0:00:13 > 0:00:18There are moments in history when civilisations aspire to greatness.
0:00:21 > 0:00:27India had done so in ancient times and, at the end of the Middle Ages, it did so again.
0:00:27 > 0:00:32And it was the coming of Islam that inspired the next great phase of Indian history.
0:00:35 > 0:00:40Today the sub-continent is home to half of all the world's Muslims.
0:00:40 > 0:00:44The ebb and flow of its history has been shaped by the encounter
0:00:44 > 0:00:48of the two civilisations of India and Islam.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52And, in all of history, there is no more dramatic tale.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57The next chapter in The Story of India.
0:01:31 > 0:01:38Muslim traders had settled in south India within memory of the Prophet's lifetime,
0:01:38 > 0:01:41but the coming of Islam only began to work profound change
0:01:41 > 0:01:48in the history of the sub-continent in the Middle Ages, with invasions and settlements here in the north.
0:01:49 > 0:01:56That story begins in the city of Multan, in what is now Pakistan, exactly 1,000 years ago.
0:01:56 > 0:01:59Here in Multan, a series of events began
0:01:59 > 0:02:03which would shift forever the balance of history
0:02:03 > 0:02:05in the sub-continent,
0:02:05 > 0:02:09and the key figure was Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni.
0:02:09 > 0:02:15Few characters in history have aroused more violent disagreement.
0:02:15 > 0:02:18To some, he was a great prince,
0:02:18 > 0:02:22a builder of empires and a champion of the faith.
0:02:22 > 0:02:27To others, an oppressor, a fanatic and an iconoclast.
0:02:29 > 0:02:35The head of a great Muslim empire in Afghanistan, Mahmud occupied the then Hindu city of Multan,
0:02:35 > 0:02:40and used it as a base for a series of raids into India.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44So your family were connected with Mahmud of Ghazni's family?
0:02:44 > 0:02:49- Yes.- And you've been in this quarter of the city for nearly 1,000 years?
0:02:49 > 0:02:51We're living here all the time.
0:02:51 > 0:02:57When our ancestor came, you see, and when he camped here you see, at the site where he is buried.
0:02:57 > 0:03:02'The Gardezis' ancestor came with Mahmud's son in the 11th century.'
0:03:02 > 0:03:06- It's through those doors he came riding on a lion.- Oh, yeah.
0:03:06 > 0:03:10With a live snake as a whip in his hand, and a pair of pigeons fluttering over his head.
0:03:10 > 0:03:17'But their ancestor wasn't a warrior but a holy man, one among many who came in the Middle Ages into India.'
0:03:17 > 0:03:21This is from the 12th century then, is it?
0:03:21 > 0:03:22'This is his tomb.
0:03:22 > 0:03:28'He was a Sufi, an Islamic mystic, and the Sufi saints, who are still loved across Pakistan
0:03:28 > 0:03:32'and north India, will be very important in this story.
0:03:32 > 0:03:38'For it was the Sufi saints who first brought Islam and the people of India together.'
0:03:38 > 0:03:42Among the saints of Multan, I think Shah Yusef, our ancestor,
0:03:42 > 0:03:45he's first of the Muslim saints to arrive in Multan.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48I would call him the founder of Muslim Multan.
0:03:48 > 0:03:54So the age of Mahmud was a time of violence, but also the beginning of a meeting of minds.
0:03:54 > 0:03:56For, like the Hindu holy men,
0:03:56 > 0:03:59the Sufis taught that people should strive to be with God
0:03:59 > 0:04:01without any attachment.
0:04:03 > 0:04:08And there lay the common ground between Islam and the religions of India.
0:04:09 > 0:04:12Ah, the old Gardezi library.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14I remember this place.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17This was founded by my great-great-great grandfather...
0:04:17 > 0:04:22'And even the dreaded Mahmud himself is remembered here as a prince of high culture.'
0:04:22 > 0:04:26..From an old manuscript type, musty old books.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28Some of them are 400-500 years old.
0:04:28 > 0:04:33'He was the patron of the famous epic, Ferdousi's Book Of Kings.'
0:04:33 > 0:04:38This is the Ferdousi. The Ferdousi was commissioned by Mahmud of Ghazni
0:04:38 > 0:04:44to write the history of Persia and this part of the world in poetry form, and Mahmud promised
0:04:44 > 0:04:48that he would give him one gold coin per couplet.
0:04:48 > 0:04:52- For a couplet.- For a couplet. - He wrote 40,000 couplets.
0:04:52 > 0:04:5440,000 couplets!
0:04:54 > 0:04:58So Mahmud had a second thought and said, "Oh, a gold coin is too much.
0:04:58 > 0:05:02"I think I'll give you a silver coin per couplet."
0:05:02 > 0:05:07And he refused to accept it and he went back home and wrote a satire against Mahmud
0:05:07 > 0:05:13which become so popular, in which he criticises Mahmud's ancestry and everything,
0:05:13 > 0:05:15especially his mother's side.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18His mother's ancestry. He says at one point...
0:05:18 > 0:05:23HE READS THE TEXT OUT
0:05:23 > 0:05:27"Oh, King Mahmud, oh, conqueror of the countries, of the nations,
0:05:27 > 0:05:32- "if you are not scared of anyone at least be scared of God".- Wow!
0:05:32 > 0:05:36And that become so popular that every child in Ghazni
0:05:36 > 0:05:40was reciting couplets of the satire more than that of the Shahnama.
0:05:40 > 0:05:42All the original, the main text.
0:05:42 > 0:05:49- So Mahmud deeply regretted...- He regretted that and decided to honour his word and give a gold coin.
0:05:53 > 0:05:56Mahmud led a dozen great expeditions into India.
0:05:56 > 0:06:00The most famous left Multan in November 1025.
0:06:00 > 0:06:05It took them a month to get down from Multan to the sea.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09To survive through this kind of terrain,
0:06:09 > 0:06:12they took 20,000 camels to carry the water.
0:06:12 > 0:06:17In these earlier attacks on India, the goal wasn't conquest, but plunder.
0:06:17 > 0:06:22Their target in 1025, the famous Hindu temple town of Somnath,
0:06:22 > 0:06:25said to be incredibly rich in gold and silver.
0:06:25 > 0:06:31Though, as can still happen, the invasion was given a different public justification
0:06:31 > 0:06:33as a war against the infidel.
0:06:33 > 0:06:38There are many stories about why Mahmud attacked Somnath.
0:06:40 > 0:06:45Long, long ago in Arabia, there was a goddess called Manat.
0:06:45 > 0:06:51When Islam came, the shrines of the goddesses were destroyed.
