Turning Tides: 11th and 12th Centuries

Why This Matters

Think about the sea. The tide comes in, then it goes out. The water keeps moving. Some waves crash and pull things away. Others bring new things to the shore.

The 11th and 12th centuries CE were like that for India. They were a time of big change. Old kingdoms grew weak. New kingdoms grew strong. Some invaders came from far away, took treasure, and left. Later, other invaders came, won battles, and stayed to rule.

That is why historians call this period a turning point — a time when the direction of history changed. (A “turning point” means a moment after which things are never quite the same again. Like the moment a cricket match turns when a key wicket falls.)

But here is the part many people forget. Even while wars went on in the north, the rest of India did not stop. In the south, the Cholas built huge temples and sent ships across the sea. Scholars wrote great books on maths and astronomy. Traders carried Indian goods to China and Southeast Asia. So this chapter is a story of two things happening at once: destruction in some places, and brilliance in others.

In this chapter we will keep things balanced and factual. We will face the hard parts honestly, but we will also see how much India created and learned during these same two centuries.

The Big Idea

The 11th and 12th centuries were a “turning of the tide” in Indian history. Two waves of invaders came from the north-west. The first, Mahmud of Ghazni, only raided and left. The second, Muhammad of Ghor, came to rule, and his generals stayed on to start the Delhi Sultanate. Yet at the very same time, powerful Indian kingdoms — above all the Cholas in the south — were at their height, building grand temples, ruling the seas, and keeping art, trade and learning alive.

Let’s Break It Down

To follow this big period, it helps to see the order of events first. Figure 4.1 below lays the main events along a timeline, so you can see what happened when before we dive into each one.

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Notice how the south (the Cholas, above the line) and the north-west (the raids, below the line) are happening in the same years. Keep that in mind as we go. We will travel across India — south, then back to the north — meeting these powers one by one.

The Cholas — masters of the seas

Let us begin in the deep south, in present-day Tamil Nadu. Here rose one of the greatest kingdoms in all of Indian history: the Cholas. Their capital cities were Thanjavur (also spelt Tanjavur), Gangaikondacholapuram, and Kanchipuram.

From 985 CE, a king named Rajaraja Chola I ruled for about thirty years. He was a strong and clever ruler. He conquered parts of present-day Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. His inscriptions (writings carved on stone or copper) say he won “islands of the sea” — which most historians think means the Maldives. He also conquered the northern part of Sri Lanka.

His son, Rajendra Chola I, also ruled for nearly thirty years. He pushed the empire even further. He sent armies all the way north to present-day Odisha and Bengal, near the river Ganga. To celebrate this, he took the proud title “Gangaikonda” — which means “the Chola who brought the Ganga”. He even built a new capital city and called it Gangaikondacholapuram (the city of the Chola who brought the Ganga).

But the Cholas are most famous for one special thing: their navy (a navy is a kingdom’s fighting force at sea — its warships and sailors). Very few Indian kingdoms ever built a strong navy. The Cholas did. Figure 4.2 shows how far their sea power and trade reached.

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Why did the navy matter so much? Because of trade. Under the Cholas, sea trade with China grew rich. Rajendra even sent a friendly group (a diplomatic mission) all the way to China. But there was a problem. One important sea route passed through the Strait of Malacca — a narrow strip of sea between Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. (A strait is a thin channel of water joining two larger seas, like a narrow lane joining two big roads.) A kingdom called Srivijaya controlled that strait. This created competition with the Cholas.

So around 1025 CE, Rajendra sent his navy across the Bay of Bengal. It defeated the Srivijaya forces and captured their capital. But notice this carefully: Rajendra did not try to keep that land or rule it. It was a one-time punishing strike to protect trade. After making his point, his fleet came home.

Let us see how to think about why this expedition happened.

One more thing shows how grand the Cholas were: their temples. Rajaraja built the famous Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur. It is a masterpiece — one of the wonders of Indian building. Figure 4.3 shows its main parts.

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Here is a “nothing is a given” question. The temple tower is made of giant stone blocks, with no cement to glue them. So why did it not fall down? Because the builders made the tower like a pyramid — wide and heavy at the bottom, getting narrower as it rises. Each block presses down on the one below it, and gravity holds the whole thing together, like a neat stack of bricks. The wide base spreads the weight over the ground so it does not sink. That clever shape is why this stone giant has stood for a thousand years.

This relies on an idea from earlier classes — that the bottom of a tall structure must be strong and wide. Here is a quick reminder:

Back home, the Cholas also did big public works — useful things built for everyone. They made roads for travel, and tanks, wells, canals and even man-made lakes to store water for farming. This is what a caring, well-run kingdom does.

But no kingdom lasts forever. The Cholas fought too many wars with their neighbours — the Western Chalukyas, the Pandyas, and the rulers of Sri Lanka. These endless wars drained their treasury (the kingdom’s store of money). By the 13th century, the Chola empire had shrunk, and the Pandyas finally absorbed it.

Other kingdoms across India

The Cholas were not alone. Many other Indian kingdoms flourished at this time. You do not need every detail, but it helps to know the land was full of busy, creative powers — not empty or weak.

