After the Guptas

In Part 1 you followed India's history up to the Gupta Empire. This chapter and the next cover what came after: from the end of the Gupta era, about 600 CE, to about 1200 CE. Historians give these six centuries different names ('post-classical', 'early medieval' and so on), but we only need to keep the dates in mind.

Imagine you are a young traveller in north India about 1,500 years ago. The mighty Guptas have lost their power. You set off across the subcontinent:

• First stop, Kannauj on the Ganga, where a powerful king hosts poets and scholars.
• Then the Chālukya kingdom in the Deccan, with magnificent temples and lively cities.
• In the far south, the Pallavas are carving whole temples out of rock at Māmallapuram (Mahabalipuram).
• In Bengal, the Pālas support great universities such as Vikramaśhilā.

You see no single great empire now, but many strong regional kingdoms. Some call this a time of rivalry and disorder. But your journey shows a land buzzing with new ideas, art and culture — different in each region, yet all part of one India.

That is the main idea of the chapter: an age without one big empire is not an empty age. It may even be busier.

The chapter's timeline gives the shape of the period:

• 6th century — the Chālukya dynasty rises.
• 606 — Harṣhavardhana begins to rule at Kannauj.
• 630–644 — the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang travels in India.
• 637 — a first Arab naval attack is pushed back at Thana.
• around 650 — the bhakti tradition begins in south India.
• 6th–8th centuries — the long Pallava–Chālukya struggle.
• 712 — the Arabs conquer Sindh, after several attempts.
• 750 — the Pāla dynasty rises.
• 8th–9th centuries — the Tripartite Struggle for Kannauj.
• 9th century — the Cholas become a leading power.