All language subtitles for Treasures.of.the.Indus.S01E02.The.Other.Side.of.the.Taj.Mahal.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264 BTN

[ Slow music plays ]

♪♪

-This is the Indus River
in Pakistan,

and we are on a journey
of thousands of miles,

deep into
the Indian Subcontinent

to which the river
gave its name.

A journey that will
help us discover

some of its most
beautiful treasures

and reveal secrets
from its distant past.

[ South Asian music plays ]

In this film, we look
at what happened

when the Muslim invaders who had
occupied modern-day Pakistan

moved further south,
and produced

an extraordinary flowering
of art and architecture

and some of the world's
greatest treasures.

♪♪

My name is Sona Datta,

and as an art historian
and museum curator,

I've looked after treasures
like these for most of my life.

In this series, I'm exploring
their stories

and the people who created them.

♪♪

For hundreds of years,

India was ruled
by a foreign empire.

The conquerors came in
from the north

and gradually spread
their influence

to every corner
of this vast land,

from the peaks of the Himalayas
to the plains of the Punjab

and the jungles
at the heart of India.

They were the Mughals.

♪♪

The Mughals were
Islamic warrior kings

from Central Asia,

who were also poets,
scholars, and traders.

In terms of religion
and philosophy,

they were more progressive
and liberal

than most Europeans of the time.

They made
incredibly beautiful art.

They made great advances
in science and technology.

They brought war,
but also great prosperity.

In modern India, the Mughals
remain controversial.

They changed India, but
for better or worse?

♪♪

-Where do you come from?

-Well, my parents
are from Kolkata,

but I was born in England.
-Okay.

-So India is one of my homes.

-Very nice.
-Yeah.

My ancestral home.

Being in India always feels
like coming home.

-Very nice.
-Yeah.

[ Vehicle horns honking ]

-To tell the story of
the Mughals will take me

not just to India,
where they created an empire,

but also to Pakistan,
where that empire began.

♪♪

The Mughals originally came

from the mountains
of Central Asia,

what is now Afghanistan
and Uzbekistan.

Then, at the beginning
of the 16th century,

they moved south
towards the riches

that lay beyond the River Indus.

♪♪

In 1526, just as King Henry VIII

began to woo
Anne Boleyn in England,

the Mughal king Babur
arrived at the outskirts

of the great city of Lahore.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

[ Muezzin chanting ]

A king
since he was 12 years old,

Babur was descended from
Genghis Khan and Tamerlane.

By age 22, he had taken Kabul.

And he was 43 by the time
he got to Lahore,

and he was deeply
unimpressed by it.

♪♪

In his diary, Babur wrote,

"Hindustan is a country
of few charms.

Its people are ugly, rude,
and have no artistic talent.

It seems that the only thing
he liked about India

was that it was a large country

which had masses
of gold and silver.

[ Birds chirping ]

♪♪

Homesick for the ordered beauty
they knew in Central Asia,

Babur and the Mughals
transformed Lahore

into a garden city.

These Mughal gardens were

nothing like India
had seen before.

They were grand in scale,

and their emphasis on symmetry
and balance was completely new.

Flowing water was
as important as greenery.

It helped to cool the gardens
on hot days,

and showed off the wealth
and ingenuity of the new rulers.

In Islam, like Judaism
and Christianity,

Paradise is often represented
as a garden.

The creation of beauty and order
in these gardens

was about more than
just making pleasant spaces.

It was symbolic of the arrival
of the Mughals.

By the end of their rule,
gardens had been constructed

in all major cities and towns
throughout India.

These warriors turned gardens
into a symbol of their power.

♪♪

But they also brought
gardens and flowers

into their buildings,

together with a sensuous love
for the pleasures of life

that they had left behind
in the valleys of Central Asia.

And they did bring
one other pleasure with them --

alcohol.

♪♪

The Mughals created
exquisite drinking vessels,

but they had a very complex
relationship with alcohol.

They consumed it publicly,

and yet it always remained
an illicit pleasure.

For Babur, on the one hand,
he was descended

from the very public drinking
culture of Genghis Khan,

and on the other,
he wanted to be a good Muslim.

♪♪

Babur knew his drinking
was controversial

amongst his orthodox
Muslim army,

and if he was to continue
his invasion further into India,

he would need to inspire
his tired troops,

particularly if he was to
capture the fort here in Agra,

the second capital of Hindustan,

whose sultan
was fabulously wealthy.

