Nadir Shah’s Sack of Delhi 1739 and the Looting of the Mughal Capital
The invasion of India by Nadir Shah, the ruler of Persia, in 1739 was the most catastrophic single military event of the late Mughal period. The campaign culminated in the Battle of Karnal, the capture of the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah, the sack of Delhi, and the removal of an enormous quantity of treasure, including the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor diamond. The invasion marked a decisive moment in the long process of Mughal decline, and it is treated here as a self-contained event with attention to the military, political, and cultural consequences. The broader context is given in the economic decline of the Mughal Empire, the later Mughal emperors, and the Mughal decline overview pages.
The Context of the Invasion
Nadir Shah’s invasion of India must be understood in the context of the broader political situation of the 1730s. The Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah, who had ascended the throne in 1719, was presiding over a significantly weakened empire, in which the great provincial governors of the Deccan, Bengal, and Awadh had established significant de facto independent states, and in which the Maratha Confederacy was rapidly expanding into the Mughal heartland. The Mughal treasury was in serious fiscal difficulty, the imperial army was no longer capable of decisive action in the field, and the emperor’s authority over the great mansabdars of the empire was more nominal than real.
Nadir Shah, who had risen to power in Persia in the late 1720s and had deposed the Safavid dynasty in 1736 to establish his own short-lived Afsharid dynasty, was one of the most formidable military commanders of the eighteenth century. He had already conquered considerable portions of Central Asia, including the Mughal provinces of Kabul and Qandahar, and his interest in India had been sharpened by the major wealth of the Mughal empire and by the political fragmentation of the Indian state. The pretext for the invasion was the Mughal support of the Afghan rebels of the northwest, but the principal motivation was the significant wealth that a successful Indian campaign would produce.
The Campaign of 1738–1739
Nadir Shah set out from his base in Khorasan in late 1738 with a considerable army, including a major contingent of artillery. The campaign moved through the Mughal province of Kabul, where the governor, Nawab Nasir Khan, submitted without serious resistance, and into the Punjab, where the governor, Zakariya Khan, attempted to organise resistance. The Maratha garrison at Peshawar, the most major Mughal military force in the northwest, was defeated after a brief siege, and the route to the Mughal heartland was open.
The campaign moved rapidly through the Punjab, and Nadir Shah’s forces crossed the Jhelum and the Chenab in early 1739. The Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah, recognising the gravity of the threat, set out from Delhi in January 1739 with a significant imperial army to confront the invader. The imperial army, which had been significantly weakened by the fiscal crisis of the previous decade, was poorly commanded and was no match for the disciplined Persian force. The armies met at Karnal in February 1739.
The Battle of Karnal
The Battle of Karnal, fought on 24 February 1739, was a decisive Persian victory. The Mughal army, despite its considerable size, was outmaneuvered by Nadir Shah’s superior cavalry and artillery, and a major portion of the imperial force was captured or destroyed. The emperor Muhammad Shah was forced to take refuge in his encampment, and after a brief negotiation he was induced to enter Nadir Shah’s camp as a guest, a position that rapidly became that of a captive. The battle is examined in detail in the famous battles of the Mughals page.
The aftermath of the battle was a significant blow to Mughal prestige. The emperor’s captivity, even if conducted with the formal courtesies of a royal guest, was widely interpreted as a sign of the considerable weakness of the Mughal state, and the news of the defeat spread rapidly through the empire. The emperor’s senior commanders, including the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Nawab of Awadh, were also in Nadir Shah’s camp, and the major humiliation of the Mughal elite was a major political event.
The Occupation of Delhi
Nadir Shah entered Delhi on 20 March 1739, accompanied by the captive emperor Muhammad Shah. The entry was conducted with elaborate ceremony, and the Persian ruler was received with the formal courtesies appropriate to a sovereign entering a friendly capital. The relationship between the two rulers, however, was tense. The Mughal court was divided between those who favoured cooperation with the invader and those who favoured resistance, and the significant presence of Persian troops in the capital was a source of considerable friction.
