Medieval India

In the early medieval period, there were more than 40 different states on the Indian subcontinent, which hosted a variety of cultures, languages, writing systems, and religions.

[1] At the beginning of the time period, Buddhism was predominant throughout the area, with the Pala Empire on the Indo Gangetic Plain sponsoring the Buddhist faith's institutions.

One such institution was the Buddhist Nalanda mahavihara in modern-day Bihar, a centre of scholarship which brought a divided South Asia onto the global intellectual stage.

[4] During the late medieval period, a series of Islamic invasions by the Arabs, the Ghaznavids and the Ghurids conquered large portions of Northern India.

Turkic general Qutb ud-Din Aibak declared his independence from the Ghurid Empire and founded the Delhi Sultanate which ruled until the 16th century.

The turn of the 16th century would see introduction of gunpowder and the rise of a new Muslim empire—the Mughals, as well as the establishment of European trade posts by the Portuguese colonists.

[18] Burton Stein still used the concept in his A History of India (1998), referring to the period from the Guptas to the Mughals, but most recent authors using it are Indian.

Modern historical works written on medieval India have received some criticism from scholars studying the historiography of the period.