A year after
conquering Lahore,

Babur arrived in Agra,
600 kilometres to the south.

He took a vow
in front of his men

never to drink wine again.

And he told them that their war
with the Hindu kings of India

was a holy struggle.

♪♪

"If we fall in the field,
we die the death of martyrs.

If we survive,
we rise victorious,

the avengers of
Allah's sacred cause."

He then destroyed his
jewel-encrusted drinking goblets

and gave them to the poor.

Babur's men were deeply moved,
and the following day

won a stunning victory.

♪♪

We know an unusual amount
about Babur

because he detailed both
his struggles with alcohol

and his conquests in a
remarkably frank autobiography.

In it, he described how once
he had crossed the Indus,

he found himself
in another world,

of fakirs, magicians,
and exotic animals...

[ Laughter and applause ]

♪♪

...and how India was ruled

by a whole set
of Hindu Rajput princes,

consumed by petty infighting.

♪♪

Babur's army swept these princes
aside to lay the foundations

of the Mughal Empire
in Northern India.

But he didn't only bring war.

The Mughals brought
elements of culture

and architecture
from Central Asia,

like this
magnificent monument...

♪♪

...the earliest example
of Indo-Persianate architecture

in Mughal India.

It takes the shapes and forms
of Central Asia and Persia

and marries them with
the red sandstone of India.

There are these small flourishes
on top of the chatris,

a Sanskrit word meaning
"umbrella" or "pavilion."

This glistening tile work is

reminiscent of the architecture
of Central Asia.

They brought to bear
all these different influences.

This is a new kind of
architecture in India.

♪♪

Babur would only briefly enjoy

the new kingdom
he had conquered.

Four years after arriving
in India, he died, aged just 47,

still homesick for
the gardens of Central Asia.

And some say the greatest
of all the Mughal emperors

who followed him
was his grandson, Akbar.

♪♪

Akbar came to the throne early,
at just 13,

and inherited his grandfather's
driving ambition and focus.

♪♪

During Akbar's rule, India
became one of the most powerful

and richest empires
on the face of the earth.

He expanded it beyond
even the vast lands

of his grandfather Babur.

♪♪

One reason for the Mughals'
startling military success

was that they brought
their skills

as fast-wheeling horsemen
down into the plains of India.

♪♪

These descendants
of Genghis Khan

were largely horsemen,
so they could run rings around

the slow-moving
Hindu foot soldiers.

♪♪

Given their nomadic roots,

Mughal emperors had lived
most of their lives under canvas

and were constantly on the move.

But as his military campaign
went from strength to strength,

Akbar could indulge
in the luxury of a new,

more permanent city
to rule from.

♪♪

Here, at Fatehpur Sikri,

Akbar built
a fabulous pop-up capital

out of red sandstone
in the middle of nowhere.

It remains one of the most
tantalising

and bizarre architectural sites
in the whole of India.

♪♪

In the 1580s,
English traders arrived,

lured by tales of its grandeur.

They had never seen a city
so large or magnificent

as Fatehpur Sikri
in their lives.

There was nothing in the world
like it.

Here, courtiers wore fabrics
dripping in gold and jewels.

The palaces were cooled
by the punkahwallahs,

waving peacock-feather fans.

Akbar created his own perfumes
and had the air scented

with precious ambergris
and aloeswood.

Servants burned incense
in gold and silver censers.

♪♪

One tradition that the Mughals
had brought with them

from the steppes of Central Asia
was a passion for the hunt.

As a young man,
Akbar kept a thousand cheetahs,

trained for the chase
like dogs were in Europe.

North India was
rich in wildlife,

and the Mughal emperors
built hunting pavilions

like this across their domains.

But it was during one of these
hunts that something happened

that changed the entire
course of Akbar's reign.

♪♪

As was normal,
over a 10-day period,

animals were driven from a
circumference of 80 kilometres

surrounding this lodge.

But just at the moment
when the hunt was ready,

and all the animals
were gathered,

he stopped.

His biographers described it
as an epileptic seizure

or some kind of delusion.

Whatever it was,

it was the moment
of complete change for Akbar.

One witness described how,
"Suddenly all at once,

a strange state
and strong frenzy

came upon the Emperor,
and an extraordinary change

was manifested in his manner,

and everyone attributed it
to some cause or other.

But God alone
knows such secrets."

♪♪

He canceled the hunt,

he set the animals free,
and he declared

that none of them
would be hurt henceforth.

