History of India

A glance at the history of India.

The first major civilisation in the history of India flourished around 2500 BC in the Indus river valley and is known as the Harappan culture. They developed trading networks, planned gridded cities, built sewerage systems, advanced the arts and laid the foundations of the religions that predominate today. Around 1500 BC, the Aryan tribes rose to power and introduced the caste-system and created sacred Sanskrit texts, known as the Vedas. This was an important change in the history of India.

The Mauryan Empire, founded by Chandragupta Maurya, was the first great empire in the history of India and controlled much of central, eastern and western India. The empire was converted to Buddhism in 260 BC and architecture and the arts flourished. After that came the Gupta Empire around 321 AD, the Chola Empire around 800 AD, the Vijayanagar Empire around 1336 AD and the Mughal Empire around 1526AD.

In recent history of India, around 1690 AD, many European powers flocked to India, but the Portuguese and the British had the greatest impact. Both left a legacy of grandiose buildings. In 1947, India became independent, but the road to independence was long, and despite the passive resistance campaign of Ghandi, the partition was bloody.

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