 |
| February 2009 |
| Billie Silvey |
| The History of India |
 |
| Indus Valley Civilization |
| The history of India began around 3300 B.C. with a Bronze Age culture that baked bricks and built cities in Lothal in modern-day India and Harappa in modern-day Pakistan. The inhabitants of the Indus River Valley produced copper, bronze, lead and tin. |
 |
| Vedic Period |
 |
| The sacred Indu texts, the Vedas, were written in Sanskrit during the Iron Age by the Indo-Aryans, a mostly agricultural society centered in the Ganges Plain. |
| Maurya Empire |
| Chandragupta Maurya united the subcontinent in 321 B.C. He built infrastructure--roads, bridges and a post office. His capital on the Ganges was the greatest city in the world, 22 miles around. Greek ambassadors came to him seeking knowledge. The Maurya Empire reached its height under his grandson Ashoka the Great, a brutal military leader who later converted to Buddhism and taught his people peace, love, tolerance and vegetarianism. |
| Gupta Empire |
| In the 4th and 5th centuries, Chandragupta I unified northern India, issuing in the Golden Age of Hindu renaissance. Indian culture, science and political administration reached new heights. The earliest Puranas are thought to have been written around this time. |
 |
| Spice Trade with Rome |
| In the first century, Rome began trading with India for the spices they needed to preserve food. In July and August, the monsoon winds blow northeast, allowing ships to ride them across the Indian Ocean. In December, they reverse, allowing sailors to return. The Indians built ships by eye without plans, beginning with the skin, then putting the frame inside. Thus they were able to sell spices, pepper, and ginger and purchase Roman wine. |
 |
 |
| Persian and Greek Invasions |
 |
| The Persian Archaemenid Empire spread into India in 520 BC under Darius the Great. When Alexander the Great defeated the Persian Empire, his troops swept into India, where he was met by King Porus, whose troops used war elephants. The Greeks had never seen elephants before and were frightened, but eventually they were able to stampede the beasts, which trampled their own footsoldiers. |
| The Rajputs |
| The Islamic Sultanates |
 |
 |
| After the Guptas, three kingdoms vied for control of India, ushering in a period of fragmentation and the rise of the Rajputs, local rulers who fought against the Islamics. |
| The Vijayanagar Empire |
| The Vijayanagars, the last of the Gupta rulers, held out in the South. Theirs was an era of fine art and the classical development of the spiritual and philosophical systems of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. They fell under pressure from the Huns from Afghanistan. |
 |
| In the 13th century, Turks and Pashtuns conquered northern India. An Indian cultural renaissance resulted in an "Indo-Muslim" fusion in architecture, music, literature, religion and clothing. From this fusion the Urdu language rose, and in 1236, the reign of one of the few female rulers, Razia Sultan, began. |
| Maratha Kingdom |
| The Mughal era |
| In 1526, Babur, a descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan, established the Mughal Empire. Mughal emperors married local royalty and allied local Maharajas. The fusion of their Turko-Persian culture with ancient Indian styles created the unique Indo-Saracenic architecture. The Taj Mahal was built by one of the Mughals. |
 |
 |
 |
| Shivaji founded and consolidated the Maratha Kingdom, which became the last Hindu empire in India. The Marathas were defeated by the British in the third Anglo-Maratha War. |
| The British East India Company was given permission to trade in India in 1617. In 1757, Robert Clive defeated the Nawab's forces in the Battle of Plassey and was appointed by the Company its first "Governor of Bengal." After the First War of Independence in 1857 opposed the rule, power was transferred from the East India Company to the British Crown, which administered most of India as a colony. |
 |
| Independence |
| Gandhi (right) began the non-violent campaign for independence, and Nehru (left) became the first leader when the British left in 1947. The country was partitioned into the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan due to tensions between Hindus and Muslims. |
| British Colonial Rule |