Events

The gigantic Buddhas of Bamiyan, carved into Afghan cliffs, stood as symbols of Mahayana Buddhism’s reach from India; they were destroyed in 2001.

By the sixth century CE the Gupta Empire was declining: the Huna tribe from Central Asia attacked it again and again, and powerful regional rulers rose.

Harshavardhana ascended the throne in 606 CE at Kannauj. He belonged to the Pushyabhuti (Vardhana) dynasty, whose earlier capital was Sthaneshvara (present-day Thanesar in Haryana).

Ruling from Kannauj (ancient Kanyakubja), Harsha expanded his empire over large parts of northern and eastern India; his court poet Banabhatta wrote his biography, the Harshacharita.

Harsha tried to extend his empire south beyond the Narmada but was held in check by Pulakeshin II of the Chalukyas. A Sanskrit inscription by the court poet Ravikirti, on a Jain temple atop Meguti Hill, records Pulakeshin’s victories over Harsha.

At Aihole — the earlier Chalukya capital, with over a hundred Hindu, Buddhist and Jain temples — a long Sanskrit inscription by the court poet Ravikirti on the Meguti temple praises the Chalukyas and records Pulakeshin II’s victories over Harsha.

Chinese pilgrim travelled in India c. 630-645.

Under Mahendravarman I and his son Narasimhavarman I the Pallavas reached their peak; Narasimhavarman, called ‘Mamalla’, defeated Pulakeshin II and captured Badami, then withdrew, keeping the Tungabhadra as an unwritten boundary.

In honour of the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, Harsha held an assembly at Kannauj attended by kings and leaders of many sects; every five years he held an assembly at Prayaga where he gave away wealth to Buddhists, Brahmins and the poor.

The Shore Temple at Mamallapuram was built during the reign of the Pallava king Narasimhavarman II.

Raja Dahir killed; Sindh joins the Umayyad Caliphate.

Nagabhata I and the Chalukyas of Gujarat halt Arab expansion.

Foundation of the Pala dynasty.

Dantidurga became the first independent Rashtrakuta ruler when he overthrew the Chalukyas in the Deccan; the Rashtrakutas, with their capital at Manyakheta, stayed among the most dominant powers for nearly two centuries.

The Rashtrakuta king Krishna I had the Kailashanatha temple — the largest rock-cut temple in India — carved out of a hillside at Ellora; it is not a construction but a gigantic sculpture.

Adi Shankaracharya was the 8th-century scholar and teacher of the Advaita Vedanta school of philosophy.

The Pala king Dharmapala founded Vikramashila on the banks of the Ganga in the late 8th century; with six colleges and nearly 3,000 scholars, it remained a great centre of learning for more than four centuries.

Kannauj becomes the Pratihara capital; climax of the tripartite struggle.

Earliest extant Kannada literary work.

Kannauj was the prize of the long ‘Tripartite Struggle’ between the Palas, the Gurjara-Pratiharas and the Rashtrakutas; the destruction of Kannauj by Rashtrakuta rulers hastened the Pratihara empire’s break-up.

Krishna III defeats the Cholas.

From 985 Rajaraja Chola ruled for some three decades, conquering parts of present-day Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and the north of Sri Lanka; he built the Brihadishvara (Rajarajeshvaram) temple at Thanjavur.

Rajaraja Chola conquered the northern part of Sri Lanka, including the kingdom of Anuradhapura; his inscriptions also record a conquest of ‘islands of the sea’, which most historians identify with the Maldives.

Mahmud of Ghazni raided the subcontinent 17 times between 1000 and 1025, targeting wealthy temples; much of the wealth he carried away built up his capital at Ghazni.

The Hindu Shahis, who controlled the Khyber Pass, resisted several invasions with the help of other Indian rulers; Mahmud of Ghazni campaigned against them from 1000 to 1008.

Anandapala defeated.

Rajaraja I's great temple.

Rajaraja’s son Rajendra Chola I ruled for nearly 30 years and expanded the empire further, conquering parts of present-day Odisha and Bengal.

Rajendra expanded his father’s conquest of northern Sri Lanka, which remained part of the Chola Empire for about half a century.

Mahmud found Mathura a city of enormous wealth with a magnificent temple; he destroyed it and plundered its treasure, then went on to Kannauj, where he took one of the last Pratihara rulers by surprise and destroyed many temples.