Let us travel around the map for a moment:

• In eastern India (Bengal), the Sena dynasty became strong, with their capital at Nadia. They supported Hindu thought and poets like Jayadeva, who wrote the famous Gitagovindam about Krishna and Radha.
• Further down the coast, in Kalinga (roughly today’s Odisha), the Eastern Gangas grew into one of the most stable powers of the east. They began building the great Jagannatha temple at Puri, and later the Sun temple at Konark.
• In the Deccan and the south, the Kakatiyas (capital at Orugallu, today’s Warangal) built strong forts and supported Telugu literature, and the Hoysalas of Karnataka built temples famous for their amazingly detailed carvings — the temples at Belur and Halebidu are now UNESCO World Heritage monuments.
• In central India (Malwa), the Paramaras had a famous scholar-king, Bhoja. He built a huge lake near present-day Bhopal (the city’s name even comes from “Bhojpal”) and wrote books on many subjects, from architecture to medicine.

The lesson is simple: India in these centuries was full of powerful kingdoms doing great things, especially building temples and supporting writers and scholars.

The raids from the north-west: Mahmud of Ghazni

Now we travel to the north-west, where a different story unfolds. To understand it, we must start with a mountain pass.

For thousands of years, invaders and traders entered India from the north-west through the Khyber Pass — a gap through the high Hindu Kush mountains. (A pass is a low gap through a mountain range; it is the easy doorway through a wall of rock.) Whoever guarded the pass could block invaders. For a long time, a dynasty called the Hindu Shahis guarded it well.

Then, in present-day Afghanistan, a powerful Turkic dynasty rose: the Ghaznavids. (Turkic means peoples and cultures from Central Asia, the vast region north of Afghanistan stretching towards Turkey and Siberia.) Their capital was Ghazna (today’s Ghazni in Afghanistan), which is why their famous ruler is called Mahmud of Ghazni.

In the early 1000s CE, Mahmud defeated the Hindu Shahis. This opened the door to the plains of north India. Over his life, Mahmud led about seventeen raids into India. Each time, the pattern was the same. He marched in fast, with daring cavalry (soldiers on horseback) and archers on horses. He looted treasure, often destroyed rich temples, took prisoners — and then carried the loot back to Ghazni.

He attacked the wealthy temple-city of Mathura in 1018. He attacked Kannauj. And in 1026, he marched to Somnath in Gujarat, then a busy seaport, and destroyed its great Shiva temple, taking its huge treasures.

It is important to be honest about what these raids meant. They brought not only loss of treasure but also the killing of many people and the capturing of prisoners, including children, who were taken away to be sold. Mahmud’s own writers describe him as a powerful but ruthless general. We should face this part of history clearly, while remembering that we cannot blame anyone living today for what happened a thousand years ago.

There is one bright thread even here. A Persian scholar named al-Biruni travelled with Mahmud’s campaigns around 1017 CE. Instead of just fighting, al-Biruni learned Sanskrit, read Indian books, and talked with Indian scholars. He then wrote a huge, careful survey of Indian religion, philosophy, science and mathematics — comparing Indian ideas with Greek and Islamic ones. His book is one of our best windows into the India of that time.

And Indian science itself did not die. Around the same period lived Bhaskaracharya (Bhaskara II), born in 1114, one of India’s greatest mathematicians and astronomers. His book Lilavati taught maths through fun riddles and problems, and his works on algebra and astronomy were studied for centuries.

Now here is the most important point about Mahmud. He took the loot and left. He did not try to rule India. He never set up a lasting kingdom east of Punjab. Remember this — because the next invader was very different.

North Indian kingdoms and the Battles of Tarain

Time passed. Mahmud’s Ghaznavid empire was attacked from many sides and fell apart. In its place rose a new power from Ghor (today’s Ghor), a mountain region in Afghanistan to the west of Ghazni. Their leader was Muhammad, the sultan of Ghor — so we call him Muhammad of Ghor (or Muhammad Ghori). (The word sultan is an Arabic word meaning “authority” or “power”; it came to mean a king or sovereign ruler.)

Muhammad of Ghor wanted more than loot. He wanted land. He brought parts of Punjab and Sindh under his rule. But when he tried to push into Gujarat in 1178, he was defeated at the foot of Mount Abu by the Chaulukya kingdom — in one telling, by the brave queen Naikidevi, who led the army with her young son.

Meanwhile, in nearby Rajasthan, a powerful Rajput dynasty had risen: the Chahamanas, better known as the Chauhans. (Rajput refers to warrior clans of north-western India.) Their kings ruled Delhi, Haryana, parts of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, and most of Rajasthan, from their capital at Ajayameru (today’s Ajmer). Their most famous king was Prithviraja III — known today as Prithviraj Chauhan.

Now two ambitious powers — Muhammad of Ghor and Prithviraj Chauhan — were bound to clash. They met at a place called Tarain (modern Taraori in Haryana). This led to two famous battles.

• First Battle of Tarain, 1191 CE: Prithviraj Chauhan defeated Muhammad of Ghor. Ghor had to retreat.
• Second Battle of Tarain, 1192 CE: But within a year, Muhammad returned with a much larger army. This time, after fierce fighting, Muhammad won, and Prithviraj was captured and killed.

