The Mughal Empire

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Mughal Empire which, at its height, stretched from Bengal in the East to Gujarat in the West, and from Lahore in the North to Madras in the South. It covered the whole of present day northern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, and became famous for the Taj Mahal, the Koh-i-Noor and the Peacock Throne. In 1631 a Dutch naturalist Johannes de Laet published his account of the vast Empire, “the nobles live in indescribable luxury and extravagance, caring only to indulge themselves whilst they can, in every kind of pleasure. Their greatest magnificence is in their women’s quarters, for they marry three or four wives or sometimes more”.But were they really the opulent despots of European imagination? If so, how did they maintain such a vast territory? And to what extent was the success of the British Raj a legacy of their rule?

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Sanjay Subrahmanyam No other episodes
  Professor of Indian History and Culture at the University of Oxford
• Susan Stronge 2 episodes
  Curator in the Asian Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
• Chandrika Kaul 5 episodes
  Lecturer in Imperial History at the University of St Andrews

Related episodes

• The Sikh Empire
  
  7 Apr, 2016 900 History
• The East India Company
  
  26 Jun, 2003 380 Commerce, communications and transportation
• The British Empire
  
  8 Nov, 2001 900 History
• The Empire of Mali
  
  29 Oct, 2015 960 History of Africa
• The Indian Mutiny
  
  18 Feb, 2010 950 History of Asia
• Genghis Khan
  
  1 Feb, 2007 950 History of Asia
• The Abbasid Caliphs
  
  2 Feb, 2006 900 History
• The Ming Voyages
  
  13 Oct, 2011 950 History of Asia
• The Observatory at Jaipur
  
  19 Feb, 2009 520 Astronomy
• Imperial Science
  
  1 Feb, 2001 940 History of Europe

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: p004y27h

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y27h

Auto-category: 954 (History of South Asia; India)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. At its zenith, the Mughal Empire stretched from Gujarat in the east to Bengal in the west, from Lahore in the north and Madras in the south.