Rajendra Chola commemorated his northern victories with the title ‘Gangaikondachola’ — ‘the Chola who seized (or brought) Ganga’ — and built a temple at Gangaikondacholapuram to mark them.

Rajendra I raids Kadaram and the Srivijaya ports.

Mahmud of Ghazni destroyed and plundered the Somnath temple in Gujarat.

Al-Biruni’s Kitab-ul-Hind, written in Arabic, is a voluminous text of 80 chapters on subjects such as religion and philosophy, festivals, astronomy, alchemy, social life, weights and measures, laws and metrology.

Bhoja of the Paramara dynasty reigned c. 1010–55, with his capital at Dhara.

After about half a century of Chola rule in northern Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan king Vijayabahu I drove the Cholas out after several battles; he married a princess from Kalinga.

In the twelfth century Anantavarman, one of the most important rulers of the Ganga dynasty, decided to build a temple for Purushottama Jagannatha at Puri.

Kalhana’s long poem on the kings of Kashmir used inscriptions, documents, eyewitness accounts and earlier histories, and was often critical of rulers and their policies.

After the decline of the Palas, the Sena dynasty became the dominant power over much of Bengal, with its capital at Nadiya.

The Ghurids, once vassals of the Ghaznavids, took Ghazni; their leader Muhammad, sultan of Ghur, soon brought parts of Punjab and Sindh under his rule.

Muhammad Ghuri’s attempt to expand into Gujarat failed: he was defeated by the Chaulukya king Mularaja II at the foot of Mount Abu. In another version, the king’s mother, Queen Naikidevi, led the victorious army.

Prithviraj Chauhan defeats Muhammad of Ghor.

Muhammad of Ghor defeats Prithviraj; Turkish rule in north India begins.

Jayachandra of the Gahadavalas killed.

Attributed to Bakhtiyar Khalji's campaigns (c. 1193-1200).

Bakhtiyar Khilji’s campaign through Bihar and Bengal destroyed the great Buddhist monasteries and universities of Nalanda and Vikramashila. Historians of Buddhism agree this hastened Buddhism’s decline in India; the loss also scattered learned scholars.

Bakhtiyar Khilji, an army commander serving the Ghurids, campaigned in eastern India from the end of the 12th century and conquered Bihar and Bengal, then ruled by the Senas from Nadia. His expedition towards Tibet was routed in Kamarupa in 1205, and he was assassinated in 1206.

Qutbuddin Aibak becomes independent after Muhammad of Ghor's death.

Rather than appoint aristocrats and landed chieftains as governors, the early Delhi Sultans — especially Iltutmish — relied on special slaves bought for military service and trained for high office. In 1236 Iltutmish’s daughter Raziyya became Sultan.

One wing of Genghis (Chinggis) Khan’s army chased Jalaluddin, son of the Sultan of Khwarazm, into Afghanistan and Sindh. On the banks of the Indus, Genghis Khan thought of returning to Mongolia through north India and Assam, but the heat, the terrain and his shaman’s ill omens changed his mind.

The Ahoms migrated to the Brahmaputra valley from present-day Myanmar in the thirteenth century and built a new state; later they annexed the Chhutiya (1523) and Koch-Hajo (1581) kingdoms.

Raziyya, daughter of Iltutmish, became Sultan in 1236. The chronicler Minhaj-us-Siraj saw her ability but was uneasy at a queen ruling; on her inscriptions and coins she named herself the daughter of Sultan Iltutmish.

The nobles were unhappy at Raziyya’s attempts to rule independently, and she was removed from the throne in 1240.

Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga kingdom repelled several Sultanate inroads and defeated the Delhi Sultanate’s governor of Bengal; partly to commemorate these victories he built the Surya temple at Konark, famous for its carved stone wheels.

In the 13th century most of Maharashtra was ruled by the Yadava dynasty from Devagiri (present-day Daulatabad). Alauddin Khalji campaigned over large areas of north and central India, and the Yadavas were overcome by the Khilji Sultanate in the early 14th century.

He had his uncle Jalaluddin murdered.

Alauddin Khalji repelled several Mongol invasions aimed at adding India to the vast Mongol Empire. Mongol attacks grew during his reign, forcing him to keep a large standing army in Delhi.

Alauddin Khalji takes Chittor.

