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The Glory of the Mughal Empire

I think you have a rose tinted view on Aurangzeb, I don't. Aurangzeb, by any standards was a religious bigot & there are innumerable acts of temple destruction to cite. Nor was his administration as good as you might wish to believe. He had a pretty poor control of administration, mughal control was very lax in distant areas. As far as your option that he was responsible for the country developing a conscience of itself as a country, I would have to disagree. He was probably the worst example because very soon after his reign, the whole empire simple collapsed. Hardly a mark of someone who created some sort of nationalistic conscience. There is a reason he remains despised the most of all of the Mughals. He was simply not a patch on Akbar.

I leave it here because I can see that you have a particular vision of him, there is no point labouring on the opposite. We will have to agree to disagree. Will just leave this with a bit of history.

The first recorded temple destruction by Aurangzeb was when he was a prince of 17. He demolished (On Shah Jahan's orders) the great temple built by Bir Singh at Orchha and erected a mosque at that very site. Ten years later, when he was governor of Gujarat he himself said that he had temples destroyed "by my order". In the deccan, during his second governorship, he boasted of destroying a hill top temple near Aurangabad. During this time, he also had a brahmin revenue officer Chhabila Ram beheaded for supposedly uttering improper words with reference to the prophet & justified it by saying "It's proper for all Muslims to do their utmost to assert the rules of the prophet's religion".

During the first decade of his reign while he was still consolidating, he made no major moves against Hindus except for demolitions of temple now & then and issued orders that while new temples should not be allowed & should be destroyed, older temples must be left alone. That situation changed in 1668, when he decided to take a far more hardline approach because he deemed the continued proliferation & prosperity of Hindus even after 500 years of Muslim rule as an intolerable affront to the true faith and he decided it was his imperative obligation to harass Hindus. In 1669, he issued orders to all Governors to "destroy with a willing hand the schools & temples of the infidels and they were strictly enjoined to put an entire stop to the teachings & practicing of idolatrous forms of worship" (Mustaid Khan). It was then that the temple of Somnath, the Vishwanath temple at Varanasi, the great Keshave Rai temple at Mathura were all demolished among many others. In 1670, all temples around Ujjain were demolished, a decade later, temples were destroyed across Rajasthan beginning with Jodhpur from where "several cartloads of idols were taken to delhi to be cast in the quadrangle of the court & under the steps of the Jama Masjid for being trodden upon" (Mustaid Khan) Around this time over 300 temples were destroyed in and around Chitor, Udaipur & Jaipur. In 1687 aurangzeb ordered temples in Golconda to be destroyed, in 1698 the temples in Bijapur.

Even in his last decade, he wrote to the royal officers in Gujarat " The temples of Somnath was destroyed early in my reign....It is not known what the state of things there is at present. If the idolators have again taken to worship of images at the place, then destroy the temple in such a way that no trace of the building may be left & also expel them from the place"

The akbarat of 11th January 1705 (two years before aurangzeb's death) recorded that " The Emperor... ordered..to demolish the temple of Pandharpur, and to take the butchers of the camp there & slaughter cows in the temple....It was done"


Aurangzeb was the worst of the Mughals in his bigotry even if was nowhere as intolerant as Muslim states in the Middles East & Central Asia. With reference to your point made earlier, he ordered in 1671 that revenue officers in crown lands must only be Muslims, hoping to induce conversions. Some converted, most did not, administration suffered & Aurangzeb had to modify the law by permitting half to be Hindus. Practicality thge problem for aurangzeb's measures, he imposed a discriminatory customs duty on Hindus (they had to pay twice as much as Muslims) but greed being what it is, Muslim traders simply connived with Hindus to cheat the royal treasury. He put innumerable restrictions on Hindus & tried his best to induce conversions by many acts (favouring succession to disputed properties if converted, remission of prison sentences etc, Hindus not allowed to ride in a palanquin or an arab Horse without permission & not ride elephants).
These restrictions did not apply to Rajputs & other Hindu martial communities whose services were required by Aurangzeb. He was pragmatic enough to let expediency govern the scope of his theocratic regulations.(To an amir who complained about Shia persians he replied " what connections have worldly affairs with religion? and what right have matters of religion to enter into bigotry/ For you is your religion & for me is mine...(if your suggestion is accepted) it would be my duty to extirpate all the (Hindu) rajas & their followers. wise men disapprove of the removal from office of able officers")
Aurangzeb even issued directions "that the higher officers of the court who were Hindus should no longer hold their charges but into their places, Muhammadans should be put" (Manucci). Practicality however made such orders unimplementable.