This strange experience
seemed to have been

the turning point
in Akbar's reign,

because after this,
nothing was the same again.

♪♪

After the hunting incident,

Akbar became
a much more spiritual man.

He stopped eating meat,
shaved his head,

and started to ask questions
of himself and of others.

♪♪

For the rest of
his 50-year-long reign,

Akbar now dedicated himself

to the exploration
of other religions.

♪♪

-[ Speaking native language ]
-[ Speaking native language ]

-Okay, I'll take one from each.

-One, 25.

-When the Mughals had
first arrived in India,

they found a country
of many other religions.

Mm, they smell beautiful.

Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism
all flourished.

Akbar decided he would not try
to suppress any of these,

but rather embrace
and encourage them.

It is this open-mindedness
that above all

distinguishes Akbar
'from his successors.

[ Crowd singing
and clapping rhythmically ]

♪♪

The traditional music
still played

at Sufi shrines like this
is called qawwali.

and fuses Indian musical styles
with Arabic poetry,

which is why
the Mughals loved it.

♪♪

As they sought to
integrate themselves

into their new Indian domains,

Akbar looked for other ways
to combine Islam

with elements of Hinduism,

in song, in imagery,
and in architecture.

♪♪

Sages, gurus, and
spiritual leaders of all sorts

were now welcomed
at Fatehpur Sikri,

although
they did not always agree.

Giles Tillotson has written

about how the peculiar
architecture of Akbar's palace

both facilitated and reflected

his new tolerance
to religions other than Islam.

♪♪

-According to Akbar's
court historian, Abul Fazl,

these discussions had, as it
were, their own institution.

He describes the discussions
taking place

in a palace that contained
four interlocking rooms,

with concurrent discussions
going on in each.

And that the emperor used to
move from one room to the other.

- To the other.
-...to participate

in the discussions
as they were...

-Taking place.
-...continuing,

as they were taking place.
Exactly, yeah.

-So, how exactly
did the discussions go?

I mean, what sort of format
did they take?

-Well, I think, actually,
there's a hint in Abul Fazl

that they didn't always
go terribly well.

-Uh-huh.
-I think Akbar's hope was

that by getting
the most learned people

from different religions
together,

that he would solve some of the
central, eternal questions...

-Of the universe!
-...of the universe, as it were.

But to his frustration, though
perhaps not to our surprise,

the priests often took
entrenched positions

and refused to -- really,
to exchange ideas at all.

-So, how unusual was it

for Akbar to have
such an expansive vision

of all these
different religions?

-I think this was probably
the first time

that a Muslim court
had been so open

to the investigation
of religious matters

from the perspective
of other religions around them,

rather than simply pursuing
different schools

within Islam itself.

♪♪

-Akbar's new openness
to different religions

can be seen also in his playful
approach to architecture.

♪♪

When you encounter
some of these buildings,

as you approach them,
there is a sort of

Christmas cake effect,
where different elements

are sort of plonked
on top of the other.

-Yes, it's clearly
a design school, if you like...

-Slightly unresolved.
-Yes, it's a design school

that's used to working
with certain traditions.

But very different traditions
have come in to the same space

and the designers have thought,
"Well, how can we play

with the new material
that's available to us,

in the hope of creating
something different?"

The experimental nature of
the design is very clear here,

for example,
where you have, above,

a line of ornamental niches,
and then, below them,

this line of dado panels
with the decorated border.

But these are features
that you would normally

expect to find
on the interior of a room.

-Right.
-Here, they're expressed

on the exterior of the building.

It would be rather like,
in modern terms,

putting wallpaper
on the outside of your house.

Clearly, this is meant
to be experimental.

It's playful.

It's not to be taken
entirely seriously.

They're trying
new things out, and,

as with the mixture of motifs
from different sources,

it's like, again,
to put it in modern-day terms,

like producing a design
in Photoshop,

to see whether it works or not.

♪♪

-But after only 14 years,
this fantasy city of Akbar's

was abandoned as impractical --

some say because there was
a shortage of water.

The ever-restless Akbar
moved on,

leaving Fatehpur Sikri like
an abandoned Las Vegas

in the desert.

♪♪

Akbar also married Hindu
and Islamic styles in art,

to great effect.

He initiated an immense
expansion of the imperial studio

and recruited artists

from all the conquered kingdoms
of northern India.

