Greater Mughals: The First Six Emperors of the House of Babur

With Greater Mughals, the author has completed his study of the Gurgani dynasty (which was how the Mughals described themselves). He has already covered the later emperors in The Forgotten Mughals. The Europeans spoke of them as the ‘Great Mughals’, and undoubtedly, the first six of the house fully deserve that appellation. No European dynasty, before or since, has produced such remarkable rulers. Two of them wrote remarkably frank autobiographies, which can still be read with pleasure today. The splendour of their court, their apparently limitless power, and incomparable wealth became legendary, and it would be difficult to find anywhere in Europe’s numerous kingdoms, a parallel to Akbar who occupies, indisputably, the first place amongst the rulers of India. While the reigns of the first two padishahs were short, from the accession of Akbar to the death of Aurangzeb we have a span of 150 years, a period sufficient to firmly ground the dynasty. Wars and rebellions mark the excessively long reign of Aurangzeb, but by the time of his death, the dynasty had acquired a legitimacy, which no one, ever seriously disputed. Local chiefs had issues, and they would often take up arms, but no one ever challenged the right of the Great Mughal to rule.…