India: Political History and Notable People (inc. Politicians, Generals, Inventors, Explorers, etc.)

1700 BCE - 28 BCE - Maghada Kingdom / Empire (All Facts)

• Located in North India

• The history of the monarchs of Magadha, particularly in the Pre-Mauryan period, is shrouded in mystery and legend with various sources claiming different things

1700 BCE - 682 BCE - Brihadratha Dynasty (All Facts)

• 1st Dynasty of Ancient India

544 BCE - 413 BCE - Haryanka Dynasty (All Facts)

• 2nd Dynasty of Ancient India

544 BCE - 492 BCE - Bimbisara (All Facts)

• 1st King and Founder of the Haryanka Dynasty

• Led the Kingdom of Magadha against the Vrjji in a war over the Ganges River Valley, which he won

• Was a firm friend of Buddha

• Established a hierarchical system of administration whose goal was to

  • maintain order in the provinces

  • organize the collection of taxes

492 BCE - 460 BCE - Ajatasatra / Ajatashatru (All Facts)

• 2nd King of the Haryanka Dynasty

• Deposed his father and had him imprisoned before making himself king

• Secured the final defeat of the Vrjii people

• Fortified his capital at Rajagrha

• Built a fort at Pataligrama

400’s BCE - Panini (All Facts)

• Indian scholar who analyzed and organized the grammar of the Sanskrit language, having formulated 4,000 grammatical rules

322 BCE - 185 BCE - Mauryan Empire (All Facts)

Dynasty of Notable Kings including

• Chandragupta

• Bindusara

• Ashoka

• Brihadratha

322 BCE - 298 BCE - Chandragupta Maurya (All Facts)

• 1st King and Founder of the Mauryan Dynasty / Empire

• Destroyed the previous Nanda Dynasty in the Ganges River Valley and consolidating and controlling much of central and northern India

• Unified the Indian sub-continent

• Established the Mauryan capital at Pataliputra (Patna) in the east of the country

• Organized northern India into 16 large states under one monarch but with decentralized government, in which daily decision-making was relegated to local deputies

• Under his rule, Buddhism and Jainism greatly flourished

• Signed a peace treaty with Seleucus Nicator and the Seleucid Empire in 302 BCE, which established friendly relations between the two empires

  • Before he did this, he had initially fought against him and Alexander the Great’s Greek garrisons, of which he drove out of India

  • After he did this, he also exchanged gifts and ambassadors with Seleucus Nicator

• Near the end of his reign, he converted to Jainism

• Abdicated his kingship to become a Jain monk, in which he claimed he was firmly resolved to pursue an ascetic existence for the rest of his life

  • Gave the throne to his son

298 BCE - 272 BCE - Bindusara (All Facts)

• 2nd King of the Mauryan Dynasty / Empire

268 BCE - 232 BCE - Ashoka the Great (All Facts)

• 3rd King of the Mauryan Dynasty / Empire

• Converted to Buddhism

  • Shocked by the horrors of the Kalinga War, in which 100K were slain

  • He merged spiritual and temporal power in order to establish a state based on “universal order”

  • Made his conversion clear across all the rocks and stone pillars erected during his rule with inscriptions announcing his conversion

    • These rocks and pillars wrote that he pledged that he would rule his empire through the principles of kindness, liberality, truthfulness, and purity of deed and thought

  • Was the first Indian monarch to be converted to Buddhism

• Ruled over a vast empire that was divided into four provinces, each administered by a prince of royal blood

• Divided his population into seven castes

  • Brahmans monopolized spiritual power

  • Kshatriyas monopolized temporal power

• Rule was

  • Paternal

  • Carried out by a centralized bureaucracy

• Built Stone Palaces at Pataliputra, the capital of the Mauryan Empire

• Founded monasteries

  • Founded the Shrine of Sanchi in the state of Madhya Pradesh, which became one of the great religious centers of Indian Buddhism after his death

• Financed irrigation schemes

• Established public health services

• Created a welfare state

  • Based on the teachings of the Buddha

  • Impoverished the treasury

• Practiced the principle of universal toleration to all religions in his kingdom

  • In other words, he allowed tolerance of other religions within the empire during his reign

• Administered enlightened policies, which arguably sowed the seeds of decline of the Empire whose peak was represented by his rule, including

  • Concentration of power which created an administration that was too brittle and distant to adapt to changing circumstances

