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  India is rich in culture.   Religion in India 

is characterized by a diversity of religious 

beliefs and practices. 

India is the birthplace of four of the 

world's major religions; namely Hinduism, 

Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. 

Throughout India's history, religion has 

been an important part of the country's 

culture.

Taj Mahal, was built by Mughal Empire.The 

Mughal dynasty ruled most of the Indian 

subcontinent by 1600; it went into a slow 

decline after 1707. 

The Mughals suffered several blows due to 

invasions from Marathas and Afghans, causing 

the Mughal dynasty to be reduced to puppet 

rulers by 1757. The remnants of the Mughal 

dynasty were finally defeated during the Indian 

Rebellion of 1857, also called the 1857 War of 

Independence.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Muhammad Ali 

Jinnah, Bombay, 1944.

 From 1920 leaders such as Mohandas Karamchand 

Gandhi began highly popular mass movements to 

campaign against the British Raj using largely 

peaceful methods. Some others adopted a militant 

approach that sought to overthrow British rule by 

armed struggle; revolutionary activities against the 

British rule took place throughout the Indian sub-

continent. The Gandhi-led independence movement 

opposed the British rule using non-violent methods 

like non-cooperation, civil disobedience and 

economic resistance. These movements succeeded 

in bringing independence to the new dominions of 

India and Pakistan in 6 August 1947.

 Along with the desire for independence, tensions 

between Hindus and Muslims had also been 

developing over the years. The Muslims had always 

been a minority within the subcontinent, and the 

prospect of an exclusively Hindu government made 

them wary of independence; they were as inclined to 

mistrust Hindu rule as they were to resist the foreign 

Raj, although Gandhi called for unity between the two 

groups in an astonishing display of leadership. The 

British, extremely weakened by the Second World 

War, promised that they would leave and participated 

in the formation of an interim government. 

The British Indian territories gained independence in 

1947, after being partitioned into the Union of India 

and Dominion of Pakistan. Following the controversial 

division of pre-partition Punjab and Bengal, rioting 

broke out between Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims in these 

provinces and spread to several other parts of India, 

leaving some 500,000 dead. Also, this period saw one 

of the largest mass migrations ever recorded in modern 

history, with a total of 12 million Hindus, Sikhs and 

Muslims moving between the newly created nations of 

India and Pakistan (which gained independence on 15 

and 14 August 1947 respectively). In 1971, 

Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan and East Bengal, 

seceded from Pakistan.

Queen 

Kumaradevi 

and King 

Chandragupta  

on a coin of 

their son 

Samudragupta

Classical India refers to the period when much of the Indian 

subcontinent was reunited under the Gupta Empire. This 

period has been called the Golden Age of India and was 

marked by extensive achievements in science, technology, 

engineering, art, dialectic, literature, logic, mathematics, 

astronomy, religion, and philosophy that crystallized the 

elements of what is generally known as Hindu culture.

The Hindu-Arabic numerals, a positional numeral system, 

originated in India and was later transmitted to the West 

through the Arabs.   The peace and prosperity created under 

leadership of Guptas enabled the pursuit of scientific and 

artistic endeavors in India.

Harsha Vardhana commonly called Harsha, was an 

Indian emperor who ruled northern India from 606 

to 647 from his capital Kannauj. 

He was the son of Prabhakara Vardhana and the 

younger brother of Rajya Vardhana, a king of 

Thanesar, Haryana. At the height of his power his 

kingdom spanned the Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, 

Bengal, Odisha and the entire Indo-Gangetic plain 

north of the Narmada River.

After the downfall of the prior Gupta Empire in the middle of 

the 6th century, North India reverted to small republics and 

small monarchical states ruled by Gupta rulers.Harsha was a 

convert to Buddhism.He united the small republics from 

Punjab to central India, and their representatives crowned 

Harsha king at an assembly in April 606 giving him the title 

of Maharaja when he was merely 16 years old. Harsha 

belonged to Kanojia. He brought all of northern India under 

his control. The peace and prosperity that prevailed made his 

court a center of cosmopolitanism, attracting scholars, artists 

and religious visitors from far and wide. The Chinese traveler 

Xuan Zang visited the court of Harsha and wrote a very 

favorable account of him, praising his justice and generosity.