♪♪

His descendants still use
the same painstaking technique,

using tiny
squirrel-hair brushes,

which can take many months
just to finish a single picture.

♪♪

Nitin Bhayana is a leading
art critic and collector

who is an expert on
how native Rajput painting

changed with the arrival
of the Mughals.

-A sequence of Mughal emperors

brought artists from
the courts of Persia,

and then later developed
a school of painting in India

by enrolling various artists,

and made karkhanas,
or factories,

where they would produce
a huge number of paintings.

And you see, slowly but surely,
in a span of 50 or 100 years,

paintings moving
from styles like this,

cruder styles like this,
to something like that.

You still see Rajput elements.
-Yeah.

-And then you see them
really melting away

into a painting like that
from the state of Bikaner,

which was closely aligned
to the Mughals.

-Yeah.
-And this could be

a Mughal painting.
-Couldn't it!

-[ Chuckles ] And...
-Look at the hills,

look at the distance,
look at the perspective

on the buildings,
and look at the faces.

-Absolutely.
-If you look at the difference

in the faces,
you could almost --

you know, you can tell
who these people are.

-Absolutely.
So, as we went along,

I think it became
more and more --

more and more Mughal.
-Yeah.

Akbar commissioned his artists
to do

increasingly ambitious scenes
of the spectacle of court life,

as here, where the Emperor
is seen riding an elephant,

one of his great passions.

And here,
Akbar is now heroically

trying to tame
an escaped elephant,

and this picture exemplifies
how the Mughals

brought a new sense of verve
and dynamism to Indian art

in their use
of space and perspective.

♪♪

Akbar commissioned

large-scale illustrations
of court life and history,

often with scenes of violence
or boisterous energy,

like hunts, battles, or sieges.

Under his successors,

the painting style
became more intimate.

♪♪

You can start to see
individual portraits emerge,

as in this picture
of the most famous

Mughal emperor of them all,
Akbar's grandson,

who when he came to the throne,
took the name Shah Jahan,

"Glory of the World."

♪♪

♪♪

When Shah Jahan
came to the throne,

Mughal architecture
changed dramatically.

All his predecessors
had used red sandstone

for their buildings,

like here in the Red Fort
at Agra.

But out the back
of the building,

there's a spectacular difference

when Shah Jahan decided
to build there.

♪♪

He started to cover everything
in dazzling white marble.

♪♪

This is a very different
structure,

highly decorated, all in marble.

♪♪

And the gardens were
just as important.

The Mughals were really
interested in gardens.

They were great botanists,
and they famously collected

specimens of different flowers
and had them painted.

But what you see here,

in Shah Jahan's magnificent
private quarters,

is the transposing of that
interest in flora into stone.

♪♪

They used a technique
called pietra dura,

and current
in Renaissance Italy,

but they made it
a very Indian experience,

using semi-precious stones
like lapis,

carnelian, jasper, jade,
set into the marble

to create
these incredible designs.

This wasn't about botanical
representation.

It was about
taking that interest

and creating something
completely new and unique.

This technique was, of course,
derived from Italy,

but we see it here transposed
to a whole new context

under the patronage
of Shah Jahan.

♪♪

[ Horns honking ]

In the nearby city of Agra,

there are still traces
of the craftsmanship

that was brought to peak
under Shah Jahan's rule,

although you have to look hard
to find it

in the busy, sprawling streets.

♪♪

♪♪

[ Hammering and grinding ]

Just off the maze
of back streets

is a stonecutters' workshop.

It's a family business
that seems to have been going

for more generations
than anyone is able to remember,

and they specialise
in decorative marble inlay.

[ Hammering ]

Designs are traced out,

and like some kind
of beautiful jigsaw,

individual elements are crafted
to fit the master pattern.

It's very reminiscent
of the emperor's quarters

up on the nearby hillside.

When the water is applied
and the dust is cleaned away,

these incredible range
of colours emerge,

and they stand out
against the white marble.

They may not be
big on health and safety,

but it's shown me how incredibly
painstaking this work is

as they chisel away
at these intricate forms

and then inlay them
with precious stones,

and how many thousands
of man-hours

it must have taken to create
these fantasy buildings

of white marble for Shah Jahan.

♪♪

I first came here when I was
about eight years old,

and I remember how amazed
I was then

at the sheer amount
of white marble --

a fairytale wedding cake
of a palace.

♪♪

Like all Mughal rulers,

Shah Jahan was married
to several women at once.

