Introduction

For over three hundred years, the Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526) was the dominant power in north India, but by the first decade of the sixteenth century, it started breaking up. Several autonomous states emerged to challenge the political supremacy of the Delhi Sultanate in the Ganga-Jamuna doab (the fertile tract of land between the two rivers Ganga and Jamuna in north India). Deccan (the region between rivers Godavari and Krishna) and south India became independent of the Delhi Sultanate's control earlier during the mid-fourteenth century. The invasion of India by the Turkish warlord Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur in 1526 (Emperor 1526–30) resulted in the replacement of the Lodhi Dynasty ruling the Delhi Sultanate by the Mughal Empire. The Mughals (Moghuls) called themselves Chagatai Turks or Timurids. The Mughals claimed that from their father's side they descended from Amir Timur and from their mother's side, from the Chagatai Mongol branch. The newly born Mughal Empire was overthrown in 1540 by the Afghan warlord from east India named Sher Shah Suri. Babur's son Humayun staged a comeback in 1555. The ‘real’ founder of the Mughal Empire was Akbar (Emperor 1556–1605). Akbar put an end to the political chaos in north India by subduing the Afghans and the Rajputs. Further, he reorganized the administrative set up. By the time of Akbar's death in 1605, the Mughal Empire had established a stable administrative machinery in north and central India and was in the process of spilling slowly into Deccan.