The elite Mughals were often arrogant and morally degenerate. The prime minister's grandson Mirza Tafakhkhur with ruffians would plunder shops and kidnap Hindu women with impunity. They lived in luxury, but their education in harems was meager. Although Aurangzeb did not drink alcohol, most Muslims secretly did so. Slaves and peasants did the hard work while the surplus produce went to the Muslim aristocrats. Administration of the empire depended on the Mughal military; offices were sold, and corruption was rampant. Aurangzeb worked hard at administration, but his meddling in every aspect of government discouraged initiative. Queens were jealous of each other's sons, as they prepared for the next succession struggle. Islamic government by conquering Muslims was failing badly in the proud and wealthy land of India.

Kashmir and Tibet 1526-1707
Babur's Mughal brother Kamran invaded Kashmir in 1531; but Kashmiri leaders put aside their differences to drive out the Mughals. After conquering Ladakh and Baltistan, Kashghar sultan Said Khan sent Mirza Haidar Dughlat to invade Kashmir in 1533. Dughlat's troops compelled him to leave Kashmir after he specified certain conditions that included paying tribute to Kashghar. After Muhammad Shah died in 1537, conflicts over the throne enabled Dughlat to return in 1540 and act as regent even though he had just been defeated with Humayun at Kanauj. The Chak tribe appealed to the victorious Sher Shah Sur's Afghans, but the Mughal-Kashmiri army defeated them at Watanar in 1541. Mirza Haidar Dughlat ruled Kashmir for a decade; but his campaigns against Ladakh, Baltistan, Pakhli, and Rajauri wore down Kashmiri support, resulting in a general uprising that killed him in 1550. The Chaks had overthrown foreign domination, and Daulat Chak seized power by deposing Nazuk Shah the next year. He conquered Ladakh and Baltistan but was devastated by an earthquake in 1554.

Ghazi Khan (r. 1555-62) is considered the first Chak sultan of Kashmir, and he defeated attempted invasions by Shah Abul Maali in 1557 and by the Mughal Qara Bahadur in 1561. After suffering frostbite in a campaign to Ladakh, Ghazi Khan abdicated to his brother Husain Shah Chak (r. 1562-69). He passed the throne to another brother Ali Khan, who ruled Kashmir in peace for a decade. His son Yusuf Shah Chak fought his uncle Abdul Chak for the throne but was overthrown by the rebel Saiyid Mubarak Khan, who soon had to abdicate to Lohar Shah Chak. Yusuf Shah then appealed to Akbar, who sent an army to restore him in 1580. Yet Kashmiri nobles threatened to depose Yusuf Shah if he paid homage to Akbar. The Emperor sent an army; but when Yusuf Shah joined them in 1586, he was made a political prisoner for two years. Kashmir was annexed to the Mughal empire by Qasim Khan in 1586.

Akbar visited Kashmir three times, and Emperor Jahangir liked to reside there for his health. His governor Mirza Ali Akbar Khan tried to conciliate the Chak rebels with diplomacy and tricks; he promised them sovereignty but ordered his troops to kill Chaks before he died in 1616. A plague came to Kashmir the next year and lasted until 1619. Kishtwar was a refuge for assassins and rebels, but in 1618 Jahangir sent Governor Dilawar Khan Kakar with an army of 10,000 men to subdue them. The garrison he left under Nazr Ullah Arab was small, and he was killed. Another army led by Jalal failed until the Emperor sent Iradat Khan as governor to restore law and order. Jahangir appointed Itiqad Khan governor of Kashmir in 1622, and he punished even more Chak rebels. When Emperor Shah Jahan learned how oppressive the government of Itiqad Khan was, he replaced him in 1632 with Zafar Khan. Shah Jahan proclaimed a farman (imperial decree) specifying which taxes and policies were to be repealed in Kashmir. In 1634 Shah Jahan ordered Kashmir governor Zafar Khan to conquer Ladakh and Baltistan in western Tibet in order to punish Abdal for giving refuge to Chak rebels, and he made him proclaim Shah Jahan's name in Friday prayers. The next year Zafar Khan's favoring of Shi'a against Sunnis provoked a riot that burned Shi'a homes. In 1637 Abdal relapsed in his obedience, and Zafar Khan invaded with a Mughal army of 12,000, making Abdal pay an indemnity of one million rupees. During the half century of Aurangzeb's reign, Kashmir had twelve Mughal governors. Ibrahim Khan (r. 1678-85) was dismissed after his protection of Shi'a relatives caused a brief civil war with the Sunnis.

In Tibet after Gedun Gyatso died at the Drepung monastery in 1542, Sonam Gyatso (1543-88) was accepted as his reincarnation. The Gelugpa sect was the main rival of the Karmapas. After nine years of suppression by the Tsang governor, Drepung monks attacked Karmapa military camps in 1546. Sonam Gyatso was invited to Nedong by the Gongma in 1559 and became the ruler's personal teacher. The next year Sonam Gyatso mediated a dispute between the Gelugpa and the Kagyupa in Lhasa that local lamas had failed to solve. Sonam Gyatso traveled to Mongolia and converted the leading prince Altan Khan of the Tumed Mongols in 1578. Altan Khan gave him the title Talé (Dalai) meaning "Ocean" to imply the depth of his learning. Alta Khan proclaimed that he had changed an ocean of blood into an ocean of milk, and he banned the Mongols' human and animal sacrifices for the deceased. Sonam Gyatso was the third Dalai Lama, and in 1580 he founded the Lithang monastery in Kham. He visited Dhuring Khan in 1585 and died on his way back to Tibet three years later.

Altan Khan's great-grandson was accepted as the fourth Dalai Lama, Yonten Gyatso, in 1601. He studied under the Tashilhunpo lama Lozang Chosgyan, who was given the title Panchen Lama, which means "great scholar." In 1605 the Tsang chief Karma Tensung Wangpo attacked Lhasa and expelled the Mongols who had escorted the Dalai Lama into Tibet. The Dalai Lama visited the Choskhorgyal monastery and was also welcomed by others, but attendants blocked a meeting with the Karmapa red-hats. Karma Tensung died in 1611 and was succeeded by his son Karma Phuntsok Namgyal, who was also denied an audience with the Dalai Lama. The fourth Dalai Lama died at Drepung in 1617, and the next year Karma Phuntsok Namgyal attacked Lhasa. Several Gelugpa monasteries in U were forced to convert to the Karmapa sect. The late Dalai Lama's attendant Sonam Chospel found a child he believed was the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, and he was named Ngawang Lozang Gyatso. Some Mongol troops returned to Tibet disguised as pilgrims in 1619 and the next year killed Tsang troops in a surprise attack on their camp. They agreed to leave Tibet when two conditions were met: the Tsang military camps were abolished, and the monasteries that had been forced to convert were restored as Gelugpa. After Phuntsok Namgyal died in 1622, two officials governed well for his sixteen-year-old son Karma Tenkyong, allowing the fifth Dalai Lama to reveal himself. Two Portuguese Jesuits arrived at Shigatse in 1627; but their mission had little success, and they left in 1632.