Yet the love of his life
was unquestionably Mumtaz Mahal,

here portrayed
with the spring flowers

and cherry blossom of Kashmir
that Shah Jahan loved so well.

♪♪

Sadly, in 1631, she died

giving birth
to their 14th child.

Shah Jahan was so devastated,

he kept the court in mourning
for two years.

He also vowed to build her

the greatest monument to love
the world has ever seen.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Anywhere else,
this incredible gate

would be a destination
in its own right.

♪♪

But here, it serves
as a magnificent reveal

to the Taj Mahal.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[ Birds chirping ]

[ Indistinct conversations ]

♪♪

The Taj Mahal was built
by the finest artisans

from across the Islamic world --

stonecutters from Baluchistan,

architects from
the Ottoman Empire,

and calligraphers from Persia.

Native Indian craftsmen also

brought their own cultural
influences to bear

on the design and detail,

and in so doing, honoured
the Hindus of India

as well as the Muslims.

A British poet,
Sir Edwin Arnold,

described it as,
"not a piece of architecture,

as other buildings are,

but the proud passion
of an emperor's love

wrought in living stone."

And it is still largely thought
of as a monument to love.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

But in thinking of the Taj Mahal
as mainly a monument to love,

have we completely misunderstood

what the Mughals
were trying to do?

[ Indistinct conversations ]

-I think it's impossible
for us today

to approach the monument
from any perspective

other than that of the legend
or a famous love story

between Shah Jahan and Mumtaz.
-And Mumtaz.

-We're all told so emphatically
that it's a symbol of love

that it's impossible
to see it in any other light.

But there's a sense
in which I think

we have to try to
get beyond that,

to see it more
as the Mughals saw it --

not as a symbol of love
but as a symbol of Paradise.

-Re-created on earth.
-Sort of thing, yes.

I mean, the tomb itself
is actually the mansion

of the departed soul
in Paradise.

-Right.
-And that Paradise imagery

extends
not just to the building

but to the whole of the garden,
layout of the garden.

-So, have the gardens changed
since Mughal times?

-Oh, I think,
very considerably, yes.

A lot of the mature planting
that we see now

is of much more recent times.

From contemporary accounts,
it's clear

that the garden originally
was mostly occupied

by flowering trees
and by fruit trees.

-Ah.
-And, indeed, the produce

was marketed.
It was collected and sold

in the market
in order to raise money

to pay the salaries
of the tomb attendants.

-So really quite pragmatic
and sensible.

-Yes, you had, as it were,
sort of a form

of market gardening,
if you will.

♪♪

-Tourists often make the mistake
of thinking

that the gardens around the Taj
are just a municipal park

to frame the jewel
at their centre.

But Shah Jahan,
like all his ancestors,

thought of the Mughals
as children

of the high mountain valleys,

of his beloved Kashmir,
which he visited every year,

and these gardens
were an attempt

to re-create
such a paradise on earth

for the tomb of his wife.

♪♪

♪♪

The Taj Mahal
is often said to be

one of the greatest monuments
to love.

And it is without doubt

one of the greatest achievements
of Mughal architecture.

♪♪

But while it signals the climax
of the Mughal Empire,

in some ways it was also the
start of its decline and fall.

♪♪

You only have to travel
a short distance from the Taj

to find yourself
in another world,

with ruined Mughal buildings
abandoned in the countryside.

These are the old palaces
and gardens of Mughal nobles.

♪♪

Stretching for miles
up the river bank,

they are not protected
by the Indian government

and are simply rotting away.

♪♪

The Taj Mahal is the height
of Mughal achievement,

the crowning glory of a great,
if controversial, empire.

But the Taj also marked
the beginning of a terrible end.

Shah Jahan and Mumtaz
had many sons.

However, unlike in Europe,

the eldest son wasn't
necessarily the heir.

And if the strongest son
could seize power,

he, too, could rule legitimately
as any of his brothers.

♪♪

Shah Jahan named his eldest son,
Dara Shikoh, as his heir.

There were high hopes for him.

Like his great ancestor Akbar,
Dara Shikoh was

a progressive, tolerant,
and intellectual man,

with interests in all
the world's religions.

-Dara Shikoh, as you can see,
is a pretty dressy kind of guy.

He's got a little string
of pearls across his face.

-Yes.

-He's dressed up
in the finest Mughal kit.

All his jama,
and he's on horseback.

