The history of India includes:

 The Prehistoric Settlements and Societies in the Indian Subcontinent;

 The Advancement of Civilization from the Indus Valley Civilization to the Eventual
Blending of the Indo-Aryan Culture to Form the Vedic Civilization
 The Rise of Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism;
 The Onset of a Succession of Powerful Dynasties and Empires for More Than 3
Millennia throughout Various Geographic Areas of the Indian Subcontinent, Including
the Growth of Muslim Dominions during the Medieval Period Intertwined with Hindu
Powers;
 The Advent of European Traders and Privateers, Resulting in the Establishment of
British India; and
 The Subsequent Independence Movement that Led to the Partition of India and the
Creation of the Republic of India.

 Archaeological evidence of anatomically modern humans in the Indian subcontinent is

estimated to be as old as 73,000-55,000 years with some evidence of early hominids
dating back to about 500,000 years ago.
 The Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of
the Indian subcontinent from 3300 to 1300 BCE, was the first major civilization in
South Asia.
 A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture developed in the Mature
Harappan period, from 2600 to 1900 BCE. This civilization collapsed at the start of the
second millennium BCE and was later followed by the Iron Age Vedic Civilization.
 The era saw the composition of the Vedas; the seminal texts of Hinduism; coalesce into
Janapadas (monarchical, state-level polities); and social stratification based on caste.
 The Later Vedic Civilization extended over the Indo-Gangetic plain and much of the
Indian subcontinent, as well as witnessed the rise of major polities known as the
Mahajanapadas.
 Most of  IndianInsubcontinent
theMuslim onestarted
rule of theseinwas
kingdoms,
conquered
parts Magadha,
of north by thein
India Gautama
Maurya
the 13th Buddha
Empire
century and
during
whenMahavira
the
the4th
Delhi
propagated
The 3rd
 and their
mostcenturies
SultanateSramanṇ
significant
BCE.event
From
was ic philosophies
between
founded inthe
the 3rd during
7thCE
century
1206 and the
by 11th
BCE fifth and
century
onwards
Central sixth
was
Prakrit
Asian Turks. century
the BCE.
andTripartite
Pali literature in
Struggle
the northcentered
and
Thethe on Sultanate
Kannauj
Tamil
Delhi Sangam that lasted
literature
ruled for
in more
the major partthan
southern two centuries
India
of northernstarted between
Indiatoinflourish.
the earlythe14th
Palacentury,
 Wootz
Empire,steel originated
Rashtrakuta
but declined in
inSouth
Empire,theand India
late incentury.
the 3rd century
Gurjara-Pratihara
14th ThisEmpire.BCEalso
period and saw
was the
exported to of several
emergence
Southern
 foreign India saw the
countries.
powerful risestates,
Hindu of multiple
notablyimperial powers Gajapati,
Vijayanagara, from the Ahom,
middleas ofwell
the fifth
as Rajput states,
 During
century,the Classical
most
such notableperiod,
being various
as Mewar. parts of
the Chalukya, IndiaPallava,
Chola, were ruled by Pandyan,
Chera, numerousand dynasties
Western
for the next
Chalukya 1,500
 Empires.
The years,
15th among
century sawwhich the Gupta
the advent Empire stands out. This period,
of Sikhism.
The Chola Dynasty
 witnessing The earlyconquered
a Hindu religious
modern and Southern India
intellectual
period began and16th
successfully
in resurgence,
the invaded
is known
century, when astheparts
the of conquered
"Golden
Mughals Age most
Southeast
of Asia,
of theSri
India". During Lanka,
this Maldives
period,
Indian aspectsand
subcontinent. Bengalcivilization,
of Indian in the 11th administration,
century. culture, and
The Early
 religion  Medieval
The Mughals
(Hinduism Period
and IndianaMathematics
suffered
Buddhism) gradual
spread decline influenced
to much inofthe the
early
Asia, development
18th
while of
century, in
kingdoms which provided
mathematics
Southern Indiaand
hadastronomy
opportunities
maritime in
for the the Arab
Marathas,
business world
linksSikhs
withand thethe
and HinduEast
Mysoreans
Middle numerals
toand thewere
exercise control over large
introduced.areas of the Indian subcontinent.
Mediterranean.
 Earlier Hominids include Homo erectus from about 500,000 years ago. Isolated
remains of Homo erectus in Hathnora in the Narmada Valley in central India indicate
that India might have been inhabited since at least the Middle Pleistocene era,
somewhere between 500,000 and 200,000 years ago.
 Tools crafted by proto-humans that have been dated back two million years have been
discovered in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent.
 The ancient history of the region includes some of South Asia's oldest settlements and
some of its major civilizations.