Alauddin Khalji’s slave-general Malik Kafur pushed the Sultanate southward, conquering several kingdoms; their plundered wealth paid for the Sultanate’s huge army. Warangal (Orugallu) was the capital of the Kakatiyas, who ruled much of present-day Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Pushing deep into the south, Malik Kafur attacked a number of Hindu centres such as Srirangam, Madurai, Chidambaram and possibly Rameswaram.

Under Alauddin Khalji the state took land-revenue assessment and collection into its own hands and cancelled local chieftains’ rights to levy taxes. His coins called him ‘Sikander Sani’ — the second Alexander.

Warangal, the Kakatiya capital — where Queen Rudramadevi had ruled from 1262 to 1289 — fell to the Delhi Sultanate. Around 1330–1336 the Musunuri Nayakas, Telugu chieftains, rallied over 75 others into a confederacy and expelled Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s army from Warangal.

Muhammad bin Tughlaq's transfer of capital.

Brass and copper coins were to pass at the value of silver.

The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta reached Sind in 1333 and travelled on to Delhi, drawn by Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s reputation as a generous patron. Impressed by his scholarship, the Sultan made him the qazi (judge) of Delhi, a post he held for several years.

By Harihara I and Bukka Raya I.

Sent by Muhammad bin Tughlaq in 1342 as his envoy to the Mongol ruler of China, Ibn Battuta went by way of the Malabar coast to the Maldives, where he stayed eighteen months as the qazi before moving on to Sri Lanka.

As revolts weakened the Delhi Sultanate, the Bahmani Sultanate rose in the Deccan and for a while controlled much of it.

Timur — ruler of Iran, Iraq and present-day Turkey, and later claimed as an ancestor by the Mughals — attacked Delhi.

As the Delhi Sultanate weakened, independent regional Sultanates emerged — powerful ones in Gujarat, Bengal and elsewhere — leading to a complex play of alliances and frequent wars. The Sultanates of Gujarat and Malwa were established in the 15th century.

After Timur’s devastating attack on Delhi at the end of the 14th century, the Tughluqs gave way to the Sayyid dynasty — Khizr Khan ruled 1414–1421 — and then the Lodis, while the Sultanate’s territory shrank.

The Italian trader Nicolo de Conti was one of several 15th-century visitors — with the Persian ambassador Abdur Razzaq and the Russian merchant Afanasii Nikitin — whose accounts describe the city of Vijayanagara.

Abdur Razzaq, an ambassador sent by the ruler of Persia to Calicut, was greatly impressed by Vijayanagara’s seven lines of fortifications, which enclosed not only the city but its farmland and forests: between the walls, he noted, were cultivated fields, gardens and houses.

Kabir, raised by a family of Muslim weavers (julahas) in or near Benares (Varanasi), composed verses that speak of one God and decry the rituals of both Hinduism and Islam; little reliable information about his life survives, but his poems were sung far and wide.

The first Afghan dynasty of Delhi.

Founder of Sikhism.

The Bahmani Sultanate, which arose in the mid-14th century and long rivalled Vijayanagara, fragmented into five ‘Deccan Sultanates’ — Bijapur, Golconda, Berar, Ahmednagar and Bidar — each founded by a former governor; Ahmadnagar, Bijapur and Berar emerged in 1490.

Opening of the sea route from Europe to India.

Krishnadeva Raya of the Tuluva dynasty ruled Vijayanagara from 1509 to 1529 and became its most famous king; under him the empire reached its peak, and he patronised poets in Sanskrit, Telugu and Kannada and wrote a Telugu work on statecraft himself.

Portuguese naval victory over a Gujarati-Mamluk fleet.

Afonso de Albuquerque takes Goa from Bijapur.

Krishnadeva Raya’s reign was one of expansion: the Raichur doab between the Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers was acquired (1512), the rulers of Orissa were subdued (1514) and severe defeats were inflicted on the Sultan of Bijapur (1520).

Babur defeats Ibrahim Lodi; the Mughal Empire begins.

Babur defeats Rana Sanga.

After Babur died in 1530, his son Humayun struggled to hold the empire together. Defeated by the Afghan Sher Shah, he spent 1540–55 in exile at the Safavid court of Shah Tahmasp before regaining his lost territories.

Sher Shah defeats Humayun.

Sher Shah Suri defeats Humayun, who goes into exile.

