There was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred?...There was neither death nor immortality then. There was no distinguishing sign of night nor of day...Darkness was hidden by darkness...Whence was [the universe] produced? Whence is this creation?...The one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows---or perhaps he does not know.— Vedic hymn
It is hard to imagine that the same warrior society that took over the Indus River civilization could also compose such philosophical speculations as those quoted above. However, it was these Aryans who would create the core and essence of Indian civilization while they themselves were being transformed by elements of the older Indus River culture they had replaced. Several things distinguished early Aryan society, as seen in the series of four sacred texts, the Vedas, our main source of information on this period. For one thing, they were a warlike society of nomadic herders closely associated with the Persians until the two peoples parted ways around 2000 B.C.E. They were organized into tribes ruled by a king and a priest. The Aryans measured their wealth in cattle, which was a standard unit of trade in the absence of coinage and the primary cause of wars and raids. Even today, the cow is still highly revered in Indian society. Aryan society was strongly patriarchal, giving women an inferior status. However, women probably had a say in who they married, could attend public ceremonies, and could remarry when widowed. Some women even attended the priestly schools, composed hymns, and were considered sages.
Another important aspect of Aryan society was its religion. The Aryans worshipped thirty-three gods in human form who were divided into three groups corresponding to the heavens, the sky, and earth. The most frequently summoned god was Indra, a god of war carrying a lightning bold who ate, drank and lived with gusto. This reflected a similar joy of living in Aryan society that enjoyed music, dancing, gambling, drinking, and chariot racing. Possibly the most distinguishing feature of Aryan society was its powerful priesthood, the Brahmins. Although the Aryans had no temples or images of their gods, just open air sacrificial altars, their priests were the only ones who could perform the highly ritualized and elaborate sacrifices that their religion demanded.
Around 1000 B.C.E. the Aryans started expanding into the Ganges River valley to the east. Several factors aided them in this. One of these was the use of iron that could cut through the Ganges Valley's thick rain forests and clear the way for settlement. A second factor was the cultivation of rice that has the highest calorie content of any grain, thus supporting large populations. These combined with the renewal of sea borne trade with Mesopotamia in the 700's and the introduction of coinage by the Persians two centuries later led to the creation of powerful kingdoms in the Ganges Valley characterized by three features. First they were heavily populated, thanks to the rice agriculture. Secondly, they were highly centralized under the rule of powerful kings who were needed to supervise the irrigation systems vital to the cultivation of rice. And third, there was a thriving urban culture with a large middle class involved in trade.
These new cities and kingdoms caused the center of power to shift from the more sparsely populated Indus River Valley in the West to the heavily populated kingdoms and cities of the Ganges. However, in addition to this shift in the center of power, the structure of Aryan society was being radically changed. Kings assumed more power for directing the irrigation projects and their wars against neighboring non-Aryans. Also as many Aryans settled from herding cattle into rice agriculture or moved into the growing cities, they had more daily contact with the non-Aryan population. The more complex society that was evolving led to mounting concerns among ordinary Aryans about losing their superior status over the non-Aryans.
Meanwhile, as time passed, the Vedas, which had been composed in an archaic form of Sanskrit, became increasingly vague in their meaning to the majority of people. This left the Brahmins as the only ones who could read and interpret them and properly perform the elaborate rituals needed to influence the gods. And that gave the Brahmins an even higher status in society. These changes in society, along with the probable resurgence of many pre-Aryan beliefs, triggered two of the most important developments in Indian history: the caste system and India's unique religious and philosophical ideas.
Before their entry into India, Aryan society was divided into three loosely defined classes: nobles (who chose king), Brahmins (priests), and the ordinary tribesmen who tended cattle. At that time, there were no restrictions on diet, intermarriage, or occupations. When they took over the Indus River Valley, the original inhabitants, whom the Aryans had complete contempt for, were lumped together into one class. At first, this simple arrangement had worked for the Aryans until the changes mentioned above made them more defensive about their traditional place in Indian society. The result was a rigid stratification of Indian society known as the caste system. Simply put, a caste is a social group often sharing the same occupation and among whose members intermarriage and dining can exclusively take place.
