History of India Crossword Puzzle for Kids

The history of India covers thousands of years and discusses many diverse languages, cultures, periods, and dynasties in India. Civilisation there began in the Indus Valley, and some literature survives from that time.

Stone age

Remains (stone tools and a skull) in central India show presence of an early species of humans, Homo erectus. Archeologists think they lived in India between 200,000 and 500,000 years ago. This period is known as the Paleolithic era.

The earliest archaeological site in the subcontinent is the paleolithic hominid site in the Soan River Valley. Soanian sites are found in the Sivalik region across India, Pakistan and Nepal.

Modern humans (Homo sapiens) settled in the Indian subcontinent at least 70,000 years ago. The last ice age had then just ended, and the climate became warm and dry. The first settlements are found in Bhimbetka, near Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh, India). Mesolithic people lived by hunting, fishing and food gathering.

Neolithic agriculture started in the Indus Valley region around 7000 years ago in the lower Gangetic Valley around 5000 years ago. Later, in South India, agriculture spread southwards and also into Malwa around 3800 years ago.

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age in the Indian subcontinent began around 5300 years ago with the early Indus Valley Civilisation, which included cities such as Harappa, Mohenjodaro, Lothal, and Kalibanga. The civilization was based on the Indus River and its tributaries and extended into the Ghaggar-Hakra River valley, the Ganges-Yamuna Doab, Gujarat, and southeastern Afghanistan. Today, the civilization's old territory is split between India and Pakistan. In Pakistan, the provinces of Sindh, Punjab, and Balochistan overlap with ex-Indus Valley territory. In India, the provinces Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan also share territory with the Indus Valley civilisation.

The first cities on the Indian subcontinent were part of the Indus Valley civilisation. They were similar to those of early Mesopotamian civilisations and Ancient Egypt. Inhabitants of the ancient Indus river valley, the Harappans, developed new techniques in metallurgy and handicraft (carneol products, seal carving), and produced copper, bronze, lead, and tin.

The mature Indus civilization flourished from about 4600 to 3900 years ago. It included urban centres such as Dholavira, Kalibanga, Ropar, Rakhigarhi, and Lothal, in modern-day India, and Harappa, Ganeriwala, and Mohenjo-daro in modern-day Pakistan. The cities were built of brick, with roadside drainage system and multi-storied houses. During the later period of this civilisation, signs of a gradual decline began to emerge. By about 3700 years ago, most of the cities were abandoned. However, the Indus Valley civilisation did not disappear suddenly. Some parts of the civilisation may have survived in the smaller villages and isolated farms.

Vedic civilization

The Vedas are the oldest teachings of India though the transmission of them was mainly oral until around the 5th century. There are four Vedas, and the oldest is the Rigveda. According to the Rigveda, the whole region is Sapta Sindhawa, the land of seven rivers. The other three are Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda. The Vedas have verses in praise of gods and others. They also have other information. The society was then pastoral.

After the Rigveda, society became more agricultural. People became divided into four classes depending on the type of the work. Brahmins were priests and teachers. Kshatriyas were the warriors. Vaishyas did agriculture, trading and commerce. The shudras were the general working class. The Vaishyas and Shudras were not always looked down upon and treated badly by Brahmins and Kshatriyas. They were during the later part of the Vedic age but not during the earlier part. This type of social division is called the Varna system in Hinduism.

During the period of the Later Vedic civilization, there were many Aryan clans and tribes. Some of them combined and became larger like the kingdom of the Kurus.

Persian and Greek invasion

The names "India" and "Hind" came from the Greek and Persian and mean "land of the Indus River" in both languages.

Around the 5th century BC, northwestern parts of India were invaded by the Persians, who ruled the Achaemenid Empire, and by the Greeks, led by Alexander the Great. A Persian way of thinking, administration, and lifestyle came to India. Its influence became more important during the Mauryan dynasty.

From around 520 BC, Achaemenid Emperor Darius I ruled large part of northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent for about 186 years until Alexander conquered those areas. In modern times, there are still traces of this Greek heritage to be found in parts of northwestern India. Greco-Buddhism is a combination of the cultures of Greece and Buddhism. This mixture of cultures developed for 800 years, from the 4th century BC until the 5th century AD. The area where it happened what are now Afghanistan and Pakistan. This mixture of cultures influenced Mahayana Buddhism and the spread of Buddhism to China, Korea, Japan and Tibet.