• War with Bactria, a Greek kingdom, made him and his Empire suffer greatly

  • He lost the Punjab region from it

187 BCE - 185 BCE - Brihadratha (All Facts)

• 9th and Final King of the Mauryan Dynasty / Empire

• Assassinated by his commander-in-chief at a military review who would succeed him and found a new imperial dynasty

  • His death seemed inevitable, the logical conclusion of the decline of the Mauryan Dynasty / Empire

185 BCE - 75 BCE - Shunga Dynasty / Empire (All Facts)

Dynasty of Notable Kings including

• Pushyamitra

185 BCE - 149 BCE - Pushyamitra Shunga (All Facts)

• First King and Founder of the Shunga Dynasty / Empire

165 BCE - 130 BCE - Menander (All Facts)

• Indo-Greek king who ruled parts of India

• Was a contemporary of the Shunga Emperors, although he ruled over a different part of the Indian lands

• Led an expedition into the Ganges River Valley reaching Pataliputra (Patna)

• Best remembered for his conversion to Buddhism by a scholar-priest named Nagasena

100s BCE - 200s CE - Satavahana / Andhras Empire / Dynasty (All Facts)

• Empire / Dynasty of India founded by Simuka

• It covered modern-day Central India

30 CE - 375 CE - Kushan Empire (All Facts)

• Empire / Dynasty of India founded by Kujula Kadphises

• It covered modern-day Afghanistan, Eastern Iran, India, Pakistan, Western Nepal, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

25 CE - 85 CE - Kujula Kadphises (All Facts)

• First King and Founder of the Kushan Empire / Dynasty of India

• He laid the basis for the Kushan Empire / Dynasty after he forcibly established unity among the five Indo-European tribes in Bactria known as the Yuezhi and seized control of the Kabul Valley and adjacent regions from the Pahlavas

• He set himself up as ruler of Bactria and Sogdiana

• By the end of his reign, the Kushan Empire stretched from beyond the Hindu Kush to northwest India 

• He died and was succeeded by his son 

113 - 127 - Vima Kadphises (All Facts) 

• 3rd King of the Kushan Empire

• Conquered and ruled over the north of India as far as Benares and the Indus River Delta and eventually extended his kingdom’s possessions in India as far as Mathura

• He sent a delegation to Rome to arrange a surprise attack on the Parthian Empire

127 - 150 - Kanishka the Great (All Facts)

• 4th King of Kushan

• Under his reign, 

  • Buddhism flourished across the Kushan Empire 

• He presided over the Fourth Buddhist Council

• He sent a delegation to Rome to arrange a surprise attack on the Parthian Empire

100s - Gautamiputra Satakarni (All Facts)

• King of the Satavahana Empire and the Andhra Dynasty

• Under his reign, he and his dynasty occupied the whole o central India from coast to coast

• Destroyed the Saka Kingdom of Maharashtra near Bombay

• He and his dynasty dominated the eastern Dekhan region, between the Godavari and Krishna Rivers since 100 BCE

150 - 190 - Huvishka (All Facts) 

• 5th King of Kushan

• During his reign, the Kushan Empire had a golden age

275 - 897 - Pallava Dynasty (All Facts)

• Dynasty remembered for its

  • great sculptures and reliefs in the Mahabalipuram caves

  • its countless “rathas”

  • its magnificent temples

• Constant conflict with the Pandyas, a neighboring empire, weakened it and the Pandyas

• The emergence of the Chola Empire in the 800s further weakened it

• They eventually allied with the Chola Empire to destroy the Pandyas, only to be destroyed themselves by the Chola who killed their king and army

320 - 550 - Gupta Empire (All Facts)

• Founded by Chandragupta

• Dynasty which oversaw

  • Tolerant rulers

  • The transformation of Hindu art into Buddhist art

  • The building of the first small temples 

  • The peak of Buddhist artistic development, with distinct iconography 

• Dynasty which oversaw

  • The Golden Age or “Classical Era” of Indian history

• Upon its collapse, disunity returned to the region for most of the next 1,000 years in which Northern and Southern India developed separate political structures

320 - 335 - Chandragupta (All Facts)

• First Emperor and Founder of the Gupta Empire

335 - 375 - Samudragupta (All Facts)

• 2nd Emperor of the Gupta Empire

  • He ruled the largest empire yet seen by India

• Extended his rule from a tiny kingdom to an empire dominating all northern and central India and into the Ganges plain