Then there was of course, the matter of jizya. When faced with protests following its implementation (including from the court & by Jahanara), Auragzeb said "Think not I am like my grandfather, Jahangir........all my thoughts are turned towards welfare and development of my kingdom and towards the propagation of the religion of the great Muhammad" (Manucci)


Opposition to Aurangzeb's theocratic policies were more intense in south India than in the North. While temple demolitions had cause no major turmoil in the north, there was strong resentment against it in the south. F.Martin, the French diplomat in Pondicherry notes in november 1689 that the "Muslims, having set about to destroy a temple in the Karnatak, as ordered by the mughal, the Hindus rose to oppose it". The following month he noted that Lachmi Nayak, a local chieftain who had at one time joined the mughals, turned rebel on seeing the anti-Hindu policy of Aurangzeb and "wrote to all the hindu princes to unite against the enemy of our race & religion"
The Mughal court chronicles themselves support your claim. Aurangzeb was entirely different from Akbar the Great and not in a good manner.
 
@Bang Galore , I would have liked to see any links with your quoted material. There is a lot of pseudo history on both sides. It is hard to tell from where any particular material comes.

I have known about the temple demolitions. I have also known about grants made to temples. Apparently, as far as I can tell, if a temple had a political function, Mughals had a problem with it. Historians in India have taken a second look and found evidence to make such observation stand on evidence rather than emotion. I think it was @Truth Finder who provided links and quoted material that showed that Mughals despised political use of temples and always saw such as a threat. This was the root of their problem with Sikhs as well, going back to Guru Arjun and Jehangir.

The fall (or rather decline) of Mughal empire had multiple reasons. One can not just blame Aurangzeb for that, though some people do fault him for not delegating authority. Also his image as a temple-destroyer did not help. Obviously people would not find political role of temples objectionable as Mughals did.

The truth is that the empire had grown too large to manage. At any time there were multiple rebellions, not all from Hindus, mind you. But one thing that did happen was that the Emperor in Delhi was acclaimed as the Emperor of all India. This situation persisted down to the last Mughal, Bahadur Shah Zafar, even though he had negligible control over his 'dominion'. It was not without reason that he was put at the head of the resistance in 1857. Both Hindus and Muslims acknowledged him as Emperor.

We can agree to disagree and end it here. I really do not wish to drag it further.
 
@Bang Galore , I would have liked to see any links with your quoted material. There is a lot of pseudo history on both sides. It is hard to tell from where any particular material comes.

I have known about the temple demolitions. I have also known about grants made to temples. Apparently, as far as I can tell, if a temple had a political function, Mughals had a problem with it. Historians in India have taken a second look and found evidence to make such observation stand on evidence rather than emotion. I think it was @Truth Finder who provided links and quoted material that showed that Mughals despised political use of temples and always saw such as a threat. This was the root of their problem with Sikhs as well, going back to Guru Arjun and Jehangir.

The fall (or rather decline) of Mughal empire had multiple reasons. One can not just blame Aurangzeb for that, though some people do fault him for not delegating authority. Also his image as a temple-destroyer did not help. Obviously people would not find political role of temples objectionable as Mughals did.

