“The uncommon abilities of most of the princes, with the mild and humane character of all, rendered Hindostan the most flourishing empire in the world during two complete centuries.”—Dow.
When Baber first rode down through the grim gates of India’s northwest mountain-wall, the accession of Suleiman lay but a year in the future; the Mogul won the battle of Panipat but four months before the Turk was victorious at Mohacs. Thus the founding of the Mogul Empire nearly coincided with the meridian splendor of the Ottoman power, and its decisive battle of establishment with the victory which led to the last great extension of Ottoman authority into Europe. Not Baber or even Akbar, Suleiman’s contemporaries, but Aurangzeb, whose reign began a century after Suleiman’s death, affords the closest comparison with the Turkish monarch; yet the third battle of Panipat in 1761 marked the virtual destruction of the Mogul Empire, whereas the second battle of Mohacs in 1687 meant but the first noteworthy step of the Ottoman retreat. The house of Timur has disappeared from history, while the house of Osman still reigns over wide territories; less than two and a half centuries of genuine sovereign rule were enjoyed by the Moguls, while six centuries have not sufficed to measure the independent existence of the Ottomans.
The Mogul emperors perhaps never ruled so large a territory as the Ottoman sultans, but their lands were far more productive; moreover, having from five to ten times as many subjects as their Western cousins and an income in proportion, they could surpass even the Magnificent Suleiman in display and largesse. The inferior persistence of their dominion, therefore, suggests inferior strength and stability in their institutions, a suggestion to which even a limited investigation lends much support.
The Moguls shared with the Ottomans their relation to the ideas of the Mongol and Turkish Tatars of the steppe lands, and to those of the Persians and the Arabs. They were more directly and vitally influenced by the Tatars and Persians, and less directly by the Arabs. Farther than this their relations were not to the comparatively organized and energetic civilization of the Mediterranean but to the more speculative and passive culture of India. Over the lands into which they entered as conquerors lay the shadow not of sternly practical Roman legalism, but of Hindu and Buddhist contempt for things mundane.
They founded a despotism, but one that was never, even under Aurangzeb, so closely related to the Sacred Law of Mohammed as was the government of Suleiman. They ruled a variety of lands in a variety of relationships, but never with the stern control exercised by the Kaisar-i-Rûm (Roman emperor), the name which they gave to the Turkish ruler at Constantinople. They enforced the obedience of many peoples, who spoke many languages and practised many forms of religion; yet they never held these peoples under any such iron system of subjection as that which dominated the Christian subjects of the sultan, even to the seizure of their children for tribute.
Since the passing of those prehistoric times when all human ideas were solidified together into a single “crust of custom,” every nation has probably had two leading institutions, more or less closely connected,—the one of religion and the other of government. The foregoing pages have shown how powerful and pervasive were the Ottoman Ruling Institution and the Moslem Institution in the Ottoman Empire. In the parallel organizations of the empire of the Moguls, however, it is not possible to discern comparable unique individuality, systematic structure, and ordered efficiency. Some allowance must be made for a comparative lack of information, since not many Western observers have described the more distant empire; but this fact can hardly alter the conclusion materially. The institutional structure of the Mogul Empire was decidedly inferior to that of the Ottoman Empire in solidity, system, and persistent energy.
Baber’s following consisted of the comrades of his many years of fighting, an army of cavalry, artillery, and musketry composed in ancient Turkish fashion of high-spirited men attached to their chief by impressive leadership and open-handed generosity. Courage, military prowess, and the nominal profession of Islam were the necessary qualifications; differences of race, education, and Moslem doctrine were disregarded. Warriors of Turki stock, Persians of Shiite leanings, hardy Afghans, “Roman” artillery engineers from Stambul, were equals in the rough brotherhood of Baber’s camp. The principle of subordination, at least among persons of consequence, was not that of slaves to their master, but of tribesmen to their chief, of vassals to their honored suzerain.
When Turks had first invaded India, five centuries before, slavery as a means of recruiting and training soldiers and governors was in full swing. Mahmûd of Ghazni was the son of a father who had risen through slavery. The thirteenth century saw enthroned at Delhi a dynasty of slave kings which antedated by several decades the Mamelukes of Egypt. Late in the fourteenth century Firoz III owned 180,000 slaves, of whom 40,000 constituted his household. The Mameluke government endured for more than two and a half centuries, until overthrown by the more centralized and efficient slave system of the Ottomans; but in Central Asia and ultimately in India a new force speedily rendered the slave method, save for some survivals, antiquated and impossible.
The dominance of the Mongols was based on the discipline of an army of freemen who were intelligent enough willingly to render absolute obedience to their officers as the well-tested condition of certain success. With the break-up of the vast Mongol Empire, the lands now in Russian Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Persia lapsed toward the horde organization of nomad Tatars, but became more and more modified by Moslem feudalism. Under such conditions, Timur, high-born and adventurous, chivalrous and literary, fanatical and cruel, achieved an empire that was large and splendid, but personal to himself, and destined to vanish almost with its founder. Yet he presaged a time when in Asia and Europe alike there should come, after the disintegrating individualism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a period of the gathering together of lands and peoples into large units under strong personal governments.
Baber, descendant of Timur in the sixth generation, descendant also of Genghis Khan, came at the beginning of the new era. Less ruthless than either of his great ancestors, less legal than the “Inflexible One,” less Moslem than the “Scourge of Asia,” but possessed of much of the leadership and military genius of both, he stands forth, by reason of his memoirs, as one of the best known conquerors of history. His love of carousing, his family affection, his literary bent, his toleration of heretics and infidels, his bold leadership, his liberality in dividing spoil, presented qualities and suggested modes of activity which were to characterize all his descendants down to the puritanical Aurangzeb.