 The earliest archaeological site in the Indian subcontinent is the Paleolithic hominid
site in the Soan River valley. Soanian sites are found in the Sivalik region across what
are now India, Pakistan, and Nepal.
 The Mesolithic period in the Indian subcontinent was followed by the Neolithic period,
when more extensive settlement of the Indian subcontinent occurred after the end of
the last Ice Age approximately 12,000 years ago.
 The first confirmed semi-permanent settlements appeared 9,000 years ago in the
Bhimbetka rock shelters in modern Madhya Pradesh, India.
 The Edakkal Caves are pictorial writings believed to date to at least 6,000 BCE, from
the Neolithic man, indicating the presence of a prehistoric civilization or settlement in
Kerala. The Stone Age carvings of Edakkal are rare and are the only known examples
from South India.

 Traces of a Neolithic culture have been alleged to be submerged in the Gulf of Khambat
in India, radiocarbon dated to 7500 BCE.
 Neolithic agricultural cultures sprang up in the Indus Valley region around 5000 BCE,
in the lower Gangetic valley around 3000 BCE, represented by the Bhirrana findings
(7570–6200 BCE) in Haryana, India, Lahuradewa findings (7000 BCE) in Uttar
Pradesh, India, and Mehrgarh findings (7000–5000 BCE) in Balochistan, Pakistan; and
later in Southern India, spreading southwards and also northwards into Malwa around
1800 BCE.
 The first urban civilization of the region began with the Indus Valley Civilization.
 The Bronze Age in the Indian subcontinent began around 3300 BCE with the early
Indus Valley Civilization. It was centered on the Indus River and its tributaries which
extended into the Ghaggar-Hakra River valley, the Ganges-Yamuna Doab, Gujarat, and
south-eastern Afghanistan. The Indus civilization is one of three in the 'Ancient East'
that, along with Mesopotamia and Pharonic Egypt, was a cradle of civilization in the
Old World. It is also the most expansive in area and population.
 The civilization was primarily located in modern-day India (Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab,
Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir states) and Pakistan (Sindh, Punjab, and
Balochistan provinces). Historically part of Ancient India, it is one of the world's
earliest urban civilizations, along with Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Inhabitants of
the ancient Indus river valley, the Harappans, developed new techniques in metallurgy
and handicraft (carneol products, seal carving), and produced copper, bronze, lead, and
tin.
 The Mature Indus civilization flourished from about 2600 to 1900 BCE, marking the
beginning of urban civilization on the Indian subcontinent. The civilization included
urban centers such as Dholavira, Kalibangan, Ropar, Rakhigarhi, and Lothal in modern-
day India, as well as Harappa, Ganeriwala, and Mohenjo-daro in modern-day Pakistan.
The civilization is noted for its cities built of brick, roadside drainage system, and
multistoried houses and is thought to have had some kind of municipal organization.
Total of 1,022 cities and settlements had been found, mainly in the general region of
the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra Rivers, and their tributaries; of which 406 sites are in
Pakistan and 616 sites in India, of these 96 have been excavated.
 During the late period of this civilization, signs of a gradual decline began to emerge,
and by around 1700 BCE, most of the cities were abandoned. However, the Indus Valley
Civilization did not disappear suddenly, and some elements of the Indus Civilization
may have survived, especially in the smaller villages and isolated farms. According to
historian Upinder Singh, "the general picture presented by the late Harappan phase is
one of a breakdown of urban networks and an expansion of rural ones." The Indian
Copper Hoard Culture is attributed to this time, associated in the Doab region with the
Ochre Colored Pottery.
 Linguists hypothesized that Dravidian-speaking people were spread throughout the
Indian subcontinent before a series of Indo-Aryan migrations. In this view, the early
Indus Valley civilization is often identified as having been Dravidian.
 Cultural and linguistic similarities have been cited by researchers Henry Heras, Kamil
Zvelebil, Asko Parpola and Iravatham Mahadevan as being strong evidence for a proto-
Dravidian origin of the ancient Indus Valley civilization.
 Linguist Asko Parpola writes that the Indus script and Harappan language "most likely
to have belonged to the Dravidian family". Parpola led a Finnish team in investigating
the inscriptions using computer analysis.
 Based on a proto-Dravidian assumption, they proposed readings of many signs, some
agreeing with the suggested readings of Heras and Knorozov (such as equating the
"fish" sign with the Dravidian word for fish "min") but disagreeing on several other
readings.
 A comprehensive description of Parpola's work until 1994 is given in his book
“Deciphering the Indus Script.” The discovery in Tamil Nadu of a late Neolithic (early
2nd millennium BCE, i.e. post-dating Harappan decline) stone celt allegedly marked
with Indus signs has been considered by some to be significant for the Dravidian
identification.
 While, Yuri Knorozov surmised that the symbols represent a logo syllabic script and
suggested, based on computer analysis, an underlying agglutinative Dravidian language
as the most likely candidate for the underlying language. Knorozov's suggestion was
preceded by the work of Henry Heras, who suggested several readings of signs based
on a proto-Dravidian assumption.
 While some scholars like J. Bloch and M. Witzel believe that the Indo-Aryans moved
into an already Dravidian speaking area after the oldest parts of the Rig Veda were
already composed.
 The Brahui population of Balochistan has been taken by some as the linguistic
equivalent of a relict population, perhaps indicating that Dravidian languages were
formerly much more widespread and were supplanted by the incoming Indo-Aryan
languages.
 Historians have analyzed the Vedas to posit a Vedic culture in the Punjab region and
the upper Gangetic Plain. Most historians also consider this period to have
encompassed several waves of Indo-Aryan migration into the Indian subcontinent from
the north-west. The peepal tree and cow were sanctified by the time of the Atharva
Veda. Many of the concepts of Indian philosophy espoused later, like dharma, trace
their roots to Vedic antecedents.
 Early Vedic society is described in the Rigveda, the oldest Vedic text, believed to have
been compiled during 2nd millennium BCE, in the northwestern region of the Indian
subcontinent. At this time, Aryan society consisted of largely tribal and pastoral
groups, distinct from the Harappan urbanization which had been abandoned. The early
Indo-Aryan presence probably corresponds, in part, to the Ochre Colored Pottery
culture in archaeological contexts.
 At the end of the Rigvedic period, the Aryan society began to expand from the
northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, into the western Ganges plain. It
became increasingly agricultural and was socially organized around the hierarchy of
the four varnas, or social classes. This social structure was characterized both by
syncretizing with the native cultures of northern India, but also eventually by the
excluding of some indigenous peoples by labeling their occupations impure. During
this period, many of the previous small tribal units and chiefdoms began to coalesce
into Janapadas (monarchical, state-level polities).
 In the 14th century BCE, the Battle of the Ten Kings, between the Puru Vedic Aryan
tribal kingdoms of the Bharatas, allied with other tribes of the Northwest India, guided
by the royal sage Vishvamitra, and the Trtsu-Bharata (Puru) king Sudas, who defeats
other Vedic tribes—leading to the emergence of the Kuru Kingdom, first state level
society during the Vedic period.

