An encyclopedia of Indian civilization.

The Indosphere — an encyclopedia of Indian civilization

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Highlights
Mahatma Gandhi walking with followers during the Salt March, 1930

The Indian Independence Movement

From the 1857 revolt to Partition — every satyagraha, revolutionary and Congress leader, in one place.

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British Raj — British Indian Empire 1909 Imperial Gazetteer of India

European Colonial Rule in India

From Vasco da Gama's landfall to the last Viceroy — the Company's conquest and every Governor-General who ruled after it.

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Lion Capital of Ashoka Sarnath — Maurya Empire

The Maurya Empire

From Chandragupta to Ashoka — the first pan-Indian empire, and the emperor who renounced conquest after seeing what it cost.

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The Dashavatara Temple at Deogarh, an early 6th-century Hindu temple built during the Gupta period, showing its ruined sikhara tower and carved Vishnu relief panel

The Gupta Golden Age

Classical India at its height — the age of Aryabhata, Kalidasa, and a revival of Sanskrit literature and science.

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Chola Empire — Chola fresco

The Chola Empire

South India's great maritime power — temple-building, a navy that reached Southeast Asia, and the longest-lived dynasty in Indian history.

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Vijayanagara Empire — Vijayanagara Coins 2

The Vijayanagara Empire

The last great Hindu empire of the south, built in the fourteenth century as a bulwark against the Sultanates — and sacked in 1565.

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The massive sloping stone ramparts and ruined walls of Tughlaqabad Fort, the fortified capital built by Ghiyath al-Din Tughlaq near Delhi.

The Islamic Conquest of North India

Ghaznavid raids to the Delhi Sultanate, 1000–1526 — the temples destroyed, Nalanda burned, Delhi sacked twice, told without euphemism and without inventing what the sources don’t say.

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The Taj Mahal at Agra, the white marble mausoleum built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan

The Mughal Empire

From Babur to Aurangzeb — the empire that built the Taj Mahal, ran the Mansabdari system, and reached its widest extent just before it began to break apart.

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The ruined stone ramparts and bastions of Raigad Fort in Maharashtra, the hill fortress capital where Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was crowned in 1674, reflected in a rock-cut water tank.

The Maratha Empire

Shivaji’s hill forts to a confederacy that broke Mughal power across the Deccan and north India.

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The pyramidal granite tower of the Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram, Tamil Nadu, built by the Pallava dynasty in the early 8th century CE.

The Bhakti Movement

Devotion over ritual and caste — the poet-saints who reshaped Hindu religious life from the seventh century onward.

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