A Timeline of South Asian History:

Dynasties, Rulers, and Key Events

A digital humanities project which brings together scholarship based on literature, numismatics and archaeological evidence to provide a comprehensive timeline for South Asian History.

This digital humanities project aims to present a detailed chronology of dynasties, regions, and key events throughout South Asian history, stretching from the dawn of the Indus Valley civilization through 1947 CE. Establishing a chronology remains very important to South Asian Studies, as our understanding of history and historical events depends on the dynasties and rulers active within South Asia throughout the centuries.

This project will bring together new and emerging scholarship to provide the latest proposed dates for the dynasties, rulers and historical events. The goal of the project is to present a comprehensive chronology that will be valuable to scholars of history, art history, South Asian studies, and those interested in the particulars of South Asia’s geographic regions. 

This information frequently changes, with chronological dating changing through new publications emerging on a regular basis. Completion of the site will never occur; we are always in the process of collecting new dates proposed by scholarship and revisiting the chronologies presented on this platform.

The Project is generously funded by the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University.

Principal Researcher / Project Director 

VAISHNAVI PATIL

Dept. History of Art & Architecture 

Harvard University

vaishnavipatil@fas.harvard.edu

Website Developer

NINA CHEN

Harvard University

Advisory Board

John Guy

Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jinah Kim

George P. Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art

Harvard University

James Nye

Committee on Southern Asian Studies

The University of Chicago