Thus the family life of the house of Baber was far more normal than that of the house of Osman. In contrast with an almost unbroken line of Ottoman slave mothers and wives, whose names with those of their daughters have hardly survived, many of the Mogul imperial ladies are well known. Witness the princess Gul-Badan, daughter of Baber, who like her father wrote memoirs; the empress Nur-Jehan, who ruled India for a time; and the empress Mumtaz-Mahal, for whom her devoted husband built the fairest of all mausoleums. Turki princesses, ladies of high Persian descent, and daughters of Hindu Rajahs, were taken into the imperial harem, where, though women and eunuchs were present “from Russia, Circassia, Mingrelia, Georgia, and Ethiopia,” no emperors sprang from slave mothers during the period of greatness. With such a policy in the family which constituted a chief element in the unity of the Mogul Empire, it was but natural that officers and soldiers, statesmen and public servants, should be accepted with a like catholicity. The best fighters, of course, continued to be those who came down newly from the high country beyond the northwest passes; and since such of these as met success were apt to send for relatives and friends, there was continual recruiting from among Tatars, Persians, Afghans, and Arabs,—all Moslems, but of various sects. “Rûmis” from the Ottoman Empire were especially useful in the artillery service. Some of them were doubtless European renegades, but “Firinjis” or Franks were likely to come more directly from Portugal and other European countries. Yet by no means all the brave were from foreign lands. Many Rajputs under their own Rajahs served the Mogul emperors most acceptably, and when treated without prejudice they were faithful. The high officers of government were usually Persians; but Akbar was nobly served by the great Todar Mal, and appointed Rajahs to govern the Punjab and Bengal. About one in eight of his paid cavalry chiefs was a Hindu; and of the lesser civil-service positions the mere necessity for numbers, apart from superior skill and training, required that many should be held by Hindus.
It is not that slavery had disappeared from the Mogul system. Traces of the old method can be discerned as late as the eighteenth century. In fact, Muhammad Khan, a Bangash Nawab of Farrukhabad, maintained what was practically a replica in miniature of the Ottoman system. Hindu boys between the ages of seven and thirteen, some of them sons of Rajputs and Brahmins, were seized, bought, or accepted as chelas or slaves to the number of one or two hundred a year. They were taught to read and write, and were specially rewarded when the task was completed. Five hundred chelas from eighteen to twenty years of age were trained as a regiment of musketeers. From among the older chelas were chosen the officers of the household, generals of the army, and deputy governors of provinces. The Nawab arranged marriages between chelas and the daughters of chelas. He encouraged them to acquire personal property, which he could claim in time of need; but he forbade them to found towns or build masonry structures, lest occupying these they might tend toward independence. Muhammad Khan did not, however, depend exclusively on his Hindu slaves; he sent money to his own Bangash tribe, and thus obtained a colony of Afghans to whom he gave high military positions and upon some of whom he bestowed his daughters in marriage. Other vassals of the emperor made use of a similar slave system; and it is not unlikely that the emperor himself recruited his permanent infantry with the help of slavery, and that he promoted some slaves to high positions. But the absence of definite information in this direction is in most striking contrast to its abundant presence in the records which deal with the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century.
In theory the officers of government were so far the servants of the emperor that their accumulated personal property belonged to him at their death; but in practice the opulence and the generosity of the sovereign led him often to leave such wealth in the hands of the officers’ children. When this was not done, employment in the public service was assigned to sons and pensions were granted to widows.
Titles of nobility were awarded for life to distinguished officials; the chief officers of the central government and governors of great provinces were called Emirs (Omrahs in many Western writings, probably a plural of majesty), generals of the army were Khans, and distinguished soldiers of lesser rank were Bahadurs or knights. Khondamir says that Humayun organized a system of twelve orders or arrows, according to which the entire imperial household was graded. “The twelfth arrow, which was made of the purest gold, was put in the auspicious quiver of this powerful king, and nobody could dare to touch it. The eleventh arrow belonged to His Majesty’s relations and brethren, and all the sultans who were in the government employ. Tenth, to the great mushaikhs, saiyids, and the learned and religious men. Ninth, to the great nobles. Eighth, to the courtiers and some of the king’s personal attendants. Seventh, to the attendants in general. Sixth, to the harems and to the well-behaved female attendants. Fifth, to young maid-servants. Fourth, to the treasurers and stewards. Third, to the soldiers. Second, to the menial servants. First, to the palace guards, camel-drivers, and the like. Each of these arrows or orders had three grades; the highest, the middle, and the lowest.” Appointments and promotions were, as at Constantinople, based upon valor and manifest ability. Through all the period of greatness the ladder of advancement was kept so clear that vigor, courage, and prowess could mount from the lowest ranks to the steps of the throne.
When the Ottoman Turks conquered their European territories, as well as parts of their Asiatic dominions, they for the first time introduced the Moslem religion. This was not the case with the Mogul advance into India. Beginning with Mohammed ben Kasim’s invasion of Sind in 712 A.D., and starting afresh with Mahmûd of Ghazni in 1000 A.D., the Moslem political control, accompanied by the conversion of a portion of the native population, had spread step by step until, when Baber came after eight centuries, there remained little of India that was not actually or had not at some time been under Moslem rule. No data appear to exist for determining the actual proportion of the total population that was Moslem during the Mogul period. Guesses have been made ranging from a possible one in four to Bernier’s estimate of one in hundreds. The only basis of any value would perhaps be that obtained by working backward from the British censuses. In 1911 the Mohammedans constituted about twenty-one per cent of the population of India, and their number was increasing at a slightly more rapid rate than the average. It may be supposed that the increase of the Moslem proportion was greater during the days of the Mogul Empire, when it was especially profitable to change, and when there was a strong inward flow at the northwest; but since the Mogul decline the rate of relative progress has probably always been slow. Perhaps the proportion about 1761 was somewhat less than one in five, and in 1526 it may have been not more than one in from ten to twenty. Bernier’s guess would certainly seem to have been wild, for it is inconceivable that so small progress would have been made in a thousand years and so great in the next two hundred. No doubt the Moslem contingent was then, as it is now, unevenly distributed, being in high proportion in the northwest and diminishing gradually with the distance from the mountain passes. At points on the seacoast where trade had been active, the Moslem influence had come early by way of the sea; hence there also the percentage was greater. In Suleiman’s empire, comprising as it did a large amount of old Moslem territory and including even the Holy Cities, the proportion of Moslems was, of course, much higher; but it diminished rapidly from south to north, until in Hungary it must have been extremely attenuated.
