This is a timeline of Indian history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in India and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of India. Also see the list of governors-general of India, list of prime ministers of India and list of years in India.
Pre-historic India
Pre-90th century BCE (BC)
Year Date Eventc. 2,000,000 BCE Stone artifacts discovered at Riwat in the Soan Valley of present-day Pakistan have been reported from deposits dating to around two million years ago, providing possible evidence for a very early hominin presence in the northwestern Indian subcontinent c. 1,500,000 BCEAcheulean stone tools, including handaxes and cleavers, are known from Attirampakkam in present-day Tamil Nadu. The earliest archaeological levels have a pooled age of approximately 1.51 million years, demonstrating an Early Pleistocene hominin presence in southern India.c. 700,000–250,000 BCEArchaeological evidence of hominin occupation becomes increasingly widespread across the Indian subcontinent. Acheulean industries are recorded across much of peninsular and northern South Asia.c. 383,000–170,000 BCEAttirampakkam preserves a transition from Acheulean to Middle Paleolithic stone-tool technologies beginning approximately 385,000 years ago.c. 138,000–118,000 BCEAcheulean technology persisted in the Middle Son Valley of central India at sites including Patpara and Bamburi, representing some of the youngest known Acheulean assemblages in the world.Date uncertainArchaic hominin remains were discovered at Hathnora in the Narmada Valley of present-day Madhya Pradesh. The age and taxonomic classification of the Narmada hominin remain uncertain.c. 72,000 BCEMiddle Paleolithic stone-tool assemblages at Jwalapuram in present-day Andhra Pradesh occur immediately below and above ash deposited by the Youngest Toba eruption, indicating continued hominin occupation of the region across the eruption. The hominin population responsible for the assemblages is unknown, although the technology has affinities with contemporary technologies associated with Homo sapiens in Africa and elsewhere in Asia.c. 43,000 BCEMicroblade technology is attested at Mehtakheri in present-day Madhya Pradesh, representing some of the earliest securely dated evidence for this technology in the Indian subcontinent. Microblade industries subsequently became widespread across South Asia.Late PaleolithicCommunities at Patne in present-day Maharashtra produced ostrich-eggshell beads and engraved eggshells, providing evidence of personal ornamentation in prehistoric India.
90th–40th century BCE Year Date Eventc. 6400 BCE At Lahuradewa in present-day Uttar Pradesh, early communities cultivated or managed rice, with directly associated rice remains dating to approximately 6400 BCE. Whether the rice was fully domesticated remains disputed.c. 5200 BCEMehrgarh in present-day Balochistan was occupied by Neolithic farming and herding communities. Although traditionally dated to the eighth or seventh millenium BCE, direct radiocarbon dating published in 2025 places the beginning of its aceramic Neolithic cemetery between approximately 5200 and 4900 BCE.c. 4650 BCEPottery appeared at Mehrgarh during Period IIA, representing the earliest known ceramic vessels from present-day Pakistan. The development marks the beginning of the site's ceramic Neolithic phase.
Chalcolithic India 40th–27th century BCE Year Date Eventc. 4000 BCE The beginning of Mehrgarh period III marks a Chalcolithic phase characterized by increasingly specialized craft production. Copper objects and copper-melting crucibles provide evidence of local copper metallurgy, alongside the production of wheel-made painted pottery and stone beads. c. 3700 BCE The earliest known settlement at Harappa began during the Ravi phase. The settlement initially consisted of small structures built from reeds, clay plaster and mud brick, and developed extensive craft-production and exchange networks during the following centuries. c. 3000 BCEThe Ahar-Banas culture emerged in southeastern Rajasthan. Its settlements were characterized by a distinctive white-painted black-and-red ceramic tradition and formed one of the major Chalcolithic cultural traditions of northwestern Indiac. 2800 BCEThe Kot Diji phase began at Harappa, marking a period of incipient urbanization. Settlements expanded, craft production intensified and increasingly standardized material traditions developed during the transition toward the urban Harappan civilization.
Bronze Age India
26th–20th century BCE Year Date Eventc. 2600 BCE The Mature Harappan civilization emerged across the northwestern Indian subcontinent. Major urban centres, including Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, developed planned streets, drainage and sanitation systems, standardized weights and measures, specialized craft production and the still-undeciphered Indus script.c. 2500 BCE Dholavira in present-day Gujarat developed into a major Mature Harappan urban centre. The fortified settlement was distinguished by extensive stone architecture and a sophisticated system of reservoirs and water management adapted to its arid environment. c. 2500–2000 BCEThe Indus civilization engaged in extensive long-distance trade with Mesopotamia and communities around the Persian Gulf. Mesopotamian texts referred to a trading region called Meluhha, generally identified with the Indus region. At the same time, archaeological evidence documents the movement of raw materials and manufactured goods between South and West Asia.c. 1900 BCEThe Mature Harappan urban system began to decline and fragment. Major cities were reduced or abandoned, long-distance trade and standardized material traditions diminished, and populations increasingly reorganized into regional Late Harappan cultures.