Justification for the caste system came from commentaries on the Vedas known as the Brahmanas which defined four divinely ordained castes corresponding to various parts of the body: the Brahmins (mouths), Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers) who were the arms, Vaisyas (productive members) who were the thighs, and the Sudras (feet) who performed the humblest tasks, especially those carrying some sort of religious stigma. The first three castes were composed of Aryans, while the non-Aryan Sudras were, according to the Brahmanas, "fit to be beaten" and could be "slain at will".
Caste defined the boundaries of an Indian's social world, outside of which he could do little. As Indian society became more complex, literally thousands of castes evolved. Newcomers, such as the British, would be excluded from other castes and thus became castes of their own. The caste system fragmented Indian society in such a way as to make political unification very difficult. As a result, the state has had less power and influence over India's history than its counterparts in other societies. Instead, the more unifying forces in Indian history have come from its religious and philosophical ideas.
As we have seen, the archaic Sanskrit used in the Vedas made the Brahmins the only ones who could interpret them and perform the intricate sacrifices they required. As a result, they claimed and assumed a higher place than ever in society. In fact, their commentaries on the Vedas, the Brahmanas, played down the power of the Vedic gods and exalted their own since their sacrifices could manipulate the powers of the universe. This exalted status plus the growing vagueness of the Vedas caused many Brahmins to engage in some wild speculations on the meanings of these texts and the rites they performed.
Not everyone blindly accepted the Brahmins' claims and the value of the rigid rituals they performed. Instead, a number Indians went to the forest to live as ascetics who, much like the early Christian hermits centuries later, performed various feats such as walking on nails or sitting close to fires in the hot sun to mortify the flesh and thus gain enlightenment. Many of these hermits were nobles whose status had been cut down by the rising power of kings. Whereas in most cultures such nobles would stage a rebellion, in India it was common for such men to seek higher knowledge as hermits. Taking a cue from the Brahmins themselves, these hermits also engaged in philosophical speculations. From these speculations came another series of treatises, the Upanishads. Although these works were unsystematic and varied greatly in their conclusions, they all shared a common belief in a more mystical and personal religious experience.
The Upanishads introduced several key concepts of Indian philosophy. One was a vague universal and spiritual entity known as Brahman . Although the various gods still existed, they were mere manifestations of Brahman. This would be a key unifying factor in Hinduism that worshipped thousands of gods, all of which were seen as aspects of the one spirit, Brahman. Another important idea was reincarnation, the belief that we are reborn over and over again in forms that reflect our karma, the sum total of our good and bad deeds. The better our karma, the higher the form of life we are reborn as. Finally, there is dharma, the duty that we are obligated to carry out in our present station in life. If we carry out our dharma, our karma is improved so we can be reborn in a higher form. Ironically, this belief in karma and dharma both justified the rigid caste system of India and offered people the hope of rising up from their present station in life to a better one in the next.
Our ultimate goal, according to the Upanishads, is not the old Aryan goal of prosperity and good health in this life. Rather it is to shed our karma and ego to become one with Brahman like a river flowing into and merging with the sea. Since these somewhat obscure and esoteric ideas mainly appealed to intellectuals, the Brahmins were willing to accept them as long as people also paid them honor. As fragmented as India might be politically and socially, these ideas of Brahman, reincarnation, karma, and dharma would provide a unifying thread between India's main religions, in particular Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.
The radical departure that the Upanishads took from the traditional Brahminic religion opened the way for new beliefs that totally rejected the authority of the Brahmins. Two of these were Jainism and Buddhism. Jainism was founded around 500 B.C.E. by a prince Vardhamana known also as Mahavira ("great hero") and Jina ("conqueror"), which gave Jainism its name. After twelve years of severe austerity and meditation as a hermit, he attained enlightenment and spent the rest of his life sharing his insights with others. Mahavira accepted the Upanishads' principles of Brahman, karma, and reincarnation.