0:06:51 > 0:06:56But according to one version of the story, the stone image of Manat
0:06:56 > 0:06:58was taken away from Arabia
0:06:58 > 0:07:03and brought here to India, and Somnath became her temple.
0:07:03 > 0:07:04Somanatha.
0:07:04 > 0:07:10And it was to fulfil the work of the prophet that Mahmud led his expedition to the sea.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14THEY SING AND CHANT
0:07:21 > 0:07:26That story no doubt made Mahmud look good with the Caliph in Baghdad as a defender of the faith.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30But it was fantasy. He'd come to loot the wealth of India.
0:07:30 > 0:07:36And these tales became part of the mythology of the people in the border land of Rajasthan.
0:07:36 > 0:07:39To them, Mahmud is still a bogeyman,
0:07:39 > 0:07:43and they still sing of their heroic battles in the Middle Ages
0:07:43 > 0:07:45against the Afghans and the Turks.
0:07:45 > 0:07:49THEY SING
0:08:16 > 0:08:18THEY CLAP
0:08:28 > 0:08:30CAMELS SNORT
0:08:33 > 0:08:34FARTING
0:08:34 > 0:08:38Ah, nothing like that old sound of grumpy camels
0:08:38 > 0:08:42clearing their throats and farting all night, is there?
0:08:42 > 0:08:44Well, there isn't!
0:08:51 > 0:08:57Mahmud's attack on Somnath led him 750 miles south from Multan,
0:08:57 > 0:09:00across the great desert of Thar,
0:09:00 > 0:09:03into Gujarat and down to the Arabian Sea.
0:09:10 > 0:09:17There on the seashore lay the rich pilgrim shrine of Somnath inside a fortified town.
0:09:17 > 0:09:22The Shiva temple here was destroyed and rebuilt several times
0:09:22 > 0:09:26before it was restored in the 1950s after independence.
0:09:34 > 0:09:37Mahmud reached here in January 1026,
0:09:37 > 0:09:42sacked the city, destroyed the idol and plundered the temple's gold.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46In today's India, the tale is still remembered with bitterness.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56TRANSLATION:
0:10:11 > 0:10:18Mahmud's expedition to Somnath was written up by his Persian and Turkic court poets
0:10:18 > 0:10:23as an emblematic clash between Islam and Hindu idolatry.
0:10:23 > 0:10:27The great historian Al-Biruni, who was no fan of Mahmud,
0:10:27 > 0:10:32went with him to India and says the 12 great plundering expeditions
0:10:32 > 0:10:35engendered a hatred among Hindus for the Turks.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38By which he means, the Muslims.
0:10:38 > 0:10:43But, as always in history, and especially in the history of India, there's another story.
0:10:43 > 0:10:48And what appears to begin here as a clash of civilizations
0:10:48 > 0:10:54will become, over time, one the most remarkable cultural crossovers in the history of civilization.
0:10:54 > 0:11:01What a great Indian Muslim prince will later call "The Meeting of Two Oceans".
0:11:03 > 0:11:10And it's Al-Biruni, a Muslim scholar who learned Sanskrit, who gives us the first signpost.
0:11:12 > 0:11:13"You must bear in mind,"
0:11:13 > 0:11:18he says, "that the Hindus entirely differ from us in almost everything.
0:11:20 > 0:11:26"And the barriers separating us are many - language, manners, customs, rules of purity.
0:11:26 > 0:11:32"And India is such a diverse land, from Kashmir in the north to the southern cultures -
0:11:32 > 0:11:35"Telugu, Kanada and Tamil.
0:11:35 > 0:11:38"In religion, the Indians totally differ from us,
0:11:38 > 0:11:42"as we believe in nothing in which they believe, and vice versa.
0:11:42 > 0:11:46"India's hard to understand, though I have a great liking for it.
0:11:46 > 0:11:51"And our apparent differences would be perfectly transparent
0:11:51 > 0:11:53"if there were more contact between us."
0:11:55 > 0:11:59But in 1192, there came a new phase -
0:11:59 > 0:12:05military conquest by Afghans and Turks, who became Sultans of Delhi.
0:12:05 > 0:12:09Here, they built a giant minaret, which doubled as a tower of victory.
0:12:10 > 0:12:15240 feet high, it's one of the wonders of the world, the Qutub Minar.
0:12:15 > 0:12:17It's called the Might of Islam.
0:12:17 > 0:12:19The Might of Islam.
0:12:21 > 0:12:23So this a statement of conquest.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27This is foreign conquerors coming in and creating their base here.
0:12:27 > 0:12:29This base was very important
0:12:29 > 0:12:32for taking the conquest into other parts of India.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34So you can imagine, the Qutub complex
0:12:34 > 0:12:38was the place which established Muslim rule in India.
0:12:39 > 0:12:43This was built around the end of the 12th century.
0:12:44 > 0:12:49There was a time when this Lal Kot area was taken over by the Afghans.
0:12:53 > 0:12:58This is the first Indo-Islamic mosque in India,
0:12:58 > 0:13:02- this particular mosque.- This is the place.- The first mosque.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06And all around us, the remains of Hindu columns.
0:13:06 > 0:13:13The inscription on the eastern gate says that 27 temples were actually dismantled to construct this mosque.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18It was as much a political as a religious statement.
0:13:18 > 0:13:24Since its first spread in the 7th century, the Islamic world had encountered many other religions,
0:13:24 > 0:13:27but nowhere as big and diverse as India.
0:13:27 > 0:13:33The fact was, as the Delhi Sultans soon realised, they couldn't possibly convert India.
0:13:33 > 0:13:35Co-existence had to follow.
0:13:39 > 0:13:43The different dynasties of the Sultans of Delhi ruled here for 300 years,
0:13:43 > 0:13:48and you can still pick up their traces today in the back streets of old Delhi.
0:13:48 > 0:13:52- So where are we heading? - We are going to Mubarakul village...
0:13:52 > 0:13:58- Yeah.- ..where a Saiyid king, who ruled sometime in 1430, is buried.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01What was then just an obscure village,
0:14:01 > 0:14:05built this rather elaborate tomb we're about to see.
0:14:07 > 0:14:08Mubarak Shah's Tomb?
0:14:08 > 0:14:11Mubarak Shah's Tomb? Round here?
0:14:11 > 0:14:14'We're looking for the tomb of one of the Delhi Sultans,
0:14:14 > 0:14:18'which over the centuries has become a shrine for the local community.'
0:14:18 > 0:14:21- What? That thing there?- Yeah.
0:14:22 > 0:14:27I don't believe this, look at this, this is just amazing.
0:14:31 > 0:14:33Why has it been caged in?
0:14:33 > 0:14:40Because there is a very real fear that history may reach out and bite you.
