NCERT Solutions Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms 6th to 10th Centuries

F R E E S T U D Y M AT E R I A L F O R E V E R Y S T U D E N T

CLASS 7 · SOCIAL SCIENCE

NCERT Solutions

Chapter 15: Empires and
Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries

NCERT Textbook — Exploring Society: India And Beyond (Part I)

BOOK PAGES SECTIONS QUESTIONS MEDIUM

Part II, 61 – 96 21 42 English

Solutions, notes, sample papers & more at 58 pages

Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

CLASS 7 · SOCIAL SCIENCE · EXPLORING SOCIETY: INDIA AND BEYOND (PART I)

NCERT Solutions — Chapter 15: Empires and Kingdoms:
6th to 10th Centuries
Complete NCERT Solutions for Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th
Centuries — the third chapter of Theme B, Tapestry of the Past, in Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Grade 7,
Part 2). Every question the chapter asks is answered here: the three Big Questions, all nine LET’S EXPLORE
boxes, all five THINK ABOUT IT boxes that ask something, the DON’T MISS OUT question about two-
language inscriptions, the three questions asked inside the running text (pages 63, 75 and 82), the six points
of Before we move on …, and all seven end-of-chapter Questions and activities. The boxes that carry no
question — DON’T MISS OUT on Kādambarī, on Nrupatunga Road, on Kalhaṇa, on the Bhauma-Kara queens
and on the Indian numerals; THINK ABOUT IT on Dharmapāla’s beliefs and on the twelve dynasties; and
LET’S REMEMBER on the merchant guilds — are folded into the answers and the revision table below. Every
date, name and quotation here is taken from the chapter itself.

TEXTBOOK BOOK PAGES

Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Part I) (Class Part II, 61 – 96
7)

SECTIONS QUESTIONS

21 42

MEDIUM

English

The Big Questions — Page 61
Chapter opening — Theme B, Tapestry of the Past

THE BIG QUESTIONS

Q1 What major changes characterised this period?

The biggest change is that one large empire is replaced by many strong regional
kingdoms. The chapter says it plainly: “You don’t see large empires in India now, but many
strong kingdoms.” Around that single change, five more follow.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

THE CHANGE WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE ON THE GROUND

1. From one empire After the Guptas, power spread out — Puṣhyabhūtis, Pālas, Gurjara-Pratīhāras,
to many kingdoms Rāṣhṭrakūṭas, Chālukyas, Pallavas, Pāṇḍyas, Cheras, Cholas, Kārkoṭas, Varmans and
more. A few grew into empires, but “rarely managed to cover a large part of India or to
last more than a couple of centuries.”

2. Rule through Kings ruled their core region directly and the rest through subordinate rulers. This made
sāmantas large kingdoms possible — and made them fragile, because a sāmanta could rebel.

3. Land grants The system begun under the Guptas “expanded greatly”, creating a new class of
spread everywhere landholders, bringing uncultivated land under the plough, and building tanks and wells.

4. Regional Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Prakrit flourish; inscriptions begin to use Sanskrit and the
languages rise beside local language together.
Sanskrit

5. Bhakti spreads From about 650 CE in the Tamil south, through the 12 Ālvārs and 63 Nāyanmārs,
through every layer devotion “cutting across gender and social divisions” reshaped Indian society and
of society literature.

6. Society itself gets Jātis multiplied; tribes, migrants and occupational groups were absorbed into the varṇa-
more complex jāti system, which “varied widely across regions”.

Why it happens: when a very large empire breaks up, the wealth and talent that
used to flow to one capital now stays in the regions. So instead of one Pāṭaliputra
you get Kannauj, Mānyakheṭa, Vātāpi, Kānchī, Tanjāvūr and Madurai, each with its
own poets, temples and script. That is exactly why this period looks poor in politics
and rich in culture at the same time.

Tip: the chapter warns you against calling this a dark age. Its own verdict is: “Far
from being a historical void, it witnessed the dynamic integration of new social and
political groups.”

Q2 How did the political, cultural, and religious developments shape India during this
period?