In 1635 Karma Tenkyong persuaded the Chogthu Mongols led by prince Arsalang to invade Tibet with 10,000 men to eliminate the Gelugpa sect. Qoshot Mongol chief Gushri Khan learned of this and intervened. Arsalang then went with his personal attendants and prostrated himself before the fifth Dalai Lama. When Arsalang's father learned of this, he sent agents who assassinated his son. Gushri Khan gathered a Mongol army and attacked Chogthu camps in 1637, and the next year he came with pilgrims to the Dalai Lama for religious instruction. Gushri Khan intercepted a letter from Karma Tenkyong saying he approved of religious freedom for all except the Gelugpa. In 1639 the Dalai Lama advised Gushri Khan not to attack, but his chief attendant Sonam Chospel disagreed and sent a message approving of Gushri's planned invasion. Sonam Chospel continued to support the war efforts of Gushri Khan until Shigatse was captured in 1642. Karma Tenkyong was imprisoned; Sonam Chospel was appointed Desi (prime minister), and the Dalai Lama proclaimed Lhasa the capital of Tibet. Gushri Khan and Sonam Chospel suppressed an uprising, killing 7,000 Kongpo troops; but after Karma Tenkyong was executed, the revolt ended.

The fifth Dalai Lama founded the building of the Potala palace in 1645. The Tibetans suffered a minor defeat by the Bhutanese in 1647. The next year several Kagyupa monasteries were forced to convert to the Gelugpa sect, and a portion of taxes were designated to support monasteries. The Dalai Lama visited the Chinese emperor in 1653 and was well received. Gushri proclaimed himself king; but after he died in 1655, his successors exerted little power. The fifth Dalai Lama thus became an independent ruler, and he tried to protect the Qoshot and Khalka tribes from the Dzungar Mongols. After Lozang Chosgyan died in 1662, the Dalai Lama recognized a boy as his reincarnation and the second Panchen Lama. A revolt broke out in eastern Kham, and twenty rebels were going to be executed; but the Dalai Lama changed the sentences to life imprisonment. He wrote to the Chinese emperor that Tibetan troops could not fight well in China because of the difference in climate. In 1676 Tibetan troops were sent to force invading Bhutanese out of Sikkim. The Dalai Lama sent Tibetan and Mongol troops to make the Ladakhis stop harassing the Gelugpa monasteries. He did much to unify Tibet and establish consistent and just taxation. The fifth Dalai Lama also instilled religious discipline and promoted literary works until he died in 1682.

The scholar Sangyé Gyatso, possibly the son of the fifth Dalai Lama, had become Desi in 1679. He concealed the Dalai Lama's death for fourteen years while he fulfilled his administrative functions. After the Potala palace was completed in 1695, Sangyé announced the Dalai Lama had died in 1682. The sixth Dalai Lama was enthroned as Tsangyang Gyatso in 1697; but he refused to take the vows of a monk and spent time drinking and with girls. He suspected the Desi of instigating an assassination attempt that failed and forced Sangyé to resign in 1703. However, the new Desi was his son Ngawang Rinchen, and Sangyé still had much influence. Gushri Khan's grandson Lhazang Khan became Qoshot chief in 1697 and did not like the sixth Dalai Lama's behavior. Lhazang Khan was marching a Mongol army toward Lhasa in 1705 when representatives of the three large monasteries mediated the conflict. The ex-Desi was to leave Lhasa, and Lhazang Khan would return to Kokonor; but after Sangyé was captured and executed, Lhazang Khan entered Lhasa and took control of the government. The sixth Dalai Lama was deposed and escorted into exile. Angry Tibetans objected; but Tsangyang himself calmed them down until they learned that he had died by Kokonor Lake. Lhazang declared that he was not the true sixth Dalai Lama and appointed 25-year-old Ngawang Yeshe Gyatso, probably his son, as the authentic sixth Dalai Lama; but Tibetans did not recognize him and found a child in a place indicated by Tsangyang's poetry.

Tibet and Nepal 1707-1818

Southern India 1526-1707
Independent South India 1329-1526
Krishna Deva Raya chose his half-brother Achyuta Deva Raya as his successor in Vijayanagara; but he was challenged by Krishna Deva's son-in-law Rama Raya and took him as a partner in his administration. A rebellion in the south was suppressed, and then Achyuta invaded Bijapur and recovered Raichur. Rama Raya appointed his friends and relatives, took 3,000 Muslim soldiers into his service, and in 1535 put Achyuta in prison, proclaiming himself king. Southern nobles rebelled against Rama Raya. While he was fighting them, the officer holding Achyuta restored him to the throne and became his prime minister; but he was murdered by Salakaraju Tirumala, who governed for his brother-in-law Achyuta. Ibrahim 'Adil Shah of Bijapur invaded Vijayanagara and got Achyuta and Rama Raya to agree before returning to his now independent kingdom. After Achyuta Raya died in 1542, his son Venkata I succeeded; but he was strangled by his brother Tirumala I, who massacred the royal family to seize the throne.

This stimulated Rama Raya to take control in the name of Sadashiva. Rama Raya tried to revive Vijayanagara power but intervened in the quarrels of the Deccan sultanate. In 1552 Rama Raya was crowned king and employed Muslim mercenaries to fight and gain intelligence. He was a Vaisnava but tolerated all religions. Rama Raya made a commercial treaty with the Portuguese in 1547; but he attacked them in 1558 at San Thomé and Goa. The same year Vijayanagara joined Deccan allies Bijapur, Bidar, and Golconda in invading Ahmadnagar. This alienated many in the Deccan, and they inflicted a devastating defeat on the Vijayanagara army in 1565. Rama Raya was killed; the city of Vijayanagara was sacked of its wealth as Muslims destroyed its great Hindu temple. Armed competition between the Telegu houses prevented the restoring of the royal authority. However, Rama Raya's brother Tirumala divided Vijayanagara into three parts - the Telegu, the Karnataka, and Tamil, governed by his three sons. Tirumala was crowned in 1570 but soon abdicated to his son Sri Ranga (r. 1572-85) and retired to a religious life. Invasions by Bijapur and Golconda reduced his territory. However, Venkata II (r. 1586-1614) reconquered these areas and subdued the nobles trying to be independent.

In 1614 a war of succession began that lasted until Ramadevaraya (r. 1618-30) gained the Vijayanagara throne. He faced numerous rebellions, and the reign of Venkata III (r. 1630-41) was also marred by a civil war for five years. He was opposed by his nephew Sriranga III (r. 1642-49), who formed an alliance with the Bijapur sultan and recovered the Udayagiri fort that Golconda had seized. He defeated the Golconda until they got Bijapur to take their side. In the south the Nayaks united and rebelled. Mughal emperor Shah Jahan urged the sultans to partition the empire of Karnataka and annex Vijayanagara. Mustafa Khan led the Bijapur army from the north, and the Nayaks advanced from the south, while Golconda besieged the Udayagiri fort in the east. Sriranga was trapped and defeated, retreating into the Vellore fort. The Bijapur army went on to conquer the Nayak kingdoms of Jinji and Tanjore. In 1649 Sriranga fled to Mysore, marking the end of the Vijayanagara empire.