In the absence of an elaborate slave system in India, there was not the steady public machinery of conversion which operated powerfully in the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, it would seem that before the reign of Aurangzeb no emperor cared to promote conversion to Islam by financial or political rewards. Akbar, in fact, removed the jizyeh, or poll-tax, which had previously, as in all other truly Moslem lands until recent times, laid special burdens upon unbelievers, and the tax was not reimposed until the time of Aurangzeb. Akbar also forbade the enslavement of captives and of their wives and children. For a century, therefore, the government lent little encouragement to change of faith. Down to the accession of Aurangzeb there was a clear contrast between Ottoman and Mogul policy in the attitude toward the Moslem religion: the Moguls held far less than the Ottomans to the idea of the conquest of the world for Islam, or to the conversion of unbelievers, as an object of governmental endeavor. Aurangzeb alone had such zeal as characterizes the average descendant of Osman; he desired no infidels in his service, and regarded the Deccan as the Dar-ul-harb which he wished to make part of the Dar-ul-Islam. There can be no doubt, however, that under all the Mogul emperors the social pressure usual in Moslem lands continued to encourage conversion privately, while the slavery which Islam normally sanctions was also contributing to the increase of the faithful. Moreover, it is not likely that all the officers of the liberal emperors were as tolerant and as indifferent to Moslem progress as were their superiors.
At Delhi, as at Constantinople, no sharp line could be drawn separating government and army. The Mogul conquest was achieved by an army, and the army became a government. Amalgamation with older systems of course introduced groups of under-officials who had no military duties; but those who would be great had to be capable of military command, men who might be familiar with the pen but who must know how to wield the sword.
The Mogul army organization seems, in the midst of confused testimonies, to have borne a considerable resemblance to that of the Ottomans. The emperor was commander-in-chief, and as late as Aurangzeb regularly commanded in person in great campaigns. He had a personal army of 12,000 to 15,000 paid infantry and 12,000 to 40,000 paid cavalry. These corresponded in number and function, but not at all in political importance, to the Janissaries and Spahis of the Porte among the Ottomans. In great campaigns the standing army was supported by the feudal cavalry, estimated at from 200,000 to 400,000, and by indefinite numbers of irregular infantry, drawn from a mass estimated at four millions. The army was strong in artillery, and possessed in trained elephants a force of which the Ottomans could not make use.
The emperor’s infantry were, at least from Akbar’s time, matchlockmen; they seem to have been the only trustworthy and efficient foot-soldiers. It would appear that their clumsy weapons, improved by Akbar himself, were not changed up to the time of Aurangzeb; for Bernier reports that in his day the muskets were rested on forks and fired by men who squatted on the ground, and who feared that the flash might damage their eyebrows and beards. On account of the method of payment it is not possible to estimate closely the number of the emperor’s cavalry, or Mansabdars. Men who agreed to furnish from five to five thousand troopers were taken into his service, and pay (mansab) was assigned for the stipulated number; but even in Akbar’s time, according to Badauni, it was possible to present followers hired only for the occasion, and yet to draw life-long pay for their services. In later years there ceased to be even approximate correspondence between the amount of pay and the number of troops furnished. The mansab was then regarded as a salary, or even as a pension.
The more numerous feudal cavalry consisted of the holders (with their followers) of jagirs, or grants, of the revenue of districts of larger or smaller size, in return for which they served without other pay, except in case of unduly prolonged campaigns. Holders of large areas were accustomed to administer them in person, whereas those who held smaller sections would often leave the administration to the governors of provinces, who in time tended to appropriate the revenues. Aurangzeb, however, pursued the policy of assigning service in regions remote from the appointee’s jagir, and of retaining wives and children at the court as pledges of fidelity. Hindu Rajahs were easily brought into the system by being invested with analogous rights in their hereditary territories. Apart from these cases, the appointments, as in Turkey, were not regarded as hereditary, but were apt to be given to fresh recruits of ability from beyond the mountains. It was customary to make small assignments to sons of dead Jagirdars, and to increase their allowances upon proof of merit. Jagirdars and Rajahs, like Timariotes and Zaims, had jurisdiction and other governmental duties in the areas assigned to them, and thus carried a large part of the task of local government. Ultimately many of the higher positions became hereditary in families which worked toward independence in the days of decline.
The artillery seems to have been surprisingly strong under Baber and Humayun, and to have declined later. Baber is said to have had seven hundred guns at Panipat, which he chained together after the method employed by Selim I at Kaldiran. Humayun is reported to have had at Kanauj seven hundred guns discharging stone balls of five pounds weight, and twenty-one guns discharging brass balls ten times as heavy. Aurangzeb, it is said, transported seventy pieces of heavy artillery and two or three hundred swivel guns, mounted on the backs of camels. For fortress defence and siege operations the Moguls had a few enormous guns, some of which are said to have required for transport two hundred and fifty and even five hundred oxen! In addition to these resources, it appears, if testimonies can be trusted, that Akbar kept five thousand war elephants, each of which was accounted equal in time of battle to five hundred horsemen; and Hawkins says that Jehangir had twelve thousand elephants of all descriptions. Aurangzeb is reported to have maintained in the palace stables the more modest number of eight hundred elephants.
The early Mogul armies were efficient and successful. Aurangzeb, however, conducted about the Deccan in his twenty-four years’ war of conquest a horde that resembled a migration rather than an army. For each fighting man there were at least two camp-followers; the march was without discipline and order, like the movement of a herd of animals; and the camp was a city five miles long, or, as others say, seven and a half miles, or twenty miles in circumference. One European observer even reported that the encampment was thirty miles about, and contained five million souls! Among these he counted seven hundred thousand soldiers, of whom three hundred thousand were cavalry. With all due allowance for exaggeration, the Mogul army clearly tended to become exceedingly numerous, but of increasing weakness and inefficiency. A battle in 1526 between Baber and Suleiman would have been a worthy contest, but the army of Aurangzeb would probably have been defeated easily by the Ottoman troops which bit the dust before Prince Eugene.
Splendid as was the display of Suleiman’s entourage, it lacked the financial basis which the Moguls possessed from Akbar to Aurangzeb. Gold and silver, gems, silks and muslins, were far more abundant in the eastern land. A more highly developed architecture, showing far greater richness of detailed ornamentation, served in India to construct not only temples of religion and tombs of great personages, but also marvellous palaces and pleasure-houses for the emperors. Many thousands of attendants supplied every possible luxury and rendered every conceivable service.
No systematic description of the organization of the imperial household has come to hand. Scattered allusions reveal the presence of very numerous groups of officials, agents, and servants of all grades. Teachers, physicians, scholars, valets, chamberlains, butlers, cooks, kitchen servants, musicians, poets, generals, captains, guards, equerries, hostlers, herdsmen, elephant-drivers, and stablemen, ministers of state, judges, treasurers, secretaries, swarmed about the great halls and myriad chambers of the palaces at Agra, Delhi, and Fatehpur-Sikri. These, with the tradespeople who made their living by supplying the household but who were less directly attached to the emperor, constituted a migratory city of large size, which followed the emperor from residence to residence and in time of campaign swelled almost unbelievably the following of his enormous army.
