3
THE REGIONAL KINGDOMS
OF EARLY MEDIEVAL INDIA
THE RISE AND CONFLICTS OF REGIONAL KINGDOMS
Until about 500 the history of India was primarily North Indian history. The
great empires of ancient India from the times of the Mauryas to the Guptas
were based on the North of India. They rarely made much of a direct political
impact on the South. These great empires were fascinating, but the millennium
between the decline of the Gupta empire and the rise of the Mughal empire
deserves attention too. Early modern historiography tended to depict the
history of early medieval India as a period of political fragmentation and
cultural decline and devoted to this period just as many pages as to
Alexander’s India campaign and the Indo-Greek kings. Only in recent decades
has more research been done on this neglected millennium during which
important regional kingdoms vied with each other for supremacy. This period
is interesting not only in terms of regional history but also because of the
contribution which it has made to Indian history in general.
Central and South India were equally as important as North India in
this medieval period. This absence of political unity contributed in many
ways to the development of regional cultures which were interrelated and
clearly demonstrated the great theme of Indian history: unity in diversity.
The period of the Early Middle Ages which will be discussed here
encompasses the Hindu kingdoms before the advent of Islamic rule.
Harsha and the dawn of medieval IndiaKing Harsha of Kanauj was the great ruler who stood at the threshold of
early medieval India. In his long reign (606 to 647) he once more
established an empire nearly as great as that of the Guptas. This empire
extended from the Panjab to northern Orissa and from the Himalayas to
the banks of the Narmada. The high standard of classical Sanskrit culture
at his court and the generous patronage bestowed on Hindu and Buddhist
religious institutions alike seemed to show that the glory of the Gupta age
had been revived once more. We are well informed about Harsha’s life and
times because Bana, one of the greatest Sanskrit writers, composed a