• He was a warrior leader who fought against and defeated

  • The Vakatakas in central India

  • The Nagas in northern India

  • The Maghas of Kausambi

  • The Kosalas of the Ganges

  • The Kushan Empire (its remnants)

• Other territories he consolidated under his rule came through

  • Strategic marriages

  • Political alliances

• He used his family to govern his provinces

• He maintained compliant rulers in his tributary nations

• Known as the “Poet King,” he was a patron of the arts

• Tributes that extolled his virtues were engraved on the stone pillars of Ashoka the Great of the Mauryan Empire

• Under his reign, the common people had a currency of gold coins which depicted him playing the lute

• Although a fervent worshipper of Vishnu (Hindu), he maintained a policy of religious toleration 

• On his return from an expedition in the Dekhan, he performed the ancient Vedic ritual of Ashvamedha (horse sacrifice), which had been abandoned since the 100s CE

  • In so doing, he proclaimed himself universal monarch

375 - 415 - Chandragupta II (All Facts)

• 3rd Emperor of the Gupta Empire

• Under his reign of tolerance,

  • Sanskrit literature enjoyed a renewal, especially when the namesake named the poet Kalidasa as one of his “nine jewels”

415 - 455 - Kumaragupta (All Facts) 

• 4th Emperor of the Gupta Empire 

455 - 467 - Skandagupta (All Facts)

• 5th Emperor of the Gupta Empire

• During his reign, he successfully defended his empire against the Hephtalite Huns

• Upon his death, the Gupta Empire began to dissolve under pressure from the Hephtalite Huns, who had by that point conquered a large part of western India

476 - 495 - Budhagupta (All Facts) 

• 8th Emperor of the Gupta Empire

• Upon his death

  • the empire continued due to decline due to the advancement of the Huns

  • various small kingdoms within the empire tried in vain to lay claim to the Gupta Dynasty 

543 - 753 - Chalukya Dynasty (All Facts)

• Repulsed by the Rashtrakuta Dynasty by 907, they regrouped around the Vengi

630 - 668 - Narasimhavarman (All Facts)

• Pallavan Emperor who ruled when Pallavan art, literature, and political power was at its zenith

606 - 647 - Harsha of Kanauj (All Facts)

• Emperor of Kanauj

  • He inherited a small principality north of Delhi

  • He gradually built a vast empire in northern India, which stretched from the Indus River Valley in the West to Orissa in the East

• Unified India under one ruler

• He was known for his letters and his three dramas, written in Sanskrit

• He was a disciple of Shiva (Hinduism)

  • Despite this, one of his three dramas showed his interest in Buddhism

• After his death, India fragmented into tiny states

  • He had created an empire in the north comparable to the previous Gupta Empire

647 - 1200s - Rajput Kingdoms (All Facts)

• Series of successor states in northern India during the Middle Ages / Medieval Ages which gradually formed and changed in northern India and present-day Pakistan representing the much greater upheaval experienced by northern India compared to southern India during the Middle Ages / Medieval Ages

• These kingdoms were all

  • Located in northern India

  • Hindu

  • Led by leaders of numerous clans who were often at war with one another

    • Because of the competition among clans, no centralized government arose

    • This demonstrates the diversity and regionalism of South Asia at the time, the lack of a centralizing power leaving the kingdoms vulnerable to attacks by the Muslims

• Its princes skillfully wielded their power to limit the Muslim conquerors’ influence in the region

  • By the 1000s, however, Islamic forces had plundered their Hindu Temples and Buddhist shrines for their riches, erecting mosques on previous Hindu and Buddhist holy sites throughout northern India, much to the anger of followers of those faiths

730 - 1036 - Gurjara Pratihara Dynasty (All Facts)

• Dynasty which is remembered for its successful repulsion of the Arab-Muslims from it ten years into its ascendancy

700s - 1500s - Chandela Empire / Dynasty (All Facts)

• Empire which reached new heights of influence and prosperity around 950

753 - 982 - Rashtrakuta Empire (All Facts)

• Ruled most of the Indian subcontinent

• Ruled by Maharajas (Kings)

• By 907, they occupied most of the Dekhan Plateau, in which they repulsed the Chalukyas to the east, who regrouped around Vengi

756 - 774 - Krishna (All Facts)