As for the court life which went on at the center of this vast and multi-colored setting, this was necessarily twofold, by that custom of all Moslem lands according to which the sexes must be segregated. Daily assemblages, gatherings at the mosques on Fridays, great ceremonies for special occasions, and the imperial hunts contained none but men as participants. If women saw any part of such festivities, it was from a distance and through thick veils or close-wrought lattices. Khondamir says that Humayun divided his attendants into three great classes, concerned respectively with government and war, with learning and literature, and with music and personal grace and beauty. The latter were called “people of pleasure ... because most people take great delight in the company of such young-looking men, of rosy cheeks and sweet voices, and are pleased by hearing their songs, and the pleasing sound of the musical instruments, such as the harp, the sackbut, and the lute.” Humayun devoted Sundays and Tuesdays to dealings with the first class, holding audience and attending to government duties on those days. Saturdays and Thursdays were days when “the tree of the hope” of literary and religious persons “produced the fruit of prosperity by their obtaining audience in the paradise-resembling court.” Mondays and Wednesdays were devoted to pleasure parties, when old companions and chosen friends were entertained by musicians and singers. On Fridays were convened “all the assemblies,” whatever this may mean; and the emperor sat with them as long as he could.
The splendor of the court may be illustrated by two or three extracts. Nizam-uddin Ahmad relates that Akbar, journeying in the fifteenth year of his reign, accepted an invitation to rest at Dipalpur. “For some days feasting went on, and upon the last day splendid offerings were presented to him. Arab and Persian horses, with saddles of silver; huge elephants, with chains of gold and silver, and housings of velvet and brocade; and gold and silver, and pearls and jewels, and rubies and garnets of great price; chairs of gold, and silver vases, and vessels of gold and silver; stuffs of Europe, Turkey, and China, and other precious things beyond all conception. Presents of similar kind also were presented for the young princes and the emperor’s wives. All the ministers and attendants and dignitaries received presents, and every soldier of the army also participated in the bounty.”
Sir Thomas Roe describes a curious annual ceremony of the Mogul emperors as carried through by Jehangir. “The first of September was the King’s Birth-day, and the solemnitie of his weighing, to which I went, and was carryed into a very large and beautiful Garden, the square within all water, on the sides flowers and trees, in the midst a Pinacle, where was prepared the scales, being hung in large tressels, and a crosse beame plated on with Gold thinne: the scales of massie Gold, the borders set with small stones, Rubies and Turkeys, the Chaines of Gold large and massie, but strengthened with silke Cords. Here attended the Nobilitie, all sitting about it on Carpets until the King came; who at last appeared clothed or rather loden with Diamonds, Rubies, Pearles, and other precious vanities, so great, so glorious; his Sword, Target, Throne to rest on, correspondent; his head, necke, breast, armes, above the elbows, at the wrists, his fingers every one, with at least two or three Rings; fettered with chaines, or dyalled Diamonds; Rubies as great as Wal-nuts, some greater; and Pearles such as mine eyes were amazed at. Suddenly he entered into the scales, sate like a woman on his legges, and there was put in against him many bagges to fit his weight, which were changed six times, and they say was silver, and that I understood his weight to be nine thousand rupias, which are almost one thousand pounds sterling: after with Gold and Jewels, and precious stones, but I saw none, it being in bagges might be Pibles; then against Cloth of Gold, Silk, Stuffes, Linen, Spices, and all sorts of goods, but I must believe for they were in sardles. Lastly against Meale, Butter, Corne, which is said to be given to the Banian.” The extract neglects to state that the ceremony was followed by the distribution as largesse of all the valuables weighed against the royal person with its heavy adornments.
Bernier describes an audience of Aurangzeb. “The king appeared seated upon his throne at the end of the great hall in the most magnificent attire. His vest was of white and delicately flowered satin, with a silk and gold embroidery of the finest texture. The turban of gold cloth had an aigrette whose base was composed of diamonds of an extraordinary size and value, besides an oriental topaz which may be pronounced unparalleled, exhibiting a lustre like the sun. A necklace of immense pearls suspended from his neck reached to the stomach. The throne was supported by six massy feet, said to be of solid gold, sprinkled over with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. It was constructed by Shah-Jehan for the purpose of displaying the immense quantity of precious stones accumulated successively in the Treasury from the spoils of ancient Rajahs and Pathans, and the annual presents to the monarch which every Omrah is bound to make on certain festivals. At the foot of the throne were assembled all the Omrahs, in splendid apparel, upon a platform surrounded by a silver railing and covered by a spacious canopy of brocade with deep fringes of gold. The pillars of the hall were hung with brocades of a gold ground, and flowered satin canopies were raised over the whole expanse of the extensive apartment, fastened with red silken cords from which were suspended large tassels of silk and gold. The floor was covered entirely with carpets of the richest silk, of immense length and breadth.”
As regards the female side of the court, although this had almost a separate organization and was, in keeping with Moslem and Indian tradition, to a large extent secluded, yet the imperial ladies possessed a measure of freedom through two centuries which allowed several of them to stand forth as distinct individuals, and a few to influence affairs profoundly. Jehangir assigned to the women of the household the sixth and fifth orders, or arrows, of rank. Akbar is said to have kept five thousand women in his harem. As usual, however, only a few of these were wives or votaries of the imperial pleasure; most of them constituted an elaborate organization for the housekeeping and entertainment of the few great ladies, the mother, aunts, sisters, wives, and favorites of the emperor. As already indicated, these women were of all kinds,—free-born and slave, Moslem, Christian, and pagan, Turki, Afghan, Persian, Hindu, Armenian, Slavic, Circassian, Georgian, and Ethiopian. Their communication with the outside world was kept up through their relatives and through eunuchs.
A few of the imperial ladies may be mentioned. The princess Gul-Badan, third daughter of Baber and Dil-Dar, wrote a history of the deeds of her half-brother, Humayun. In her later life she went with other great ladies on pilgrimage to Mecca, taking seven years for the journey; one-half of this time she spent in Arabia, where she performed the rites of the pilgrimage four times. After twenty more years filled with works of piety and charity she died at the age of eighty. Her nephew, Akbar, with his own hand helped bear her to the tomb.
