Indian History

Post-Guptan Golden Age

After the Guptan empire fell apart in the 500's AD, India had a lot of smaller kings ruling a lot of small kingdoms. There were a lot of wars among these small kingdoms, but there was also a lot of great architecture and art during this time. In northern India, King Harsha ruled one of the small kingdoms, but after he died in the 600's AD, his kingdom fell apart into three even smaller ones. During this time, southern India had bigger, more powerful kingdoms than northern India did. The most important southern kingdom was the Chola, which got rich partly by selling pepper and cinnamon and other spices at their seaports to Arab traders who resold the spices in the Islamic Empire and to medieval Europe.

By about 800 AD, though, some small kingdoms in northern India began to gradually get more power. The kings of these kingdoms came from a group of people called the Rajputs, so historians call their kingdoms the Rajput kingdoms. They spent a lot of their time fighting off the Abbasid armies that were trying to invade northern India.

By about 1100 AD, however, the Abbasid invaders succeeded in conquering northern India.

Post-Guptan architecture
Muslims invade India
Main Indian History page
Main India page
Kidipede - History for Kids home page