Politically India split into regions; culturally and religiously those same regions grew
richer, and India stayed one. The three developments worked on each other.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Political → cultural. Rival kings competed not only with armies but with art. Krishna I had the
Kailaśhanātha temple carved out of a hillside at Ellora — “not a construction but a gigantic
sculpture”. Narasimhavarman I’s Māmallapuram was cut from living rock. Dharmapāla founded
Vikramaśhilā; the Pālas kept Nālandā going. The chapter states the rule directly: “We should
not imagine that the kings of such dynasties were constantly at war. In fact, they found time and
resources to create wonders.”
Political → linguistic. A regional king needed his own court literature. So Kannada grew under
the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas (Amoghavarṣha himself wrote in it), Telugu and Kannada under the Eastern
Chālukyas, Tamil and Sanskrit together under the Pallavas and Cholas.
Religious → social. Rulers patronised Hindu, Buddhist and Jain schools of thought “regardless
of their own inclinations”. The Rāṣhṭrakūṭas did all three. Harṣha gave to “Buddhists, Brahmins,
and the poor”. Amoghavarṣha was drawn to Jainism yet patronised Hindu temples. This
produced a cultural pluralism rather than religious wars.
Religious → cultural. The Purāṇas absorbed local deities and regional myths into pan-Indian
worship of Śhiva, Viṣhṇu, Kṛiṣhṇa and the devīs. Tantric schools appeared around the 6th
century. Bhakti then carried devotion into every home in the local language.

Why India held together anyway: the kings were rivals, but they shared a common
frame — the same Sanskrit learning, the same pilgrimage map, the same ideas of
dharma and karma, the same trade routes. A merchant from Bengal and a poet from
Kanchipuram were in different kingdoms but not in different worlds. That is what the
chapter means by “different in each region, yet all part of one India”.

Q3 What was the impact of foreign invasions and interactions on Indian society and
polity during this period?

The invasions changed India far less than they changed the invaders — until the Arabs
arrived, when the pattern began to shift. The chapter tells two very different stories.
1. The Hūṇas — defeat, then absorption. Two Hūṇa leaders pushed deep into the Ganga
plains in the early 6th century and were defeated by the kings of the Aulikara dynasty, whose
capital was Daśhapura (modern Mandsaur). Within a century they had vanished as a separate
people: “many served as soldiers, others took up roles in local administrations”, one even sat on
a temple’s administration council (goṣhṭhika). They wrote in Sanskrit and Prakrit, took Gupta-
style titles, copied Gupta coin designs and used Lakṣhmī, Viṣhṇu and Śhiva on their money.
2. The Arabs — raids, one conquest, then a long stalemate. Naval raids hit Thānā,
Bhārukachchha and Debal in 637 without lasting gain. In 712 Muhammad bin Qasim conquered
Sindh and killed King Dāhar. But within two years of Qasim’s death, Indian chiefs rebelled and
won back most of the territory. Nāgabhaṭa I “crushed the large army of the powerful Mlechchha

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king”; Lalitāditya of Kashmir beat an Arab chief three times. The geographer al-Istakhri
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observed that after three centuries of unremitting effort the Arab dominion in India was limited
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to two petty states in Sindh and Punjab.

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The impact, point by point
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a source of prestige — the Gurjara-Pratīhāras “gained fame for pushing back Arab invasions”.

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On society: foreign groups were absorbed. The Hūṇas disappeared into the varṇa-jāti
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system; some communities, such as foreignm traders, “remained as outsiders”.
a gla changed policy — Hindus and Buddhists were
On religion: in Sindh the Arabs eventually
allowed to rebuild temples and continue their worship, and temple priests kept their share of
revenue. Elsewhere in the world Arab conquest often replaced local institutions; in Sindh its
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impact was “limited”.
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gat Baghdad. The Arabs
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On knowledge — the interaction that mattered most: in the 9th century Sanskrit texts of

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mathematics, astronomy and medicine were translated into Arabic

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a known as ‘Arabic numerals’.

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Did you know? The traffic was not one-way and it was much older than any
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invasion. India and Arabia had traded with the monsoon winds for centuries — the
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English word monsoon comes from the Arabic mawsim, ‘season’.

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In-textcQuestion
. — Page 63
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The opening survey — was this an ending or a beginning?

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Is this really the end of an age of powerful empires … or the dawn of a new era?

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Q1

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It is both — the end of one kind of power and the beginning of another. The chapter poses

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this as a question on purpose, and answers it in its own last pages.