Most powerful of all the Mogul imperial ladies was the Persian Nur-Jehan, or Nur-Mahal, wife of Jehangir. Born in poverty and actually cast away by her parents, she rose to the throne of command. Mohammad Hadi says that “by degrees she became, in all but name, undisputed sovereign of the empire, and the king himself became a tool in her hands. He used to say that Nur-Jehan Begam has been selected, and is wise enough, to conduct the matters of state, and that he wanted only a bottle of wine and a piece of meat to keep himself merry. Nur-Jehan won golden opinions from all people. She was liberal and just to all who begged her support. She was an asylum for all sufferers, and helpless girls were married at the expense of her private purse. She must have portioned above five hundred girls in her lifetime, and thousands were grateful for her generosity.” Not only could she rule the empire effectively, if not always wisely and impartially, but she could lead armies. Defeated at last by Shah-Jehan, she put on perpetual robes of mourning for her dead husband and spent her last eighteen years in devoted seclusion.
Mumtaz-Mahal, niece of Nur-Jehan and wife of Shah-Jehan, did not aspire to political control. She held fast the heart of her imperial husband and became the mother of his fourteen children. The incomparable Taj Mahal, built by the emperor after her untimely death, bears eternal witness to great love followed by great grief.
Last may be mentioned two of the daughters of Mumtaz-Mahal, Jehan-Ara and Raushan-Ara. These ladies, like Charlemagne’s daughters too great for matrimony, stirred up much trouble in the imperial household. Jehan-Ara was her father’s favorite in his decadent old age, and an active partisan of her brother Dara. Of vast influence for many years, she was at length overshadowed by Raushan-Ara, who supported Aurangzeb and rose to greatness with his advancing fortunes. Bernier was well-nigh overcome by a distant view of this lady’s majesty. “I cannot avoid dwelling on this pompous procession of the Seraglio. Stretch imagination to its utmost limits, and you can imagine no exhibition more grand and imposing than when Raushan-Ara Begam, mounted on a stupendous Pegu elephant, and seated in a meghdambhar blazing with gold and azure, is followed by five or six elephants with meghdambhars nearly as resplendent as her own, and filled with ladies attached to her household (and succeeded by the most distinguished ladies of the court) until fifteen or sixteen females of quality pass with a grandeur of appearance, equipage, and retinue, more or less proportionate to their rank, pay, and office. There is something very impressive of state and royalty in the march of these sixty or more elephants; in their solemn and as it were measured steps, in the splendour of the meghdambhars, and the brilliant and innumerable followers in attendance; and if I had not regarded this display of magnificence with a sort of philosophical indifference, I should have been apt to be carried away by such flights of imagination as inspire most of the Indian poets, when they represent the elephants as conveying so many goddesses concealed from the vulgar gaze.”
“The authority of the Great Mogul was despotic by all its origins: by the fact of the conquest, by the Turkish tradition, by the tradition of the old royalties of the country”;[798] and also, it may be added, by the practice of Islamic governments since the abandonment of Medina as the seat of the caliphs. The conquering chief owned all the conquered land, and the wealth and labor and lives of its inhabitants were at his disposal. As for the restriction of despotism by the Sacred Law, the house of Baber did not feel this strongly until late. On the other hand, even a drunkard like Jehangir had a keen sense of the responsibility of his high position. The emperor considered it his duty to maintain order, reward faithful service, and sit daily on the bench of justice to redress the wrongs of his people. Aurangzeb is reported by Bernier to have expressed his feeling of responsibility by saying: “Being born the son of a king and placed on the throne, I was sent into the world by Providence to live and labour, not for myself, but for others; ... it is my duty not to think of my own happiness, except so far as it is inseparably connected with the happiness of my people. It is the repose and prosperity of my subjects that it behoves me to consult; nor are these to be sacrificed to anything besides the demands of justice, the maintenance of the royal authority, and the security of the State.” One of his letters to his imprisoned father contains these words: “Almighty God bestows his trusts upon him who discharges the duty of cherishing his subjects and protecting the people. It is manifest and clear to the wise that a wolf is no fit shepherd, neither can a faint-hearted man carry out the great duty of government. Sovereignty is the guardianship of the people, not self-indulgence and profligacy. The Almighty will deliver your humble servant from all feeling of remorse as regards your Majesty.” The sole fountain of legislation, the emperor observed economy in the issuance of it, making use, so far as possible, of established Islamic practice and immemorial custom. Yet from time to time, by administrative regulations, ordinances, and decrees, he sought to improve the methods of government. Aurangzeb, so much like Suleiman in many other respects, like him also ordered and financed the compilation of a code of the Sacred Law. It does not appear, however, that any such quantity of personal legislation was issued by him or by any other Mogul emperor as by the great Ottoman.
The succession to the Mogul throne never became regular, since neither by Mongol nor by Moslem custom was any one method prescribed. Nor did the more kindly disposition of the house of Baber ever permit the publication of such a decree as that of Mohammed II for the execution of brothers upon the accession of a sovereign. Accordingly the resources of the empire were apt to be wasted in civil wars between father and son, and between older and younger brothers. Even the sons of Baber engaged in civil war: Kamran, aided by Askari and Hindal, fought against Humayun. Akbar’s brothers were so young that he had no rival at the time of his accession. His two elder sons drank themselves to death; but this did not prevent Selim, who became the emperor Jehangir, from rebelling against his father and hastening the latter’s death. Jehangir’s two sons rebelled against him in turn. Shah-Jehan’s four sons, Dara, Shuja, Murad, and Aurangzeb, fought together until the last encompassed the death of the others, besides keeping his father a prisoner during the last seven years of life. The mournful story need not be carried beyond the fierce civil war which followed the death of Aurangzeb, in which two of his sons were slain. Clearly, the Ottoman method was more practical if less humane. So unstable was the personal situation of the emperor that, if he failed to show his face in public daily, the empire fell into commotion and civil war became imminent. From the uncertainty of the succession the state, at least, derived this benefit, that the fittest of the candidates for power was likely to obtain the throne. Nevertheless, as Dow says, “to be born a prince” of the Mogul Empire was “a misfortune of the worst and most embarrassing kind. He must die by clemency, or wade through the blood of his family to safety and empire.”