0:14:40 > 0:14:42MICHAEL LAUGHS
0:14:42 > 0:14:47And in a bizarre twist, the Sultan has become a local holy man.
0:14:47 > 0:14:53Our friend here tells us that, soon after a marriage, newly-weds would come here and pray,
0:14:53 > 0:14:55not to a holy man but to a Sultan.
0:14:55 > 0:15:00But he has become holy through the years, don't ask me how.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02In an age where all Hindus in the north
0:15:02 > 0:15:06were forced to pay a head tax to the Sultans to practise their faith,
0:15:06 > 0:15:09here's a clue as to how things can change on the ground.
0:15:09 > 0:15:15You won't die of hunger if you live in this vicinity because he will make sure that you have livelihood.
0:15:15 > 0:15:17You won't die of hunger? Yeah.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20So he still sort of protects the people who live around him.
0:15:20 > 0:15:22That's a fantastic idea, isn't it?
0:15:23 > 0:15:29But the biggest meeting of minds was brought about by the Sufi saints.
0:15:29 > 0:15:33And these are really, really basic, the idea being that the people who came...
0:15:33 > 0:15:39'For through the Sufis, the devotees of both faiths found their common ground.'
0:15:40 > 0:15:44You can see the pots in the trees really well from here.
0:15:44 > 0:15:46So these are all successful wishes?
0:15:46 > 0:15:48These are wishes that have come true.
0:15:48 > 0:15:55'And not just in folk beliefs, but in an idea deeply rooted in Islam's mystical traditions -
0:15:55 > 0:15:59'the unity of all being and of all religions.'
0:16:03 > 0:16:08The person who lies buried here is Abu Bakar Sheik Haidery Tusi.
0:16:08 > 0:16:14- He belonged to the...Qalandariyah? - Qalandariyah.- Qalandariyah Silsila.
0:16:14 > 0:16:19- This is a Sufi order that came from Iran or Iraq?- Iran.- Iran.
0:16:19 > 0:16:22This is not just a conquest, is it? It's an intermingling.
0:16:22 > 0:16:27A lot of people now increasingly see that, at least in North India,
0:16:27 > 0:16:32Islam didn't spread through the sword, but through men like the person buried here, these Sufis.
0:16:32 > 0:16:37And it sort of went on like a continuous stream, as it were,
0:16:37 > 0:16:39for 300 to 400 years.
0:16:41 > 0:16:47And perhaps real change in history has to happen at the grass roots.
0:16:47 > 0:16:51The poet Amir Khusro grew up here in the Delhi Sultanate.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55He's still a household name in old Muslim families. He's typical of the age,
0:16:55 > 0:17:00a Muslim, whose parents were Turkic, who spoke Persian.
0:17:00 > 0:17:02And this is his voice.
0:17:02 > 0:17:06"India is our beloved motherland, a paradise on Earth.
0:17:06 > 0:17:10"Intelligence is the natural gift of its people.
0:17:10 > 0:17:14"There can be no better guide to life than the wisdom of India."
0:17:16 > 0:17:21This cult is frowned on by the really orthodox kind of Islamic...
0:17:21 > 0:17:24Some Islam would find this sacrilege, almost all of it.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27It is considered completely un-Islamic.
0:17:28 > 0:17:34So in the Middle Ages in the north, despite war and violence, forced conversion,
0:17:34 > 0:17:36discrimination against Hindus,
0:17:36 > 0:17:41the foundations were laid for the amazing events which would follow in the 16th century.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22This is one of the most wonderful viewpoints in history.
0:18:22 > 0:18:28This is the end of the Khyber Pass, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
0:18:28 > 0:18:33This is the route taken by many of the great invaders in history who came into the Indian subcontinent -
0:18:33 > 0:18:37Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Tamberlane.
0:18:41 > 0:18:47In late 1525, new invaders come down this corridor of history from Afghanistan.
0:18:47 > 0:18:52Originally from Central Asia, the Moghuls had made Kabul their base
0:18:52 > 0:18:56from which to mount an invasion of the plains of India.
0:18:56 > 0:19:03After four failures, this was the final throw on which their leader, Babur, had staked everything.
0:19:03 > 0:19:05It's April 1526.
0:19:05 > 0:19:09The heat already clamping on the Delhi plain.
0:19:09 > 0:19:13Temperature pushing up towards 40 degrees.
0:19:13 > 0:19:17The Moghul army, 12,000 men.
0:19:17 > 0:19:24Their leader, a grizzled veteran at 43 years old, inured to war since he was ten.
0:19:24 > 0:19:27Descendant of Genghis Khan and Tamberlane.
0:19:33 > 0:19:36And ahead of him, at Panipat,
0:19:36 > 0:19:41the Sultan of Delhi, Ibrahim, with an army of 100,000 men
0:19:41 > 0:19:43and 1,000 war elephants.
0:19:49 > 0:19:54Babur's place of destiny, Panipat just north of Delhi, was the scene of several
0:19:54 > 0:20:01great battles in Indian history going back to the legendary wars of the ancient epic of the Mahabharata.
0:20:04 > 0:20:09But now it was Muslim ruler against Muslim invader.
0:20:11 > 0:20:16Both sides had taken their positions a week before.
0:20:16 > 0:20:18We know about Babur's preparation
0:20:18 > 0:20:21more than Ibrahim's because Babur has left a record behind.
0:20:21 > 0:20:25- He was outnumbered by one to five. - Wow!
0:20:25 > 0:20:32He has commandeered, he says, about 700 carts and tied them together with fibre cables.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35What's he trying to do there to protect himself?
0:20:35 > 0:20:38He's tied cannons in these carts.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42There are several hundred cannons tied like this right in front.
0:20:42 > 0:20:47He shoots the enemy with his cannon, which is for the first time happening in India,
0:20:47 > 0:20:50it's in the battle of Panipat, that it's happening in India.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53- The use of artillery? - The use of artillery on that scale.
0:21:09 > 0:21:14Behind that, his cavalry and behind that, his infantry.
0:21:14 > 0:21:16- And how does he win?- Well...
0:21:16 > 0:21:18Is it the artillery that makes the difference?
0:21:18 > 0:21:22Partly, very largely it does make a difference because, you know...
0:21:22 > 0:21:26What do the elephants and horses do against the artillery?
0:21:41 > 0:21:46So, like his contemporaries, Cortes and Pizarro in the new world, in one battle
0:21:46 > 0:21:51the Moghul conquistador Babur had gained the heartland of India.
0:21:51 > 0:21:56In thanksgiving, he built a little mosque overlooking the battlefield,
0:21:56 > 0:21:59the first mogul mosque in India.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03So this place marks the start of a new age and of a new style
0:22:03 > 0:22:07that we now think of as quintessentially Indian.