The Maratha country in the western Deccan was protected by mountain ranges, but its poor agricultural resources stimulated self-reliance, courage, simplicity, and social equality. Its Hindu religious reformers included Ekanatha, Tukaram, Ramdas, and Vaman Pandit. Shivaji's guru Ramdas Samarth taught social reform and spiritual regeneration through his schools and book Dasabodha. While Shivaji Bhonsla (1627-80) was a child and was raised by his mother, his father Shahji struggled to govern part of Nizam Shah; but he was defeated by the Mughals in 1636. He was given a position and summoned to the Bijapur court in 1643, when his son Shivaji refused to bow. After Bijapur sultan Muhammad Adil Shah became ill in 1646, Shivaji began taking over forts and became independent in the western Deccan. The death of Shivaji's influential mother in 1647 freed him to use force, bribery, and treachery to take over more forts. Shahji helped Bijapur's Muhammad 'Adil Shah (r. 1627-56) conquer the Vijayanagara empire; but he was arrested by the Bijapuri commander Mustafa in 1648, and the conditions of his release the next year persuaded his son Shivaji to be cooperative through 1655. Then Shivaji sent an agent to assassinate the ruler of Javli and took it over. After Muhammad 'Adil Shah died in November 1656, Prince Aurangzeb invaded. In 1657 Shivaji raided Mughal districts in Ahmadnagar and looted the city of Junnar. In 1659 Bijapur's 'Ali Adil Shah II (r. 1656-72) sent Afzal Khan, who tried to strangle Shivaji in his tent but was killed by Shivaji in the struggle; Shivaji's Maratha troops then slaughtered the Bijapur soldiers.

By the 1660s Shivaji was paying 10,000 cavalry and 50,000 infantry, and he procured guns, naval supplies, and technical advice from the Portuguese and British. In 1660 Deccan governor Shaista Khan had difficulty occupying only one of Shivaji's forts at Puna. Shivaji led a night raid on Puna in 1663, wounding Shaista Khan and killing his son and several of his wives. Shaista Khan was replaced by Muazzam. In January 1664 Shivaji raided the important port of Surat, and his troops carried off valuables worth ten million rupees. Then Shivaji's navy captured ships going to Mecca and extorted ransoms from the pilgrims. His cavalry even raided the suburbs of the Deccan capital at Aurangabad. Aurangzeb sent his best general Jai Singh to assemble a large army at Puna in 1665. They attacked the hill fortress of Purandhar and besieged the Marathas for two months. Guided by a dream not to fight a Hindu prince, Shivaji negotiated a treaty, surrendering 23 fortresses while retaining a dozen; he agreed to be a Mughal vassal and pay tribute, and his son Shambhaji was given a high rank at court. Shivaji visited Aurangzeb's court at Agra in 1666; when he reacted to being snubbed, he was detained in May but three months later escaped with his son in baskets. Shivaji got along with Governor Muazzam and made peace with Bijapur and Golconda.

After spending twenty million rupees from the imperial treasury during two years of war in Bijapur, Aurangzeb made peace with Shivaji and even proclaimed him a raja in 1668; but the Emperor's orders to destroy Hindu temples and schools the next year provoked renewed rebellion. In 1670 Shivaji began recovering his forts and with 15,000 men plundered Surat of another 6.5 million rupees in goods, depressing the trade of the port. In 1672 the rulers of Bijapur and Golconda died, and the next year Shivaji recaptured Panhala from Bijapur and Satara. In 1674 Shivaji crowned himself a Hindu monarch in a ceremony that cost five million rupees. Shivaji ruled autocratically but chose his ministers by merit. He had eight ministers, who were all military commanders except the religious minister and chief judge. He divided his kingdom into provinces and appointed viceroys with eight ministers each. Taxes were set at 30% of the produce in cash or kind, but this was later raised to 40%. Each fort was under three officers of equal status. Shivaji commanded that no female was to accompany the army, and any soldier violating this could be beheaded. Even in battle he insisted that women, non-combatants, and mosques be respected, and he treated prisoners honorably. He practiced religious toleration and gave captured Qur'ans to his Muslim friends. He made a truce with the Mughal governor of the Deccan while forming a defensive alliance with Golconda against the Mughals. It took him more than a year to take over the Bijapur Karnatak bastions at Jinji and Vellore.

In 1678 Shivaji decided to divide his kingdom between his two sons Shambhaji and Rajaram at his death. His oldest son Shambhaji was disappointed, and after being disgraced for raping a prominent Brahmin woman, he escaped to form an alliance with Deccan governor Dilir Khan. Aurangzeb made Shambhaji a raja with a very high rank and large income. However, after fighting for the Mughals for a year, Shambhaji returned to the Bhonsla court. Meanwhile Shivaji wrote letters to Aurangzeb complaining about jiziya taxes imposed on Hindus in 1679 and asking for equality. He wrote to Aurangzeb, "Islam and Hinduism are only different pigments used by the Divine Painter to picture the human species."1

Shivaji died of fever in March 1680, and his oldest wife Sorya Bai proclaimed her son Rajaram king. Shambhaji deposed him without harming him but executed Rajaram's mother and some two hundred of her followers. Shambhaji continued the raiding; but, unlike his father, he allowed raping with the plundering. Extorted zamindars (landlords) had to pay 25% of their revenue. After Prince Akbar proclaimed himself emperor in January 1681, Shambhaji with 20,000 horsemen invaded Khandesh and plundered prosperous Burhanpur. Akbar fled, and Shambhaji avoided fighting the Mughal army. He bombarded the Siddis at Janjira in 1682 and went to war against the Portuguese the next year, forcing the Goa viceroy to retreat from a siege at Phonda in October; but Akbar mediated a peace between Shambhaji and the Portuguese in January 1684. Four months later Shambhaji made a treaty with the English at Bombay.

While the Mughals were besieging Bijapur in 1685, a Jat zamindar also named Rajaram led an uprising and plundered traffic on the royal road to Agra. In 1687 Rajaram killed the Mughal commander Uighur Khan, and Aurangzeb sent his grandson Bidar Bakht; but the Jats avoided him and looted Akbar's tomb at Sikandra. Finally the imperial troops captured the Jat strongholds at Sinsini and Soghor, suppressing the revolt by 1691.