As the army was the defence and prop of the Mogul government, so finance was its sustenance. Here again the regulations of the Sacred Law were but scantily observed. Akbar, aided by Todar Mal and extending the methods of the Afghan Sher Shah, reduced to order and regularity the existing revenue system, which in the course of centuries of varying rule had become much confused. By ancient custom of India, the sovereign as primary owner of the land was entitled to one-third of the crops in kind. It was Akbar’s task to change the system to a more modern money régime, a step in progress which the Ottomans have not been able to take even to the present day. In classical times as in late years, India, importing less of other commodities than she exported, steadily absorbed gold and silver. It is likely that a large share of the wealth of the newly-discovered Americas had already by Akbar’s day made its way to India through the increasing Portuguese trade, and that Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro thus unwittingly gave him the means of modernizing his land revenue. Several great tasks were involved in the change. All the cultivated land of India had to be measured, its quality judged, its average annual produce for the first nineteen years of Akbar’s reign calculated, and the amount of the government’s share for each tract reduced to current money. At first, it was attempted to renew the settlement annually; but, since this proved very difficult in a large and conservative land, a ten-year basis was eventually adopted. When the British came to power they found the revenue in a state of confusion which indicated that at some time during the Mogul period the evaluation had ceased to be made regularly, modifications of the last assessment having then been introduced successively, until all system had disappeared.
The imperial revenue was collected by a separate hierarchy of officials. The great provinces were divided into districts, or sirkars, in each of which a Diwan was chief financial agent. His office was the Defter ali, and his clerks were Mutasidis. In lesser districts the collectors were Amils or Karoris, the treasurers Fotadars. Karkums were appointed to settle disputes and audit accounts. The crown revenue might be farmed out, in areas of a size comparable to the jagirs, to officials known as Zamindars or Talukdars, who in the days of decline strove to make their position hereditary. In the local unit, or pargana, the government was represented by a Kanungo, who kept the records of assessments and payments. Akbar took measures also to bring under cultivation waste and abandoned lands, and appointed for this purpose Karoris, whose efforts were attended with much success. In the best days the imperial financial officers acted as a check upon the civil and military officials, upholding alike the interests of emperor and common people. Evidence exists, however, that even in the time of Akbar there was financial corruption, and that revenue officials were not lacking who plundered the people and defrauded the emperor.
The granting of jagirs to officers and Rajahs, of pensions to learned men and others, and of land in full title, free from revenue, for religious foundations seems to have diverted from the royal treasury about two-thirds of the possible land revenue. On the other hand, it has been estimated that the emperor received from customs, tolls, miscellaneous taxes, and presents an amount equal to what he got from the land. Careful calculations have resulted in ascribing to Akbar a revenue of over two hundred million dollars annually, and to Aurangzeb as much as four hundred and fifty million dollars. Suleiman’s revenue would then have been not the tenth part of Akbar’s and Louis XIV’s not the tenth part of Aurangzeb’s.
This revenue was expended upon the standing army, the court, the support of learned and religious persons, a series of building operations which were perhaps costly beyond parallel, bountiful gifts at certain seasons, and regular charities. It would appear, farther, that the expenses of the provincial governments were deducted from the imperial land revenue after it had been estimated but before it was paid into the treasury. In spite of the lavish outflow, however, an enormous treasure seems to have been accumulated. By Mandelslo it was estimated in 1638 at the incredible sum of one and a half billion crowns, equivalent to about the same number of dollars!
It was probably because of the greatly increased revenue which Akbar obtained by his new method that he found it possible to remit the jizyeh or capitation tax on non-Moslems, and also the tax on pilgrims, which had made the earlier Moslem rule obnoxious to the Hindu population. On the other hand, it may have been not merely religious zeal, but also financial stress caused by the civil wars preceding his accession, by the Rajput revolt, by the long struggle in the Deccan, and by the pious remission of many taxes not authorized by the Sacred Law, including the tax on Hindu temple lands, that influenced Aurangzeb to reimpose the capitation tax, and thus open wide the rifts in his disintegrating empire.
In the days of its greatness, the budget of the Mogul Empire, alike in income and expenditure, reached a height which had rarely if ever been attained before. That of the East Roman Empire under the Macedonian dynasty, and of the Saracen Empire in the days of Harun Al-Rashid, may have rivalled it; but it is probable that only the great Western powers, enriched by the industrial revolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have ever reached a financial magnitude beyond that of the empire of Aurangzeb.
Humayun divided the responsibilities of government among four ministers, and a fourfold division persisted at least as late as Aurangzeb. By a curious form of logic the classification of duties and the names of the four departments were based, not on convenience, but on relation to the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. The Khaki department had the care of agriculture, buildings, and domain lands; the Hawai, of the wardrobe, the kitchen, the stables, and the like; the Ateshi, of the artillery and the making of war material and other things in which fire was employed; and the Abi, of the emperor’s drinks, and canals, rivers, and water-works. When Khondamir wrote, about 1534, one man had oversight of all four departments; but the development of a regular supreme official of great power, like the grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire, seems never to have taken place, no doubt because the imperial house did not abandon the tradition of personal government.
Humayun set aside two days of the week for business of state. Drums were beaten to summon officials and give notice that the hall of audience was open. Any subject might appear and ask for justice. Suits of fine apparel and purses of money were at hand to reward the worthy, and executioners stood by with drawn swords to punish the guilty. Guns were fired at the close of the audience to notify officials that they might retire. Aurangzeb held general court in the great hall of audience for two hours on regular days. Persons who had petitions to present held them up, and these were taken by the emperor, read by him, and often granted on the spot. On at least one day in the week he sat with the two Kazis of the city, and on another day he heard privately ten cases of persons of low rank. In the evening the chief officers were commanded to be present in a smaller hall, where Aurangzeb sat to “grant private audiences to his officers, receive their reports, and deliberate on important matters of state.” This gathering resembled the Divan of Suleiman, but it lacked most of the latter’s judicial work; in India such work was done by the chief judges sitting separately, or by the emperor in the great audiences. Furthermore, it was the sovereign and not a grand vizier who presided in this council. The assembly was deliberative in matters of policy and general administration, and judicial in that it had jurisdiction of cases which involved officers of high rank.
