An outline, era by era

India

Rajput kingdoms, Chola Empire, Delhi Sultanate, Vijayanagara

Medieval / Post-Classical Era · ~500 – ~1500 CE

Between about 500 and 1500 CE the Indian subcontinent was divided among many regional powers rather than ruled by one empire. In the north, dynasties such as the Pratiharas, Chahamanas and Chandellas rose from about the eighth century, and over time many of the ruling houses of this region came to be identified as Rajput. Rajput identity formed gradually and its boundaries were contested. In the south, the Chola dynasty rose from the Kaveri delta in the ninth century and built a state that reached across the sea. From the early thirteenth century, the Delhi Sultanate ruled much of the north from its capital for more than three centuries.

In the south, Vijayanagara, founded in the 1330s, became a large Hindu-ruled empire and a major trading power. Its capital was sacked after a defeat at Talikota in 1565, but the state continued under successor rulers from other capitals into the seventeenth century. Together these states shaped Indian temple building, language, trade across the Indian Ocean, and the long contact between Hindu and Muslim societies. Their story is one of rivalry, shifting borders and lasting cultural exchange.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Muhammad bin Qasim conquers Sindh

    Event

    What happened

    In 711 to 712 CE an Arab army under Muhammad bin Qasim, sent by the Umayyad governor al-Hajjaj, invades Sindh. It defeats Raja Dahir and takes Aror and Multan. Sindh becomes a frontier province of the caliphate.

    The rest is history

    This was the first lasting Muslim rule in the subcontinent, though it stayed limited to the lower Indus region. Arab rule there later fragmented into local dynasties. The Chach Nama, a Persian account, tells the story but was written centuries afterwards, so historians use it with care. Later Muslim incursions into India came mostly from Central Asia, not Arabia.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryChach Nama. Persian text, 13th century CE, which may draw on earlier materials; no Arabic original survives.Late account of the conquest of Sindh.
    2. BookWink, André. Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Vol. 1. Leiden: Brill, 1990.

  2. The Tripartite Struggle for Kannauj

    Event

    What happened

    From the late eighth century the Gurjara-Pratiharas of the west, the Palas of Bengal and the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan fight over Kannauj, the symbolic capital of the Gangetic plain. Control of the city passes between them for about two centuries. The Rashtrakutas raid the north several times.

    The rest is history

    No side won lasting control, and all three weakened. Pratihara power declined in the tenth century and its former feudatories became independent. Several successor houses, such as the Chahamanas and Paramaras, later came to be counted among the Rajputs, though Rajput identity formed over a longer and contested process. The north was thus divided among many kingdoms, and had already faced Ghaznavid raids, before the Ghurid armies arrived.

    Sources

    1. BookChattopadhyaya, Brajadulal. The Making of Early Medieval India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994.
    2. BookMajumdar, R. C., ed. The Age of Imperial Kanauj. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1964.

  3. The Chola revival under Vijayalaya and Aditya I

    Event

    What happened

    Around the middle of the ninth century Vijayalaya takes Thanjavur from local chiefs. His son Aditya I defeats the Pallava king Aparajita around 897 CE and takes over the Pallava lands in northern Tamil country. Aditya's son Parantaka I extends Chola rule further.

    The rest is history

    These conquests turned a small chiefdom into a regional kingdom. They gave the Cholas the base from which Rajaraja I and Rajendra I would build a much larger state after 985. The Chola copper-plate grants, such as the Anbil plates, record the dynasty's own account of its rise.

    Sources

    1. BookSpencer, George W. The Politics of Expansion: The Chola Conquest of Sri Lanka and Sri Vijaya. Madras: New Era Publications, 1983.

  4. Rajaraja I, Rajendra I and the Chola empire

    Event

    What happened

    Rajaraja I, who rules from 985 CE, conquers parts of Sri Lanka and the Chera and Pandya lands, and builds the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur, finished around 1010. His son Rajendra I campaigns to the Ganges and, around 1025, sends a naval expedition against the Srivijaya realm in Southeast Asia. He founds a new capital, Gangaikonda Cholapuram.

    The rest is history

    The Cholas became the strongest power of south India for a time, with important maritime expeditions and trading connections. Their power was chiefly regional. The 1025 raid is recorded in Chola inscriptions, and its purpose is still debated, with trade disputes among the suggestions. Chola power declined from the late twelfth century, and the Pandyas overtook them in the 1200s. The Brihadisvara temple remains a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTiruvalangadu copper plates of Rajendra I. Tamil and Sanskrit inscription, early 11th century CE.Records Chola campaigns.
    2. BookKulke, Hermann, K. Kesavapany, and Vijay Sakhuja, eds. Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions to Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009.

  5. Mahmud of Ghazni's raids

    Event

    What happened

    Between about 1000 and 1027 CE Mahmud, ruler of Ghazni in present-day Afghanistan, leads repeated raids into north India. He defeats the Hindu Shahi rulers of the northwest and sacks wealthy temple towns, including Mathura and Somnath in 1025/26. He annexes the Punjab.

    The rest is history

    The raids brought huge plunder to Ghazni and put the Punjab under Muslim rule. They were described by contemporaries such as al-Utbi. The scholar al-Biruni, who came to the Ghaznavid court and wrote a detailed study of Indian culture, is valuable for that culture but does not independently document the raids. Modern historians debate how far religion, rather than wealth and politics, drove the raids. Mahmud did not found a lasting Indian empire, but the Punjab became the base for later invasions.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAl-Biruni. Kitab Tahqiq ma li-l-Hind (Book on India). Arabic, c. 1030 CE.Study of Indian science and religion by a scholar at the Ghaznavid court.
    2. BookNazim, Muhammad. The Life and Times of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931.

