Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c6.s1.1

v1.c6.s1.1

The first Muslim State of Delhi was born at the close of the Twelfth century, and from this centre it continued to expand with varying fortunes for two hundred years till at last it embraced the whole of Northern India and even overflowed into the Southern land beyond the Vindhya range. Thus all Hindustan came to be placed under one civilization, one official language, and during some short spasmodic periods under one sceptre also. Then, at the end of the Fourteenth century came the hopeless decadence of the royal house ; the unifying and protective Central Government disappeared; the Empire was broken up into jarring fragments whose mutual conflicts and the consequent set back to culture and material prosperity fill the next century and a quarter, till 1526, when the Turkish adventurer Bābur laid the foundation of a mightier political structure in India. This new-born Mughal Empire, after a short and all but fatal contest with the Afghān house of Sur, became established beyond challenge under Bābur’s grandson Akbar soon after 1560. In the succeeding hundred and thirty years, its growth in territory, wealth, armed strength, art and industry was rapid, uninterrupted, and dazzling to the eyes of the Asiatic world and even of lands beyond the confines of Asia. The whole of Hindustan and much of the Deccan too bowed under one sceptre; administrative and cultural uniformity was given to all parts of this continent of a country; the artery roads were made safe for the trader and the traveller; the economic resources of the land were developed; and close intercourse was opened with the outer world. With peace, wealth, and enlightened Court patronage, came a new cultivation of the Indian mind and advance of Indian literature, painting, architecture and handicrafts, which raised this land once again to the front rank of the civilized world. Even the formation of an Indian nation did not seem an impossible dream.