0:22:18 > 0:22:22This is a palace built by Babur for this Queen
0:22:22 > 0:22:29- while he's saying it's a mosque built by Babur for his army to say their prayers.- Wow!
0:22:29 > 0:22:35So there are two different stories. In India, Babur is known as a warrior, as a conqueror,
0:22:35 > 0:22:38a great soldier.
0:22:38 > 0:22:43In his home, back home in Tajkan area,
0:22:43 > 0:22:48probably nobody even knows that he came to India and conquered
0:22:48 > 0:22:51but they remember him as a great poet, a very, very great poet.
0:22:51 > 0:22:57He's a man of many, many parts, and above all a very honest sincere man,
0:22:57 > 0:23:00a very charming, loveable man.
0:23:00 > 0:23:02He was also a devout Muslim.
0:23:02 > 0:23:07Not a very, what shall I say, dogmatic Muslim, but a devout Muslim
0:23:07 > 0:23:09who said his prayers regularly five times a day.
0:23:09 > 0:23:15After saying his prayers, he had a cup of wine, of course.
0:23:15 > 0:23:18So, it's a very human figure, you know.
0:23:18 > 0:23:22- He was a live man.- Yeah, yeah.
0:23:22 > 0:23:25- A regular guy, you said earlier. - A regular guy.
0:23:29 > 0:23:36And after the battle, what Babur does next is another clue to what will follow.
0:23:36 > 0:23:40He enters Delhi, but doesn't plunder the city.
0:23:40 > 0:23:44Instead, he comes here to the old Sufi Shrine of Nizamuddin,
0:23:44 > 0:23:49still a favourite among Delhiites of all communities, Hindu as well as Muslim.
0:23:54 > 0:24:00And here he offers a humble prayer before going back to camp to have a cup of wine and write poetry.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04Thank you very much.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08'And that will set the tone of the next amazing phase of the story of India.
0:24:08 > 0:24:13'Devotion to the Sufis will mark all of Babur's descendants.
0:24:13 > 0:24:18'Just as respect for all religions marked his ancestors back to Tamberlane.'
0:24:22 > 0:24:24Beautiful place.
0:24:24 > 0:24:28'Under the Moghuls, the story of Islam and India will move on
0:24:28 > 0:24:33'to a different plane, which still has lessons for the world today.'
0:24:33 > 0:24:36Oh, that's very, very kind, thank you. Thank you very much.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40- This is the most important of the shrines of the saints in Delhi.- Yes.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43- This great Sufi Saint. - Great Sufi Saint.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47The tale of the Moghuls is a family story -
0:24:47 > 0:24:51one of the most remarkable and gifted dynasties in history.
0:24:53 > 0:24:58They ruled India for 330 years before they were deposed by the British.
0:24:58 > 0:25:03But immediately after Babur's death, his son Humayun was driven into exile,
0:25:03 > 0:25:10where his wife gave birth to a son who would become one of the greatest of all Indian rulers, Akbar.
0:25:33 > 0:25:38The tale of Akbar takes us first to Rajasthan,
0:25:38 > 0:25:43where the local Hindu Rajas had always resisted the Muslim conquerors.
0:25:52 > 0:25:54In the 16th century,
0:25:54 > 0:25:59the majority of Indian people in the north were still Hindus
0:25:59 > 0:26:05who followed the old religions of India - of Shiva, Vishnu and the Goddess.
0:26:05 > 0:26:09They had often endured intolerance and forced conversion under the medieval sultans.
0:26:09 > 0:26:13Kushbu, I am Michael.
0:26:13 > 0:26:17- My name is Michael, and this is your brother?- Mohit.
0:26:17 > 0:26:19Mohit! Mohit.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22Thank you, this is the best place in Jodhpur.
0:26:25 > 0:26:29Akbar would change the relations between Hindu and Muslim in India.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34When he was born in the house of relatives of the royal family of Jodhpur,
0:26:34 > 0:26:37there were omens which foretold his future greatness
0:26:37 > 0:26:42just as there were for other giants of history, like Alexander.
0:26:44 > 0:26:50So back in 1542, when the astrologers did his horoscope,
0:26:50 > 0:26:53what did they see in Akbar's line of life?
0:26:56 > 0:27:01I asked the present Maharaja's astrologer to redraw his chart.
0:27:01 > 0:27:04Mr Sharma, lovely to see you again. Hello, Abhisekh.
0:27:04 > 0:27:08That's great. So? How did we do?
0:27:08 > 0:27:14What, um...first of all, the date, the 25th of October 1542.
0:27:14 > 0:27:16- Sunday morning.- It is Sunday morning.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20- Saturday night and the Sunday morning. 2am is the...- 2am?
0:27:20 > 0:27:25Yes. That at the time of his birth, Sagittarius was in the fifth house.
0:27:25 > 0:27:27That's astrologically.
0:27:27 > 0:27:30So this is the Emperor Akbar's chart here? Fantastic.
0:27:30 > 0:27:32This is computer-made chart.
0:27:32 > 0:27:34He was born in the Leo Ascendant.
0:27:34 > 0:27:36In Leo Ascendant?
0:27:36 > 0:27:39These people are very,
0:27:39 > 0:27:41very confident about they are doing
0:27:41 > 0:27:46and they are very keen and they are focused about their goals.
0:27:46 > 0:27:51The aspect of Sun and Saturn, it is the Kingdom, Yog,
0:27:51 > 0:27:56as we describe in the astrology, which is the Maharaja Yog.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00He was born when Scorpio was in the fourth house. That was why
0:28:00 > 0:28:04he was bound to have lead a good and comfortable life,
0:28:04 > 0:28:06though born at a different strata,
0:28:06 > 0:28:11but the horoscope indicates that he was not to get ancestral property
0:28:11 > 0:28:15and this holds good because he later acquired kingdom.
0:28:15 > 0:28:21After the sixth day of his birth, the astrologer must have calculated his birth chart.
0:28:21 > 0:28:26Because we believe that on sixth day the Goddess of Fortune comes
0:28:26 > 0:28:29and he writes the fortune of the child.
0:28:29 > 0:28:31They saw the future fortune...
0:28:31 > 0:28:34Because the Sun and Saturn...
0:28:34 > 0:28:38Saturn is the main planet who gives the kingdom.
0:28:38 > 0:28:42If Saturn is on the highest state it must have given the kingdom,
0:28:42 > 0:28:46it will give at that time, they have thought.
0:28:46 > 0:28:47And they were right!
0:28:55 > 0:28:57Akbar became king in 1556
0:28:57 > 0:29:02when his father died after falling down his library steps in Delhi.
