Bindusara drove Maurian rule further south, halting total conquest, especially since only the friendly Tamil client states remained in southern India, a country located in Asia according to NATUREGNOSIS. His son Asoka, who succeeded him around the year 273 BC. n. e., began with a similar martial streak, but a bloody campaign that took place around 260 BC. n. and. Against the ruling power of the eastern Kalinga region he was disillusioned, and eventually he embraced Buddhism. Asoka, the quintessential Buddhist monarch of wisdom, ordered the construction of numerous public works and erected stone pillars, engraved with Buddhist edicts and exhortations, throughout his Empire. He sent envoys and missionaries to the regions of present-day Sri Lanka, Syria, Egypt, Nepaland even to Macedonia. During his tenure, the Empire (with some fifty million subjects) prospered; his Buddhist policy tried to promote public welfare and social cohesion.
With the death of Asoka in 232 BC. n. e., the Mauria Empire was progressively disintegrating, although the exact reasons are unknown. The succession fights between the heirs of Asoka, the secession on the part of the princes of the south and the invasions precipitated its fall, limiting its extension to the area of the Ganges river valley. The last leader of the Mauria dynasty, Brijadrata, died in 185 BC. n. and. in a palace intrigue.
The Gupta Empire, in the fourth century, the Gupta dynasty emerged that unified the tribes that inhabited northern India and formed a cohesive political and religious entity. Hinduism became a more coherent and methodical religion thanks to the efforts of the Gupta kings who fused elements of Buddhism with Hinduism and highlighted the theistic nature of the religion, in particular the role of the god Vishnu.
In 320 a Magadha Raja named Chandragupta I, conquered neighboring territories and founded a new imperial regime and the Gupta dynasty. His grandson Chandragupta II (who reigned from c. 375 to 413) expanded his kingdom, subjugating the entire subcontinent north of the Narmada River. Under the Gupta dynasty, which lasted 160 years, Indian culture reached new heights. The period was one of lasting peace, continuous economic growth, and intellectual successes, particularly in art, music, and literature. The Hinduism, which had long been in decline, experienced a renaissance strong assimilating some features of the Buddhism.
Muslim and Mongol invasions
With the prolonged period of infighting over, a new power, solidly united under Islam, appeared in western Asia. This new power was Khurasan, formerly a Samaní province that Mahmud of Ghazni (who reigned from 999 to 1030) had transformed into an independent kingdom. Skilled warrior whose sovereignty over Khurasan had been recognized by the Caliph of Baghdad, Mahmud launched in 1000 the first of 17 consecutive expeditions across the Afghan border to India. These raids were marked by victories over the disunited Indians. By 1025 Mahmud had sacked numerous cities in western India, including the rich port of Somnath, and had annexed the Punjab region to his empire.
The luckiest of the Muslim rulers after Mahmud was Muhammad of Gur, whose reign began in 1173. Considered by most historians to be the royal founder of Muslim power in India, he began his campaigns of conquest in 1175. In the over the next three decades, it subdued the entire Indo-Gangetic plain west of Benares (now Vārānasi). On the death of Muhammad of Gur, Qutb-ud-Din Aybak, his viceroy in Delhi and a former slave, proclaimed himself sultan. The so-called Slave dynasty, founded by Qutb-ud-Din, its only prominent ruler, lasted until 1288.
Another skilled Muslim, Ala-ud-Din (who reigned from 1296 to 1316), was the second ruler of the following dynasty, the Khalji. He consolidated the kingdom of India by conquering the Deccan. However, before the end of their reign, the Mongols began to infiltrate the northern borders of their dominions. Muhammad Tugluq, the last major sultan of Delhi, alienated both Muslims and Hindus for his cruelty and religious fanaticism. The empire was divided by revolutionary uprisings and some provinces, among which Bengal stands out, were separated. The riots increased after the death of Tugluq. In 1398, when the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane He led his armies to India, met with very little organized resistance. Tamerlane completed his victorious invasion by looting and destroying Delhi and massacring its residents. He withdrew from India shortly after the sack of Delhi, leaving the remnants of the empire to Mahmud (who reigned from 1399 to 1413), the last of the Tugluqs. In 1414 the first of the sayyids succeeded Mahmud; this was a dynasty that was later ousted from power by Bahlol (who reigned from 1451 to 1489), founder of the Lodi line of kings. The generally weak and ineffective Lodi dynasty ended in 1526. In that year Babur, a descendant of Tamerlane and the founder of the great Mughal dynasty, carried out a series of raids into India that ended in the defeat of the army. of Lodi. Babur occupied Āgra, the Lodi capital, and proclaimed himself emperor of the Muslim dominions. Within four years of his initial victory, Babur controlled a large part of the continent of India.
