THE GREAT ANCIENT EMPIRESIn this way Northwestern India once more became part of a Central
Asian empire which extended from Persia to Khotan. Not much is known
about the rule of the Huns in India. There is a Jaina tradition that
Toramana embraced that faith. The Kashmir chronicle, Rajatarangini,
reports that Toramana led his army also to South India, but since this
source originated many centuries later, the accuracy of this report cannot
be taken for granted. All sources highlight the cruelty of Hun warfare and
of their oppression of the indigenous people: a Chinese ambassador at the
Hun court at Gandhara wrote such a report about 520; the Greek seafarer,
Cosmas, also called Indicopleustes, recorded similar facts around 540; and
finally the Chinese pilgrim, Xuanzang (Hsiuen-tsang), wrote about it from
hindsight around 650. Hun rule in India was very short-lived.
Yashodharman, a local ruler of Malwa, won a battle in 528 against
Mihirakula who then withdrew to Kashmir where he died a few years later.
But the final decline of the Huns in India was precipitated by their defeat
at the hands of the Turks in Central Asia around the middle of the sixth
century.
Hun rule was one of the shortest instances of foreign rule over north-
western India, but it had far-reaching consequences. The Huns destroyed
what was left of the Gupta empire in the northwest and the centrifugal
forces were set free. They destroyed the cities and trading centres of
northern India. Not much research has been done on this aspect of the
Hun invasion but it seems that the classical northwestern Indian urban
culture was eradicated by them. The Buddhist monasteries in the Hun
territory also succumbed to this assault and never recovered. A further
effect of the Hun invasion was the migration of other Central Asian tribes
to India where they joined local tribes. The Gurjaras and some Rajput
clans seem to have originated in this way and they were soon to make a
mark in Indian history. The Classical Age waned and the medieval era
began with the rise of these new actors on the political scene of northern
India.
THE RISE OF SOUTH INDIA
South India is separated from North India by the Vindhya mountains and
the Narmada river and large tracts of barren and inhospitable land. The
Deccan, particularly the Central and Western highlands and the ‘Far
South’, the Dravida country, had a history of its own. Cultural influences,
however, were as often transmitted from northwestern India via the
Western highlands down to the South as along the Gangetic valley to
eastern India. But, in spite of early influences from the North, the ‘Far
South’ remained rather isolated and could develop in its own way.
However, in later centuries cultural influences from the South, like the
great Bhakti movement, also made an impact on North India.