0:29:02 > 0:29:07At that moment, much of north India was controlled by their enemies
0:29:07 > 0:29:12and the Moghuls might just have been an unlamented blip in the story of India.
0:29:12 > 0:29:14It's an unlikely place, isn't it?
0:29:14 > 0:29:19But there was a beautiful Moghul garden here in 1556.
0:29:20 > 0:29:26Akbar was proclaimed king here at Kalanaur by generals loyal to his father.
0:29:26 > 0:29:28Thank you.
0:29:28 > 0:29:30So where is it?
0:29:30 > 0:29:32Here? This is it?
0:29:40 > 0:29:41Well, how about that?
0:29:50 > 0:29:55Isn't that extraordinary, doesn't look as if there's any of the garden left, does it?
0:29:55 > 0:29:59It's a beautiful spot. Akbar came back several times in his later life.
0:29:59 > 0:30:01Gorgeous, isn't it, this evening?
0:30:08 > 0:30:12That was the throne platform there. He would have sat on that.
0:30:14 > 0:30:17You have to remember he's only a 13-year-old boy.
0:30:22 > 0:30:26He'd been brought up in exile among tough warriors in Afghanistan.
0:30:26 > 0:30:30You can imagine the sort, I'm sure.
0:30:30 > 0:30:35He played truant from school, preferred outdoor sports and games
0:30:35 > 0:30:38and remained illiterate all his life.
0:30:38 > 0:30:40- What is your name?- Namke.
0:30:40 > 0:30:42Namke? Yah?
0:30:42 > 0:30:43And how old are you?
0:30:44 > 0:30:48- TRANSLATION: 12.- 12.
0:30:48 > 0:30:53So you are nearly the same age as Akbar. He was 13 and you are 12.
0:30:53 > 0:30:57It's an incredible thought, isn't it, that he was only this age when he became king.
0:30:57 > 0:31:02Maybe because the intellectuals and the scholars and the mullahs had never got
0:31:02 > 0:31:08their intellectual straightjacket on him, he retained a wonderful capacity
0:31:08 > 0:31:13to make unexpected, unconventional connections.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17As we would put it, to think outside the box.
0:31:21 > 0:31:28At this point, the Moghul Kingdom had shrunk to a few small pockets around Kandahar, Lahore and Delhi.
0:31:28 > 0:31:33But young Akbar acts fast, defeats his enemies and wins the kingdom.
0:31:33 > 0:31:38And then over the next ten years, he expands it across to Bengal
0:31:38 > 0:31:42and down to the Deccan to become one of the world's great powers.
0:31:44 > 0:31:50And soon the illiterate, young tough guy was showing unexpected skills in rulership
0:31:50 > 0:31:56and an unsuspected interest in India's different philosophies.
0:31:56 > 0:32:00Akbar is not very religious,
0:32:00 > 0:32:03he has attachments to Sufis,
0:32:03 > 0:32:07superstitious attachments, let us say, to the Ajmer Shrine and so on.
0:32:09 > 0:32:12India was what he experienced.
0:32:12 > 0:32:17He liked this language. He liked mixing with the people.
0:32:17 > 0:32:23As you know, he was a bit of a lover in the beginning, so he loved the people
0:32:23 > 0:32:31and often went to gatherings even when he had become a king, without courtiers, incognito.
0:32:32 > 0:32:35He was a different type of sovereign altogether.
0:32:41 > 0:32:46In January 1575, Akbar came with his closest Hindu advisor
0:32:46 > 0:32:50here to the junction of the Ganges and the Jumna Rivers
0:32:50 > 0:32:54at the time of the great bathing festival.
0:32:56 > 0:33:01What Akbar saw here was one of those great Hindu melas
0:33:01 > 0:33:06where millions of people come down to the junction of the rivers to take a holy bath.
0:33:11 > 0:33:16Akbar's advisor tells the story how a strange thing happens at that time.
0:33:16 > 0:33:22He says, "When the planet Jupiter enters the constellation of Aquarius
0:33:22 > 0:33:25"and then a small mound - island rises in the middle
0:33:25 > 0:33:29"of the River Ganges and all the people go out to it to do worship."
0:33:34 > 0:33:41Akbar was so touched by his experience that he named the Hindu sacred place
0:33:41 > 0:33:45Allahabad - The City Of God.
0:33:50 > 0:33:54So here having already lifted the hated tax on Hindus,
0:33:54 > 0:33:58Akbar begins to embrace all India's religions.
0:34:11 > 0:34:15The Sikhs were one of the radical religious groups who'd sprung up
0:34:15 > 0:34:19out of the interaction of Hinduism and Islam in the 16th Century.
0:34:22 > 0:34:29Their first guru, Nanak, who died in 1539, asserted, "There is no Hindu or Muslim,"
0:34:29 > 0:34:34and laid stress on the worship of one God and works of charity.
0:34:41 > 0:34:46His legacy today is a world faith, singled out by the turban
0:34:46 > 0:34:50that all men must wear to enter their holy shrines.
0:34:53 > 0:34:59And it was Akbar who gifted them land here in Amritsar to build the Golden Temple,
0:34:59 > 0:35:04the most famous landmark of Sikhism today.
0:35:04 > 0:35:09It would be under the later Moghuls that the Sikhs became a military sect,
0:35:09 > 0:35:14bearing the symbol still carried by all practising Sikh men today, what they call the Five Ks.
0:35:14 > 0:35:17The first K is the Kesh which is unshown hair.
0:35:17 > 0:35:21- You don't cut your hair?- No. Hence, therefore the appearance...
0:35:21 > 0:35:22you don't cut your hair.
0:35:25 > 0:35:28And second one is Kanga which is a wooden comb.
0:35:28 > 0:35:29- Comb?- Wooden comb, yes.
0:35:29 > 0:35:34- And you keep that with you? - We keep that in the hair here.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37And third one is bracelet...
0:35:37 > 0:35:41It is called Kara - starts with K.
0:35:41 > 0:35:46Fourth K is your Kachhera which is a baggy shorts, briefs.
0:35:46 > 0:35:50Baggy briefs which you wear as undergarment.
0:35:50 > 0:35:53Right, and the fifth one, finally?
0:35:53 > 0:35:56Is Kirpan. Kirpan is actually...
0:35:56 > 0:35:58Now if I can take you through this.
0:35:58 > 0:36:01It's not a sword and it's not a knife either.
0:36:01 > 0:36:03- May I look?- Yes, sure.
0:36:03 > 0:36:06It is called Kirpan. It is to defend your respect.
0:36:06 > 0:36:11To stand against the tyranny of the time, so that we could defend the faith.
0:36:13 > 0:36:17"Now it has become clear to me," said Akbar,
0:36:17 > 0:36:21"that it cannot be wisdom to assert the truth of one faith over another.
