A Highlight · History
The Gupta Golden Age
Classical India at its height — the age of Aryabhata, Kalidasa, and a revival of Sanskrit literature and science.
Overview
- Gupta EmpireThe Gupta Empire was a dynasty that ruled much of northern and central India from the early fourth to the mid-sixth century CE, remembered for centralized administration, Sanskrit court literature, and advances in mathematics and astronomy.
- Chandragupta IIChandragupta II, also known by the epithet Vikramaditya, was a Gupta emperor who ruled north India from roughly 375 to 415 CE, presiding over the empire's political and cultural zenith.
- Kumaragupta IKumaragupta I (r. c. 415-455 CE) was a Gupta emperor, son of Chandragupta II, whose long reign held the empire together at its territorial peak before mounting external pressure and succession strife set its decline in motion.
More collections
- The Indian Independence MovementFrom the 1857 revolt to Partition — every satyagraha, revolutionary and Congress leader, in one place.
- European Colonial Rule in IndiaFrom Vasco da Gama's landfall to the last Viceroy — the Company's conquest and every Governor-General who ruled after it.
- The Maurya EmpireFrom Chandragupta to Ashoka — the first pan-Indian empire, and the emperor who renounced conquest after seeing what it cost.
- The Chola EmpireSouth India's great maritime power — temple-building, a navy that reached Southeast Asia, and the longest-lived dynasty in Indian history.
- The Vijayanagara EmpireThe last great Hindu empire of the south, built in the fourteenth century as a bulwark against the Sultanates — and sacked in 1565.
- The Islamic Conquest of North IndiaGhaznavid 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.
- The Mughal EmpireFrom 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.
- The Maratha EmpireShivaji’s hill forts to a confederacy that broke Mughal power across the Deccan and north India.
- The Bhakti MovementDevotion over ritual and caste — the poet-saints who reshaped Hindu religious life from the seventh century onward.