Literature
Vedas and Upanishads, the epics, Sangam poems, bhakti verse and travellers' books.
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c. 1500โ1000 BCE๐บ Ancient
The Rigveda
Hymns in praise of deities, especially Agni, Indra and Soma, compiled between c. 1500 and 1000 BCE.
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c. sixth century BCE onwards๐บ Ancient
The Upanishads
They show people asking about the meaning of life and the possibility of life after death; the Chhandogya Upanishad was composed in Sanskrit c. sixth century BCE.
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c. 500 BCE onwards๐บ Ancient
The Mahabharata
A colossal epic of over 100,000 verses, composed over about 1,000 years.
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After the Buddha๐บ Ancient
The Tipitaka
The Buddha's teachings were compiled as the Tipitaka โ โthree basketsโ โ first passed on orally, then written down; the Vinaya Pitaka held the rules of the sangha.
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Mauryan period๐บ Ancient
Megasthenes and the Arthashastra
Mauryan history draws on the account of Megasthenes, which survives in fragments, and on the Arthashastra, parts of which were probably composed by Kautilya or Chanakya.
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c. first century CE๐บ Ancient
Tamil Sangam poems
Anthologies such as the Puranaruru describe chiefs and their bards, and illuminate social and economic life.
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c. fourth century CE๐บ Ancient
The Prayaga Prashasti
Also known as the Allahabad Pillar Inscription, it was composed in Sanskrit by Harishena, the court poet of Samudragupta โ a prashasti written in praise of the king.
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Alvar tradition๐ฐ Medieval
The โTamil Vedaโ and Andal
The Alvars' anthology, the Nalayira Divyaprabandham, was described as the Tamil Veda; the songs of Andal, a woman Alvar, are still sung.
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Eleventh century๐ฐ Medieval
Al-Biruni's Kitab-ul-Hind
Born in 973 in Khwarizm, Al-Biruni knew Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Sanskrit, and wrote a detailed book on India.
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Twelfth century๐ฐ Medieval
Basavanna and the Lingayats
Basavanna's followers, the Virashaivas or Lingayats, remain an important community in the region; his vachanas question empty ritual.
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c. 14thโ15th centuries๐ฐ Medieval
Kabir's verses
Kabir's verses survive in three traditions: the Bijak of the Kabirpanth, the Granthavali of the Dadupanth, and the Adi Granth Sahib.
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Sufi tradition๐ฐ Medieval
Padmavat
A prem-akhyan (love story) by Malik Muhammad Jayasi about Padmini and Ratansen of Chittor, whose trials symbolise the soul's journey.
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1598๐ฐ Medieval
The Ain-i Akbari
Abu'l Fazl's record of how Akbar's empire was run was completed in 1598, after five revisions.
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Late 18th century๐ญ Modern
The Asiatic Society of Bengal
William Jones and his colleagues set up the Asiatic Society of Bengal and the journal Asiatick Researches to study and translate Sanskrit and Persian works.
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1919 onwards๐ญ Modern
A critical edition of the Mahabharata
Led by V. S. Sukthankar from 1919, scholars compared manuscripts from across the country; the project took 47 years and ran to over 13,000 pages.
How we check: each entry is written from a passage in the NCERT chapter it links to, and our build fails unless key phrases from that passage are found in the chapterโs own text. Dates appear only where the chapter gives them.