0:36:24 > 0:36:27"In our troubled world, so full of contradictions,
0:36:28 > 0:36:32"the wise person makes justice his guide and learns from all.
0:36:32 > 0:36:37"Perhaps in this way the door may be opened again whose key has been lost."
0:36:40 > 0:36:43The New Age demanded a new capital.
0:36:43 > 0:36:47Fatehpur Sikri was built in the 1570s in the plain near Agra.
0:36:51 > 0:36:58Above the entrance is a quotation from a Christian saviour and Muslim prophet - Jesus.
0:37:01 > 0:37:06This is the great gate of Akbar's city at Fatehpur Sikri.
0:37:10 > 0:37:12The inscription reads this,
0:37:12 > 0:37:16"Jesus, peace be upon Him, said this.
0:37:16 > 0:37:21"The world is a bridge, cross it but build no house upon it
0:37:21 > 0:37:25"for the world endures but a moment and the rest is unknown."
0:37:32 > 0:37:35The new city was built around the tiny shrine of a Sufi saint
0:37:35 > 0:37:39whose blessing Akbar had sought to get a son and heir.
0:37:43 > 0:37:47And the lavish celebrations when his son was born are still remembered
0:37:47 > 0:37:49by the ancient guardian of the shrine.
0:38:05 > 0:38:08While the new city was being built and Akbar was beginning
0:38:08 > 0:38:14his philosophical enquiries, he also oversaw a great reform of Moghul government.
0:38:22 > 0:38:26The administrative structure of Moghul Empire is practically complete.
0:38:29 > 0:38:36Provinces are established from 1580, the centralised administration is then already established.
0:38:36 > 0:38:43In 1574, he establishes his military service - bureaucracy and army are combined.
0:38:43 > 0:38:47He has the new land revenue system,
0:38:47 > 0:38:50conquers are going on. Now Akbar is not personally involved.
0:38:50 > 0:38:52OK.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57So actually this philosophy is,
0:38:57 > 0:39:01the philosophy of politically leisure hours, let us say.
0:39:01 > 0:39:04- Partly leisure hours. - Personal search.
0:39:04 > 0:39:07But he's seeking for a justification of sovereignty.
0:39:09 > 0:39:11And how to justify sovereignty.
0:39:11 > 0:39:16To create an allegiance in a nation of such diversity, that was the question.
0:39:18 > 0:39:21Akbar's big idea was very simple.
0:39:21 > 0:39:27No one religion can claim absolute knowledge, absolute authority.
0:39:27 > 0:39:33He'd already had discussions with Muslim wise men, Sunni and Shia,
0:39:33 > 0:39:37but he'd been shocked by how quickly they'd come to blows with each other.
0:39:40 > 0:39:45Now he summoned leaders of all the religions of the world.
0:39:45 > 0:39:51Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Parsees, Jains -
0:39:51 > 0:39:54to find the common ground of all religion.
0:39:56 > 0:40:01And in those weekly seminars here at Fatehpur, perhaps for the first time in human history,
0:40:01 > 0:40:06the absolute claims of religion itself were put under scrutiny.
0:40:06 > 0:40:10THEY TALK HINDI
0:40:26 > 0:40:31Every religion is wrong but all differences have to be tolerated.
0:40:31 > 0:40:34He says in India there are so many religions and therefore the sovereign
0:40:34 > 0:40:37should not identify with one. He's the...
0:40:37 > 0:40:42just as God can't identify himself with one religion,
0:40:42 > 0:40:46so the sovereign can't identify, as sovereign.
0:40:47 > 0:40:52From Moghul India to Christian Europe, it was a Renaissance world
0:40:52 > 0:40:57and Akbar even received a letter from his contemporary, Elizabeth I.
0:40:57 > 0:41:02In her letter to the Emperor Akbar, Queen Elizabeth of England says something very interesting.
0:41:02 > 0:41:07She says that, "The singular report of your majesty's humanity
0:41:07 > 0:41:11"has reached even these most distant shores of the world."
0:41:11 > 0:41:15Humanity? Not power, glory, riches.
0:41:15 > 0:41:19But it's right to talk about Akbar's humanity still.
0:41:19 > 0:41:23It's what makes him one of the most engaging figures in history,
0:41:23 > 0:41:28but it's not the whole story. The other side is his rationality.
0:41:28 > 0:41:33Don't think for a moment that his dream of one religion was some New Age whim.
0:41:33 > 0:41:37It was conceived as rationally as all his other great policies.
0:41:37 > 0:41:42His drastic overhaul of the land revenue and taxation system of his great Empire,
0:41:42 > 0:41:45his overhaul of the Moghul Civil Service,
0:41:45 > 0:41:50his effort to make his Hindu subjects more equal under the law.
0:41:50 > 0:41:54These were all big ideas, the sort of big ideas that would become
0:41:54 > 0:41:58part of the mainstream in Europe in the 18th-century Enlightenment.
0:41:58 > 0:42:05But in 16th-century Europe, no Renaissance prince, not even the brilliant Elizabeth Tudor,
0:42:05 > 0:42:11tried so consistently as Akbar to bring in the Age of Reason.
0:42:14 > 0:42:21After a reign of nearly 50 years, Akbar died in 1605, two years after Elizabeth I.
0:42:21 > 0:42:27He would be succeeded by his son, Jahangir and his grandson, Jahan,
0:42:27 > 0:42:33both men of high sensibility but with inner demons drawn to dissipation.
0:42:38 > 0:42:43Akbar had laid the foundations - administrative, fiscal and moral,
0:42:43 > 0:42:46for Moghul India's future greatness.
0:42:49 > 0:42:54At his death, India had the largest GDP in the world.
0:42:54 > 0:42:59Before it, lay the possibility of an Indo-Islamic enlightenment.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07So what went wrong?
0:43:07 > 0:43:09Why did it fail after Akbar's death?
0:43:09 > 0:43:12Why did the Age of Reason not come?
0:43:12 > 0:43:17It wouldn't be the first time in history and it certainly wouldn't be the last that an Empire lost its
0:43:17 > 0:43:24way because of over-consumption, extravagance, bad leadership and unwise foreign wars.
0:43:24 > 0:43:29Through the 17th century, the Moghuls pursued their futile
0:43:29 > 0:43:34dream of regaining their ancestral homeland in Central Asia.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38And at home they engaged in vast building projects.
0:43:38 > 0:43:42The most famous was the Taj Mahal.
0:43:47 > 0:43:52Now you might have thought that the best-known building in the world had no more secrets.
0:43:52 > 0:43:56The Taj is told in all the tourist guides as a monument to love,
0:43:56 > 0:44:00the tomb of Shah Jahan's favourite wife, Mumtaz,
0:44:00 > 0:44:02and later of Jahan himself.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06A teardrop on the face of time.