However, rather than seeing karma as an abstract principle, he viewed is as a material substance that clings to us and weighs us down. Thus our goal is to cleanse our souls of karma so we can cease to be reborn. Since nearly every act produces impurities, the ideal life is to retire to a monastery and do nothing. Even rocks and streams were seen to have souls that it is terrible to kill, causing some Jain monks to sweep paths before them and wear masks to avoid inadvertently killing the tiniest life forms. Since even plowing the land can turn over the soil and kill worms, agriculture was frowned upon, causing many Jains to become merchants. The ideal death was seen to be starving oneself, which Mahavira himself did at the age of 72. Jainism was fairly popular since it made karma more concrete and understandable while offering hope for a better existence to its followers.
Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama who, like Mahavira, at first led the sheltered and privileged life of a prince. A prophecy supposedly foretold that Siddhartha would either unify all India or spiritually redeem the world. His father, wanting him to be a great king, tried to shelter him from seeing any of the troubles of the world. However, this strategy backfired, because when Siddhartha finally did come across humans suffering, he was so shocked that he ran off to live the life of an ascetic. After six years of this severe lifestyle, he left the forest and found enlightenment while sitting under a fig tree. From this he became known as the Buddha (Enlightened one). The basic ideas of Buddhism are found in its four noble truths.
Life is sorrow.
Sorrow arises from craving (especially for individual fulfillment).
The stopping of sorrow is the complete stopping of craving.
A noble eightfold path exists to stop sorrow and which we should follow in order:
Right belief or knowledge—renouncing worldly things & dedication to humanitarianism;
Right resolve—one should aspire to the achievement of Nirvana;
Right speech—lets one serve as a model for others to follow;
Right conduct—acknowledges life's sanctity thorugh chastity, sobriety, & non-violence;
Right livelihood—life of service, not selfishness, preferably monk;
Right effort—helps one keep his inner self-free of evil thoughts;
Right mindfulness—constant awareness that craving is pointless; and
Right meditation—lets one be selfless in thought & acts.
Eventually, following this noble eightfold path should break the chain of reincarnations, and lead to the attainment of Nirvana, a state of bliss where one's ego will melt away and merge with Brahma like a drop of water is lost in the ocean. In its purest form, known as Hinyana ("smaller vehicle"), Buddhism technically is not a religion with rites for such things as birth and death or a developed theology. Instead, one must rely on his or her own efforts to attain Nirvana. However, later versions known as Mahayana ("Greater vehicle") more closely resembled more traditional religions with various rites and reliance on Buddha for salvation.
Buddhism bore some striking similarities to Christianity. Both were egalitarian, treating women and children as equally important as men. Both had a savior god bridging the gap between humans and god. The main goal in each religion was salvation of the soul, not earthly wealth or power. Each of them demanded ethical behavior and had networks of monasteries to spread their respective messages. Both also made room for the invocation of lesser beings. In the case of Christianity, those beings were saints and angels. In Buddhism they were the bodhisattvas, people who were on the verge of attaining Nirvana, but chose to stay behind to help others in their spiritual efforts. One major difference between the two was that Christianity was an historical religion with certain defining events, such as the Exodus, Christ's life, etc. In contrast, Buddhism was cyclical in nature, believing that the universe goes through an endless number of cycles of creation and destruction.
Although Buddhism would spread its influence across south and East Asia, it would nearly die out in its homeland of India. This was because the Brahmins would adopt many of Buddhism's ideas and fuse them with their own practices and the pre-Aryan polytheistic beliefs of the people. The result would be that unique synthesis known as Hinduism, a religion that would unify India by taking its many cults and gods and interpret them all as manifestations of the same religion
As we have seen, various factors such as climate, topography, and disease made India very difficult to unify. By the same token, we have also seen how India's religious and philosophical ideas were flexible enough to act as a unifying influence. After 400 BC, the combination of these opposing influences has allowed a succession of states to unify India briefly, only to come apart again.
