Mughal Empire Founded
In April 1526, the Central Asian prince Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the Sultan of Delhi, at the First Battle of Panipat and laid the foundation of the Mughal Empire. The dynasty he began would dominate much of the Indian subcontinent for more than two centuries at full strength, and it lingered in diminished form until 1858, when the British formally ended it. Its administration, architecture, art, and court culture left a lasting imprint on South Asia.
Babur was descended on his father's side from Timur and, according to tradition, on his mother's side from Genghis Khan. He inherited the small principality of Ferghana in Central Asia but lost it and failed repeatedly to hold Samarkand. He then turned toward Kabul, which he took in 1504, and from there looked toward India. The Delhi Sultanate was by this time fragmented and weakened, and the Lodi dynasty faced rebellious nobles and rival powers, including the Rajput confederacy in the west. Some regional figures are traditionally said to have encouraged Babur's intervention, though the details are debated.
At Panipat, north of Delhi, Babur faced a much larger army, probably with many war elephants. He relied on disciplined tactics, including fortified lines of carts and the use of gunpowder weapons such as matchlock firearms and field artillery, operated by Ottoman-influenced specialists. Ibrahim Lodi was killed on the field, and Babur soon occupied Delhi and Agra. His position was still insecure. In 1527 he defeated a Rajput coalition led by Rana Sanga at Khanwa, and in 1529 he overcame Afghan forces in the east. He died in 1530, leaving a fragile realm.
His son Humayun lost much of it to the Afghan leader Sher Shah Suri and spent years in exile, partly at the Persian court, before recovering Delhi in 1555. The empire's real consolidation came under Humayun's son Akbar, who ruled from 1556 to 1605. Akbar expanded Mughal territory, built a centralized administration based on ranked officials called mansabdars, and pursued conciliation with Rajput rulers and Hindu subjects. Later emperors, including Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb, extended the empire's reach and wealth, though historians continue to debate how far religious policy and costly wars contributed to its later decline.
The Mughals fused Persian, Central Asian, and Indian traditions, producing the Taj Mahal, distinctive miniature painting, and Urdu as a literary language. After Aurangzeb's death in 1707, regional powers, Maratha expansion, and foreign invasions eroded imperial authority, while the British East India Company rose in influence. After the Rebellion of 1857, the last emperor, Bahadur Shah II, was deposed and exiled, ending the dynasty in 1858.