For purposes of local government the empire was divided into subahs, or provinces, each under a Nawab (a plural of majesty, from naib, often called “nabob” by Westerners), or governor. Under Akbar the number of subahs varied from fifteen to eighteen. Like the Beylerbeys of the Ottoman Empire, the Nawabs tended to increase in number, the size of their provinces diminishing accordingly. The Nawab was almost a little emperor in his province. He held audiences, commanded the army, conferred lesser titles, appointed and dismissed most officials, and was the highest judicial authority. His power was limited, however, by the emperor’s right to recall him, by the right of appeal in judicial cases from him to the emperor, and by the fact that the financial and judicial officers were separately appointed and were responsible only to the throne. The Nawab and his court were supported by lands granted in jagir. He might suspend the jagirs of officers pending imperial decision. He was responsible for the security and order of his province, and had Faujdars under him in the several districts, who exercised military command and the powers of chief of police and police judge, their position resembling somewhat that of the Sanjak Beys of the Ottoman system. The chief financial officers in each province were the Diwans, who, as explained above, collected the imperial revenue and had oversight of all lesser revenue officers. They and their deputies possessed judicial powers in cases concerning finance and land titles. The chief judge of the province, subject however to appeals to the governor, was the Nizam. He heard the serious criminal cases, and his deputy, the Daroga Adaulat al Aulea, attended to most of the important civil ones. Local Kazis, aided by Muftis, Mohtesibs, and Kutwals or mayors, kept order in the smaller cities and districts. Rajahs who had made terms with the emperor exercised powers very similar to those of the Nawabs. Their positions were secured by heredity, however, and in their provinces the imperial financial and judicial officers had no jurisdiction. They simply owed military service and a certain amount of tribute, failing in which they might be reduced by force of arms. The Ottoman system contained no subjects who were at once so secure of their positions, so nearly independent, and so powerful as the Rajahs. Kurdish, Albanian, and Arabian chieftains were perhaps as secure and as independent, but they were of very small wealth and might; while the Voivodes of Wallachia and Moldavia were not so secure or so independent.
The condition of the common people under this government is to be known mainly by inference. Various documents and acts show the benevolent intentions of emperors and high officials toward the masses. Whether from wise prevision or from genuine charitable feeling, there appears to have been much solicitude lest the cultivators of the soil should be reduced to utter penury or driven from their lands. Akbar, for instance, issued strict orders that on military expeditions nothing should be taken from the people without careful assessment and immediate or subsequent payment. Nevertheless, at the best the result of the general policy was to leave the cultivator little more than a bare living. The whole system drained away wealth to a few great cities and a comparatively few persons. If but few complaints rose from the masses, it was because their lot was no worse than that of their forefathers had been for many generations. Aside from the periods of civil war, the Moguls gave peace and order. Akbar removed internal tolls two centuries before such a thing was accomplished in France, and thus made of the land a single economic unit, with the result that in his reign India as a whole enjoyed such prosperity as she has known at very few other periods in her history.
Before the time of Aurangzeb special care was taken to conciliate the Hindus. Akbar adopted definitely the policy of equal treatment for all, a degree of toleration not to be found in the contemporary Europe of William the Silent and Henry of Navarre. The government strove to abolish or mitigate such Hindu practices as were abhorrent to Mohammedanism, and at least one Moslem practice which offended the Hindus. Child-marriage, the ordeal, and animal sacrifice were forbidden. Widows were to be burned on the funeral pyres of their husbands only with their own full consent, and those who preferred to live might marry again. In the Rajput tributary states Hindu law of course prevailed. Probably in the regions under direct Mogul rule Hindus were judged by their own law when Moslems were not concerned and perhaps even by their own judges. It is true that the Hindus had to wait until Akbar came to be released from the personal disabilities imposed by earlier Moslem conquerors, that their temple lands were taxed until the time of Aurangzeb, and that Brahmans, pundits, and fakirs were perhaps only in Akbar’s presence treated with respect equal to that accorded Sheiks, Seids, and Ulema. But the emperors and their officers gave like justice to all; they permitted every man to worship according to the rites of his forefathers, and apparently never had a thought, as had Selim the Cruel, of giving to all non-Moslem subjects the choice between Islam and death. There was little ground for discontent until Aurangzeb began to apply a harsher policy.
In comparison with conditions in the Ottoman Empire, Moslems and non-Moslems in the India of the early Moguls were far more nearly on a level. This was due not merely to the toleration and indifference of the emperors, but even more to the circumstances of the conquest, under which both groups were treated alike, since Baber at Panipat in 1526 subdued the Moslem Lodi Sultans of Delhi, and at Kanwaha in 1527 the Hindu Rajput confederacy. Indian-born worshippers of Allah and of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva were mingled in the same vast mass of conquered subjects, equally separated from the victorious invaders. There was also, in all probability, a much greater difference of race between Baber’s highlanders and the Moslems that he found in India than between the latter and the Hindus; for many inter-marriages had taken place, and many natives of India had joined the followers of the Prophet. Time, of course, diminished this distinction.
Suleiman was distinctly the head of the Moslems of his empire. Through his appointee the Sheik-ul-Islam, through his Hoja, the Kaziaskers, the Nakib-ol-Eshraf, and other learned and saintly personages, he kept in close touch with the religious chiefs of the Mohammedan population. All who prayed toward Mecca, at least from the older portions of the Ottoman Empire, were attached by many ancient ties to the house of Osman. Their ancestors had perhaps been converts through its activities, had certainly fought for it, and had seen its gradual and vigorous rise to greatness. No such vital bonds joined to the Moguls the great mass of their Moslem subjects. These remembered the glories and favors of lost dynasties, and were indebted to the new sovereigns only for defeats and humiliations which depressed them toward the level of the Hindus, whom they had for centuries held to be far inferior to themselves. They had no Sheik-ul-Islam, honored by the sovereign with a seat above his own, whose decisions might determine the fate of the ruler or of the empire. Almost as much to them as to the Hindus the emperor was a stranger and a foreigner, to whom should be rendered, because of his power, full submission and instant obedience, but not loyal affection and whole-hearted devotion. There was ever an absence of solidarity between the house of Timur and those Moslem subjects who had not come into India in the service of that house, and this was not least among the elements of weakness that shortened the life of the empire. When Rajputs had been stirred to revolt, when Mahrattas had grown great, when bronzed and capable Moguls had been supplanted by “pale persons in petticoats,” who were left to rally about the tottering throne? More than two and a half centuries have elapsed since the Ottomans ceased to draw systematically from the strength of the Christian population, and yet the fighting stock of their Moslem subjects has never failed or grown weak or faltered in its loyalty; but Aurangzeb’s successors found few upon whom to rely, and of this few a very small proportion who would sacrifice their own fortunes freely, who would be faithful unto death.
