Now sayyid brothers `the king makers’, elevated youth of eighteen, a cousin of Farrukhsiyar, Roshan Akhtar to throne. He ascended the throne under the name of Muhammad Shah. He soon managed to find him powerful supporters including Nizam-ul-mulk of Deccan. In a very smart move, he killed both the Sayyid brothers and thus his long reign of 29 years started. He was young and fond of all kinds of pleasure (he is also known by another name, Rangeela, the careless fun-lover). His reign was full of utter confusion and he let the imperial affairs drift their own way with fatal consequences. Major provinces like Deccan, Awadh and Bengal slipped away, Marathas created their own massive kingdom and became very powerful. Thus within three decades after death of Aurangzeb, the vast Mughal empire spit into numerous independent or semi-independent states. Shown above is an extremely fine gold coin depicting his name, title, mint name and year (scarce to see all these on single coin). 

Babar introduced a new system of collecting taxes and ruling the growing empire, called as Mansabdari, which essentially included providing a noble, known as Mansabdar, with a tract of land. The size (both area as well as population)  and its location would be used as determination of how much tax was expected to be collected. A part of which was to be sent to Emperor and part was expected to be used by the Mansabdar to maintain a well-trained cavalry. Since, the title was not hereditary (at least not in beginning), the nobles would exhibit high degree of loyalty as well as battle-preparedness. This was a brilliant move, as in no time Mughal emperors became fabulously wealthy (possibly the wealthiest in the world at that time), and could summon massive army at a short notice. Indeed, they would routinely use one noble against another to settle scores or extract more!

Although highly profitable, ensuring absolute opulent life style for royal and noble households, this system broke the nation in multiple ways. First, emperors lost touch with populace (situation similar to 17-18th century France); regular income means they paid no attention towards the welfare of the populace. Mughal royalty and nobility were acutely aware of renaissance that took place in Europe due to their interaction with traders from many European nations. They even actively sought various items (including weapons), products of subsequent scientific awakening and achievements of European nations, however never put any effort to recreate the same. Unlike contemporary European kings, Mughals did not build universities or educational institutions of higher learning where modern science and math would be taught. The early medieval knowledge in math, science and technology, accumulated in 4-9th century was not fostered and eventually lost. Soon the Mansabdari became hereditary, which made these nobles acquire more land on their own. Indeed, some of them had lands sizes of kingdom and now called themselves governors, with primary interest of collecting most taxes to maintain even larger armies. Overall outcome of this led to widespread illiteracy and poverty. The concept of logic, scientific questioning or systematic study of natural phenomenon was all but gone and it was the `dark ages’ of the Indian science.

The final nail was the implosion of the empire caused by the system itself; the nobles/governors now too powerful, rose against the weak emperor, and after Aurangzeb the empire was divided in dozen of large kingdoms. The later emperors were puppets often under influence of Marathas, with authority limited to the old city of Delhi.