Shambhaji and his Brahmin chief minister Kavi-Kulash were captured in 1688, tried by the 'ulama, tortured, and brutally killed. Rajaram claimed the throne but was forced to escape disguised as a hermit. He adopted the strategy of dispersing the royal family and continuous guerrilla warfare. The Marathas began persecuting those who accepted Aurangzeb's rewards. Prince Shahu and three hundred of Shivaji's other relatives were captured and imprisoned the next year, as Maratha was annexed by the Mughal empire. Maratha raids plundered Hyderabad until 1692 when they turned their attention to the siege at Jinji, which did not fall to the Mughals until 1698. The best Maratha guerrilla warrior Santaji Ghorpade had quarreled with Rajaram and was killed in 1696. Rajaram escaped to Satara in 1698 and then led a Maratha army into Khandesh and Berar. Aurangzeb sent prince Bidar Bakht with a large army that defeated the Marathas near Ahmadnagar. Rajaram fled again to the Singuharh fort, where he died of illness in 1700. News of this caused the commander Subhanji at Satara to surrender and serve the Mughals. Shambhaji's widowed queen Yesu Bai ruled as regent for her four-year-old son Shambhaji II and offered to submit if her son were given a high rank. In the next five years eleven Maratha strongholds fell to the imperial armies, but in 1702 a Maratha army of 50,000 attacked and looted Hyderabad. Amid war, drought, famine, and an epidemic, the long-distance caravans ceased for two years. In 1706 the Marathas raided Gujarat and sacked Baroda, and their large army even threatened the Emperor's camp at Ahmadnagar.


On the northern tip of Sri Lanka, Jaffna king Cankili (r. 1519-61) feared the spread of Christianity from the Mannar coast, and he forced his subjects to renounce the new religion, executing 600 who refused. Madura's Visvanatha Nayaka (r. 1529-64) attacked the Christian settlements in 1560. Cankili's successor Puviraja Pandaram (r. 1561-70) was overthrown by Periyapulle (r. 1570-82) with help from the Portuguese; but Puviraja Pandaram came back to rule (1582-91) and attacked the Portuguese at Mannar. He was killed when the Portuguese led by Andre Furtado de Mendoça invaded Jaffna and installed Ethirimanna Cinkam (r. 1591-1615), who promised to favor Christianity. When he died, his nephew Cankili Kumara killed all the princes except the three-year-old heir and acted as regent, telling the Portuguese he would not aid the rebels. However, in 1618 a rebellion against him led by Christians caused him to get troops from Madura's Raghunatha Nayaka (r. 1600-34). The next year a Portuguese expedition led by Filipe de Oliveira came from Colombo and annexed Jaffna, capturing Cankili. By 1621 Ranunatha Nayaka's resistance was quelled. De Oliveira raised taxes to pay for his army and promoted Christian missionary efforts. Hindus, resenting the destruction of their temples, joined a force from Kandy in 1628; but the Portuguese, after retreating into their fort, defeated them. The Portuguese used Sinhalese troops to guard this Tamil kingdom.

The Portuguese built their first fort in Sri Lanka at Colombo in 1519 and were resented by the Muslim traders. Bhuvanekabahu (r. 1521-51) came to terms with the Portuguese; their fort was dismantled in 1524, and two years later they persuaded the king to expel the Muslim merchants. In 1533 Bhuvanekabahu agreed to increase the cinnamon given to the Portuguese as tribute to 415,000 pounds; but the Portuguese had to buy all the cinnamon in the royal storehouses. Mayadunne (r. 1521-81) favored the Muslim traders, and his Sitavaka kingdom fought two wars with Kotte, which was aided by the Portuguese. In 1540 the Portuguese made Bhuvanekabahu designate his grandson Dharmapala as his heir, instead of his brother Mayadunne. Franciscans tried to convert Bhuvanekabahu, but he refused to change his religion. In 1545 Kotte and Sitavaka combined to defeat Udarata before Kandy's Jayavira Bandara (r. 1521-51) could get help from the Portuguese. Then Sitavaka forced Kandy to expel the Portuguese, who helped Kotte defeat Sitavaka in 1550. Bhuvanekabahu was shot dead by a Portuguese soldier, but the Portuguese claimed it was an accident.

Mayadunne proclaimed himself king of Kotte; but the Portuguese favored Dharmapala, who was educated by Franciscans. Using a large army, they defeated Sitavaka, seized the treasury at Kotte, put Dharmapala (r. 1551-97) on the throne, and rebuilt the fort at Colombo. The Portuguese also supported Karaliyadde Bandara (r. 1552-81) as he overthrew his Kandyan father Jayavira, who fled to Sitavaka. Dharmapala's father Vidiye Bandara escaped from prison in 1553 and raised anti-Portuguese forces; he was aided by Karaliyadde, but in 1555 Mayadunne helped the Portuguese defeat them, Sitivaka gaining most of the spoils. In 1557 Dharmapala converted to Catholicism, and he confiscated temple lands, giving them to Franciscans. Monks in Kotte rioted, and thirty were executed. The Kotte army declined; but Karaliyadde became a Christian and kept Sitavaka forces from capturing the capital in 1563. Two years later the Portuguese abandoned Kotte by retreating to Colombo, letting Sitavaka control the cinnamon.

Sitavaka attacked Kandy in 1574, provoking the Portuguese to ravage the southwest coast with their navy. Mayadunne was succeeded by his son, the effective general Rajasimha (r. 1581-93), who ended his two-year siege of Colombo. He raised taxes, defeated Kandy in 1581, and controlled most of Sri Lanka. Like the Portuguese, Rajasimha kept cinnamon prices high by burning excess stocks. Colombo was besieged again for three years until Kandy revolted in 1590. Seven Korales also rebelled, and Rajasimha withdrew his forces from Udarata. When two of his commanders gave up stockades to the Portuguese, Rajasimha had them beheaded. After failing to quell the revolt in Udarata, Rajasimha died of an infected wound in 1593. The Portuguese, assisted by a former Sitavaka general, took over Sitavaka. In 1595 Colombo was given a private monopoly on the export of cinnamon. Dharmapala died in 1597, leaving his throne to the king of Portugal.

Konappu Bandara ruled Kandy as Vimala Dharma Suriya (r. 1592-1604); but he was resented by Catholics because he had reverted to Buddhism. Sinhalese rebellions were put down in 1594 and again in 1603 after the Portuguese invaded Kandy. Nikapitiye Bandara claimed to be the grandson of Rajasimha and led a revolt in 1616; he had followers in the Seven Korales. An uprising in the southern area of Kotte gained strength when Kandy king Senerath (r. 1604-35) sent Kuruwita Rala; but Senerath changed his mind and made a treaty with the Portuguese in 1617. Kuruwita Rala asked the Sitavaka prince Mayadunne of Denwaka to be the leader, and it took three years for the combined forces of Kandy and the Portuguese to subdue them. The Portuguese feared the Dutch trade and violated the treaty by building forts at Trincomalee in 1623 and Batticaloa in 1628, the latter causing a war with Kandy, which the Portuguese invaded twice. The Kandyan attempt to besiege Colombo in 1630 failed the next year, and the 1633 treaty let the Portuguese keep the forts.