The Moguls found in India Sheiks, Dervishes, Seids, and Ulema, mosques, schools, and pious foundations in abundance. In fact, the developed system of Mohammedanism had extended itself over India with visible results very much like those in all other Moslem lands, among them the Ottoman Empire. From the ranks of those educated in Moslem lore were taken teachers, judges, and counselors-at-law.
There must have existed for the children of the Moslem population mektebs, ordinary medressehs, and law schools, in which the Arabic language and the sciences built upon the Koran, as well as the Persian language and literature were taught. No doubt, also, the imperial household contained systems of education, arranged for the two sexes separately and prepared to train imperial and noble children and young attendants, servants, and slaves in the knowledge which was thought best adapted to fit them for life. It is interesting to notice what impression the teaching regularly given to a young prince made (if Bernier can be trusted) upon the keen intellect of Aurangzeb. When the latter became emperor, his old teacher, it appears, confidently presented himself at Delhi for reward. What, then, must have been his surprise to receive such a deliverance as this from the lips of majesty!
“Was it not incumbent upon my preceptor to make me acquainted with the distinguishing features of every nation of the earth; its resources and strength; its mode of warfare, its manners, religion, form of government, and wherein its interests principally consist, and, by a regular course of historical reading, to render me familiar with the origin of States; their progress and decline; the events, accidents, or errors, owing to which such great changes and mighty revolutions have been effected?... A familiarity with the language of surrounding nations may be indispensable in a king; but you would teach me to read and write Arabic; doubtless conceiving that you placed me under an everlasting obligation for sacrificing so large a portion of time to the study of a language wherein no one can hope to become proficient without ten or twelve years of close application. Forgetting how many important subjects ought to be embraced in the education of a prince, you acted as if it were chiefly necessary that he should possess great skill in grammar, and such knowledge as belongs to a Doctor of Law; and thus did you waste the precious hours of my youth in the dry, unprofitable, and never-ending task of learning words!... Ought you not to have instructed me on one point at least, so essential to be known by a king, namely, on the reciprocal duties between the sovereign and his subjects? Ought you not also to have foreseen that I might at some future period be compelled to contend with my brothers, sword in hand, for the crown, and for my very existence? Such, as you must well know, has been the fate of the children of almost every king of Hindustan. Did you ever instruct me in the art of war, how to besiege a town, or draw up an army in battle array? Happy for me that I consulted wiser heads than thine on these subjects! Go! withdraw to thy village. Henceforth let no person know either who thou art or what is become of thee.”
In this rebuke, whether it comes chiefly from Bernier or from Aurangzeb, is excellent criticism upon the stereotyped Moslem education, and material enough to cheer the hearts of modern advocates of a closer relation between subjects of instruction and the business of life.
The lack of solidarity between the mass of the Moslems of India and the Mogul government, together with the religious indifference of several emperors, prevented the Moslem church there from reaching the full measure of the dignity, influence, and authority of the Moslem Institution in the Ottoman Empire. Humayun’s division of the household into three classes shows that he gave highest rank not to the clergy but to princes of the blood, with nobles and ministers of state and military men. “The holy persons, the great Musheiks (religious men), the respectable Seids, the literati, the law officers, the scientific persons, poets, besides other great and respectable men formed the second class.” The orders, or arrows, of nobility show a little more definitely the place of the Moslem learned men, since they are assigned to the tenth order, after the monarch and the princes of the blood and the Rajahs.
In the palace-city of Fatehpur-Sikri, Akbar built a great hall, the Ibadat-Khana, to which he repaired on holy nights with Sheiks, Seids, Ulema, and nobles. Finding that his followers could not keep the peace when mingled indiscriminately, he assigned one of the four sides of the hall to each group. Here he was accustomed to listen to theological discussions; and it appears that what he heard tended to destroy his respect for the faith of the Prophet, and to predispose his mind toward the eclectic religion which he instituted later. Says Badauni: “The learned doctors used to exercise the sword of their tongues upon each other, and showed great pugnacity and animosity, till the various sects took to calling each other infidels and perverts.” In course of time Akbar obtained a document signed by the principal Ulema, to the effect that a just ruler is higher in the eyes of God than a doctor of the law (Mujtahid), that Akbar was a just ruler, and that therefore his decrees in matters of religion were binding upon the world. This declaration placed Akbar distinctly above the Moslem church and at least on a level with the prophet Mohammed; and he seems even to have played with the idea that he was himself God. Certainly he hoped to unify all creeds by his “divine faith.” His son and grandson were not much interested in religion, and not at all inclined to assume actively the religious headship of the empire; under them, the Moslem church had to take care of itself. Religious interest appeared again in Aurangzeb, not in any spirit of free inquiry, but in a rigid conformity to the rules of the Sacred Law. From those youthful days when he preferred the meagre life of a saint to the splendors of princely state, down to the long-deferred close of his troubled career, Islam knew no more faithful observer of its rites and prescriptions. In Aurangzeb’s reign and in his alone did the Moslem religion take such a place in India as in the Turkey of Suleiman’s time.
The learned Moslems of the Mogul Empire never had as the head of their hierarchy a personage of such dignity and power as the Sheik-ul-Islam of Constantinople. The Sadr Jehan appears to have been concerned chiefly with the granting of land from the treasury to learned and religious persons in lieu of pensions. The hierarchy of judges seems to have been complete, at least in territory that was directly administered, with two officials at court who corresponded to the Kaziaskers of Suleiman, and with Kazis of high rank in the chief city of each province and of lesser rank in other cities; but the functions of these officers appear to have been more closely restricted than in the Ottoman Empire, by reason of the superior jurisdictions of the emperor and the governors, and of the criminal and financial jurisdictions of the Nizams and Diwans and their deputies. As there is little mention of the muftis, it would seem that their rôle was not very important.
The Moslem church in India was not of the very fabric of empire. The imperial family and most of their associates in government adhered to it; but it had no thorough control of education and justice, and no power to sanction war or pronounce the deposition of an emperor. It did not curb the spirit of the nation or lay a heavy hand upon progress; but, as it was relatively unable to hinder by its weaknesses, so it could not contribute its abiding strength. The Mogul Empire is but a memory. The Moslem church of India thrives and grows under the rule of aliens of another faith.