Let us work through why the second battle went differently from the first.

This second battle was a true turning point. After it, Muhammad of Ghor captured Delhi.

The start of the Delhi Sultanate

Here is the key difference between the two invaders. Look at Figure 4.4, which shows how power kept changing hands in the north.

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Unlike Mahmud of Ghazni — who only plundered and withdrew — Muhammad of Ghor wanted to keep the land. Though he himself returned to Ghazni, he left behind trusted commanders to hold and grow his gains. The most important of these was his general Qutb-ud-din Aibak.

This is the big change. After 1206, Aibak founded the Delhi Sultanate — a Muslim kingdom ruled from Delhi, which would last for centuries. (You will study it in detail in Grade 8.) For the first time in this period, foreign rule did not just raid and leave; it stayed.

By the way, this is also where the name “Delhi” comes from. Under the Chauhans, the city was called Dhillika, which slowly became Dhilli, and then Delhi.

Let us compare the two invaders side by side, because this contrast is the heart of the whole chapter. Figure 4.5 sums it up, and the table below lays out the details.

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Point	Mahmud of Ghazni	Muhammad of Ghor
When	Early 11th century (about 1000–1027 CE)	Late 12th century (about 1175–1206 CE)
Came from	Ghazna (Ghazni), Afghanistan	Ghor, Afghanistan
Main aim	Loot and plunder	Land and rule
What he did	About 17 raids; looted temples like Somnath	Won the Second Battle of Tarain (1192); took Delhi
Did he stay?	No — returned to Ghazni each time	Yes — left his generals to rule
Long result	Raids passed, no lasting kingdom in India	Delhi Sultanate began under Aibak

Governance, trade and culture: what continued

So far this section has been full of war. But remember the Big Idea: a lot of good things kept going at the same time.

Governance. Every powerful king needed a large army, and armies cost a lot — soldiers, weapons, horses, elephants. So kingdoms needed an efficient administration to collect taxes and tributes. One change came with Muhammad of Ghor’s system: it was more centralised and gave officers temporary land assignments in return for collecting revenue and giving military service. This idea would grow further under the Delhi Sultanate.

Trade. Even with all the fighting, India’s trade with China and Southeast Asia kept growing. Coins and pottery from across the sea have been found at Indian ports. Powerful merchant guilds (groups of traders working together) carried goods within India and far beyond. But the real backbone of the economy was always agriculture — rice and barley from the Ganga plains, saffron from Kashmir, spices from Kerala, cotton from western India. Many rulers built irrigation works to protect crops from the ups and downs of the monsoon rains.

Culture and thought. Art, literature, science and religion all flourished. We already met Bhaskaracharya in maths and Bhoja the scholar-king. Huge temples went up across India — like the Kandariya Mahadeva and Lakshmana temples at Khajuraho, built by the Chandellas. Great thinkers appeared too: Ramanujacharya in the south taught a path of bhakti (loving devotion to god), and Basaveshwara (Basavanna) in Karnataka founded the Lingayat movement, which rejected caste differences and taught that all people, men and women, have equal spiritual worth. He even set up an anubhava mantapa — a hall where people of every background could come together to discuss life and values.

And India’s influence reached far overseas. In Cambodia, the Khmer king Suryavarman II built Angkor Wat in the 12th century — the largest religious monument in the world, first dedicated to Vishnu, with carvings from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, built in a style much like south Indian temples.

So the real lesson of this turbulent period is resilience — the power to keep going, keep building and keep learning, even through conflict.

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Summary

• The 11th and 12th centuries CE were a turning point in Indian history — old powers fell, new ones rose, and foreign rule began in parts of the north.
• In the south, the Cholas were at their peak. Rajaraja I built the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur; Rajendra I ran a powerful navy, sent a sea expedition against Srivijaya, and grew rich sea trade with China.
• Mahmud of Ghazni (early 1000s CE) made about 17 raids, looted treasure and destroyed temples like Somnath, took prisoners — but always returned to Ghazni and did not stay to rule.
• Muhammad of Ghor wanted land. He lost the First Battle of Tarain (1191) to Prithviraj Chauhan but won the Second Battle of Tarain (1192) and captured Delhi.
• Unlike Ghazni, Ghor’s generals stayed: his general Qutb-ud-din Aibak founded the Delhi Sultanate (after 1206) — the start of lasting foreign rule in the north.
• Even so, most of India remained outside the invaders’ reach, and Indian kingdoms often won battles and sometimes joined together against invaders.
• At the same time, trade, art, temple-building, science and religious thought all flourished (Khajuraho, Bhaskaracharya, Ramanujacharya, Basaveshwara), and Indian culture spread abroad (Angkor Wat).
• The big lesson of the period is resilience — India kept creating and learning even through conflict.

What’s Next

We have seen India as a land of many kingdoms, many faiths and many languages, all changing through a turbulent time. In the next chapter, India, a Home to Many, we will look more closely at how so many different peoples, beliefs and ways of life came to share one land — and how that rich variety became one of India’s greatest strengths.