Events

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).

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.

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

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.

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.

He had his uncle Jalaluddin murdered.

By Harihara I and Bukka Raya I.

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

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 first Afghan dynasty of Delhi.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Company's first factory on the east coast.

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

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.