0:44:08 > 0:44:11But new discoveries suggest the design may go back
0:44:11 > 0:44:14to the Moghuls' beloved Sufi saints,
0:44:14 > 0:44:20that the key to the Taj may be a mystic map of a Sufi's dream.
0:44:20 > 0:44:23It's a map of the day of judgement.
0:44:23 > 0:44:26The cosmos is seen as a rectangle.
0:44:26 > 0:44:33On one side, the fields of paradise, on the other side, the path,
0:44:33 > 0:44:39a serat - the way - the bridge over which the righteous must pass and be judged on Judgement Day.
0:44:45 > 0:44:49In the middle, a pool and the congregation grounds
0:44:49 > 0:44:52for the faithful on that day of judgement.
0:44:53 > 0:44:56And in the centre, the throne of God himself.
0:44:59 > 0:45:03When you walk through the Taj, you come finally to the great platform
0:45:03 > 0:45:06on which the tomb chamber stands,
0:45:06 > 0:45:10underneath which Shah Jahan and Mumtaz are buried.
0:45:12 > 0:45:15But that's not the last point in the journey.
0:45:15 > 0:45:17To see the full plan unfold,
0:45:17 > 0:45:22we've got to the cross the river and see what's on the other side.
0:45:27 > 0:45:30Now you begin to see what the architect of the Taj is doing.
0:45:30 > 0:45:35He's including the sacred River Jumna, the Hindu sacred river,
0:45:35 > 0:45:39in the architecture of his own sacred space.
0:45:39 > 0:45:43Legend says that Jahan planned a black Taj as a mirror image
0:45:43 > 0:45:49on the other side, but archaeologists have found something more haunting still.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53Across the river was a walled paradise garden.
0:45:55 > 0:46:02In it were night-scented trees and flowers, red cedars and magnolias.
0:46:02 > 0:46:07There were fruits and nuts, jujubes, mangoes, sugar palms...
0:46:07 > 0:46:11whose sweet kernel tastes like pistachio.
0:46:11 > 0:46:16Here the great Moghul could sit in his pavilion in the moonlight
0:46:16 > 0:46:18and look at his creation.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30So the Taj is a product of the Hindu-Muslim synthesis
0:46:30 > 0:46:36that took place over much of India in the 17th century.
0:46:36 > 0:46:40But the world's richest economy had begun to decline.
0:46:40 > 0:46:45British visitors give graphic accounts of the shocking poverty of the rural workforce
0:46:45 > 0:46:49in Jahangir's day. Even though the cities were still wealthy,
0:46:49 > 0:46:52Agra here three times the size of London.
0:46:52 > 0:46:58But more than 20% of the national income was spent on the Court elite,
0:46:58 > 0:47:02on an upper class who lived at a higher level of consumption
0:47:02 > 0:47:04than any European aristocracy.
0:47:20 > 0:47:26You can still glimpse the incredible richness of Moghul art in the jewellers' workshops in Jaipur.
0:47:26 > 0:47:28The Kasliwal family
0:47:28 > 0:47:32were jewellers to the Moghul Court in the 17th Century.
0:47:34 > 0:47:39Jewellery was always considered to be a symbol of power.
0:47:39 > 0:47:42- And what stone is this? - A ruby.- Ruby.
0:47:42 > 0:47:47And also with the Moghuls what was quite treasured were the spinels,
0:47:47 > 0:47:50you know, which are quite rare stones.
0:47:50 > 0:47:51What is spinels?
0:47:51 > 0:47:56Spinels, for a long time spinels were confused to be rubies.
0:47:56 > 0:48:03So when we see those pictures of the Moghul emperors often with what look like rubies, it's probably these.
0:48:03 > 0:48:05- Yeah, spinels.- God, how amazing.
0:48:05 > 0:48:10These exquisite Moghul arts went from the scale of the Taj
0:48:10 > 0:48:12to the smallest turban pin.
0:48:12 > 0:48:18You see that's the base of the box and then you open it inside.
0:48:18 > 0:48:20- See there are various...- Oh, yeah.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23Gosh, now look. So you can see through it.
0:48:23 > 0:48:26It's just like a filigree.
0:48:26 > 0:48:30It's all cut work. It's almost like lacework in gold.
0:48:32 > 0:48:34So it's perfect from each angle.
0:48:34 > 0:48:38It was your ancestors that actually made these things.
0:48:38 > 0:48:39I like this one here,
0:48:39 > 0:48:41like an opium box.
0:48:41 > 0:48:46All these are rubies which have been calibrated to fit into this shape.
0:48:46 > 0:48:51So the great Moghul would have kept his opium in something like this
0:48:51 > 0:48:53and what? Laced his wine with it?
0:48:53 > 0:48:56Did they smoke it? Or put it in their wine?
0:48:56 > 0:49:00No, opium was, you know... We used to have opium ceremonies
0:49:00 > 0:49:03where you would offer opium to your guests.
0:49:09 > 0:49:12The Moghuls had come to India as conquerors but bearing
0:49:12 > 0:49:14the tolerant views of their ancestors
0:49:14 > 0:49:19they ruled North India for more than 300 years.
0:49:19 > 0:49:23At their best, creating an extraordinary Hindu-Muslim synthesis,
0:49:23 > 0:49:26almost healing the wound of history.
0:49:26 > 0:49:30And now with hindsight, after the British
0:49:30 > 0:49:33and the partition of India in 1947,
0:49:33 > 0:49:36their wonderful buildings and creations
0:49:36 > 0:49:40have become memory rooms for the story of India.
0:49:40 > 0:49:44And also perhaps, symbols of what might have been.
0:49:59 > 0:50:03But go to great cities like Lahore in Pakistan today,
0:50:03 > 0:50:09the most romantic of Moghul cities, and you still feel the living presence of that lost world.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15Its poignant beauty and its refinement.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23BELLS JANGLE, MUSIC PLAYS
0:50:52 > 0:50:56But in the mid-1650s, behind the extravagance of the Court,
0:50:56 > 0:50:58discord was looming.
0:50:58 > 0:51:02The ailing Jahan, now incompetent, was imprisoned
0:51:02 > 0:51:06and his sons prepared to fight for the kingdom.
0:51:20 > 0:51:23The civil war was as much about faith as about empire.
0:51:23 > 0:51:28The younger son, Aurangzeb, wanted to return to orthodox Islam.
0:51:28 > 0:51:35The elder, Dara, following in Akbar's footsteps had translated Hindu sacred texts.
0:51:35 > 0:51:41- It's gorgeous. When was this written?- This was written in 1655.