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The case for ‘an ending’. The Gupta Empire has lost its dominance. No single power now
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controls a large part of India. Kannauj is fought over for two hundred years with no lasting

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victor.
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centuries.” Judged only by the size of empires, this looks like decline.

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The case for ‘a dawn’. The traveller in the chapter’s story sees “a land buzzing with new ideas,

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art, and culture”. In these same centuries India got the Kailaśhanātha temple, Māmallapuram,
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Vikramaśhilā, the Kādambarī, the Rājatarangiṇī, the Bhakti movement, Kannada and Telugu

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literature, and Brahmagupta’s rules for zero and negative numbers. Village sabhās were
ag None of this needed a single emperor.
choosing their own members.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why the second answer is the stronger one: we tend to measure history by the
size of empires because empires are easy to draw on a map. But a temple, a poem, a
numeral system and a village assembly outlast every empire that paid for them. The
chapter’s verdict is “a period of transformation and regional consolidation. Far from
being a historical void…”.

Tip: when you meet a question shaped like “Is it X or Y?”, the best answer is usually
not to pick one, but to say what each half is true of. Here: an ending politically, a
beginning culturally.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 64
The ‘Great King of Kings’ — the shift of the capital to Kannauj

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 Do you recall where the capital of the earlier Maurya and Gupta empires was
located?

At Pāṭaliputra — present-day Patna, in Bihar, on the Ganga. Both the Mauryas and the
Guptas ruled from there (you met it in Part 1 of this textbook, in ‘The Rise of Empires’ and ‘The
Gupta Era’).
Now compare it with Harṣha’s capital.

CAPITAL WHERE EMPIRE

Pāṭaliputra Lower Ganga plain, eastern India (modern Mauryas, then Guptas
Patna)

Sthāneśhvara Modern Thanesar, Haryana Earlier capital of the
Puṣhyabhūtis

Kānyakubja Upper–middle Ganga plain, in present-day Uttar Harṣhavardhana, from 606 CE
(Kannauj) Pradesh

Check it yourself: look at Fig. 3.3 on page 63. Kānyakubja sits on the Ganga at
roughly 80°E — several hundred kilometres upstream of Patna. The centre of north
Indian power has moved west.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q2 How do you think this shift may have shaped the sub-continent’s politics in the
years to come?

Moving the centre of power upstream to Kannauj made north India’s politics far more
contested — because Kannauj could be reached from three directions at once. That single
fact explains the whole Tripartite Struggle.

It put the capital within reach of the west. Pāṭaliputra was tucked away in the east.
Kannauj sits on the open Ganga–Yamuna plain, so a power based in Rajasthan or Malwa —
the Gurjara-Pratīhāras — could march on it. That was impossible for a western power aiming
at Patna.
It kept the capital within reach of the east. The Pālas of Bengal could still come up the
Ganga.
It opened it to the Deccan. The Rāṣhṭrakūṭas came north across the Narmada and “briefly
occupied Kannauj”, and later destroyed it.
So no one could hold it. Through the 8th and 9th centuries the three powers “repeatedly
warred against each other, with fluctuating outcomes and no lasting victor.” Energy that
might have built one empire was spent cancelling out three.
And it made Kannauj a prize in itself. Holding Kannauj became the mark of being
paramount ruler of north India — so it was attacked because it was the capital, not only for
its wealth.

Why the location matters so much: a capital in a corner is defended by geography.
A capital in the middle of a rich open plain is defended only by an army. Kannauj had
the best land, the best river route and the best position for trade — and no natural
walls. That is a capital worth taking and hard to keep.

Tip: the chapter comes back to this on page 68 and asks you to look again at Fig. 3.3.
Do it with a finger on the map: put one finger on Bhillamāla, one on Bengal, one on
Mānyakheṭa, and see that all three point at the same city.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 64

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Harṣha’s signature on the Banskhera copper plate (Fig. 3.5)

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 If you know the Devanagari script, with the help of your teacher try to identify
some of the letters in Harṣha’s signature (Fig. 3.5).