Magadha

Magadha was one of the sixteen kingdoms in ancient India. The core of the kingdom was the area of Bihar south of the Ganges. It capital was first Rajagriha (modern Rajgir) but later was moved to Pataliputra (modern Patna). Magadha expanded to include most of Bihar and Bengal, followed by much of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Odisha. The ancient Kingdom of Magadha is mentioned in Jain and Buddhist texts. It was also mentioned in the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. The state was a historic Iron Age kingdom and had been recorded in Vedic texts much earlier than 600 BC.

Magadha played an important role in the development of Jainism and Buddhism, and two of India's greatest empires, the Maurya Empire and Gupta Empire, originated from Magadha. The Mauryan Empire when it was led by Ashoka was a highly centralized-state and managed to unite most of the Indian subcontinent for the first time. Ashoka also helped to spread Buddhism. The Gupta Empire saw advances in science, mathematics, astronomy, religion and philosophy and is traditionally considered India's golden age. Historians place the Gupta dynasty alongside the Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty and the Roman Empire as a model of a classical civilisation.

Early middle kingdoms

The Satavahanas, also called the Andhras, came to power from around 230 BC. They are also called Andhras. For about 450 years, Satavahanas kings ruled most parts of the southern and central India.

For about 350 years, from the years 35-405, Saka kings ruled the weste and the centre of India. These areas are in today's states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh. There were 27 independent rulers, who were collectively known as the Kshatrapas.

The Saka kings ruled India along aside the Kushan kings and the Satvahana kings. Kushan kings ruled the north of India. Satvahana kings ruled the centre and some of the south of India.

Indo-Scythians came to India from Siberia after they had passed through Bactria, Sogdiana, Kashmir and Arachosia. They continued to come coming to India continued from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century BC. They defeated the Indo-Greek rulers of India and ruled India from Gandhara to Mathura.

The Gupta dynasty reigned from around 320 to 550 AD. The Gupta Empire covered most of north-central India and what is now western India and Bangladesh. Gupta society was ordered in accordance with Hindu beliefs. The empire saw advances in science, mathematics, astronomy, religion, and philosophy and is traditionally considered India's Golden age. Historians place the Gupta dynasty alongside the Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty and the Roman Empire as a model of a classical civilisation.

Late Middle Kingdoms

The Middle Kingdoms cover a period of Indian history beginning from around the 6th and the 7th century. In South India, the Chola kings ruled Tamil Nadu, and the Chera kings ruled Kerala. They also had trading relationships with the Roman Empire to the west and with Southeast Asia to the east. In North India, the Rajputs ruled in many kingdoms. Some of those kingdoms continued for hundreds of years.

After the collapse of the Gupta Empire, Harsha of Kanauj, a place now in Uttar Pradesh, united northern India into one kingdom. After his deathm several dynasties tried to control the area and ruled from the 7th century to the 9th centuriesm as described below. Some of those dynasties were the Pratiharas of Malwa and later Kannauj; the Palas of Bengal, and the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan Plateau.

The Pratihara kings ruled kingdoms in Rajasthan and some other parts of northern India from the 6th century to the 11th century. The Palas ruled the eastern part of India in areas that are now parts of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and of Bangladesh. The Palas ruled from 8th to the 12th centuries. In southern India, Rashtrakutas of Malakheda (Karnataka) ruled the Deccan Plateau from the 8th to the 10th centuries after the end of Chalukya rule. All three dynasties tried to control all of northern India. For three to four hundred years, the Chola kings were growing in power and influence.

In the 6th century, several Rajput kingdoms came into being in Rajasthan. Many other Rajput kings ruled in different parts of North India. Some of theoe kingdoms survived for hundreds of years.

In 1336, two brothers named Harihara and Bukka founded the Vijayanagara Empire in an area that is now in Karnataka. The most famous king of the dynasty was Krishnadevaraya. In 1565, its rulers were defeated in a battle, but the empire continued for about a hundred more years.

Text adapted from the Simple English Wikipedia article “History of India” (revision 10898225, 2026-06-23), authors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.