Sher Shah Suri, a powerful Afghan leader who had defeated Humayun, established the Sur Empire over much of north India and introduced lasting reforms; his administration became the model Akbar later followed. The Sur Empire was short-lived — Humayun regained his territories in 1555–56.

Defeated by Sher Shah, Humayun spent 1540–55 in exile at the Safavid court in Iran; in 1555–56 he regained his lost territories.

Akbar's forces defeat Hemu.

Part of Akbar's policy of Sulh-i-kul (peace with all).

Deccan Sultanates defeat Vijayanagara; Hampi sacked.

When Akbar’s forces broke into Chittorgarh Fort, hundreds of Rajput women, led by their queens and noblewomen, committed jauhar.

Akbar built Fatehpur Sikri near Agra as his capital. The dargah of the Sufi Shaikh Salim Chishti there symbolised the bond between the Chishtis and the Mughal state.

Maharana Pratap against Akbar's army under Man Singh.

Abu’l Fazl’s Ain-i Akbari describes the provinces (subas) of Akbar’s empire in its ‘Account of the Twelve Provinces’, giving each suba’s divisions (sarkars and parganas), measured area and assessed revenue.

The last fifteen years of Akbar’s nearly fifty-year reign brought fresh military campaigns in Kashmir, Sindh, the Deccan and Afghanistan.

Royal charter granted in London on 31 December 1600.

The Dutch arrived in India in the early 17th century and, unlike the Portuguese, focused mainly on trade, especially in spices. Their Dutch East India Company set up trading posts at Surat, Bharuch and Cochin in the west and Nagapattinam and Masulipatnam in the east.

Guru Arjan compiled the hymns of Baba Guru Nanak and his successors, together with those of poets such as Baba Farid, Ravidas and Kabir, in 1604 — the Adi Granth. The town of Ramdaspur (Amritsar) grew around the central gurdwara, Harmandar Sahib (the Golden Temple).

Akbar’s reign lasted almost 50 years, from 1556 to his death in 1605; its middle years were relatively peaceful, but the last 15 brought fresh campaigns in Kashmir, Sindh, the Deccan and Afghanistan.

Emperor Jahangir saw the growing Sikh community as a potential threat; finding that Guru Arjan had supported his rebellious son, he had the Guru executed in 1606. This led Guru Arjan’s son and successor, Guru Hargobind, to introduce martial training and form a Sikh army.

The Company's first factory on the east coast.

English defeat the Portuguese; Surat factory follows.

Jahangir’s son Prince Khurram took the throne as Shah Jahan (1628–1658), inheriting a stable empire and its finest painters’ workshop. He fought several rebellions and is best remembered as the builder of the Taj Mahal.

Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal at Agra as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. From 1632 it took nearly twenty years and 20,000 specialised workers to complete; it follows the charbagh garden plan.

Madras, with Surat, Bombay and Calcutta, was among the English East India Company’s first trading posts (1612–1690). A Company charter of 1687 made the town of Fort St George a corporation; the Madras Corporation, set up in 1688, is India’s oldest municipal institution.

After the Battle of Talikota (1565) the city of Vijayanagara was sacked and left in ruins; the empire fragmented into smaller regions ruled by Nayakas, former military governors, and came to an end in the mid-17th century.

Shah Jahan moved his capital from Agra to Shahjahanabad (now Old Delhi) and built the Jama Masjid there in the mid-17th century — India’s largest mosque, raised by about 5,000 workers. In 1739 Nadir Shah’s sack turned the new city to rubble.

Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal at Agra as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. Begun in 1632, it took nearly twenty years and 20,000 specialised workers to complete.

After a war of succession among Shah Jahan’s sons, Aurangzeb imprisoned his father in Agra Fort and crowned himself emperor as ‘Alamgir’ (‘conqueror of the world’). He ruled for almost 49 years.

Alarmed by Shivaji’s successes, the Bijapur Sultanate sent its veteran general Afzal Khan. The two met one-on-one at the foot of Pratapgad fort, where Shivaji killed Afzal Khan with a wagh nakh (‘tiger’s claw’), and Marathas hidden in the hills routed his army.

Part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry.

In retaliation for Shaista Khan’s three-year Mughal invasion, Shivaji sacked Surat, a wealthy Mughal port, taking treasure worth almost one crore rupees while sparing religious places; he sacked it again a few years later. The raid was reported even in the London Gazette.

