The Mughal (Timurid) empire in its prime (1526-1707) was markedly different in its institutional makeup and cultural outlook than the Delhi Sultanate in its era of expansion (1206-1414). If the Delhi sultans ruled as vassals of the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad and Cairo, the Mughals ruled as kings of the world, a fact reflected in their regnal titles such as “World-Seizer” (Jahangir); “King of the World” (Shah Jahan); “Alamgir” (World-Seizer), which had not been thinkable in the time of the Delhi sultans. This change can be attributed to the Mongol heritage of the Mughals. After Chinggis Khan, the Mongols claimed sovereignty over the known world, by direct conquest or by diplomacy, a trend continued by their Timurid successors. This Mongol conception of universal empire shaped Mughal sensibility, origin myths, religious policy, and their reception of and engagement with both Indic and European knowledge and aesthetics. Put differently, Mughal India was a meeting place of two different historical trajectories of world exploration or conquest, one Inner Asian and the other Western European, which imparted to it a “modernity” that had a “global” and “early” flavor all its own.