What Fig. 3.5 shows. A close-up photograph of one line cut into a
copper plate found at Banskhera, Uttar Pradesh. The plate is a pale
greenish-yellow, mottled with age; the letters are large, deeply
incised and almost black against it. There is a single line of about a
dozen joined letters written in Nagari — the script that later became
Devanagari — so every letter hangs from one continuous horizontal
head-line (śhirorekhā) that runs the whole width of the line. Several
letters carry tall vowel strokes and curling ornamental flourishes
above the head-line, and the last letter ends in a long downward tail.
This line is Harṣha’s own signature at the foot of the grant.

Fig. 3.5, page 64 — described here; see the textbook for the photograph of the copper
plate itself.

The line reads svahasto mama mahārājādhirāja śhrī harṣhasya — “By my own hand, the
great king of kings, Śhrī Harṣha”. It is written in Nagari, the script that later became
Devanagari, so many letters are recognisable if you read Hindi. Take it word by word.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WORD IN THE IN MEANING LETTERS YOU CAN PICK OUT
PLATE DEVANAGARI

svahasto स्वहस्तो ‘by my own the conjunct स्व at the start, then ह (ha)
hand’ and स्त (sta)

mama मम ‘my’ two identical म (ma) shapes side by side
— the easiest word to spot

mahārājādhirāja महाराजािधराज ‘great king of म , हा, रा, ज — and notice रा and ज repeat,
kings’ because ‘rāja’ occurs twice

śhrī ी an honorific, the familiar ी you still see at the top of
‘revered’ letters and shop boards

harṣhasya हषस्य ‘of Harṣha’ ह again, the r mark above (रे फ ), ष and the
ending स्य

Why the letters look strange at first: Nagari of the 7th century has the same
skeleton as Devanagari, but the top bar (िशरोरेखा) is not yet a single unbroken line,
and the letters carry long decorative tails. Cover the flourishes with a pencil and the
core shapes of म, ह, र, ज, स appear.

Why this small line matters: most inscriptions were written by a scribe. This one
says svahasto mama — the king signed it himself. So Fig. 3.5 is not just writing about
Harṣha; it is very probably Harṣha’s own handwriting, and that is why the chapter
shows it to you.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 66

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Xuanzang’s route from China to India and back (Fig. 3.7)
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LET’S EXPLORE

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a s em at the map (Fig. 3.7), can you identify a few mountain passes or desert
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Looking
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areas that Xuanzang had to cross while travelling between China and India?

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Tashkent
TAKLAMAKAN
40°N Kashgar Dunhuang GOBI
Samarkand DESERT
HINDU DESERT

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Fig. 3.7, page 66 — Xuanzang’s route from China to India and back, redrawn at true

omused, as in the book.)
latitude and longitude. (In this map the modern names of the cities he passed through
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Two great deserts and two great mountain systems — and he crossed them by different

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routes going and coming back. Read the map with the legend: the red line is his journey from

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

BARRIER ON WHERE ON HIS ROUTE
THE MAP

Gobi Desert Right at the start, leaving Xi’an — the red line runs along its southern edge

Taklamakan Desert He skirted it on the north side going out (past Kashgar, towards Tashkent and
Samarkand) and on the south side coming back (Khotan → Dunhuang → Xi’an)

Hindu Kush Crossed between Central Asia and Bamiyan/Kabul — the gateway into the subcontinent
from the northwest

Himalayas The great wall along the whole northern edge of India. Notice he did not cross them head-
on — he went around, through the northwest

Plateau of Tibet Marked on the map between the Himalayas and China — another high barrier that his
route avoids

Why he went the long way round: the shortest line from Xi’an to Patna runs
straight across Tibet and the Himalayas, and in the 7th century that was simply not
passable with baggage. The practical route was the old Silk Route — around the
Taklamakan, over the Hindu Kush, down through Bamiyan, Kabul and Taxila into the
Indus plains. It is thousands of kilometres longer and it is the only way it could be
done.

Check it yourself: the map’s scale bar reads 0 – 250 – 500 km. Lay a strip of paper
along the red line from Xi’an to Nalanda, mark it off against the scale, and you will
see why the journey took the years it did — he was in India from 630 to 644.

Q2 Can you also identify a few important Buddhist centres of learning that Xuanzang
visited in India? Do you know something of their significance?

