Stone Age rock shelters with paintings at the Bhimbetka
rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh are the
earliest known traces of human life in India. The first known permanent
settlements appeared about 8,500 years ago and gradually developed into the Indus Valley Civilisation, dating back to
3400 BCE
in western India.
It was followed by the Vedic period,
which laid the foundations of Hinduism
and other cultural aspects of early Indian society, and ended in the 500s BCE.
From around 550 BCE, many independent kingdoms and republics known as the Mahajanapadas were
established
Paintings at the Ajanta
Caves in Aurangabad,
Maharashtra,
sixth century
|
Following invasions from Central Asia
between the 10th and 12th centuries, much of northern India came
under the rule of the Delhi
Sultanate and later the Mughal Empire. Under the
rule of Akbar the Great, India enjoyed much cultural and
economic progress as well as religious harmony. Mughal emperors gradually
expanded their empires to cover large parts of the subcontinent. However, in northeastern
India, the dominant power was the Ahom kingdom of Assam, among the few
kingdoms to have resisted Mughal subjugation. The first major threat to Mughal
imperial power came from a Hindu
Rajput king Maha Rana
Pratap of Mewar
in the 16th century and later from a Hindu state known as the Maratha confederacy, that ruled much of
India in the mid-18th century.
From the 16th century, European powers such as Portugal, the Netherlands,
France, and Great Britain
established trading posts and later took advantage of internal conflicts to
establish colonies. By 1856, most of India had come under the control of
the British East India
Company. A year later, a nationwide insurrection of rebelling
military units and kingdoms, known as India's First War of Independence or the
Sepoy Mutiny, seriously challenged the Company's control but eventually failed.
As a result of the instability, India
was brought under the direct rule of the British Crown
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