The Chalukya Empire   was an Indian royal dynasty 

that ruled large parts of southern and central India 

between the 6th and the 12th centuries. During 

this period, they ruled as three related yet 

individual dynasties.The earliest dynasty, known as 

the "Badami Chalukyas", ruled from Vatapi 

(modern Badami) from the middle of the 6th 

century. The Badami Chalukyas began to assert 

their independence at the decline of the Kadamba 

kingdom of Banavasi and rapidly rose to 

prominence during the reign of Pulakesi II.

The rule of the Chalukyas marks an important 

milestone in the history of South India and a golden 

age in the history of Karnataka. The political 

atmosphere in South India shifted from smaller 

kingdoms to large empires with the ascendancy of 

Badami Chalukyas. A Southern India based kingdom 

took control and consolidated the entire region 

between the Kaveri and the Narmada rivers. The rise 

of this empire saw the birth of efficient administration, 

overseas trade and commerce and the development 

of new style of architecture called "Chalukyan 

architecture".

The First Carnatic War extended from 1746 

until 1748 and was the result of colonial 

competition between France and Britain, two of 

the countries involved in the War of Austrian 

Succession. Following the capture of a few 

French ships by the British fleet in India, 

French troops attacked and captured the 

British city of Madras located on the east coast 

of India on 21 September 1746. Among the 

prisoners captured at Madras was Robert Clive 

himself.

 The war was eventually ended by the Treaty 

of Aix-la-Chapelle which ended the War of 

Austrian Succession in 1748.In 1749, the 

Second Carnatic War broke out as the result of 

a war between a son, Nasir Jung, and a 

grandson, Muzaffer Jung, of the deceased 

Nizam-ul-Mulk of Hyderabad to take over 

Nizam's throne in Hyderabad. The French 

supported Muzaffer Jung in this civil war. 

Consequently, the British supported Nasir Jung 

in this conflict

Meanwhile, however, the conflict in Hyderabad 

provided Chanda Sahib with an opportunity to 

take power as the new Nawab of the territory 

of Arcot. In this conflict, the French supported 

Chanda Sahib in his attempt to become the 

new Nawab of Arcot. The British supported the 

son of the deposed incumbent Nawab, 

Anwaruddin Muhammad Khan, against Chanda 

Sahib. In 1751, Robert Clive led a British 

armed force and captured Arcot to reinstate 

the incumbent Nawab. The Second Carnatic 

War finally came to an end in 1754 with the 

Treaty of Pondicherry.

In 1756, the Seven Years War broke out 

between the great powers of Europe, and India 

became a theatre of action, where it was called 

the Third Carnatic War. Early in this war, 

armed forces under the French East India 

Company captured the British base of Calcutta 

in north-eastern India. However, armed forces 

under Robert Clive later recaptured Calcutta 

and then pressed on to capture the French 

settlement of Chandannagar in 1757. 

 This led to the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 

1757, in which the Bengal Army of the East 

India Company, led by Robert Clive, defeated 

the French-supported Nawab's forces. This was 

the first real political foothold with territorial 

implications that the British acquired in India. 

Clive was appointed by the company as its first 

'Governor of Bengal' in 1757.

The numbers of British in India were small, yet 

they were able to rule two-thirds of the 

subcontinent directly and exercise considerable 

leverage over the princely states that 

accounted for the remaining one-third of the 

area. There were 674 of the these states in 

1900, with a population of 73 million, or one 

person in five. In general, the princely states 

were strong supporters of the British regime, 

and the Raj left them alone. They were finally 

closed down in 1947-48.

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