Nālandā above all — and with it Taxila, Bamiyan, Mathura, Bodh Gaya, Lumbini, Amaravati
and Kānchī. All of these are marked on Fig. 3.7 as cities he visited.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

CENTRE WHY IT MATTERED

Nālandā The greatest monastic university of the age (Part 1, ‘The Gupta Era’). Xuanzang
studied here. Harṣha and later the Pālas both patronised it; it drew students
“sometimes from far away, even beyond India”.

Bodh Gaya The place of the Buddha’s enlightenment — the single most sacred Buddhist site,
and a chief reason for his journey.

Lumbini The Buddha’s birthplace.

Taxila (Takṣhaśhilā) An ancient centre of learning in the northwest, on the road from Central Asia into
India.

Bamiyan On the route through the Hindu Kush — a major Buddhist site outside India’s
present borders, showing how far Buddhism had travelled.

Mathura, Prayagraj, Great cities of the Ganga–Yamuna plain. He described Kānyakubja as beautiful and
Patna, Ayodhya, Kannauj prosperous, and attended Harṣha’s assembly there.

Amaravati A famous Buddhist stūpa site in the eastern Deccan.

Kānchī In the Pallava kingdom, where he reported 100 Buddhist monasteries with 10,000
priests (figures the chapter says are likely exaggerated), plus 80 Hindu temples and
many Jains.

Why his visit is so valuable to historians: Xuanzang was not writing to flatter a
king. He was a student keeping notes, so he recorded “important details about
politics, diplomacy, culture and religion in the kingdoms he crossed” — including
things Indian records leave out, such as which cities were declining (Kauśhāmbī,
Śhrāvastī) and which were thriving (Sthāneśhvara, Kānyakubja, Kāśhī). That is why
the chapter calls his travelogue “a major source of information for historians of this
period”.

Did you know? He carried back more than 600 Sanskrit manuscripts of Buddhist
texts — “carried by 20 horses!” — and then spent his life translating them into
Chinese.

THINK ABOUT IT — Page 67

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Harṣha’s five-yearly assembly at Prayāga

THINK ABOUT IT

Q1 Does the above ceremony remind you of a similar event discussed in Part 1 of this
textbook?

Yes — it recalls the great royal sacrifices and public gift-giving of earlier kings, especially
the aśhvamedha and the ceremonies of the Mauryas and Guptas that you met in Part 1
(‘The Rise of Empires’ and ‘The Gupta Era’). The pattern is the same, even though the details
differ.
What Harṣha did. Every five years he held an assembly at Prayāga, at the confluence of the
Ganga and Yamuna, “where, after performing sacred rites, he gave away much wealth, offering
it to Buddhists, Brahmins, and the poor.”
What the older ceremonies did. A great king performed a public rite at a sacred place, invited
rulers and holy men from far away, and then made enormous gifts — a display that everyone
present would carry home and talk about.

SHARED FEATURE WHAT IT ACHIEVED

A sacred place Prayāga, the confluence — the rite borrows the authority of the site

Guests from many Harṣha’s Kannauj assembly for Xuanzang was “attended by kings and leaders of
kingdoms and sects many religious sects”; witnesses spread the king’s fame

Giving away wealth Generosity was the proof of greatness. A king who could give it all away was
showing he could get it all again

Giving to everyone Buddhists, Brahmins and the poor — the king presents himself as the protector of
all his subjects, not of one group

Why kings did this: in a kingdom without newspapers, a ceremony is the
announcement. Hoarded treasure impresses nobody. Treasure given away in public,
in front of rival kings and holy men, converts money into something a king needs
more — reputation, loyalty and the willing obedience of his subjects.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 68

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

A Tripartite Struggle for Kannauj (Fig. 3.3)

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 Why was Kannauj so attractive to those powerful dynasties? Observe its location on
the map (Fig. 3.3) and discuss in class.

N

35°N

Jhelum
Chenab
Ravi Beas
Sutlej
Sthāneśhvara
30°N

Ganga
Yamuna
Kānyakubja Ghaghara Gandak
S
MAN
VA R
AS
ĀR -

Indus
P U Ṣ H YA B H Ū T I S
ĪH RA

Chambal
Brahmaputra
Prayāga Kāśhī
AT J A

25°N Betwa
PĀ L A S
PR UR

Ujjayinī Son
G

Narmada S
ṬA
Tapti
K Ū Mahanadi

Ṭ RA BAY OF
20°N ARABIAN
Ā ṢH
R Godavari BENGAL
SEA
Mānyakheṭa
Krishna

70°E 75°E 80°E 85°E 90°E 95°E

Fig. 3.3, page 63 — a simplified map of a few dynasties in north and peninsular India
from the 7th century onward, redrawn at true latitude and longitude. The book prints it
over a physical relief background.