The truth is that the empire had grown too large to manage. At any time there were multiple rebellions, not all from Hindus, mind you. But one thing that did happen was that the Emperor in Delhi was acclaimed as the Emperor of all India. This situation persisted down to the last Mughal, Bahadur Shah Zafar, even though he had negligible control over his 'dominion'. It was not without reason that he was put at the head of the resistance in 1857. Both Hindus and Muslims acknowledged him as Emperor.

We can agree to disagree and end it here. I really do not wish to drag it further.


Let's agree to disagree. I will only note that there was no known political function in any of the temples mentioned.

Manucci - Niccolao Manucci (1639–1717)

Mustaid Khan - Muhammad Saqi Musta'idd Khan author of Maasir I Alamgiri
 
Let's agree to disagree. I will only note that there was no known political function in any of the temples mentioned.
Manucci - Niccolao Manucci (1639–1717)

Mustaid Khan - Muhammad Saqi Musta'idd Khan author of Maasir I Alamgiri

In that case this was totally wrong and any mosques that stand in their place ought to be brought down if local Hindus so desire.
 
In that case this was totally wrong and any mosques that stand in their place ought to be brought down if local Hindus so desire.

Pointless & stupid, history is just that, history. (btw, in India, the law would preclude any chance of that, all religious structures that existed on 15th August 1947 cannot be touched -Babri Masjid was the only exception -disputed even before 1947, courts cannot hear cases even if brought). Wrong & right are our values being put on behavior of people of a different age, no point.
 
No, Moghuls weren't Central Asian, they were Pakistani :lol:



Hmm, can you show me architectural master pieces of those Indian empires?

It is like questioning the existence of Bamiyan Buddha's statues! You should very well know what happened to those statues.

Most of those "master pieces" were smashed to smithereens by the invaders according to their glorious customs!! The University of Nalanda and the library which was burnt down to its last book. It took months together to actually burn. Another example is the ruins of Hampi in South India which is one among the world's largest open air museum -- ruined all thanks to marauding invaders. These are some among several monuments which were left in ruins.

And we have @Nihonjin1051 glorifying the invaders of India and teaching us how we should have continued with privileged treatment only for Mughals (and no other kings) when they showed absolutely no remorse in destroying any monument they could find -- as dictated by their religion!
 
Telling it like it is.
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I am yet to see more racist people than his kind!!!
 
Well, there are hundreds of such buildings in whole India so its impossible to post the pictures of all the buildings.
But some of my favorite ancient and medieval buildings of India are
The Ranakpur temple was built by Rana Kumbha in the 15th century (200 years before the Taj Mahal was built).



The Taranga Temple was built in the 13th century by Kumarpal (400 years before the Taj Mahal was built)


The Chola Temple was built by Rajendra Chola in the 11th century (more than 600 years before the Taj Mahal was built)



The Orchha Palace was built by the Hindu Bundela rulers in the 16th century (100 years before the Taj Mahal was built)


The Amber Palace built by Raja Man Singh in the 16th century( 100 years before the Taj Mahal was built)


Madurai Temple built in the 16th century (100 years before the Taj Mahal was built)


The Konark Temple built in the 13th century (more than 400 years before the Taj Mahal was built)


Teli Ka Mandir Temple built in the 9th century(more than 800 years before the Taj Mahal was built)


The Hoysala Temple was built in the 12th century (more than 500 years before the Taj Mahal was built)


Like I said earlier, these guys will claim that Bamiyan Buddha statues never existed!
 
And we have @Nihonjin1051 glorifying the invaders of India and teaching us how we should have continued with privileged treatment only for Mughals (and no other kings) when they showed absolutely no remorse in destroying any monument they could find -- as dictated by their religion!

Maybe he should petition his govt. to take Mughals off our hands to get rid of the kaffir heritage of Japan.
 
Better still, he should petition his government to pay annual royalties to Gen. MacArthur's descendants! This guy has single handedly changed my ill-conceived notion about his people!

Well, he is no more than another @kalu_miah's foot soldiers and expect both of them to come up with a story tomorrow of how even the Japanese have Arab decent!
 

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