Senerath was succeeded by his son Rajasimha II (r. 1635-87); but Portuguese support for his political enemies caused him to appeal to the Dutch in 1636. The Portuguese set Kandy on fire but were surrounded and annihilated at Gannoruwa two years later; only 33 out of 700 Portuguese survived as prisoners, and nearly half their auxiliaries were killed while the rest fled. The Dutch made a treaty to defend Rajasimha in exchange for expenses and a monopoly on the cinnamon trade. The Dutch returned to Kandy the Trincomalee and Batticoloa forts they seized from the Portuguese in 1638, but they kept the Galle and Negombo forts they took in 1640 to protect the cinnamon peeling areas. The Dutch kept them, because Rajasimha could not pay the expenses the Dutch had exaggerated. A seven-year truce between the Dutch and Portuguese ended in 1652, and Rajasimha helped the Dutch push the Portuguese out as they conquered Colombo in 1656 and Jaffna in 1658. Using Sri Lanka as a base, the Dutch were able to drive the Portuguese off the Malabar coast of India by 1663. The wars of the 16th century and early 17th century caused prosperity and population in Sri Lanka to decline, though cinnamon production greatly increased in the 17th century. The Portuguese Christians were hated as invaders and destroyers of temples; but social acceptance of polygamy and polyandry decreased.

Rycloff Van Goens was the Dutch governor of Sri Lanka and aimed to project Dutch power from there. In 1659 the Dutch seized Kalpitiya; in 1665 they moved into Sabaragamuwa; and by 1667 they had occupied the Four Korales. They reoccupied the Trincomalee and Batticaloa forts, and in 1670 they announced their monopoly on the export of elephants, areca nuts, and pearls, and on the importation of cotton goods, pepper, and minerals. Rising prices caused shortages in food and clothing for many, and smuggling increased. The Kandyans tried to form an alliance with the French; but they refused to fight the Dutch and were driven off in 1672. Sporadic uprisings became worse by 1675, and the Dutch tried to reduce military expenses by promising peace and flattering the elderly Rajasimha. Laurens Pyl became Dutch governor in 1681 and used more restraint. The main Dutch concern was protecting their monopoly on cinnamon. Kandyans under Vimala Dharma Suriya II (r. 1687-1707) tried to participate in trade with India after 1694, but the Dutch reimposed tight control in 1703.

European Trade with Mughal India
Viceroy Nuno da Cunha (r. 1529-38) established Portuguese settlements on the east coast of India near Madras and at Hughli in Bengal. Goa on the west coast became the capital of Portuguese India in 1530. Diu in Kathiawar was captured in 1535 and was defended against a Turkish navy and the Gujarat sultan three years later and against Gujarat again in 1546. Joao de Castro (r. 1545-48) defeated Bijapur forces attacking Goa, but in 1546 the Turks took the Persian Gulf port of Basra. So many private ships were violating the King's monopoly that the Portuguese began licensing them so that they could collect customs duties from them. Trading ships were required to have a pass called a cartaz. Ships without it could have their goods confiscated and their crews killed. Modern historian R. S. Whiteway considered the Portuguese governors after Castro superstitious, corrupt, and lazy.

Portuguese envoys to Constantinople turned down a proposal to allow Turks in the Indian Ocean, though they offered to pay Portuguese duties and give them access to all Red Sea ports with factories in Basra, Cairo, and Alexandria. The Portuguese lost a fort near Calicut in a land battle in 1570. Eventually the Portuguese provided protective ships called cafilas for large fleets of small boats. The Portuguese also tried to control the horse trade from Arabia and Persia. In 1574 the Church forced buyers to come to Goa for horses, because a Papal Bull had forbidden selling them to infidels. Although Muslims were killed, captured Portuguese were often ransomed. After El-Ksar el-Kehir in 1578 several Portuguese families were nearly bankrupted buying back their relatives.

After 1540 the Portuguese settlements were dominated by the Catholic priests. That year all temples in Goa were ordered destroyed, and the next year their lands were turned over to the priests. Goa had been given a bishop in 1538 and was declared an archbishopric in 1557. Jesuits led by Francis Xavier arrived in 1542 and converted thousands of fishermen. The Jesuits brought a printing press in 1556. By 1560 the Inquisition was established and began burning unbelievers and apostates. Nestorian Christians were so persecuted that they preferred to trade their pepper with Muslims. In 1561 Catholics in Sri Lanka captured the tooth believed to be the Buddha's. Although the king of Pegu offered more than 300,000 cruzados and a perpetual supply of rice for Melaka, the viceroy D. Constantino de Bragança had the tooth burned, ground up, and scattered at sea. A synod at Diamper in 1599 tried to suppress the Syrian Christianity of Malabar. The Catholics were so hated by the Hindus that many considered converts as losing caste but did not treat Muslim converts that way. By 1600 there were about 175,000 Christians in India, but most of these were low-caste fishers and pearl divers.

In 1595 a Dutch fleet defied the Portuguese maritime empire by rounding the Cape of Good Hope. They formed the Dutch United East India Company in 1602, and the next year they blockaded Goa. The king of Arakan (in Burma) killed 6,000 of the hated Portuguese in 1607. The Dutch established a fortified settlement on the east coast north of Madras in 1610. On the west coast of India an English squadron led by David Middleton defeated the Portuguese fleet off Bombay in 1611 and put a factory at Surat the next year. The British navy decisively defeated the Portuguese off Swally in 1615. The English also established factories at Ahmadabad, Burhanpur, and Agra. English ambassador Thomas Roe in 1618 got Emperor Jahangir to grant trade with exemption from inland tolls. The Mughals destroyed the settlement at Hughli in 1632, imprisoning more than a thousand Portuguese; but the same year the Golconda sultan granted free trade from its ports. In 1639 Francis Day got the lease from the declining Vijayanagara empire to build Fort St. George at Madras. In 1651 the English got permission to build a factory at Hughli. When Shivaji's Marathas sacked Surat in 1664, English president Oxenden held out in the governor's castle and was honored by Aurangzeb. The French fortified Pondicherry, and in 1672 they occupied San Thomé near Madras.

In 1661 the Portuguese, as part of a dowry in the marriage of England's Charles II, gave him Bombay. Gerald Aungier, as president of Surat and governor of Bombay (1669-77), established laws, a police force, a militia, and fortified the port for the use of merchants of all classes and castes. Aungier granted concessions to end the first mutiny at Bombay in 1674. The men complained they had not been paid in a month and wanted to be paid in rupees. The leader of the mutiny was court martialed and executed. When the Mughals and Marathas clashed in Bombay harbor in 1679, the English remained neutral. In 1682 John Child became president of Surat and governor of Bombay. The next year London ordered him to cut costs, and these provoked Kegwig's rebellion that took over a ship with 50,000 pounds in gold. Kegwig governed Bombay for a year and was pardoned when the gold was returned. The export of cotton cloth by India increased six-fold from 1664 to 1684 by trade with the English and Dutch east India companies, but after 1689 the saturated market began declining. In exchange India imported mostly precious metals from the new world; between 1681 and 1685 the British East India Company exported 240,000 kg of silver and 7,000 kg of gold to Mughal India. An English colony on the island of St. Helena provided vegetables and fresh fruit for English sailors, but punishments of rebellion were harsh. When protestors demanded the release of an innocent prisoner in 1684, seventeen of them were killed or wounded; then nineteen were condemned to death.

