South Asia: every state, empire and people from 3200 BCE to today
The South Asia section of the timeline follows 195 states, empires, colonies and peoples from 3200 BCE to today, in 7 areas: Afghanistan and the northwest, Indus, Punjab and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Malwa, Gangetic plain and Nepal, Bengal, Odisha and the northeast, Deccan and Tamil south and Sri Lanka. Among the most significant are Indus Valley Civilization (Mature Harappan), Chola Empire, Kushan Empire, Mughal Empire, Gupta Empire and Maurya Empire.
Open South Asia on the interactive timeline
Afghanistan and the northwest
- Mehrgarh and Baluchistan farmers
- Helmand culture
- Bactria-Margiana culture (Dashly oasis)
- Gandhara grave culture
- Eastern Iranian peoples
- Achaemenid eastern satrapies
- Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
- Yuezhi in Bactria
- Kushan Empire
- Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom
- Kidarites
- Hephthalite Empire
- Nezak Huns
- Turk Shahis
- Hindu Shahis
- Ghaznavid Empire
- Pashtun tribes
- Ghurid dynasty
- Kartid dynasty
- Timurid Empire
- Hotaki dynasty
- Durrani Empire
- Emirate of Afghanistan
- Kingdom of Afghanistan
- Republic of Afghanistan
- Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
- Islamic State of Afghanistan
- Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (first)
- Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
- Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
Indus, Punjab and Kashmir
- Early Harappan phase
- Indus Valley Civilization (Mature Harappan)
- Late Harappan phase
- Rigvedic tribes
- Indo-Aryan clans of the Punjab
- Gandhara
- Indo-Greek Kingdom
- Kuninda Kingdom
- Indo-Scythians
- Indo-Parthian Kingdom
- Alchon Huns
- Karkota dynasty
- Brahman dynasty of Sindh
- Arab Sindh
- Utpala dynasty
- Lohara dynasty
- Soomra dynasty
- Shah Mir Sultanate of Kashmir
- Samma dynasty
- Arghun and Tarkhan dynasties
- Kalhora dynasty
- Sikh Misls
- Talpur dynasty
- Sikh Empire
- Jammu and Kashmir princely state
- Pakistan
Rajasthan, Gujarat and Malwa
- Microlithic hunter-gatherers
- Ahar-Banas culture
- Harappan Gujarat
- Malwa culture
- Iron Age villages of western India
- Avanti
- Malava Republic
- Western Satraps
- Maitraka dynasty
- Chahamanas of Shakambhari
- Kingdom of Mewar
- Paramara dynasty
- Chaulukya dynasty
- Kingdom of Marwar
- Malwa Sultanate
- Gujarat Sultanate
- Baroda State
- Jaipur State
- Gwalior State
- Rajasthan
- Gujarat
Gangetic plain and Nepal
- Neolithic and Chalcolithic farmers of the Ganges
- Ochre Coloured Pottery culture
- Painted Grey Ware culture
- Kuru Kingdom
- Panchala
- Northern Black Polished Ware culture
- Kosala
- Vajji confederacy
- Shakya republic
- Magadha (Haryanka dynasty)
- Shishunaga dynasty
- Nanda Empire
- Maurya Empire
- Yaudheya confederacy
- Shunga Empire
- Kanva dynasty
- Gupta Empire
- Licchavi dynasty of Nepal
- Maukhari dynasty
- Empire of Harsha
- Gurjara-Pratihara dynasty
- Thakuri dynasty
- Chandela dynasty
- Gahadavala dynasty
- Malla dynasty of Nepal
- Delhi Sultanate
- Mamluk dynasty of Delhi
- Khalji dynasty
- Tughlaq dynasty
- Sayyid dynasty
- Lodi dynasty
- Mughal Empire
- Sur Empire
- Awadh
- Kingdom of Nepal
- Rana regime
- British Raj
- Republic of India
- Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal
Bengal, Odisha and the northeast
- Neolithic farmers of Bengal and Assam
- Pandu Rajar Dhibi culture
- Munda-speaking peoples
- Tibeto-Burman hill peoples
- Kamarupa
- Gauda Kingdom
- Pala Empire
- Sena dynasty
- Eastern Ganga dynasty
- Kingdom of Manipur
- Ahom Kingdom
- Dimasa Kachari Kingdom
- Bengal Sultanate
- Twipra Kingdom
- Bhutan under the Zhabdrung
- Kingdom of Sikkim
- Nawabs of Bengal
- Company rule in India
- British Assam
- Kingdom of Bhutan
- East Pakistan
- Bangladesh
Deccan
- Deccan hunter-gatherers
- Southern Neolithic
- Jorwe culture
- Megalithic culture of the Deccan
- Satavahana dynasty
- Vakataka dynasty
- Kadamba dynasty
- Western Ganga dynasty
- Chalukyas of Badami
- Eastern Chalukyas
- Rashtrakuta dynasty
- Western Chalukyas
- Hoysala Empire
- Kakatiya dynasty
- Seuna Yadava dynasty
- Vijayanagara Empire
- Bahmani Sultanate
- Kingdom of Mysore
- Bijapur Sultanate
- Ahmadnagar Sultanate
- Portuguese Goa
- Golconda Sultanate
- Maratha Confederacy
- Hyderabad State
- Andhra Pradesh
- Karnataka
- Maharashtra
Tamil south and Sri Lanka
- Balangoda culture
- Early Dravidian-speaking peoples
- Tamil Iron Age
- Vedda people
- Early Iron Age Sri Lanka
- Anuradhapura Kingdom
- Early Cholas
- Early Pandyas
- Early Cheras
- Kalabhra dynasty
- Pallava dynasty
- Pandya dynasty (first empire)
- Chera Perumals of Makotai
- Chola Empire
- Kingdom of Polonnaruwa
- Zamorins of Calicut
- Jaffna Kingdom
- Pandya dynasty (second empire)
- Dambadeniya kingdom
- Madurai Sultanate
- Kingdom of Kotte
- Kingdom of Kandy
- Portuguese Ceylon
- Madurai Nayaks
- Dutch Ceylon
- French India
- Travancore
- British Ceylon
- Sri Lanka
- Tamil Nadu
Key events
- Indus cities reach their height. Mohenjo-daro and Harappa grow into planned cities of tens of thousands, with brick drains, granaries and standard weights shared across a huge area.
