Haryana: Ancient and Medieval History

What the official syllabus says

General Studies-I (Paper III), Main Written Examination:

• Related issues of Haryana.

The same line closes General Studies-II and General Studies-III, where it covers Haryana’s polity, governance, economy, agriculture, environment and security. The Preliminary Examination’s General Studies paper has:

• Haryana-Economy and people. Social, economic and culture institutions and language of Haryana.

In General Studies-I, “related issues of Haryana” means the Haryana side of this paper’s subjects: the state’s history, art and culture, society and geography. This page covers one of them.

Topics in detail

The land and its name

• Explanations of the name ‘Haryana’ (the abode of Hari; the green forest land)
• Ancient names of the region: Brahmavarta, Kurukshetra, the Kuru country
• The Sarasvati and Drishadvati rivers of the Vedic texts

Prehistory and the Harappan civilisation

• Early farming and pre-Harappan sites: Kunal and Bhirrana (Fatehabad)
• Harappan sites: Rakhigarhi (Hisar), one of the largest Harappan sites; Banawali (Fatehabad); Farmana (Rohtak); Mitathal (Bhiwani); Siswal (Hisar)
• What they show: town planning, crafts, beads, burials
• Painted Grey Ware sites such as Bhagwanpura (Kurukshetra)

Vedic and epic age

• Kurukshetra as the land of the Mahabharata war and of the Bhagavad Gita (Jyotisar)
• The Kuru kingdom; the region in Vedic and epic literature
• Tirthas of the Kurukshetra region: Brahma Sarovar, Sannihit Sarovar, Pehowa (Prithudaka)

Republics and empires

• The Yaudheyas: a republic known from coins and coin moulds (Rohtak)
• The Agreyas and Agroha (Hisar), associated with Maharaja Agrasen
• Mauryan Haryana: the Ashokan pillar of Topra (taken to Delhi by Firoz Shah Tughlaq), the stupa at Chaneti (Yamunanagar)
• Kushanas and Guptas in the region

Thanesar and the Vardhanas

• The Pushyabhuti (Vardhana) dynasty of Sthanvishvara (Thanesar): Prabhakarvardhana, Rajyavardhana, Harshavardhana
• Banabhatta’s Harshacharita; Hiuen Tsang’s account of Thanesar
• Harsha’s move of his capital to Kannauj

Early medieval Haryana

• The Pratiharas: the Pehowa inscriptions
• The Tomaras and the founding of Dhillika (Delhi); the Surajkund reservoir
• The Chauhans; the Battles of Tarain (Taraori, Karnal) in 1191 and 1192

The Delhi Sultanate

• Haryana as the hinterland of Delhi; Balban’s campaigns in Mewat
• Firoz Shah Tughlaq: the founding of Hisar (Hisar-i-Firoza) and Fatehabad, and his canal from the Yamuna (the origin of the Western Yamuna Canal)
• Timur’s invasion (1398) through the region

The Mughal period

• The three Battles of Panipat: 1526 (Babur and Ibrahim Lodi), 1556 (Akbar’s forces and Hemu), 1761 (Ahmad Shah Abdali and the Marathas)
• Hemu (Hem Chandra Vikramaditya) and his links with Rewari
• The tomb of Ibrahim Khan Sur, grandfather of Sher Shah Suri, at Narnaul
• Haryana under the Mughal suba of Delhi; Mughal monuments and kos minars
• The Satnami revolt at Narnaul (1672) against Aurangzeb

The eighteenth century

• Banda Singh Bahadur and his fort at Lohgarh (Yamunanagar)
• The Sikh chiefs and the cis-Sutlej states (Jind, Kaithal, Ladwa)
• The Marathas in Haryana; George Thomas at Hansi
• The Third Battle of Panipat (1761) and its results for the region

The three Battles of Panipat

Overlaps

• The British period, 1857, the freedom movement and statehood: Haryana: Modern History, Freedom Struggle and Formation of the State.
• The monuments of these periods: Haryana: Art, Culture, Literature and Architecture.