Ancient India Era (प्राचीन भारतीय संस्कृति एवं शिल्पकला)

Maurya Empire (322 BCE–180 BCE) Chandra gupta (322–297 BCE) Bindusara (297–272/268 BCE) Ashoka ("Samrat") (272/268–232 BCE) Dasharatha Maurya (232–224 BCE) Samprati (224–215 BCE) Shalishuka (215–202 BCE) Devavarman (202–195 BCE) Shatadhanvan (195–187 BCE) Brihadratha (187–180 BCE) Shunga Empire (183 BCE– 73 BCE) Pushyamitra Shunga (185–149 BCE) Agnimitra (149-141 BCE) Vasujyeshtha (141–131 BCE) Vasumitra (131–124 BCE) Bhadraka (Odruka) (124–122 BCE) Pulindaka (122–119 BCE) Ghosha (Ghoshavasu) (119-108 BCE) Vajramitra (108-94 BCE) Bhagabhadra (94-83 BCE) Devabhuti (83-73 BCE) The Heliodorus pillar is a stone column that was erected around 113 BCE in Vidisha near modern Besnagar, by Heliodorus, a Greek ambassador of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas to the court of the Shunga king Bhagabhadra.  Bhagabhadra was one of the kings of the Indian Shunga dynasty. He ruled in...

Narwar Fort is situated atop a hill, at Narwar in M.P. - India , 500 ft. above ground level area of 8 km², which stands on a steep scarp of the Vindhya Range. This fort is very very old and historical. Kachwaha Rajputs are said to have built (or rebuilt) the fort when they occupied Narwar in the 10th century. Kachwaha, Parihara, and Tomara Rajputs held Narwar successively from 12th century onwards, until its capture by the Mughals in the 16th century. It was conquered by the Maratha chief Scindia in the early 19th century. Traditionally said to have been the capital of Raja Nala of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, the town was called Nalapura until the 12th century. Outside the walled town are memorial pillars of the Tomar chiefs. Now the descendant of narwar fort are Narauni Rajputs. The way of fort is very steep but yes it's a huge fort. Minimum 4 hours will be required to visit complete fort. few said, Kachawa (Kushwah , Kachwaha ) Rajputs migrat...

Udayagiri Caves are 20 rock-cut caves near Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh from the early years of the 5th century CE. Udayagiri Caves are set in two low hills near Betwa River, on the banks of its tributary Bes River. There are a many places in India with the same name, the most notable being the mountain called Udayagiri at Rajgir  in Bihar and the Udayagiri and Khandagiri Caves in Odisha. The site at Udayagiri Caves was the patronage of Chandragupta II , who is widely accepted by scholars to have ruled the Gupta Empire in central India between c. 380-414 CE. The Udayagiri Caves were created in final decades of the 4th-century and consecrated in 401 CE. Only site that can be verifiably associated with a Gupta period from its inscriptions and art. They contain some of the oldest surviving Hindu temples and iconography in India. They are notable for the ancient monumental relief sculpture of Vishnu in his incarnation as the man-boar Varaha, rescuing the earth symbolically rep...

Mahabodhi Temple  ("Great Awakening Temple") UNESCO World Heritage Site The site contains a descendant of the Bodhi Tree under which Buddha gained enlightenment, and has been a major pilgrimage destination for Buddhists for well over two thousand years, and some elements probably date to the period of Ashoka (died c.232 BCE). The first temple was built by Emperor Asoka in the 3rd century B.C. (2200 years ago), and the current pyramidal structure dates from the Gupta Empire, in the 5th–6th century CE. (atleast 1600 year old). It is one of the earliest Buddhist temples built entirely in brick, still standing in India, from the late Gupta period. Many of the oldest sculptural elements have been moved to the museum beside the temple, and some, such as the carved stone railing wall around the main structure, have been replaced by replicas. The most important of the sacred places is the giant Bodhi Tree, to the west of the main temple, a supposed direct desce...

From ancient times, India was the source of nearly all the world's known diamonds, and until the discovery of diamonds in Brazil in 1726, India was the only place where diamonds were mined. Diamond mining as an industry appears to have originated between 800 and 600 B.C. in India . The earliest known reference to diamond is a Sanskrit manuscript, dated from 320-296 B.C., but Diamonds have been known in India for at least 3,000 years but most likely 6,000 years. The knowledge that diamonds can be processed came to Europe via India only in the 14th century.  Hope Diamond India's unique status as a producer of diamonds continued to fascinate Europeans. Marco Polo traveled along the coast of India in 1292, and recorded tales he heard about diamonds being found in deep mountain valleys made nearly inaccessible by heat, lack of water, and venomous snakes. The French traveler Jean Baptiste Tavernier visited the Krishna River diggings in 1665, and estima...

Bateshwar temples (or Batesara, Bateśvar) - Padavali, Chambal Valley, District Morena district (Madhya Pradesh). Also, situated about 30 kilometers from the city of Morena Madhya Pradesh, India. Temples built between 6th to 9th century. According to Madhya Pradesh Directorate of Archaeology, They are a group of nearly 200 sandstone Hindu temples and their ruins in north Madhya Pradesh in post-Gupta, early Gurjar-Pratihara style of North Indian temple architecture.  According to Michael Meister, an art historian and a professor specializing in Indian temple architecture, the earliest temples in the Bateshwar group near Gwalior are likely from the 750-800 CE period. the Bateshwar site illustrates the conception and construction of "Mandapika shrine" concept in central India. According to the Cunningham's report of 1882, "confused assemblage of more than one hundred temples of various sizes, but mostly small". The largest standing temple was of Shiva and t...

The Dashavatara Temple is a mid 5th century (1500 years old) Vishnu Hindu temple situated at Deogarh, Uttar Pradesh in the Betwa River India.It has a simple, one cell square plan and is one of the earliest Hindu stone temples still surviving today.  The Dashavatara temple had numerous plinth panels of about 2.5 feet by 2 feet each, with friezes related to secular life and themes of Hinduism. Some of these reliefs were found during excavations at the site, some recovered nearby and identified by their location, the material of construction and the style. Many are lost. Built in the Gupta Period, the Dashavatara Temple at Deogarh demonstrates the lavish Gupta style architecture. Archaeologists have inferred that it is the earliest known Panchayatana temple in North India. The Dashavatara temple is locally known as  Sagar marh , which literally means "the temple on the tank", a name it gets from the square water pool cut into the rock in front. Benjamín Preciad...