Indians/History

In the 4th and 5th centuries CE, northern India was unified under the Gupta Dynasty. During this period, known as India's Golden Age, classical Hindu culture and political administration reached new heights. However, by the beginning of the sixth century, the Gupta Empire began to decline, and the Empire splintered into several smaller kingdoms, as had been happening in both Rome and China almost a century before. The fall of the Gupta and the fragmentation of India would eventually pave the way to gradual Muslim domination of the north from the 10th century onward.

The Guptas (c 4th-6th century CE)
Chandragupta I (320 – 335 CE) started a rapid expansion of the Gupta Empire and soon established himself as the first sovereign ruler of the empire, marking the end of 500 hundred years of domination of the provincial powers and resulting disquiet that began with the fall of the Mauryas. Even more importantly, it began a period of overall prosperity and growth that continued for the next two and half centuries which came to be known as a “Golden Age” in India’s history. But the seed of the empire was sown at least two generations earlier than this when Srigupta, then only a regional monarch, set off the glory days of this mighty dynasty in circa 240 CE.

The empire reached its zenith under Chandragupta's great-grandson, Kumaragupta I (circa 415 – 455 CE), and covered what is today the northern half of the modern Republic of India, as well as the eastern bank of the Sindh river (in what is now Pakistan) and the bay of Bengal (Chinese sources suggest that the original Gupta territories were just west of this region). Kumaragupta was able to maintain peace, aided by his able son Skandagupta (455 – 467 CE) who was the last of the sovereign rulers of the Gupta Dynasty. In turn, Skandagupta was a great scholar and wise ruler. For the well being of the denizens he carried out several construction works, but these were the last of the glory days of the empire.

After Skandagupta’s death the dynasty became embroiled with domestic conflicts. The rulers lacked the capabilities of the earlier emperors to rule over such a large kingdom. This resulted in a decline in law and order, as well as the empire's ability to feed and defend itself. On top of this, the Gupta kings remained more occupied with self-indulgence than in preparing to meet with the challenges of their enemies. By the mid-sixth century, the Gupta empire was no more: the exact turn of events that took place to this day is unknown, but Indian archaeologists have discovered evidence for a massive flood at this very time. Gupta coinage eventually disappears (the first sign of the effacing of a dynasty), and so India entered the chaotic Middle Kingdoms period of the Mediaeval era.

A World of Maya: The Middle Kingdoms
Three features, as political scientist Radha Champakalakshmi has noted, commonly characterize the sociopolitical realities of post-Gupta India. First, the spread of Brahmanical religions was a two-way process of Sanskritization of local cults and localization of Brahmanical social order. Second was the ascendancy of the Brahman priestly and landowning groups that later dominated regional institutions and political developments. Third, because of the seesawing of numerous dynasties that had a remarkable ability to survive perennial military attacks, regional kingdoms faced frequent defeats but seldom total annihilation.

In the wake of the fall of the Guptas, India was now dominated by several ruling houses and clans, but of these only a handful appear to have survived long enough to gain dominance: the Chalukyas of Vatapi (556–757) and Pallavas of Kanchipuram (300–888), who dominated south-western India throughout all this time, and the Pushyabhuti dynasty, centred around central northern India at Thanesvar, near Delhi. While the Chalukya rulers were overthrown by their subordinates, the Rashtrakutas, who ruled from 753 to 973, it was the struggle for political domination between the Pallava and Chalukya realms which dominated India for most of the 7th and 8th centuries CE.

Farther beyond the banks of the Sindh, control of the land was contested between several peoples - the Hunnic Alchons, the Turkic Shahis and the Rai dynasts. By the 7th century, the Rai throne was usurped by a Brahmin named Chach, who married the last Rai king's queen and established a new dynasty: the so-called Brahmin dynasty. Meanwhile, the southeasternmost Indian lands were dominated by three ruling houses -the Cheras, the Pandyas and the Cholas - the latter would eventually create a vast empire stretching from southern India to the very shores of present-day Malaysia.

The Legacy that Outlasted the Ages
The political fragmentation of the Indian subcontinent didn't just redraw borders. It, however, was also marked by religious conflict in India itself too. Originallly the religion of the ruling classes, Buddhism had begun to lose its position in India (there are allegations that the decline began with Ashoka's son's persecution of Buddhism following his father's death) and as the conflicts of the post-Gupta era wound on, it would see its position in India gradually diminished - which, along with the process by which it declined, would have deep ramifications for India the effects of which are still felt to this very day.

But in the meantime, even in spite of the political fragmentation that dominated India and the many countless raids and wars conducted by each kingdom against another, life continued as it would have and India continued to see great cultural development in arts, science and philosophy.