 Since Vedic times, "people from many strata of society throughout the Indian
subcontinent tended to adapt their religious and social life to Brahmanic norms", a
process sometimes called Sanskritization. It is reflected in the tendency to identify
local deities with the gods of the Sanskrit texts.
 The Iron Age in the Indian subcontinent from about 1200 BCE to the 6th century BCE is
defined by the rise of Janapadas, which are realms, republics and kingdoms — notably
the Iron Age Kingdoms of Kuru, Panchala, Kosala, Videha.
 The Kuru kingdom was the first state-level society of the Vedic period, corresponding
to the beginning of the Iron Age in northwestern India, around 1200 – 800 BCE, as well
as with the composition of the Atharvaveda (the first Indian text to mention iron, as
sś yaā ma ayas, literally "black metal"). The Kuru state organised the Vedic hymns into
collections, and developed the orthodox srauta ritual to uphold the social order. Two
key figures of the Kuru state were king Parikshit and his successor Janamejaya,
transforming this realm into the dominant political and cultural power of northern
Iron Age India. When the Kuru kingdom declined, the center of Vedic culture shifted to
their eastern neighbors, the Panchala kingdom. The archaeological Painted Grey Ware
culture, which flourished in the Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh regions of
northern India from about 1100 to 600 BCE, is believed to correspond to the Kuru and
Panchala kingdoms.
 During the Late Vedic Period, the kingdom of Videha emerged as a new center of Vedic
culture, situated even farther to the East (in what is today Nepal and Bihar state in
India); reaching its prominence under the king Janaka, whose court provided
patronage for Brahmin sages and philosophers such as Yajnavalkya, Aruni, and Gargi
Vachaknavi. The later part of this period corresponds with a consolidation of
increasingly large states and kingdoms, called mahajanapadas, all across Northern
India.

 In addition to the Vedas, the principal texts of Hinduism, the core themes of the
Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata are said to have their ultimate origins
during this period. The Mahabharata remains, today, the longest single poem in the
world. Historians formerly postulated an "epic age" as the milieu of these two epic
poems, but now recognize that the texts (which are both familiar with each other)
went through multiple stages of development over centuries. For instance, the
Mahabharata may have been based on a small-scale conflict (possibly about 1000 BCE)
which was eventually "transformed into a gigantic epic war by bards and poets". There
is no conclusive proof from archaeology as to whether the specific events of the
Mahabharata have any historical basis. The existing texts of these epics are believed to
belong to the post-Vedic age, between c. 400 BCE and 400 CE. Some even attempted to
date the events using methods of archaeo-astronomy which have produced, depending
on which passages are chosen and how they are interpreted, estimated dates ranging
up to mid-2nd millennium BCE.