Rebounding Guptas in India

Islamic armies surged eastward as well as westward, and new national and ethnic

identities formed around the faith and variations within it. Muslims from Afghanistan

conquered much of India in 1100.

Yet before Muslims got there, India experienced another flowering similar to the

Mauryan Dynasty of the fourth to second centuries BC. In Chapter 5, I talk about both

the Mauryans, the first dynasty to unite most of India, and the Gupta Dynasty, whose

stable rule brought an Indian golden age in the arts, architecture, and religion in the

mid-fourth to mid-sixth centuries AD.

Hun attacks on India’s northern borders eventually caused the Gupta Empire to

collapse, just as a western contingent of Huns were among the barbarian people

whose attacks brought down Roman authority in Europe, beginning the Middle Ages.

As decades passed, the Huns of India became more Indian, adopting local customs

and habits.

Assimilating into the general population diffused the Huns’ power and helped a Gupta

leader named Harsha, descended from the great Gupta kings, reestablish an Indian

Empire in 606 AD. Equally good at conquest and administration, and an art lover like

his ancestor Chandragupta II of the Gupta Dynasty, Harsha built a glorious capital city,

Kanauj, famous for its magnificent buildings, on the Ganges River. Indian culture, thus

fortified, spread to Burma, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka. Indian influence over the region

continued as the Chola of southeast India conquered much of the country after 880

AD. Savvy merchants and businesspeople, the Chola built up prosperous trade routes

with the Arabs to the west and the Chinese to the east. The Chola governmental style

continued the Gupta tradition of allowing local control.

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