  6. The Battles of Tarain and the Ghurid conquest

    Event

    What happened

    In 1191 Prithviraj Chauhan of the Chahamanas defeats Muhammad of Ghor at the first Battle of Tarain. In 1192 Muhammad returns and wins the second battle. Ghurid armies then take Delhi and, under Qutb ud-Din Aibak, other northern towns, and Bakhtiyar Khalji raids Bihar and Bengal around 1200.

    The rest is history

    The defeat broke Chahamana power in the north. When Muhammad died in 1206, Aibak became ruler in Delhi and began the Delhi Sultanate. The main Persian account, the Tabaqat-i Nasiri by Minhaj-i Siraj, was written around 1260, decades later, so it is not contemporary. The Rajput clans did not disappear and kept kingdoms such as Mewar for centuries.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryMinhaj-i Siraj Juzjani. Tabaqat-i Nasiri. Persian chronicle, c. 1260 CE. Trans. H. G. Raverty, London, 1881.Later main account of the Ghurid conquests.
    2. BookJackson, Peter. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

  7. The Delhi Sultanate under the Khalji and Tughlaq dynasties

    Event

    What happened

    Under Alauddin Khalji (r. 1296 to 1316) the Sultanate repels several Mongol invasions and sends Malik Kafur on campaigns deep into the south. Muhammad bin Tughluq (r. 1325 to 1351) briefly moves the capital to Daulatabad in the Deccan. Revolts then split off the Deccan and Bengal. In 1398 Timur sacks Delhi.

    The rest is history

    The Sultanate reached its largest extent under Muhammad bin Tughluq, but it could not hold the far south. Southern raids and the Deccan revolts helped open space for new powers, including the Bahmani Sultanate in 1347 and Vijayanagara. Timur's sack weakened Delhi badly, and later the Sayyid and Lodi dynasties ruled a smaller state until Babur's victory at Panipat in 1526. The traveller Ibn Battuta, who served in Delhi, and the chronicler Ziauddin Barani give contemporary accounts.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryBarani, Ziauddin. Tarikh-i Firuz Shahi. Persian chronicle, c. 1357 CE.Contemporary history of the Delhi sultans.
    2. BookJackson, Peter. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

  8. Founding of Vijayanagara

    Event

    What happened

    Around 1336 Harihara I and his brother Bukka I found a new capital on the Tungabhadra river, later called Vijayanagara. They build a kingdom out of the lands the Hoysalas and others had lost to northern raids. Over the next two centuries the empire grows, with its high point under Krishnadevaraya (r. 1509 to 1529).

    The rest is history

    Vijayanagara became the leading Hindu state of the south and grew rich on trade in horses, cotton and spices. Visitors such as Domingo Paes and Abdur Razzaq described the city in wonder. In 1565 a league of Deccan sultanates defeated its army at Talikota, and the capital was sacked and abandoned. The state and its ruling line nevertheless continued from other capitals into the seventeenth century. The ruins at Hampi are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Historians still debate the exact origins of the founders.

    Sources

    1. BookSewell, Robert. A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar. London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1900.
    2. BookStein, Burton. Vijayanagara. The New Cambridge History of India 1.2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

  9. Prithviraj Chauhan and Samyogita

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    Prithviraj Chauhan, king of Ajmer and Delhi, elopes with Samyogita, the daughter of his rival Jaichand of Kannauj, carrying her off from her own bridegroom-choosing ceremony. He defeats Muhammad of Ghor, spares him, and is later captured. Blinded, he is said to kill Muhammad with an arrow shot at the sound of a gong.

    The rest is history

    This story is told in the Prithviraj Raso, a long poem attributed to the court poet Chand Bardai. The surviving text is much later than the events, probably composed in the sixteenth century or after, and has many anachronisms. The elopement and the killing of Muhammad of Ghor are not in contemporary sources. Muhammad actually died in 1206, killed by assassins, long after Tarain. Prithviraj's defeat in 1192 is real and is the factual core.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryPrithviraj Raso, attributed to Chand Bardai. Braj and Rajasthani epic poem, composed in its present form probably after the 16th century.A late literary work, a primary source only for how the legend was formed, not for the twelfth-century events.
    2. BookTalbot, Cynthia. The Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Cauhan and the Indian Past, 1200-2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

  10. Rani Padmini and the siege of Chittor

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    Alauddin Khalji hears of the beauty of Padmini, queen of Chittor, and besieges the fortress to win her. He is allowed only to see her reflection in a mirror. After his men capture the king by a trick, the Rajput warriors ride out to die, and Padmini and the women of the fort perform jauhar, mass self-immolation, to escape capture.

    The rest is history

    Alauddin did take Chittor in 1303 after a siege, as the poet Amir Khusrau, who was on the campaign, records, though he does not mention Padmini. The story first appears in Malik Muhammad Jayasi's Awadhi poem Padmavat, written in 1540, over two hundred years later, and Jayasi presented it as a work of imagination with Sufi themes. Jauhar is attested in other Rajput sieges. Whether Padmini ever lived is doubted by most historians.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryJayasi, Malik Muhammad. Padmavat. Awadhi poem, 1540 CE.
    2. PrimaryAmir Khusrau. Khazain ul-Futuh. Persian chronicle, 1311 CE.Contemporary account of the fall of Chittor in 1303.

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