• 2nd Maharaja of the Rashtrakuta Empire

• Oversaw the construction of the Temple of Kaliasa at Ellora

  • This was carved entirely out of the living rock, as if it were a statue

750 - 1161 - Pala Empire (All Facts)

• Empire / Dynasty founded in Bengal and Magadha

731 - 796 - Nandivarman II (All Facts)

• King of the Pallava Dynasty

736 - 1152 - Tomara Dynasty (All Facts)

• Founded the city of Delhi in India in 994

831 - 1315 - Chandela Dynasty (All Facts)

848 - 1279 - Chola Empire (All Facts)

• Founded by King Vijayalaya

• Located in Tamilnadu

• By 888, they had displaced the Pallava Dynasty

• By 985, they achieved hegemony over the Dekhan and part of the Indian Ocean

• By 1024, their “Tamil Kings” unified southern India and took Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Bengal (Bangladesh)

• It represented southern India being more stable than northern India during the Middle Ages / Medieval Ages

• Under this Empire, improved meta-casting techniques enabled notable achievements in figurative images, especially in portraying the complex and balanced poses of the dancing Shiva

848 - 871 - Vijayalaya Chola (All Facts)

• First Emperor and Founder of the Chola Empire

880 - 897 - Aparajita Varman (All Facts)

• Final King of the Pallava Dynasty

• He was killed in battle, leading his army on his war elephant

871 - 907 - Aditya (All Facts)

• 2nd Emperor of the Chola Empire

• The land he inherited upon his assumption to the throne was an impoverished statelet squashed between the Pallavas and the Pandyas

  • He astutely played the Pallavas and the Pandyas against each other, dividing them and then conquering and defeating both the Pallavas and the Pandyas

  • He expanded his empire until it embraced all of southeast India, for which his son would inherit, becoming one of the most powerful empires in India

• He married a Pallavan princess

• His sepulcher and namesake temple had its foundations laid down at Tondaimanad near Kalahasti

985 - 1014 - Rajaraja (All Facts)

• 8th Emperor of the Chola Empire

  • He was nicknamed “The Great”

  • He made the Chola Empire the most supreme in southern India at the time

• Under his reign,

  • The Chola Empire had extended its domains to all of southern India and became the most powerful and prosperous region of India

    • He reasserted the Empire’s power after it had previously lost territory, turning south and defeating a revived Pandya power

    • He then invaded Sri Lanka

    • He then fought and defeated the Gangas

    • He reduced the powerful Vengi state to the north to a mere protectorate

  • He oversaw the construction of the Brihadisvara Temple that was 200 feet high and completed in the capital Thanjavur, a symbol of Chola grandeur

  • He built a navy that dominated the Indian Ocean, making the Chola Empire rich from trade with China and the Near East

1014 - 1044 - Rajendra (All Facts)

• 9th Emperor of the Chola Empire

• Under his reign,

  • He and his forces conquered Sri Lanka

  • He and his forces invaded Bengal

  • He oversaw

1206 - 1526 - Delhi Sultanate (All Facts)

• Dynasty which brought Islam into India, it was the first to do so

  • Dynasty which began when Islamic forces managed to conquer the namesake Indian city

  • Dynasty which reigned for 300 years

• Throughout its reign

  • The interaction of Islam and Hinduism in northern India dominated its political history where some Hindus converted to Islam, while others resented Islam and considered Muslims foreigners

  • It never organized an efficient bureaucracy (like that of the Chinese), so its sultans had difficulty imposing their policies in a land as vast and diverse as India

  • Despite the strong Islamic presence throughout the regions it controlled, local kingdoms continued to play a major role in India’s decentralized political landscape

• They successfully defended themselves against the Mongols, preventing the Mongols from conquering South Asia

  • However, by the end of their reign, their sultans lost power to the Mughal Empire, whose leaders were descended from Mongols

1336 - 1646 - Vijayanagara Empire (All Facts)

• Empire which began with the arrival of two brothers, Harihara and Bukka, from the prior / concurrent Delhi Sultanate in north-central India

  • The brothers were sent to the area because the Delhi Sultanate wanted to expand its rule to southern India

  • The brothers were born Hindu but converted to Islam for the sake of upward mobility

  • When they left the region controlled by the Delhi Sultanate, they once again embraced the religion of Hinduism and established their own Hindu Kingdom

• It was Hindu

• Its name comes from the word for “the victorious city”

• It fell due to Muslim invaders which eventually overthrew it