Conflict escalated in October 1686 when Hughli governor Job Charnock reacted to the abuse of three English soldiers with reprisals that spiked guns, captured a ship, and burned houses, killing sixty while only one Englishman died. In negotiations Charnock demanded an indemnity of 6.6 million rupees. When 700 cavalry attacked the island, Charnock moved back to the fortification at Sutanati, which Company director and captain William Heath later named Calcutta. Others went to Madras, where Governor Elihu Yale (1687-92) helped the settlement get a corporation, a mayor, and aldermen. Shaista Khan proposed that the English help them fight Arakan pirates. In 1689 Company directors approved the settlement of Sutanati, and Charnock established a factory there the next year. During the Mughal-English war 1688-90, the English at Surat captured at least 14 ships; yet all but the castle was lost at Bombay, and they had to agree to restore all plundered goods and ships and pay Aurangzeb an indemnity. War and plague reduced more than 700 English at Bombay to sixty. In 1691 Bengal governor Ibrahim Khan exempted the English from customs duties for 3,000 rupees a year.

After the English revolution of 1688, the Whig party supported free trade and what the monopolists of the Company called "interlopers." In 1693 Josiah Child used 80,000 pounds in bribes to get the Company a new charter from the Privy Council, and the next year the House of Commons passed a law allowing equal access to trade. In 1697 the Mughal empire allowed the English to defend themselves against the Afghan rulers of Bengal, and the next year they granted them land at Calcutta for collecting taxes. That year the Whig party in the House of Commons started a new company. Two million pounds were raised in two days, but they went into the Exchequer for the charter. In 1701 Emperor Aurangzeb decreed the cessation of all European trade and the seizure of their goods because they were not protecting Indian shipping. The next year the two companies decided to merge, and this was accomplished in 1708.

Tulsidas and Maharashtra Mystics
The Bhakti movement of religious devotion spread as one of its greatest proponents Shankaradeva was born in the mid-15th century in Assam. He was a scholar, poet, painter, composer, musician, playwright, actor, dancer, and choreographer; he interpreted the Bhagavata Purana and preached recitation of the name of Krishna. Shankaradeva's chief disciple Madhavadeva promoted Vaishnavism in his Namaghosha and wrote five devotional plays.

Tulsidas was born about 1532, probably at Rajapur in Uttar Pradesh, and he died in 1623. His parents abandoned him, and the child had to beg from door to door until he was adopted by the Ramanandi sadhu Narahari, sixth in the line of spiritual descent from Ramananda. Tulsidas moved to Benares, where he spent most of his life. Shesasanatana-ji taught him the Vedas, Vedangas, Darshanas, Itihasas, and Puranas. After fifteen years of study Tulsidas returned to Rajapur but could find no one from his family. He married Ratnavali, but their son died in infancy. He was devoted to his wife and followed her when she went to visit her parents, crossing a river. She reprimanded him for following her, saying that if he had devoted the love he had for her to the Lord Rama, he would not have to worry about rebirth. So he went back to Benares and became an ascetic votary of Rama.

Tulsidas began his poetic masterpiece Ramacaritamanasa in March 1574. He dreamed that Shiva commanded him to write it in the vernacular Awadhi Hindi. He also wrote many other devotional poems about Rama and Krishna. Valmiki's epic Ramayana was the basis for many poems, but Tulsidas was also influenced by devotional poems such as the Adhyatma Ramayana of the 14th century. After quarreling with the Vairagis of Ayodhya, he left that city to return to Benares, where he completed Ramacaritamanasa in less than three years.

Tulsidas completed the transformation of Rama from an epic hero to the divine incarnation of Vishnu by omitting incidents of questionable moral character. Legends are told to account for the birth of Ravan in a demonic family. Rama's wife Sita is also presented as being pure of stain by having her enter the fire before she is seized by Ravan. Rama explains that the only purpose of his accusation was to prove her innocence publicly. She is considered the incarnation of Lakshmi. This poem presents the good news of salvation to the Vaisnavas, going beyond the chivalrous hero to offer complete liberation from an evil era to those from any caste who have faith, love, and adoration for the Lord Rama. Tulsidas is believed to have begun the tradition of presenting annual performances of Ram Lila in the towns of north India played in mime as the poem is chanted, the performance taking three weeks. Tulsidas upheld the caste system, suggesting in his poetry that a Brahmin should be revered even if he is not good, and Sudras should not be respected no matter how virtuous and learned they may be. He has also been criticized for his opinions about women as inherently impure and as only being valuable for serving their husbands and raising their children faithfully.


Ekanatha (1533-99) was a very literate mystic who edited the Jnanesvari of Jnanadeva (1271-95). He wrote voluminous spiritual literature and composed didactic Abhangas extolling the spiritual life while warning against others' women and wealth. In his ethics he elucidated the ideas of Jnanadeva from the Bhagavad-Gita, and he especially recommended mental purity, internal penance, retirement, and tolerating the defects and slanders of others. Ekanatha advised those in the world to fulfill their duties. He went beyond devotion (bhakti) and taught that discriminating between the real and unreal is important knowledge. The mind can be purified by discharging duties and constant prayer to God while not being attached to worldly objects.

Tukaram (1608-49) was born into a Sudra family, but his father inherited a revenue-collecting office and was a trader with a fine farm in Dehu. His parents died while he was a youth, and during the famine of 1629 he lost his first wife and children; he also became bankrupt and lost his position as well as his farm. Though criticized by his second wife for not earning a living, Tukaram became a reclusive mystic. In a dream the saintly poet Namadeva (1270-1350) told him to write poetry to the deity Vitthal (Vishnu). Tuka repaired the ancestral shrine to Vitthal and wrote several thousand poems, mostly in the Abhanga metric. He chanted the "Rama Krishna Hari" mantram he received in an initiatory dream with Babaji, finding comfort from his calamities in the name of God. Some of his poems were advice to his angry wife. She said that for the sake of God, her husband had entered into relationship with the whole world.

Tukaram was most influenced by the mystics Jnanadeva, Kabir, Ramananda, and Ekanatha. He described the miserable conditions of Hindus suffering under Mughal domination and believed that misery would not disappear without heroism. Some brahmins objected to this Sudra writing poetry in Marathi, and they threw his poems into a river. Tukaram went on a fast to death, but after thirteen days the poems were found undamaged. Ramesvarbhatta hated Tukaram but eventually became his disciple. Like Ekanatha, Tuka advised spiritual aspirants to avoid the wives and wealth of others. He also warned against flattery, egoism of the body, and forgetting God. He recommended meditating on God and telling the truth. He believed a spiritual teacher should regard his disciples as gods and expect only that they will serve God. Tukaram disappeared in 1649, and his body was never found.

