Then came Aryans who composed these evocative hymns to nature and celebrated life exuberantly referred to themselves as Aryas usually anglicised as Aryan meaning 'noble'. The 6th Century B.C. was the period of Magadh Kingdom. Chandragupta Maurya ousted the oppressive ruler of Magadh to find his own dynasty that existed from 322 - 298 B.C.

The most famous Maurya King Ashoka the Great ruled from 273 - 232 B.C over a large kingdom stretching from Kashmir and Peshawar in the North and Northwest to Mysore in the South and Orissa in the East. He after witnessing the carnage at the battle field of Kalinga (269 B.C.) in Orissa, dedicated himself to Dharmma ( righteousness ).

In the subsequent centuries, after the Ashoka empire disintegrated, India suffered a series of invasions, and often fell under the spell of foreign rulers - Indo Bactrians, the Sakas and others. After the next 400 years of instability the Guptas established their kingdom.

Kalidas, the famous Sanskrit poet and dramatist, author of Abhijnana Shankuntalam, Kumarsambhavam and Meghadutam is believed to have adorned the Gupta court. Also the great mathematicians like Aryabhatta and astronomers like Varahmihir lived during this period. The dazzling wall paintings of the Ajanta caves too are traced back to this era.

Cholas, Pandayas and Pallavas ruled over the southern part of India during the medieval period of India’s history. Cholas ruled the territory of Deccan (today the districts of Thanjavur and Tiruchirapally) while the Pandyas reined around present day Tirunelvelli and Madurai.

Pallavas of Kanchi rose to prominence in the 4th Century A.D. and ruled unchallenged for about four hundred years. The Nayanar and Alvar saint poets belong to this period. The gemlike shore temples at Mahabalipuram date to this period. The Cholas overthrew the Pallavas were in the 9th Century and regained political primacy in south India. The 15th Century saw the decline of the Pandyas.

The Rajput period was an era of chivalry and feudalism. The Rajputs weakened each other by constant fighting. This allowed the foreigners (Turks) to embark on victorious campaigns using duplicity and deceit wherever military strength failed against Rajputs.

Mohammad Ghori defeated Prithviraj Chauhan, the Tomar ruler of Delhi, at the battle of Tarain in 1192 and left the Indian territories in the charge of his deputy, Qutubudin (reign - 1206 - 1210), who had started life as a slave. Khiljis, Tughlaqs, Sayyids and Lodis followed and this period is known as the Sultanate. When the power of the Sultans declined, the outlying provinces once again became important and the process of Hindu Islamic synthesis continued almost without any interruption.

Babur (reign - 1526-30), the founder of the Mughal Empire in India, was the descendant of Timur as well as Changez Khan. Ousted by his cousins, he came to India and defeated Ibrahim, the last Lodi Sultan in 1526 at the First Battle of Panipat. There was a brief interruption to Mughal rule when Babur's son Humayun (reign - 1530-40) was ousted from Delhi, by Sher Shah, an Afghan chieftain.

Sher Shah (reign - 1540-55), assumed power in the imperial capital for a short while. He is remembered as the builder of the Grand Trunk road that spanned the distance from Peshawar to Patna and also one who introduced major reforms in the revenue system, gratefully retained by the Mughals.

It was Babur's grandson Akbar (reign - 1556-1605), who consolidated political power and extended his empire over practically the whole of north India and parts of the south. Jahangir (reign - 1605-27) who succeeded Akbar was a pleasure loving man of refined taste. Shah Jahan (1628-58) his son, ascended the throne next. Shah Jahan's fame rests on the majestic buildings he has left behind - the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid. Aurangzeb (reign - 1658-1707) was the last Mughal ruler.

In western India, Shivaji (1637-80) had forged the Marathas into an efficient military machine and given them a sense of national identity. They adopted guerrilla tactics to maul the Mughals and put a severe drain on their economic resources.

The contenders for political supremacy in the 17th and 18th Centuries included besides the Marathas, the Sikhs in Punjab and Hyder Ali (reign - 1721 - 1782) in Mysore. Tipu Sultan (reign - 1782 - 1799) - Hyder Ali's son and successor allied himself with the French against the British and strove to introduce the latest technical knowledge from Europe.

Vasco da Gama when landed at Calicut, sailing via the Cape of Good Hope in 1498, marked the beginning of the European era in Indian history. The Portuguese by the 16th Century had already established their colony in Goa.

In the next century, India was visited by a large number of European travellers - Italians, Englishmen, Frenchmen and Dutchmen. They were drawn to India for different reasons. Some were traders, others adventurers, and quite a few fired by the missionary zeal to find converts to Christianity. Eventually England, France, the Netherlands and Denmark, floated East India Companies.