The friction came to a head on 12 April 1739, when a major riot broke out in Delhi. The riot, which may have been provoked by Mughal loyalists but was soon joined by significant numbers of the population, resulted in the deaths of a considerable number of Persian soldiers. Nadir Shah’s response was swift and severe. He ordered a major massacre in the streets of Delhi, and according to contemporary accounts between twenty and thirty thousand inhabitants of the city were killed over the course of a single day. The massacre is examined in the Mughal history overview and the later Mughal emperors pages.
The Looting of the Peacock Throne
The most spectacular single act of the sack of Delhi was the removal of the Peacock Throne. The throne, which had been constructed by Shah Jahan in the 1630s, was one of the most magnificent pieces of furniture in the early modern world. The throne, named for the peacock figures with which it was decorated, was inlaid with a significant quantity of precious stones, including the Koh-i-Noor diamond, and it was valued at a considerable portion of the Mughal treasury. The throne was dismantled and shipped to Persia, where it was placed in the Golestan Palace in Tehran.
The Koh-i-Noor diamond, the most valuable of the gems removed from the throne, had a major subsequent history. The diamond, which had been in the possession of the Mughal emperors since the reign of Babur, was taken to Persia by Nadir Shah, passed after his death to Ahmad Shah Abdali of Afghanistan, and from there to the Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh. The diamond was confiscated by the British East India Company in 1849 after the annexation of the Punjab, and it was eventually presented to Queen Victoria in 1850. The diamond is now part of the British Crown Jewels, and its history has been a major subject of diplomatic and political dispute between India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the United Kingdom. The broader context of the diamond’s history is examined in the colonial Mughal legacy page.
The Indemnity and the Withdrawal
In addition to the Peacock Throne, the Koh-i-Noor, and the significant quantity of precious stones and other valuables removed from the imperial treasury, Nadir Shah imposed a considerable indemnity on the Mughal state. The indemnity, variously reported in contemporary sources as twenty crore rupees or more, was a financial blow to an already weakened imperial treasury, and the financial consequences of the indemnity were felt for decades. The indemnity, combined with the major loss of the imperial treasures, marked a major turning point in the fiscal history of the late Mughal period, and the economic decline of the Mughal Empire is significantly the story of the consequences of the crisis.
Nadir Shah withdrew from Delhi in May 1739, taking with him the emperor’s significant treasure, the Peacock Throne, the Koh-i-Noor, and a considerable indemnity. The withdrawal was conducted with military discipline, and the major destruction that might have been expected from a sacked capital was largely avoided. The political consequences of the withdrawal, however, were major, and the long-term impact on Mughal prestige was severe.
The Long-Term Impact on Mughal Prestige
The long-term impact of Nadir Shah’s invasion on the prestige of the Mughal dynasty was major. The emperor’s captivity, the significant loss of the imperial treasures, the considerable indemnity, and the major massacre in Delhi were all major blows to the significant symbolic capital that the dynasty had accumulated over the previous two centuries. The considerable humiliation of the emperor was widely interpreted as a sign that the dynasty had lost the political and military authority that had sustained it, and the major regional powers of the period, including the Marathas, the Sikhs, the Nizam of Hyderabad, and the Nawab of Awadh, drew significant conclusions about the considerable weakness of the centre.
The invasion also had cultural consequences. The major loss of the Peacock Throne and the significant quantity of Mughal art and treasure removed by Nadir Shah was a major blow to the cultural prestige of the dynasty, and the considerable artistic traditions of the late Mughal period were significantly disrupted. The dispersal of the Mughal artistic tradition to the regional successor states, examined in the Mughal culture and society and Mughal art pages, was significantly accelerated by the major consequences of the invasion.
Comparison with Later Invasions
The invasion of Nadir Shah was the first of a series of major invasions of the Mughal heartland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The subsequent invasions included the Ahmad Shah Abdali invasions of 1748, 1752, 1756, 1757, and 1761, the Battle of Panipat 1761 in which the Marathas were defeated by Ahmad Shah Abdali, and the significant disruptions of the rebellion of 1857. The invasions, taken together, marked a considerable transformation in the political and military history of the Indian subcontinent, and they are examined in detail in the Mughal decline overview and the British East India Company and the Mughals pages.
Sources
- J.F. Richards, “The Crisis of the Mughal Empire in the Early Eighteenth Century,” in The Mughal Empire (NCHI I.5, 1993), pp. 282–95.