Ramdas Samarth (1608-81) ran away from home rather than be married at the age of twelve. He practiced religious austerity at Takali for twelve years, and in a vision he was initiated by Rama. After 1632 he spent twelve years traveling. He may have met Tukaram, and it was reported that he initiated Shivaji in 1649. After Shivaji was crowned in 1674, he spent six weeks living with Ramdas at Sajjanagada, using much money to feed the poor. Ramdas advised the Hindu revolutionary to adorn his body, not with clothes and ornaments, but with shrewdness and wisdom. He lamented the lack of intellect in many Brahmins under the Mughal domination, and he urged them to become true Brahmins with supremacy in worldly and spiritual matters. He believed that those who help to re-establish the sovereignty of God are incarnations of God. Ramdas wrote his major poem Dasabodha in 1659. He argued that self-knowledge is more powerful than religious vows or charities or yoga or pilgrimages. The eternal form of God is the knower. Ramdas described four levels of worship from images to incarnations to the self and finally to the absolute God, who is the inner self and the real doer. A saint is always looking at this self and does not care about the worldly life but teaches knowledge of the self. A friend of God is bound in God's love and behaves only in ways that would be approved by God so that the friendship between them grows. He suggested that the ideal sage alternates meditation on God with active work. Ultimately God does all things.

Sikhs 1539-1708
Nanak and Sikhism
Instead of choosing one of his two sons, Nanak, before he died in 1539, selected Angad to be the second Guru. Angad died in 1552, and Amar Das succeeded him. Nanak's son Sri Chand had renounced the world, and his disciples practiced celibacy and austerity. Amar Das declared that the reclusive followers of Sri Chand called Udasis were separate from the active and domestic followers of Nanak's teachings who were called Sikhs, meaning "disciples." Amar Das encouraged the disciples to be physically fit and denounced the use of intoxicants. In his congregations women did not observe purdah, and he appointed three women to be preachers. He urged monogamy and encouraged widow remarriage; he discouraged women from beating their breasts in mourning a relative. Amar Das warned devotees against avarice, selfishness, falsehood, greed, hypocrisy, and worldly desires. When Muslims broke the earthen pitchers of Sikhs drawing water from a common well, the Guru advised against taking revenge. Instead they spent three years digging a well, which was completed in 1559. Amar Das died in 1574 and chose his son-in-law Ram Das to succeed him. He had a reservoir dug at a place that became Amritsar. The Sikh religion did not grow rapidly. When Ram Das died in 1581, the number of Sikhs had only doubled in the 42 years since Nanak's death.

The guru after Ram Das was his eighteen-year-old son Arjun. He converted the religious organization into a government by sending out agents to collect taxes (10% of income) instead of merely accepting contributions. These agents were called masands, meaning "nobles," and they were allowed to keep a portion of what they received. Guru Arjun gave the masands turbans and robes of honor. The money was used for building, and Arjun began living in aristocratic style at Amritsar. He encouraged Sikhs to take up commerce as well as agriculture, and some became rich trading horses, timber, or iron; others became carpenters and masons. The famous Emperor Akbar visited Guru Arjun in 1598.

Guru Arjun collected the writings of his predecessors with his own into the Adi Granth, meaning "Original Book." Most of the hymns were by the gurus, but a few were by other saints, such as Nam Dev, Kabir, and Farid. Use of these devotional hymns helped develop greater understanding of the Sikh teachings. The Adi Granth was completed in 1604. Arjun's longest and most popular hymn is Sukhamani, which means "peace of mind" and is often repeated in the morning by Sikhs after the Jap Ji. Sukhamani praises the infinite attributes of God, warns against the five senses, and describes the spiritual path of God's name. God is truth, which is the highest virtue. Humans experience God by true and pure living. Arjun recommended surrendering oneself to the true Guru. God is reality and the only source of well-being. If you sing God's praises, God will take care of you. Muslims complained to Emperor Akbar that the Adi Granth was blasphemous to Islam; but he did not find it so and even contributed 51 gold coins.

The growing wealth and power of Arjun made enemies. He antagonized the Lahore financial administrator when he refused to marry his son to Chandu Shah's daughter. Arjun made prayers for fleeing Prince Khusrau, the rebelling son of Jahangir, and gave him money. After the new Emperor Jahangir arrested and partially blinded Khusrau, he summoned Guru Arjun to Lahore. The Guru refused to pay a fine or make any changes to the Adi Granth. So he was tortured in the sun and finally drowned while bathing on May 30, 1606. The property of his family had been confiscated. His brother Pirthi Chand wanted to be guru; but Arjun's son Hargobind became recognized as guru even though he was only eleven years old.

Guru Hargobind immediately began wearing two swords and enjoyed hunting and eating meat. He inherited a guard of 52 soldiers, 300 horsemen, and 60 gunners, and he recruited 500 infantry. Hargobind held court and administered justice like a king. Emperor Jahangir ordered Hargobind to pay the outstanding fine of his father Arjun. When he also refused to pay, Hargobind was summoned to Delhi and in 1609 was put under house arrest where Nanak had once lived. Hargobind said he was loyal to Jahangir and was allowed to go hunting with him. The Emperor had Hargobind confined on meager rations in the fort at Gwalior. He was apparently joined by his three wives, who bore him five children before he was released in 1620. Hargobind was given some authority in the Punjab and command over 400 cavalry and a thousand infantry. Pathan mercenaries led by Painda Khan soon joined under his banner. He went with Emperor Jahangir on his last visit to Kashmir.

After Shah Jahan became emperor in 1628, Hargobind returned to Amritsar. That year a quarrel over a bird between the hunting parties of Shah Jahan and Hargobind resulted in violence. The Emperor dismissed Hargobind from his office and recalled his Mughal contingent; but the Punjab viceroy Hakim Alim-ud-din did not punish the Guru. Before the Udasi sect leader Baba Srichand died in 1629, he appointed Hargobind's oldest son Baba Gurditta as his successor, ending the Sikh schism. In 1634 a Mughal force attacked the wedding of Hargobind's daughter Viro. The Sikhs quickly retreated and left the sweets for the imperialists. When they were stuffed, the Sikhs attacked and killed the Mughal commander. After such victories over thousands of imperial troops, some believed that only Hargobind could challenge the Emperor. The Guru sent a disciple to Central Asia for horses, and on the way back the Lahore governor confiscated two of them. After a disciple took the two horses to Hargobind, a Mughal force was sent against him. The Sikhs ambushed and defeated them but lost 1200 men. In a 1635 battle 5,000 Sikhs fought. When the Mughal commander came at Hargobind with his sword, Hargobind killed him. Then he led his followers into the Punjab hills, and the war went on until 1640. Hargobind lived in peace at Kiratpur and died in 1644. Many criticized him for neglecting spiritual ideals and because he did not add one verse to the Adi Granth.

Gurditta had died in 1638; of Hargobind's other sons, Suraj Mal was considered too worldly, and Tegh Bahadur was a recluse. So Hargobind was succeeded by Gurditta's 14-year-old son Har Rai. He avoided a confrontation with his older brother Dhir Mal, whom some suspected of having poisoned Hargobind and who claimed to be the seventh guru. Har Rai was one of the spiritual teachers Prince Dara Shukoh visited. When Aurangzeb became emperor, Har Rai responded to his summons by sending his 14-year-old son Ram Rai; but after he capitulated before Aurangzeb and became his courtier, Har Rai excluded Ram from the succession. When Har Rai died in 1661, he was succeeded by his five-year-old son Har Kishan, who died of smallpox in 1664.