The first empire of note was that of the Mauryan Dynasty. Its founder, Chandragupta Maurya (325-299 B.C.E.), was the ruler of Maghada, then the largest state in northeastern India. By 315 B.C.E. he had expanded into the Punjab and Indus River valley where he clashed with the Macedonian general, Seleucus. Being preoccupied with the struggles for power following Alexander the Great's death, Seleucus surrendered his Indian lands to Chandragupta in return for 500 war elephants. (Those elephants would play a crucial role in the battle of Ipsus and the subsequent emergence of the Hellenistic Kingdoms).
Chandragupta and his son, Bindusara, extended Mauryan rule over northern India and the Deccan to the south. Their rule was strict, reputedly having an army of some 700,000 men and 9,000 elephants. In the words of the Arthashastra, the political manual written for Chandragupta, "Government is the science of punishment." On the other hand, also following the Arthashastra's advice that a king's good is what is good for his subjects, Chandragupta and Bindusara built and maintained roads, bridges, and irrigation systems.
Bindusara's successor and one of the most remarkable rulers in history was Ashoka (269-232 B.C.E). A bloody struggle for the throne and the even bloodier conquest of Kalinga in 261 B.C.E upset him so much that he embraced the Buddhist concept of non-violence and renounced war, gave up the hunt, and outlawed the killing of any animals not used or eaten. Throughout his reign, Ashoka continued to rule in the spirit of Buddhism (which he may also have seen as a unifying force for his empire). He sent out officers of righteousness to ensure the just rule by his officials. He codified Buddhist laws and principles. And he worked for the welfare of his subjects by digging wells, building rest houses and planting banyan trees for shade, medicinal herbs, and mango trees. Unfortunately, Ashoka’s policy of non-violence also undermined his army's efficiency, which allowed revolts, invasions, and the fall of the Mauryan Empire by 185 B.C.E.
The fall of the Mauryan Empire allowed the expansion of the Greek kingdom of Bactria (modern Afghanistan) into northwestern India around 150 B.C.E. The Greeks probably influenced Indian culture in a number of fields: medicine, astrology, drama, and sculpture. There is even a philosophical work, The Menander, where the Greco-Bactrian king, Menander has a dialogue with a Buddhist monk.
From about 50 B.C.E to 78 C.E. a succession of Asiatic tribes pushed into northwestern India. One of these tribes, the Kushans, united the others behind them and established a kingdom that encompassed northern India from the Indus to the Ganges valleys and possibly to the Himalayas and the Silk Road. This period also saw the rising influence of a middle class of merchants and craftsmen who took full advantage of their central position for trade. Therefore, the Kushan capital of Purashapura in the rich province of Gandhara became the hub of a lively trade between Rome, India, and China. Indian merchants especially profited from their middleman role of getting spices from South-east Asia and silk from China for Roman traders. The large number of Roman coins circulating in India at this time indicates how extensive and profitable this trade was for India and likewise how costly it was for Rome, being one of the causes for its decline and fall.
India exported and imported more than material goods at this time. Buddhism was especially popular with Indian merchants, since it was one occupation that could stay clear of killing people, animals, and even small creatures in the soil. As a result, merchants spread Buddhism to Southeast and Central Asia and as far away as China. Indian culture was so influential in the emergence of civilization and kingdoms in Southeast Asia that this region along with India has been referred to as Greater India. Buddhist ideas may have even influenced such religious groups in the Roman Empire as the Manicheans, Gnostics, and Neo-Platonists.
By the same token, foreign ideas also influenced India. Greek influence was seen in the Gandharan style of sculpture, which portrayed Buddha with curly hair and made its way as Far East as China. Also the Kushan rulers adopted the Chinese title "Son of Heaven." Even more striking was the influence Christianity might have had on Buddhism, in particular the idea of Maitreya Buddha, the suffering savior who would redeem us through his own pain.