During the late 16th and the 17th Centuries, these companies competed with each other fiercely. By the last quarter of the 18th Century the English had vanquished all others and established themselves as the dominant power in India. The British administered India for a period of about two centuries and brought about revolutionary changes in the social, political and the economic life of the country.

Once the British had consolidated their power, commercial exploitation of the natural resources and native labour became ruthless. By the middle of the 19th Century arrogant exploitation of the people had tried the patience of the Indians to the limit.

The six decades between the end of the "mutinous" war of 1857 - 59 and the conclusion of First World War saw both the peak of British imperial power in India and the birth of nationalist agitation against it. With increasing intrusion of aliens in their lives, a group of middle class Indians formed the Indian National Congress (1885) - a society of English educated affluent professionals - to seek reforms from the British.

The anticolonial struggle became truly a mass movement with the arrival of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869 - 1948) in 1915 who had suffered great humiliation in South Africa due to the policy of racial discrimination and later commited to rid his motherland of the ills of foreign rule.

Successive campaigns had the effect of driving the British out of India in 1947, but with independence came the independence of the country into Pakistan.

Nehru became the first Prime Minister of India on 15th August 1947 at the head of a Congress government. Nehru governed India until his death and Lal Bahadur Shastri succeeded him as Prime Minister of India in 1964. He successfully repulsed Pakistan's twin attack on India-in the Rann of Kutch and in Kashmir. After India-Pakistan War of 1965, Shastri met in Tashkent with Pakistan's President and signed a “no-war” declaration.

After Shastri's death he was succeeded by Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi. She rode a wave of success in1971 with India's victory in the second Indo-Pak war (1971), resulting in East Pakistan becoming the separate nation of Bangladesh; launching of the India's first satellite into space (1975), nuclear explosion in Pokhran (1974). Other major decisions during her tenure include the nationalization of banks and the abolition of privy purses to the princes. In her attempt to control population growth, she implemented a voluntary sterilization program. But her adversaries criticized it. In 1975, beset with deepening political and economic problems, Mrs. Gandhi declared a state of emergency and suspended many civil liberties. The Emergency was a dark night in Indian democracy.

The people also suffered a lot from this emergency rule.  In the same year India acquired Sikkim. Seeking a mandate at the polls for her policies, she called for elections in 1977.  Congress party lost the election to the Janata Party and Moraji Desai became India's new prime minister. In 1979 Desai's government crumbled and Charan Singh of the Janata Secular Party formed an interim government. But in 1980, Gandhi's government returned to power. 

In 1984, Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated by her own Sikh guards in apparent retaliation for dispatching troops to the Sikh Golden Temple. The years following the assassination, saw the Sikh Terrorism in Punjab. The situation has returned to normal after a decade of bitter violence.

Within 24 hours, Indira's son Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as the new prime minister. But his government was brought down in 1989 by allegations of corruption. Two major scandals, the "Spy" and the "Bofors" affairs, tarnished his reputation and he resigned his position. This was followed by opposition coalition governments headed by V.P. Singh and then Chandra Shekhar. That alliance also collapsed, resulting in national elections in 1991. But Rajiv Gandhi who stood for the elections, met with a tragic end in 1991 at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai by an LTTE Suicide Bomber when he was attending an election meeting.

In the elections INC becomes the largest party and returned to power at the head of a coalition, under the leadership of P.V. Narasimha Rao. In 1996, he and his cabinet officials were subsequently indicted for major corruption. Religious conflict between Hindus and Muslims lead to bloody riots in 1992. Rao's tenure also marked extensive economic reforms under the Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in the early 90s, which paved the way for  India's economy growth at a high rate.

In 1996, When general elections were held Rao and Congress were badly defeated, and he lost the prime minister ship. The Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged from national elections as the single-largest party in the Lok Sabha but without a parliamentary majority. Under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, BJP coalition government lasted only 13 days. With all political parties wishing to avoid another round of elections, a 14-party coalition led by the Janata Dal formed a government with H.D. Deve Gowda as Prime Minister but his government collapsed within a year. Another minor party leader, I.K. Gujral replaced Dev Gowda. In November 1997, the Congress Party again withdrew support from the United Front. In new elections in February 1998, the BJP won the largest number of seats in Parliament, but fell far short of a majority. The President inaugurated a BJP-led coalition government under Vajpayee. This coalition fell apart and new elections in 1999 improved the position of the BJP, Vajpayee formed a new coalition. In 1999, Pakistani infiltrators crossed the line of control in Kargil, Kashmir resulting in an armed conflict between the Indian army and Pakistani paramilitary forces, resulting in eventual withdrawal by the Pakistani soldiers. In 2004 elections, Congress formed the government under the former Finance Minister popularly known as the father of Indian Economic Reforms, Dr. Manmohan Singh.