That year Hargobind's youngest son Tegh Bahadur became the Sikh guru. He composed the following song:

He who grieves not in grief,
From avarice, pleasures, and fear is free,
And considers gold as good as dust;
Who indulges not in slander or flattery,
And is immune to greed, attachment, and vanity;
Who in happiness and sorrow, self-poised remains,
And is indifferent to all praise or blame;
Who discards all hopes and desires;
Who lives detached from the world,
And is not affected by lust or wrath;
In such a one shines the Light of God.
The man who receives the Guru's grace,
Discovers this secret of spiritual life;
Saith Nanak: The soul of such a man blends
With God, as water mingles with water.2

Several people claimed to be the ninth guru; but the merchant Makhan Shah went to each one and dismissed them until he found Tegh Bahadur. Dhir Mal was especially resentful and sent Shihan and ruffians to assassinate his uncle. Shihan shot a bullet that grazed Tegh Bahadur on the shoulder. Kirpal and others then protected the Guru, and Dhir Mal ordered his men to flee with plundered loot. Makhan Shah arrived with armed men and stormed Dhir Mal's house. Dhir Mal and his supporters begged Tegh Bahadur to forgive them, and Makhan Shah made them leave Bakala. In November 1664 Guru Tegh Bahadur went to Amritsar. Although he was not allowed to enter a Sikh temple, he told Makhan Shah that he would never use force. The women of Amritsar persuaded the priests to change their minds. Tegh Bahadur taught that the world is transient. He began five years of traveling and visited Sikh centers in Mughal India and Assam.

After Aurangzeb's 1669 order to demolish non-Muslim temples and schools, a Sikh temple at Buriya was replaced by a mosque, which the Sikhs then demolished. Tegh Bahadur in the Punjab encouraged the Sikhs to withstand these persecutions. The Emperor visited the Punjab in 1674, and his officials forced many people to convert to Islam. Kashmiri leaders appealed to Tegh Bahadur, who courageously moved into Mughal territory and advised them to announce they would convert to Islam only after he did. Aurangzeb had Tegh Bahadur arrested and taken to Delhi with five disciples. The Guru refused to perform a miracle or convert to Islam. Two disciples escaped, and the other three were tortured to death; one was sawed in two, another was boiled in oil, and the third was cut in pieces. Tegh Bahadur remained firm and offered the miracle of his sacrifice, saying that paper around his neck would not be cut by a sword; so without torture he was beheaded on November 11, 1675.

Tegh Bahadur's son, Guru Gobind Singh, made major changes in Sikh traditions during their struggles with the Mughal government. He received both a literary and military education, and he was fond of hunting wild boar. When Sikhs visited him annually, Makhowal became an armed camp. The Kahlur chief complained, and Guru Gobind Singh moved to Sirmur near the border of Garhwal. In 1688 the Garhwal invaded Sirmur, and the Sikhs helped win the bloody battle at Bhangani. The next year Guru Gobind Singh returned to Makhowal and founded Anandpur with better defenses; only those who had fought at Bhangani were allowed to live there. He also fought for Kahlur chief Bhim Chand when he refused to pay tribute to the Mughals; but after the victory when Chand agreed to pay the tribute, the Sikhs plundered one of his villages. The Sikhs at Anandpur deterred Mughal attacks, which were diverted into a campaign against the rebel chiefs in the hills during the mid-1690s. Meanwhile Guru Gobind Singh was in contact with Sikh sangats (groups), who were encouraged to send him money, supplies, and weapons.

In 1698 the Sikhs spent six months celebrating the Durga Ashtami festival and Durga's destruction of evil-doers. On the first day of a new year (March 30, 1699) to an assembly of thousands Guru Gobind Singh proclaimed the creation of a new nation. He exhorted the people to destroy their enemies and praised the sword as divine. He called for sacrifice, and one by one five volunteers went into a tent with him. He returned each time with a bloody sword, but goat's blood had been used. The five "beloved ones" were called the Khalsa. The five letters stood for oneself, God, devotion, master, and freedom. The five Ks that Sikhs were to keep at all times are kesh (long hair), kangha (comb), kirpan (sword), kara (steel bracelet), and kachcha (pants). The five Khalsa vows are to refrain from the following: cutting hair or beard, smoking tobacco, eating meat, wearing a cap, and worshiping tombs or relics. The five deliverances promised to disciples are from previous religious practices, past bad deeds, caste requirements, hereditary professions, and caste rituals. The five Sikh rules of conduct he laid down are prayer, helping one another, practicing riding and use of arms, not coveting another's property, and making love only to one's wife. Guru Gobind Singh urged every Sikh to fight against cruelty and tyranny and to help the poor and protect the weak. The Sikh offices of masands (priests in districts) were abolished, and those resisting this were punished or fined. Gobind Singh urged Hindu princes to become Sikhs and challenge the Mughals who abused their daughters.

Thus the Sikhs took up the sword. The Delhi viceroy sent 10,000 men under generals Paindah Khan and Din Beg to Anandpur. Paindah Khan was killed, and the hill rajas fled. In 1700 the Sikhs were defeated at Anandpur and retreated to Bhadsali. By 1704 Anandpur had been besieged five times. Lack of provisions and desertions led to a negotiated evacuation on December 21, but amid a rainstorm the imperial army captured the departing Sikhs and forced them to convert. Guru Gobind Singh and his two older sons escaped with forty followers, but they were besieged at Chamkaur. After the attack killed most of the Sikhs and Gobind's two older sons, the five remaining Sikhs ordered the Guru to flee. Disguised in Mughal uniforms, he and three disciples escaped. In a village Gobind Singh changed into the blue clothes of a Sufi. The Guru's two younger sons refused to convert and were beheaded on December 27, 1704.

The Guru fled 1500 miles and replied to a summons from Aurangzeb that because of his persecutions it was lawful to take up the sword. At Talwandi he completed the Adi Granth by adding 116 hymns composed by his father Tegh Bahadur. There he received another letter from the Emperor and decided to return; but Aurangzeb died on March 3, 1707. The Guru asked his successor Bahadur Shah to punish Vazir Khan for having executed his young sons; the new Emperor postponed this but invited him to reside at Agra with an allowance. Guru Gobind Singh stayed a year with Banda Bahadur, who went to the Punjab to chastise Vazir Khan of Sirhind. Vazir Khan sent two boys who stabbed the Guru, and he died of his wounds on October 7, 1708. Having no surviving children and wanting to avoid feuds, before he died, he declared that the Khalsa was to care for God and that the Adi Granth was to be their guide.

Notes
1. Quoted in The Mughul Empire, p. 274 from History of Aurangzeb by J. N. Sarkar, Volume 3, chapter 34, appendix 6.
2. Adi Granth: Sorath, p. 633 quoted in Guru Tegh Bahadur by Trilochan Singh, p. 137.


Copyright © 2004 by Sanderson Beck
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