- Indus cities decline. As rivers shift and rainfall drops, the large Indus cities empty out, the script disappears and people move east toward the Ganges plain.
- Rigveda hymns composed. Priests in the Punjab begin composing the Rigveda, the oldest text in any Indo-Aryan language, passed down orally for centuries before it was written.
- Iron spreads across the Ganges plain. Iron tools let farmers clear the forests of the middle Ganges, opening the way for the towns and kingdoms of the later Vedic age.
- Death of the Buddha. Siddhartha Gautama dies at Kushinagar after decades of teaching in Magadha and Kosala. The traditional date is about 483 BCE, and many scholars now prefer about 400 BCE.
- Alexander at the Hydaspes. Alexander defeats King Porus on the Jhelum, but his exhausted army mutinies at the Beas and he turns back down the Indus.
- Ashoka's Kalinga war. Ashoka conquers Kalinga on the east coast. His own edicts record over 100,000 dead, and his remorse led him to promote Buddhism and dhamma across his empire.
- Buddhism reaches Sri Lanka. Mahinda, said to be Ashoka's son, converts King Devanampiya Tissa, and the Mahavihara monastery at Anuradhapura becomes the center of Theravada Buddhism.
- Kanishka becomes Kushan emperor. Kanishka's reign starts a new era. He patronizes Buddhism, and his empire links Rome, Parthia and Han China through the trade routes of Bactria and Gandhara.
- Aryabhata writes the Aryabhatiya. The astronomer Aryabhata uses place-value numbers, gives pi as 3.1416 and argues that the earth spins on its axis.
- Brahmagupta's rules for zero. Working at Bhinmal in Rajasthan, Brahmagupta writes the first known rules for calculating with zero and negative numbers.
- Arab conquest of Sindh. The Umayyad general Muhammad bin Qasim defeats Raja Dahir and brings Sindh and Multan into the caliphate.
- Mahmud of Ghazni sacks Somnath. Mahmud's army plunders the temple of Somnath on the Gujarat coast, the most famous of his seventeen raids into India.
- Chola fleet raids Srivijaya. Rajendra Chola sends a navy across the Bay of Bengal to sack Kedah and other ports of Srivijaya, the most distant expedition of any Indian state.
- Second Battle of Tarain. Muhammad of Ghor defeats Prithviraj Chauhan north of Delhi, opening the Ganges plain to the rule of Turkic and Afghan sultans.
- Nalanda sacked. Troops of Bakhtiyar Khalji destroy the Buddhist monastic university of Nalanda in Bihar around this time, and Buddhism fades from its Indian homeland.
- Timur sacks Delhi. Timur defeats the Tughlaq sultan and massacres much of Delhi's population, leaving the sultanate broken into regional kingdoms.
- Vasco da Gama reaches Calicut. The Portuguese fleet lands on the Malabar coast after sailing around Africa, opening a direct sea route from Europe to India.
- First Battle of Panipat. Babur's smaller army, using field guns and cavalry flanking, defeats Ibrahim Lodi and founds the Mughal Empire.
- Battle of Talikota. An alliance of Deccan sultanates crushes the army of Vijayanagara, and the victors spend months looting the capital at Hampi.
- Taj Mahal begun. Shah Jahan starts building a white marble tomb at Agra for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, finished about twenty years later.
- Nader Shah sacks Delhi. The Persian ruler routs the Mughal army at Karnal and carries off the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor diamond.
- Battle of Plassey. Robert Clive's East India Company troops defeat the Nawab of Bengal after bribing his commander, starting British territorial rule in India.
- Third Battle of Panipat. Ahmad Shah Durrani destroys the Maratha army north of Delhi in one of the largest battles of the 18th century.
- Indian Rebellion. Sepoys at Meerut mutiny and march on Delhi, setting off a revolt across north India. After its defeat the Crown takes over from the East India Company.
- Jallianwala Bagh massacre. British troops under General Dyer fire on an unarmed crowd at Amritsar, killing hundreds and turning many moderates toward the independence movement.
- Gandhi's Salt March. Gandhi walks 390 km to Dandi on the Gujarat coast to make salt in defiance of the British salt tax, starting a mass civil disobedience campaign.
- Independence and partition. British India splits into India and Pakistan. Around 15 million people cross the new borders and between several hundred thousand and two million die in communal violence.
- Bangladesh Liberation War. After a brutal Pakistani army crackdown in East Pakistan, Bengali guerrillas and the Indian army win independence for Bangladesh in December.
- Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Soviet troops enter Afghanistan to prop up the communist government, starting a nine-year war that drove millions of refugees into Pakistan and Iran.
- India and Pakistan test nuclear weapons. India's tests at Pokhran in May are answered within weeks by Pakistan's tests in the Chagai hills.
- Indian Ocean tsunami. A tsunami from a Sumatran earthquake kills over 35,000 people in Sri Lanka and more than 10,000 in India on 26 December.
- Taliban retake Kabul. As US forces withdraw, the Afghan republic collapses within weeks and the Taliban enter Kabul on 15 August.