Stung by the sack of Surat, Aurangzeb sent the Rajput general Jai Singh against Shivaji, who had to concede defeat at Purandar fort near Pune and sign a treaty: he gave up a sizeable part of his kingdom, and his son Sambhaji entered Mughal service.

Persuaded to visit Aurangzeb’s court at Agra, Shivaji was insulted, stormed out and was put under house arrest. He began sending out baskets of sweets and fruit as gifts; once the guards stopped checking them, he and Sambhaji escaped hidden in the baskets.

Lachit Borphukan's Ahom forces defeat the Mughal fleet on the Brahmaputra.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was crowned at Raigad Fort — the formal beginning of the Maratha Empire.

When Kashmiri Pandits sought his protection from religious persecution, Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, stood with them. Arrested and ordered by Aurangzeb to convert, he refused and was publicly beheaded in Chandni Chowk, Delhi — the site of Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib.

Aurangzeb reimposed the jizya, a tax on non-Muslim subjects, along with a pilgrimage tax on Hindus — both of which Akbar had abolished.

Shivaji, crowned with full Vedic rites at Raigad in 1674, died of a fever at the age of fifty. Within his lifetime his exploits had become legendary; the Bundela prince Chhatrasal, inspired by him, built an independent kingdom in Bundelkhand.

With the Marathas the only obstacle to full Mughal control of the Deccan, Aurangzeb spent the last 25 years of his life fighting war after war there. The cost drained the treasury and strained the administration — often seen as a key cause of the Mughals’ rapid decline after his death in 1707.

Aurangzeb invaded the Deccan and conquered the Bijapur (Adil Shahi) and Golconda (Qutb Shahi) Sultanates, ending the Adil Shahi dynasty (1489–1686), whose Gol Gumbaz at Bijapur is the tomb of Muhammad Adil Shah.

Aurangzeb invaded the Deccan and conquered the Bijapur (Adil Shahi) and Golconda (Qutb Shahi) Sultanates.

Sambhaji, Shivaji’s son and successor (1681–1689), was captured by Aurangzeb, brutally tortured and executed; the Mughals then took Raigad, the Maratha capital. His brother Rajaram became Chhatrapati and withdrew to Gingee, carrying the war into south India.

The East India Company settled here, began building a fort in 1696, and two years later obtained zamindari rights over three villages — one of them Kalikata, which grew into Calcutta (Kolkata).

Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, laid the foundation of the Khalsa Panth (‘army of the pure’) and defined its five symbols; the community became a socio-religious and military force.

Beginning of rapid Mughal decline.

Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, instituted the Khalsa in 1699 and in 1706 authenticated the compilation now known as the Guru Granth Sahib. After his death in 1708 the Khalsa rose against Mughal authority under Banda Bahadur.

After Shivaji, effective power in the Maratha state passed to a family of Chitpavan Brahmanas who served his successors as Peshwa (principal minister), with Poona as the capital. Balaji Vishwanath was the first of this line.

Leading the Khalsa’s revolt after Guru Gobind Singh’s death, Banda Bahadur declared Sikh sovereign rule by striking coins in the names of Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh and set up an administration between the Sutlej and the Yamuna. He was captured in 1715 and executed in 1716.

Baji Rao I, son of Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath, is credited with expanding the Maratha kingdom beyond the Vindhyas, with campaigns against Malwa, Bundelkhand, Gujarat and the Portuguese; he and his son Nanasaheb drove the Marathas’ pan-Indian expansion.

After the Marathas raided Delhi in 1737, their dominance spread rapidly — into Rajasthan and the Punjab, Bengal and Orissa, and Karnataka and the Tamil and Telugu lands. These areas paid tribute in acceptance of Maratha sovereignty rather than being formally annexed.

Peacock Throne and Koh-i-Noor carried off.

Travancore defeats the Dutch East India Company.

In the Carnatic Wars (1746–1763) between Britain and France, the French under Dupleix — Governor-General of French India, who first trained Indian ‘sepoys’ in European methods — captured Madras in 1746, but they later lost ground and were reduced to Pondicherry and a few enclaves.

The Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Abdali invaded north India five times between 1748 and 1761, and in 1761 defeated the Marathas in the third battle of Panipat.

Clive defeats Siraj ud-Daulah; Company rule begins in Bengal.