Events

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.

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.

Muhammad bin Tughlaq's transfer of capital.

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

Opening of the sea route from Europe to India.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Beginning of rapid Mughal decline.

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.