Although Buddha himself had resisted any attempts to deify him, such attempts started soon after his death. By the first century C.E., this had created a split in Buddhism. The old belief of each of us being responsible for our own salvation was known as Hinyana Buddhism ("the Lesser Vehicle") since we each must strive for salvation on our own. The newer belief was called Mahayana ("the Greater Vehicle") since Buddha saves all of us together. One spin-off of this idea was that of the Bodhisattvas, people who have earned Nirvana but have chosen to stay behind in this world to help other people attain Nirvana. Over time, various branches of Mahayana would emerge, some having innumerable Bodhisattvas inhabiting complex hierarchies of heavens as stages leading to Nirvana. Hinyana Buddhism would be the dominant form of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Burma, and Southeast Asia. Mahayana would prevail in India, Central Asia, Tibet, China, and Japan.
The Kushan realm remained a center of culture until its demise in the late third century at the hands of a new power rising in the West, the Sassanid Persians. However, a new native dynasty, the Guptas, emerged in the fourth century to take the Kushans' place. Its founder, Chandra Gupta I (319-335), although from an obscure family in Bihar in the northeast, made a favorable marriage that helped him control the Ganges River Valley by his death. His successors eventually brought Northern India under their rule while states in the Deccan and Sri Lanka agreed to become the Guptas' vassals.
The Gupta period is seen as a golden age of Indian culture. Indian astronomers came up with the idea of a round earth rotating on its axis. Indian mathematicians developed such concepts as Pi, negative numbers, a decimal system with place value digits, zero, and quadratic equations. Unfortunately, these ideas remained the preserve of a select group of individuals. Not until the Arabs came into India and adapted these concepts for their own uses were they made generally available. This is reflected by our still referring to them as Arabic numerals. In literature, India's two greatest epic poems, the Ramayana, and Mahabharata, which itself contains possibly the most revered work in Indian literature, the Bhagavad Gita, were written down in their final forms. India's greatest playwright, Kalidasa, flourished at this time. Unlike Greek drama, the point of Indian drama is to delight the audience and leave it with a serene and peaceful feeling. Both Buddhist and the emerging Hindu art and architecture also thrived. Once again, Greek influence can still be seen in the simplicity and serenity of Buddhist art. Hindu temples were modeled after caves, which Indians always considered sacred and were decorated with sculptures.
During this time, a major shift took place in the religious climate of India. The Guptas, like many rulers before them, had been active supporters of Buddhism. This, and their popularity among the rich middle classes, led to large contributions to Buddhist monasteries, which became quite wealthy, much like their counterparts in Christian Europe. Besides theological disputes and the corruption such wealth and influence at court might bring, Buddhists tended to move their monasteries away from populated areas. Meanwhile, the Brahmins were renewing contact with the people and winning many converts to their religion, which at this point had evolved into what we now call Hinduism. In the following centuries, Hinduism would replace Buddhism as the major religion in India, although it continued to spread across Asia.
Of the world's great religions, Hinduism is especially unique, since it has no historical founder who had some revelation at some point in time. It has no fixed set of worship, with some people praying, others making sacrifices, and still others meditating. Although it is polytheistic, recognizing millions of gods, it is somewhat monotheistic in that it sees these various gods as manifestations of the one unifying god, Brahma. It is this flexibility that has made it so popular and such a unifying force in India.
While there are millions of gods, there are three that most people worship one or the other of: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Brahma is seen as the supreme being of creation who put into motion a constantly repeating cycle of destruction and rebirth. Although seen as the supreme god, who all others are reconciled to, Brahma has not been as popular as Vishnu and Shiva. Vishnu is the kind and merciful preserver of Brahma's creation who has appeared in various manifestations, known as avatars, to help humanity. The most popular of his manifestations has been Krishna, who as a child was full of mischief and as an adult a great lover and a mighty warrior, qualities once associated with Indra. Shiva combined the attributes of various Harappan and Aryan gods, being at once a god of destruction and rebirth, mercy and wrath, and constancy and unpredictability.
Hinduism maintains the old Brahmanic and Buddhist principles of karma, dharma, and reincarnation. Unlike the old Brahmanic religion, it puts more emphasis on personal devotion to a god than on sacrifices performed by the Brahmans. This made Hinduism especially popular in India and it has dominated India ever since. However, the coming of Islam in the eighth century offered a new challenge to Hinduism's dominance.
Until 711 C.E., India had faced many invaders, but no substantial challenges on both a military and cultural level. The Persians and Greeks had confronted India with highly developed civilizations, but also had reached the limits of their expansion by the time they arrived there. The various nomadic peoples who entered India between the second century B.C.E. and eighth century C.E. may have been more potent military threats, but their cultures were thoroughly absorbed by India. However, in 711 C.E., India faced for the first time a vital people with a culture and religion both as sophisticated and powerful as its own: Islam.
Much of the relationship between Islam and Hinduism hinged on a battle that took place at the Talas River in Central Asia in 751 C.E. between the expanding empires of the Arab Muslims and T'ang China. The Arab victory in that battle not only stopped the T'ang dynasty's expansion to the West; it also led to the triumph of Islam over Buddhism as the prevailing religion in Central Asia. As a result, although India continued to face a succession of invaders from the North, all those invaders had Islam as the common defining element of their cultures, a religion that in its own way was as appealing as Hinduism.
For 1000 years following the entry of the Arab Muslims into India, a basic pattern of development emerged. Muslims would come into North-western India and expand to the south and east. Eventually, India's environment would slow them down, as Islamic and Indian civilizations would leave their marks on each other. Then another group of Muslims would come in and repeat the process. This pattern repeated itself in three successive waves: the Arabs in the eighth century, various Turkish peoples starting around 1000 C.E., and the Mughal dynasty that entered India in 1526. This cycle may have continued repeating itself except for the intrusion of the British who would present India with a new cultural challenge.
The Arab Muslims entered India in 711, the same year their religious compatriots in the West entered Spain. They conquered the area known as Sind in the Indus River valley (modern Pakistan). It is hard to imagine two religions and civilizations so different in their outlooks as Islam and Hinduism. Whereas Islam saw all people as equal before God, India's rigid caste system presented a highly stratified social structure sanctioned by religion. On the other hand, while Hinduism was incredibly tolerant of a multitude of gods, Islam was strictly monotheistic. For better or worse, the two cultures have co-existed, though not always peacefully, since the Arabs arrived until the present day.
Arab expansion was stopped by various feudal Indian princes known as the Rajputs who themselves may have been descended from invading Huns two centuries earlier. While theoretically loyal to a king, they functioned as virtually independent rulers. As trade increased, so did competition for the control of that trade. As a result, the Rajputs often spent as much time fighting each other as they did resisting foreign invaders. Their warfare was highly ritualized and regulated by an elaborate code of behavior, much like the codes of chivalry and Buhsido regulated the fighting of elite nobles in medieval Europe and Japan. Our modern game of chess, originating in India, reflects this ceremonial way of fighting wars. Unfortunately for the Rajputs, this also kept them from adapting to changes in warfare and hampering the Muslim advance across Northern India.
Arab rule was fairly tolerant of Hinduism. They even preserved the temple of a Hindu sun god in Multan, which also prevented Hindu attacks on the city that might damage this holy spot. Although the Arabs only conquered the northwestern part of India, their tolerant rule won many converts to Islam in that region which remains Muslim to this day. This provided a solid base for further Muslim expansion into India.
By 1000 C.E., the Abbasid Caliphate and Arabs' grip on their empire were in decline because of the empire's vast size, weak caliphs, and the split between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Like the caliphs in Baghdad, the Arabs in Afghanistan relied increasingly on slave bodyguards drawn chiefly from neighboring Turkish tribes. Eventually these Turkish warriors asserted their independence and took over from the Arabs. From this base in Afghanistan, they launched raids into India, thus resuming Muslim expansion in the subcontinent.
Compared to the Arabs, Turkish raids into India were much more ruthless and destructive. The first of these raiders, Mahmud of Ghazni, earned the title of "the Idol Smasher" for the damage he did to Hindu Temples, while the ruler, Ala al-Din, similarly came to be called "the World Burner." These raids and invasions especially hurt Buddhism, as kings in East India were no longer able or willing to patronize Buddhist monasteries. This led many Buddhists either to convert to Islam or flee to Tibet and Southeast Asia. As a result, Buddhism virtually died out as a religion in India although its influence elsewhere continued to spread.
The Mongol invasions in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries seriously disrupted Muslim civilization, especially in Central Asia. As a result, Muslims left on their own in India built an independent kingdom, the Sultanate of Delhi (1206-c.1500). Also, many Muslim scholars fleeing the Mongol onslaught came to India. This, along with an active sea-borne trade with Southeast Asia, East Africa, and the Middle East led to a flowering of Muslim culture in India. The Sultanate of Delhi witnessed a gradual blending of Muslim and Hindu cultures. Many Hindus learned Persian and Muslim bureaucratic procedures. Helping this process was the introduction of paper, which made record keeping easier, thus, enhancing the Sultan's control over his realm. Islam gained a number of converts from lower castes, especially from such castes as elephant trainers, weavers, and butchers who worked for the Muslims and saw this as a way to improve their station in life.
Muslims also absorbed Indian Culture, with caste distinctions starting to appear among them, Muslim men marrying Hindu women, and a mystical branch of Islam, Sufism, developing that used Hindu techniques such as meditation. Altogether, these developments paved the way for the next wave of invaders: the Mughals.
The greatest of the Mughal rulers was Akbar the Great (1656-1605). Coming to the throne at the age of thirteen, he soon proved himself a firm and shrewd ruler who quickly crushed any revolts in his inherited lands and expanded Mughal power into the Deccan. However, it was Akbar's talents as a ruler, not a conqueror that earned him the title, "the Great." Instead of trying to rule the stubborn Rajputs by force, he allied with them, using them as his officers and government officials to keep his unruly Muslim nobles in line. He tolerated Hinduism, married Hindu princesses, and held scholarly discussions on any and all religions each Friday. He even founded his own religion, Din Ilahi, a simple monotheistic faith that would not survive its founder's death.
Akbar looked out for his peoples' welfare by holding a land survey to ensure fair taxes. He would even over-rule his own Muslim judges, the ulema, in order to secure justice and prosperity for his subjects. Akbar was also a patron of the arts, encouraging both Hindu and Muslim artists, poets, and musicians.
Akbar established a strong and stable state that allowed his three successors, Jahangir (1605-27), Shah Jahan (1628-58), and Aurangzeb (1658-1707), to keep expanding the Mughal realm. During this time, India experienced another flourishing of the arts with the fusion of Persian and Hindu styles. In painting, Mughal artists combined the Persian tradition of colorful painting with the looser and more natural style of Indian artists. Architecture especially reflected Muslim influence as seen in the Taj Mahal, a mausoleum for Shah Jahan's wife and still considered one of the world's most beautiful buildings. In music, the sultan, Aurangzeb's ban on music caused Muslim musicians to flee to the countryside where they blended their style of music with Hindu folk music to create a style of music still known as Mughal music.
It was during the reign of Aurangzeb that two major seeds of Mughal decline were sown. One was the over-extension of his empire in the conquest of all but the southern tip of India. The other was his persecution of Hindus, a reversal of the traditional Mughal policy of tolerance. Together, these bred disaffection among the people and drained the empire's resources. After Aurangzeb's death in 1707, the Mughal Empire went into rapid decline, allowing a new people with a new culture, the British, to take over.