He's absolutely
dripping in jewels.

-Yeah.

-And the contrast between
this man settled at court,

getting on with his dad,
living his family life,

revelling in everything
that the capital had to offer...

-Mm.
-...is in stark contrast

to Aurangzeb,
the younger brother.

-Yeah.
-Aurangzeb is hated

by his father,
and this sort of twists him.

He becomes this very --
a child who is rejected.

-Right.
-Becomes crabbed in some way.

-Mm.
-And Aurangzeb is determined

to destroy the existing rulers.
-Mm.

-His father and
his obvious heir, Dara.

-Mm.
-And Aurangzeb has

the advantage, of course,
because he's been in the field.

He's been a general.
-Yeah.

-He's a puritan, he is ruthless,
he's Machiavellian.

The whole thing is
very like in King Lear,

where you have the two sons,
Edgar and Edmund.

And Edgar's the beloved son
of Gloucester.

-Sure.
-And grows up weak and hopeless.

-Yeah.
-While Edmund is

the illegitimate one,
who is never given any love,

but is ruthless.
-But has to fight

for his position, yeah.
-Yeah.

-And there's a great
Shakespearean quality, I think,

in the way that these
two sons battle it out.

-Mm.
-Dara, for all

that he represents,
he represents everything

that we find most attractive
in the Mughals.

Not only does he have
exquisite taste,

does he commission
beautiful art,

is he responsible
for extraordinary architecture,

he also has this wonderfully
tolerant attitude

he inherits
from the tradition of Akbar.

-Akbar, yeah.
-And Aurangzeb is this tough guy

who's had to make his own way,
who's been ignored by the court,

ignored by his father, and...
-Who's frankly fed up.

-And he's frankly fed up.

And the more that his father
and his brother

indulge in jewels
and manuscript illumination,

the more he rejects
that whole world.

And yet, when it comes
to the final battle,

when Aurangzeb advances
from the Deccan

with his battle-hardened troops,

although they are a fraction of
the size of the Imperial Army,

which Dara Shikoh
leads into battle,

the spoilt, silly young prince

doesn't know how to fight
a battle,

and Aurangzeb,
with his small crack force,

makes mincemeat of them.

♪♪

-Aurangzeb's war of succession
was short and brutal.

He took his father and brother
prisoner,

killing most of
their generals and men.

♪♪

Dara Shikoh was brought
back to Delhi

and paraded through the streets
in rags and chains,

sat mockingly on the back

of an old, broken-down
and dirty elephant.

♪♪

Aurangzeb was shocked that
the people had wept for Dara,

and decided then that his
brother must be put to death.

♪♪

On the night of
the 30th of August 1659,

Dara was attacked
by four assassins.

They held him down
and hacked off his head.

Dara Shikoh was buried here,
in an unmarked grave

among the tombs
of his ancestors,

With him, was buried
the liberal cast of Mughal rule.

♪♪

Shah Jahan lived out
his few remaining years

in the Red Fort at Agra,

from where he could always see
the Taj Mahal,

a monument to great love,

but one later described as
a teardrop on the cheek of time.

♪♪

Aurangzeb changed the face
of Mughal rule in India.

With fire and sword,

he conquered even more territory
for the Mughal Empire,

which had nearly doubled
in size by the 1700s.

♪♪

The generous treatment
of non-Muslims,

which had begun under Akbar,
came to an end.

It is said that Aurangzeb forced
Hindus to convert to Islam,

and demolished
some Hindu temples.

To symbolise the importance
and dominance of Islam,

Aurangzeb built the huge
Badshahi mosque in Lahore,

positioned opposite the fort

to emphasise the unity
of Islam and power.

[ Horns honking ]

[ Muezzin chanting ]

Here in Delhi, too,

Islamic prayer was now
a very public

and political statement
of faith.

But even though Aurangzeb
now forbade the use of music

and discouraged the arts
at his court,

the Mughal influence continued
to live on elsewhere in India.

We've been given
privileged access

to this exquisite and rare
18th-century manuscript

from Bikaner...

where all the script
is in Sanskrit.

It's been handwritten,

and it's got
this beautiful illustration.

So it's a real treasure
to be able

to view this
at such close quarters.

Aurangzeb, as a more
traditional Muslim,

did not patronise the arts

in the way that
his ancestors had done,

and the court
atelier dispersed.