0:51:41 > 0:51:44He explains in the introduction that
0:51:44 > 0:51:50having become a Sufi, he wanted to find out about the wisdom
0:51:50 > 0:51:54of the Indian religions and he also mentions that he's written this work
0:51:54 > 0:51:57for his family only, not for the general public.
0:51:58 > 0:52:04Dara even tells how the Hindu God Rama had met him in a dream and embraced him.
0:52:08 > 0:52:11Dara's project was bold in his own time,
0:52:11 > 0:52:15but now in the age of wars on terror, almost inconceivable.
0:52:15 > 0:52:18He took his lead from the Sufi idea of the unity of being
0:52:18 > 0:52:25and the Koran's revelation that God had sent messengers to earth before the Prophet Mohammed.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28And he argued for the unity of religion.
0:52:30 > 0:52:35Islam and Hinduism were twins, he said, hairs of the same head.
0:52:35 > 0:52:39He tells us, "I talked to the Hindu holy men,
0:52:39 > 0:52:43"people who had attained the highest level of spiritual enlightenment,
0:52:43 > 0:52:46"and in our conversations they were free and open.
0:52:46 > 0:52:49"I detected, although there were verbal differences,
0:52:49 > 0:52:52"no essential disagreement on our understanding of God.
0:52:52 > 0:52:57"And so I decided to write a book about that, about the religions
0:52:57 > 0:53:03"of the two communities, and I called it The Meeting Place Of The Two Oceans."
0:53:05 > 0:53:08It was a project that was heroic,
0:53:08 > 0:53:13quixotic even, and it would cost him his life and his crown.
0:53:16 > 0:53:19The decisive battle between Dara and Aurangzeb
0:53:19 > 0:53:22was fought outside Ajmer in 1658.
0:53:25 > 0:53:31Now the story unfolds with all the momentum and awful sense of destiny of a Shakespearian tragedy.
0:53:33 > 0:53:37The battle was fought here, in this wide valley, just outside Ajmer,
0:53:37 > 0:53:40on the railway line to Rajasthan.
0:53:40 > 0:53:44Dara and his European artillery officers had chosen a good position,
0:53:44 > 0:53:47with their wings anchored on the hills on either side of us,
0:53:47 > 0:53:50but there was one weakness to the position.
0:53:50 > 0:53:52A secret path led over the mountains
0:53:52 > 0:53:57and round to the back of Dara's army and he was betrayed to Aurangzeb.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06The issue now was what should be done with Dara.
0:54:06 > 0:54:12To gauge the public mood, Aurangzeb decided to humiliate him.
0:54:12 > 0:54:15Strip him of all marks of office and mount him on a clapped out
0:54:15 > 0:54:20old female elephant driven by a slave in rags,
0:54:20 > 0:54:23parade him here, down the great market street of Delhi.
0:54:25 > 0:54:28But the onlookers were all horrified by Dara's fall.
0:54:28 > 0:54:32Many of them burst into tears.
0:54:32 > 0:54:36With that, Aurangzeb decided that Dara should die.
0:54:49 > 0:54:54The killers came that night to his prison by Humayun's Tomb.
0:54:54 > 0:54:59There they found Dara cooking lentils with his little boy, Prince Salim.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03His son clung desperately to his father's legs but was dragged away.
0:55:03 > 0:55:10Dara was overpowered and they cut his head off and sent it to his brother.
0:55:10 > 0:55:16"Ugh," said Aurangzeb, "I wouldn't look the Kaffir in the face while he was still alive, and I won't now."
0:55:16 > 0:55:20And he sent his head in a box to their father, Sha Jahan,
0:55:20 > 0:55:22in his prison in the palace in Agra.
0:55:22 > 0:55:30Jahan opened it at table while he was eating and collapsed, fainting, broke his front teeth.
0:55:30 > 0:55:34As for Dara's little boy, he was given a draft of opium
0:55:34 > 0:55:36and then strangled.
0:55:36 > 0:55:41The father and the son were buried here, in the tomb of Humayun.
0:55:44 > 0:55:47Dara's death marks the end of that story.
0:55:51 > 0:55:55But for all the ebb and flow of India's history since then,
0:55:55 > 0:55:59the quest for Hindu-Muslim unity has never been abandoned.
0:56:01 > 0:56:05Religions still, from that time
0:56:05 > 0:56:08till today - religions are the same, teachings are the same,
0:56:08 > 0:56:12and it is the misinterpretation
0:56:12 > 0:56:19which takes the...brotherhood apart.
0:56:24 > 0:56:27Whether it is Hindu or Muslim or Sikh or Christian,
0:56:27 > 0:56:30if that person follows his religion correctly,
0:56:30 > 0:56:35so I don't think there will be any problem. Because you are doing,
0:56:35 > 0:56:38you will do correct, each and every thing correct.
0:56:45 > 0:56:52We are talking about specially India and in India it's so diversified as far as religions are concerned.
0:56:52 > 0:56:56- I think the most diversified country in the world.- I think so.
0:56:56 > 0:56:59As far as the religions are concerned, as far as the
0:56:59 > 0:57:01cultures are concerned, as far as the languages are concerned.
0:57:07 > 0:57:12Can we judge the past by the standards of the 21st Century?
0:57:12 > 0:57:13Should we judge our time by theirs?
0:57:15 > 0:57:19The Moghul Empire began and ended with war.
0:57:19 > 0:57:22In a few decades, they created
0:57:22 > 0:57:29a civilisational wonderland here in India, a kind of Indo-Islamic synthesis.
0:57:29 > 0:57:36Their rulers were not only practical men but visionaries.
0:57:36 > 0:57:40Babur's imperial dreams, Akbar's utopian visions,
0:57:40 > 0:57:45but waiting in the wings with ominous patience
0:57:45 > 0:57:48were the British who had a very different idea
0:57:48 > 0:57:53of what bringing in the Age of Reason could mean.
0:57:56 > 0:57:59Next in the story of India...
0:57:59 > 0:58:02The last invaders - the British,
0:58:02 > 0:58:07- the first war of freedom. So your family were committed to fighting against the British?- Yes.
0:58:07 > 0:58:10And the horrors of the Great Mutiny.
0:58:10 > 0:58:13- And what happened here? - The British destroyed it.
0:58:14 > 0:58:17With the 16lbs gun.
0:58:17 > 0:58:20The balance sheet of the British Raj...
0:58:20 > 0:58:23The British gave us a complete map of India.
0:58:23 > 0:58:26..and the coming of freedom.
0:58:26 > 0:58:30You know bondage nobody likes.
0:58:30 > 0:58:31Everybody likes to be free.
0:58:47 > 0:58:50Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:50 > 0:58:53E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk