# The Mughals and their rivals
**मुग़ल और उनके प्रतिद्वंद्वी**

- Canonical page: https://indianepics.online/chapter/mughal/
- Track: evidence
- Span: 1500 CE to 1760 CE
- Boundary shown: mughal-1700 (approximate unless marked traced)

Babur came down from Kabul with matchlocks, field guns and Central Asian cavalry, and his descendants ruled from Kabul to the Deccan for the better part of two centuries. Akbar's administration, Shah Jahan's architecture and Aurangzeb's wars set the frame that the Marathas, the Sikh misls and the European trading companies would inherit.

The outline is the empire around 1700, its largest and most overstretched. Within fifty years the Marathas held the centre, the Nawabs ran Bengal and Awadh, and a trading company had an army.

## Events (8)

- 1526 CE — [First Battle of Panipat](https://indianepics.online/event/panipat-1526.md): Babur's field guns and flanking cavalry break Ibrahim Lodi's army; the Delhi Sultanate ends and the Mughal line begins.
- 1571 CE – 1585 CE — [Akbar's city at Fatehpur Sikri](https://indianepics.online/event/fatehpur-sikri.md): Akbar's capital of 1571-85, where debates in the Ibadat Khana brought Sunni and Shia scholars, Brahmins, Jains and Jesuits before him.
- 1613 CE — [The English factory at Surat](https://indianepics.online/event/surat-factory.md): After an English victory over the Portuguese off Swally, Jahangir confirms the East India Company's right to trade at Surat.
- 1632 CE – 1653 CE — [Shah Jahan builds the Taj Mahal](https://indianepics.online/event/taj-mahal.md): Shah Jahan's tomb for Mumtaz Mahal, built over two decades on the Yamuna in white Makrana marble.
- 1674 CE — [Shivaji crowned at Raigad](https://indianepics.online/event/shivaji-coronation.md): Shivaji is crowned Chhatrapati at Raigad, making his Maratha state a sovereign kingdom outside the Mughal order.
- 1687 CE — [Aurangzeb takes Golconda](https://indianepics.online/event/golconda-1687.md): After an eight-month siege the last Deccan sultanate falls to Aurangzeb, carrying the empire close to its greatest extent.
- 1699 CE — [Guru Gobind Singh founds the Khalsa](https://indianepics.online/event/khalsa-1699.md): At Vaisakhi the tenth Guru initiates the Panj Piare and gives the Sikh community its martial, egalitarian form.
- 1757 CE — [Battle of Plassey](https://indianepics.online/event/plassey-1757.md): Clive's Company army defeats Siraj ud-Daulah when Mir Jafar's troops stand aside; the Company becomes the power behind Bengal's throne.