And artists moved away
from the royal court

to the regional Hindu
and Deccani courts,

where they began practising,

but bringing the skills they had
learnt in the Mughal courts

to the regions,
such as at Bikaner,

which is where
this manuscript is from.

And I've just found
a snakeskin inside,

which is a traditional
conservation technique

for deterring termites
from eating one's paintings.

And what's wonderful
about this manuscript

is that you really see

the coming together,
the joining of the great --

two great Indian traditions
of Hindu and Mughal art.

Such as Shiva here,
sitting on top of Mount Kailash.

And the mountains are painted

in exactly the tradition
of Mughal painting.

And this painting in particular,

you have a very
naturalistic landscape

which would sit very comfortably
in a Mughal painting

as much as it would
in a Gainsborough,

with this elegant marble
pavilion on the left-hand side.

Painted in full perspective,

and then two Shaiva yogis
sitting,

one of them with a halo
around his head,

which again comes
from European painting.

And they're holding audience

with one of the princes
of Bikaner,

who has arrived,
dressed very simply,

apart from the crown
upon his head.

It's a great sadness that
artistic endeavours like these

would not have survived
at Aurangzeb's court

under his new austerity regime.

Music, painting and poetry held
no interest for the Emperor.

Instead, he was a man
whose fervent wish

was to leave the legacy
of a well-ordered Islamic state.

♪♪

Yet his heavy-handed rule
led to resentment

and ultimately rebellion.

And unlike his forbears,
it was a regime

that had no room for consensus.

After almost 50 years
on the throne, he died,

and the Mughal Empire weakened,

leaving the way clear
for India's new conquerors,

the British.

♪♪

During the British empire,

a far more short-lived one
than the Mughals,

the rulers of the Raj
tried to emulate

the grandeur of Mughal ambition.

♪♪

However, the British,
unlike the Muslims,

never became Indian.

They capitalised
on existing tensions

between Hindus and Muslims,

befriending some communities
and fighting others.

This imperial strategy
worked for a while,

but by dividing and ruling
India,

by pursuing a strategy
so different from Akbar's,

the British eventually created
division in India

and applied so much pressure

that the country
was ripped in two.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

By the time of Indian
independence, in 1947,

India was brutally split.

Millions of lives were lost,
family ties were severed

as Hindus rushed
over the border into India,

and many Indian Muslims
moved north

in what was to become the
Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Families were torn apart.

♪♪

The result is that people
were split, dispersed.

So today, Indians
don't really know

what's happening over the border
in Pakistan.

Nor do Pakistanis really know
what is happening in India.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

♪♪

So I've left India and come back
to Lahore in Pakistan,

where the Mughal Empire began,

to talk to leading journalist
Ahmed Rashid

about the lasting divide
left by the Mughal emperors.

So, I was interested
in what the imprint,

or historical memory

of Akbar and Aurangzeb is
in Lahore.

-Well, it's very, very sharp.

I mean, if you read
the school textbooks,

which were really rejigged...
-Yes.

-...by Zia-ul-Haq...
-Yeah, yeah.

...the military ruler
of Pakistan in the '80s,

who was an Islamist,

he was a great admirer
of Aurangzeb,

and he saw himself as a kind
of Aurangzeb-type figure.

Remember, under him,
Pakistan helped the Mujahideen

in Afghanistan
fight the Soviets.

And under him, we had this whole
revival of the war in Kashmir,

and the use of extremists
in Kashmir

and a great belief
in Islamic fundamentalism

and going back
to the precepts of law,

and all the rest of it.

So, in fact, I mean,
the real lesson of Akbar,

which we desperately need now,
in Pakistan --

the message of tolerance,
of, you know,

accepting other religions,
accepting minorities,

you know, letting them pray
as they wish --

which was, of course,
also the message

of Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
the founder of Pakistan.

-Of course.
-In all his most famous

speeches, he said, you know,
"Now you can go to your mosques

and your temples
and your churches

and your synagogues,

and you are free to pray
as you like," you know.

All that is, unfortunately,
forgotten.

And the originator of that
was really Akbar.

♪♪

-For over 300 years,
the Mughals united India,

and then divided it.

They gave the country
some of its greatest monuments,

but also cut
some of its deepest scars.

They were often liberal
and tolerant,

but also laid the foundation

for a much stricter
interpretation of Islam.

Even today, their legacy
is extraordinarily controversial

as Mughal history has become the
battleground for a new India,

as it struggles once again

with its religious
and cultural identity.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