19th–13th century BCE Year Date Event c. 1900–1300 BCE The late Harappan period saw the former Indus cultural sphere fragment into regional traditions, including the Cemetary H culture in the north, the Jhukar tradition in Sindh, and the Rangpur tradition in Gujarat. Urban centres persisted in some regions, but long-distance exchange and the standardized material culture of the mature Harappan period declined.c. 1900–1500 BCEPopulations carrying ancestry related to Middle-to-Late Bronze Age Steppe pastoralists entered northern South Asia and mixed with populations descended from the Indus cultural sphere. Genetic and linguistic evidence associates these migrations with the spread of Indo-Aryan languages into the subcontinent.c. 1750–1250 BCEThe Ochre Colured Pottery culture developed across the Ganges-Yamuna Doab, representing an important Bronze Age cultural tradition of northern India contemporary with the later phases of the Indus Tradition.c. 1500–1200 BCE The earliest hymns of the Rigveda were composed orally in Vedic Sanskrit in the Punjab and surrounding regions, marking the beginning of the textual record of Vedic culture. The hymns preserve the religious practices, social organization and political conflcits of early Indo-Aryan-speaking communities.
Iron Age and early historic India
15th century BCE Year Date Event 1500 BCE Early Vedic period (until 1000 BCE) begins.
13th century BCE Year Date Event 1300 BCE Indus Valley Civilization and Cemetery H culture comes to an end.
12th century BCE Year Date Event c. 1200 BCE The Painted Grey Ware culture emerged in the upper Ganges plain and adjoining regions of northern India. The archaeological culture, conventionally dated to approximately 1200-600 BCE, is associated with settlements of the middle and later Vedic period and with the region of the Kuru polity.
10th century BCE Year Date Event c. 1000 BCE The Later Vedic period began, during which Vedic communities expanded eastward into the Indo-Gangetic Plain and increasingly adopted settled agriculture. The Kuru-Panchala region became a major political and cultural centre of Vedic society.
8th century BCE Year Date Eventc. 800 BCEThe earliest Upanishads began to be composed around this period. These Sanskrit texts developed out of the later Vedic tradition and became foundational works of Indian religious and philosophical thought.
6th century BCE Year Date Event c. 600 BCE In the sixth century BCE, northern India was divided among several kingdoms and republics known as the Mahajanapadas, traditionally enumerated as sixteen. The period also saw the growth of major urban centres in the Gangetic Plain, marking the beginning of the second urbanisation of the Indian subcontinent.c. 540 BCE Cyrus the Great extended the Achaemenid Empire eastward to the northwestern limits of the Indian subcontinent, including Gandhara. Persian expansion into the region occurred after Cyrus's conquest of Lydia in 547 BCE and before his conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE.c. 518 BCE Darius I extended Achaemenid rule into territories of the northwestern Indian subcontinent, including regions west of the Indus River. Gandhara was already listed among his territories, while the province of Hindush in the Indus region appeared in later Achaemenid inscriptions.
5th century BCE
Year Date Event 5th century BCE Mahavira, regarded in Jainism as the 24th Tirthankara, lived and taught during this period. Modern scholarship generally places Mahavira and the Buddha in the fifth century BCE, with Mahavira probably an older contemporary of the Buddha. 5th century BCE Gautama Buddha lived and taught in northeastern India during this period. His teachings gave rise to Buddhism and the early Buddhist community. c. 5th century BCE The kingdom of Magadha expanded in the eastern Gangetic plain under rulers including Bimbisara and Ajatashatru, beginning its rise from one of several competing states to the dominant power of northern India.
4th century BCE
Year Date Event c. 4th century BCE Pāṇini composed the Aṣṭādhyāyī, a highly systematic grammar of Sanskrit that became foundational to the Sanskrit grammatical tradition. Pāṇini's exact date remains uncertain. 327–325 BCE Alexander the Great campaigned in the northwestern Indian subcontinent following his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire. His forces crossed the Indus, campaigned through the Punjab and Indus regions, and began their withdrawal westward in 325 BCE. 326 BCE Alexander defeated Porus at the Battle of the Hydaspes on the Hydaspes River (modern Jhelum) in the Punjab. Porus was subsequently retained as a ruler with enlarged territories. Later that year, Alexander's army refused to advance farther east at the Hyphasis (Beas), ending his eastward advance. c. 321 BCE Chandragupta Maurya overthrew the Nanda dynasty in Magadha and founded the Maurya Empire, which subsequently expanded across much of the Indian subcontinent. 305–303 BCE A war between Chandragupta Maurya and Seleucus I Nicator of the Seleucid Empire ended in a settlement involving territorial concessions by Seleucus and the transfer of war elephants to the Seleucid ruler.
3rd century BCE