Panipat: The rise of the Mughals • Hacker News Board

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#41

Post by sifar » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

anon291 wrote: post #29

sheepscreek wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My very personal take (which can be completely wrong) is that few dynasties were comparable to the vastness of Mughals in this particular era. All the Indian princely states were a lot smaller by comparison, in this time period at least. One that stands out to me is The Sikh Empire 1799–1849 that managed to rule much of North India + current day Afghanistan and Pakistan but for a relatively short period of time. The…

The marathas were much larger and in a lot of ways a lot more interesting than the Mughals for a variety of reasons. The fact that you believe that that Indian princely states were smaller is... Bizarre and ahistoric. England's rule over India only became a sure thing when England defeated the Marathas. Until then it was just piecemeal colonization. The fact that you are discussing the Raj without mention of the Mara…

When Duke Wellington was asked what was his most difficult battle, he mentioned the Battle of Assaye. He said he found the Maratha troops equal to the European military . His horse was killed under him and he was lucky to live through the battle.

Maybe, the fate of Europe and that of India would have been different if he hadn't that day.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#42

Post by hagbard_c » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

anon291 wrote: post #33

hagbard_c wrote: post #2

A flowery description of conquest by the Islamic Mughals. Where is the indignation about the destruction of Hindu temples and idols, as documented in his memoirs, the Baburnama. About his disdain for indigenous religions which laid the foundation for Mughal atrocities continued under his successors? Imagine a similar description of conquest by, say, the Christian Spaniards in the Americas. The noble conquests of the…

I am of Indian Christian stock (which is only relevant because I have no religious or creedal stake in any of these sites) but I have noticed this bias as well. The destruction of classical North Indian temples or religious sites by invading islamists forces is met with indifference in most of the world while similar invasions by Christian forces in the Americas or Africa are properly criticized. We have endless crit…

Yes, that is part of what I was getting at. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, if we're to criticise Christian conquest there is no reason whatsoever to refrain from criticising conquest under any other flag or religion, especially one like Islam which - not having undergone something like the Enlightenment - still has conquest of the world under Islamic rule as one of its basic tenets. There can be endless debates about whether the duty of all muslims towards jihad is to be interpreted as some form of spiritual conquest or in the way it is interpreted by groups like Boko Haram and Daesh but it is clear that Islamic scripture has been and still is used as a call to arms and conquest and with that it is just intellectual dishonesty to use terms like 'Islamophobia' towards those who point this out.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#43

Post by SilverElfin » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

FlyingSnake wrote: post #6

The unwavering focus on the Mughal empire by the West, is a curious phenomenon. Is it because they built highly visible monuments like the Taj? Mughals didn’t even reach their zenith until 1680s and were vastly reduced by 1730s. The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagara were more relevant to world history in the 16th Century India. The wonders of Bijapur, Golconda and Hampi would put 16th CE Delhi to shame.

I’m not an expert on Asian history but I feel like there isn’t a focus on the Mughal empire by the West. This history is just not well known. The way India was covered in school classes (at least in America) was that Britain came into India, colonized the country, oppressed Indians, and then Gandhi resisted without violence, which somehow led to the British leaving, but they split up India on their way out into India + Pakistan.

But it seems like India was not ruled by Indians (Hindus?) even before European colonization. Aren’t these previous Mughal rulers and the people before them also colonizers then, if they weren’t indigenous Indians / Hindus? Why aren’t they also discussed that way? When did Indians rule India then - was it in the first millennium?

To me, this is all basically outside of the public’s common knowledge and focus in the West.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#44

Post by chimp_brain » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #16

FlyingSnake wrote: post #6

The unwavering focus on the Mughal empire by the West, is a curious phenomenon. Is it because they built highly visible monuments like the Taj? Mughals didn’t even reach their zenith until 1680s and were vastly reduced by 1730s. The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagara were more relevant to world history in the 16th Century India. The wonders of Bijapur, Golconda and Hampi would put 16th CE Delhi to shame.

As someone that’s studied the Mughals quite a bit, but hasn’t studied Indian history more broadly as extensively, here are a few thoughts: - the monuments are obvious points; the Taj Mahal is probably one of the few buildings that the average Western person has heard of - there is more of a connection, or appears to be, with other empires that Westerners are more familiar with. For example, the Mughals were functiona…

There are a lot of architectural marvels in India from Sun temple to Ajanta and Ellora caves and Kailasa Temple. I personally never understood why more was not written about them, very few know about them.

Mughals never ruled India for more than 200-300 years, and were challenged by many regional players including Maratha's.

India has far more to offer beyond Taj, and I would say if not more equally interesting architectural marvels like Kailasa temple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kailasa_Temple,_Ellora

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#45

Post by teleforce » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

>Digging a ditch strengthened the forest cover for his flanks

>The Mughal position was again fortified with a ditch and wagons linked by chains and the matchlockmen, placed in the front of the force, ‘broke the ranks of the pagan army with matchlocks and guns like their hearts’; they were black and covered with smoke. The Mughals had only about 12,000 troops at Kanua, whereas the Rajputs, allegedly, had 80,000 cavalry and 500 elephants

Digging the ditch during the battle is a typical and signature Persian war technique.

Not trying to be pedantic but the more correct word to use here is probably trench. The trench is called Khandaq in Persian and Arabic, the latter most probably a borrowed word from the former.

The main idea is to pre-emptively dig a trench beforeva battle just enough to prevent the enemies cavalry horses from jumping across.

It's succesfully used by early Islamic force against the much larger Meccan Quraish army including their allies during the famous Khandaq war in defending Yathrib (now Madinah) [1]. The idea was suggested by Salman al-Farisi, a Persian companian of Muhammad [2].

Fun facts, Mughals palace households were mainly speaking Persian language, and the Hindi/Urdu language is heavily influenced by the Persian moreso than Arab.

[1] Battle of the Trench:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Trench

[2] Salman the Persian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_the_Persian

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#46

Post by chimp_brain » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

19f191ty wrote: post #28

FlyingSnake wrote: post #6

The unwavering focus on the Mughal empire by the West, is a curious phenomenon. Is it because they built highly visible monuments like the Taj? Mughals didn’t even reach their zenith until 1680s and were vastly reduced by 1730s. The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagara were more relevant to world history in the 16th Century India. The wonders of Bijapur, Golconda and Hampi would put 16th CE Delhi to shame.

One reason is financial. At its peak the Mughal empire was the largest economy in the world. Estimated to be about 25% of global GDP. That's close to the position US occupies in the modern world.

Mughal empire was collection of many wealthy provinces, which were wealthy even before Mughals. After assuming power most Mughal ruler did nothing but wasted wealth on countless vanity projects, unlike Europeans where rulers still funded exploration and innovation.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#47

Post by hagbard_c » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

metalman wrote: post #14

hagbard_c wrote: post #2

A flowery description of conquest by the Islamic Mughals. Where is the indignation about the destruction of Hindu temples and idols, as documented in his memoirs, the Baburnama. About his disdain for indigenous religions which laid the foundation for Mughal atrocities continued under his successors? Imagine a similar description of conquest by, say, the Christian Spaniards in the Americas. The noble conquests of the…

in those times religion was a scant sixth in order of reasons and rationalisations for conquest and empire, then as now it was a technological advantage, guns, and the rajputs didn't have them, mobility, the rajputs were agrarian, the mughals were mostly pastoralists and always on the move. but just so that you know, I have traveled through north west punjub, to muree, and lundi khotal, and there are ruins of stupas…

The Mughal empire was founded in 1526 and dissolved in 1857. Hernan Cortés was born in 1485, reached the Americas in 1504 and conquered the Aztec empire between 1519 and 1521, very close to the Mughal conquests. There are whole academic disciplines based around criticising Western colonisation and conquests but I am not aware of anything similar targeting non-Western history.

My reaction is not so much targeted at this specific example - religious (Islamic) conquest - but towards the lack of criticism of non-Western conquest and colonisation.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#48

Post by ultratalk » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

hrtk wrote: post #30

Why is this on HN?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#49

Post by chimp_brain » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

g8oz wrote: post #36

newyankee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also when discussing Mughals the most important elephant in the room is ignored. Their intention to totally Islamise India. But this is more about Indian history being editorialised by few communists and others as they hate the notion of a caste system filled India and prefer the Mughal & British rule in their sanitised version. The historic animosity in different groups exists and persists to this day and is reflect…

>>Their intention to totally Islamise India. Given their military superiority during their zenith, if they really wanted to do that, they could have. But we didn't see that happen even within their core territories.

That's nuanced, they were always challenged every few decades, from Marathas to Ahoms in North East. Fighting with all Hindu princely state instead of making them ally would've surely might have been counter productive. While it was their intention to Islamise, and many did, but it was impossible without an extremely cultural backlash that they also feared.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#50

Post by chimp_brain » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

SilverElfin wrote: post #43

FlyingSnake wrote: post #6

The unwavering focus on the Mughal empire by the West, is a curious phenomenon. Is it because they built highly visible monuments like the Taj? Mughals didn’t even reach their zenith until 1680s and were vastly reduced by 1730s. The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagara were more relevant to world history in the 16th Century India. The wonders of Bijapur, Golconda and Hampi would put 16th CE Delhi to shame.

I’m not an expert on Asian history but I feel like there isn’t a focus on the Mughal empire by the West. This history is just not well known. The way India was covered in school classes (at least in America) was that Britain came into India, colonized the country, oppressed Indians, and then Gandhi resisted without violence, which somehow led to the British leaving, but they split up India on their way out into India…

It's again complex, yes to some extent Mughals were colonisers but they eventually simply wanted to rule. It's not discussed because most history before 11th-13th century was systematically wiped out over centuries.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have little to minorities or even the memory of past left, but that's mostly what happens with cultural imperialism. There were Hindus / Bhuddist or Zorastrian in those areas, now there are none. Infact India have more Zorastrians than modern day Iran, many fled to India around 16th Century escaping similar cultural imperialism.