Because whoever held Kannauj held the richest, best-connected land in north India — and
with it the claim to be paramount ruler. Find it on Fig. 3.3 (it is marked Kānyakubja, on the
Ganga at about 80°E) and four reasons come off the map at once.

It stands in the middle of the Ganga–Yamuna plain. This is the most fertile farmland in
the subcontinent. Fertile land means big harvests, big harvests mean big land revenue, and
land revenue paid for armies. Nothing else on the map produces so much wealth in one
place.
It sits on the Ganga. The river was the highway of north India. From Kannauj goods and
armies could move east to Bengal and the sea, and the routes west and northwest lay open
across the plain. Look at the tangle of rivers around it on the map — Yamuna, Gomti,
Ghaghara, Chambal, Betwa, Son — every one of them a road.

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It lies where three power blocs meet. On Fig. 3.3, the Gurjara-Pratīhāras are labelled to
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the west, the Pālas to the east, and the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas to the south across the Narmada.
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g was the way to
.cprestige. It had been Harṣha’s imperial capital. Taking Kannauj
Kannauj is the point all three can reach — and none can be safe while a rival holds it.

m a
se that you were his successor as the great king of north India. The chapter shows
It carried

g l a
a the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas “briefly occupying Kannauj”, and later destroying it — a destruction that
announce

m
“hastened the disintegration” of the Pratīhāra empire.

. co ag
se m
l a
Why the struggle stayed indecisive: a prize that three powers can all reach is a
ag time one took Kannauj, its army was far from
prize none of them can hold. Each
home and the other two were still intact. So the fighting went on “with fluctuating

co m
m.
outcomes and no lasting victor” through the 8th and 9th centuries — and the real

m as e
l
winners were the kingdoms far away in the south, which were left alone to grow.
.co a g
a s em
a gl For the class discussion: ask what Kannauj had that Sthāneśhvara did not.
Sthāneśhvara (Thanesar) lies near the northwestern approaches — good for

m a s
.co agl
defence, poor for wealth. Kannauj is the opposite. Harṣha’s choice tells you what a
7th-century king valued most.
se m
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a

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THINK ABOUT IT — Page 72
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.co l
Al-Masūdī on a Rāṣhṭrakūṭa ruler

a g
se m
a
THINK ABOUT IT

ag l
Al-Masūdī, a 10th-century Arab historian and traveller from Baghdad, gave high
se m
a
Q1

. com
praise to a Rāṣhṭrakūṭa ruler: “His troops and elephants are innumerable. … There
a g l
e m
s kingdom, Islam is honoured and protected. And, for
is none among the rulers of Sindh and Hind who in his territory respects the

g l ahis
them, mosques andacongregational mosques, which are always full, have been built
Muslims [as he does]. In

m
for offering prayers five times.” What does this tell us about the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas?

. co
em
m l as
.co g

em a
s
It tells us the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas were both very powerful and deliberately tolerant — and that
a
l their tolerance extended to a religion newly arrived from outside India. Read the quotation
ag c
in three parts.
m .
s e
. c o m
“His troops and elephants are innumerable.” This is a foreign visitor, not a court poet,
a g la
s e
confirming Rāṣhṭrakūṭa militarym strength. It matches the chapter’s own statement that they
a
agl
were “one of the most dominant powers for nearly two centuries, their empire spanning
much of the subcontinent”.

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“There is none among the rulers of Sindh and Hind who in his territory respects the
Muslims [as he does].” Al-Masūdī is comparing Indian rulers with one another, and putting
this king first. Note the date: the 10th century, only two centuries after the Arab conquest of
Sindh. Even so, Muslim traders on the Rāṣhṭrakūṭa coast were protected.
“Mosques … which are always full, have been built.” Not merely permitted — built, and in
use every day. That is active state support for a community’s worship.

What we can conclude. The chapter has already told us the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas “equally patronised
Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain schools of thought”. Al-Masūdī shows that this policy was not limited
to India’s older traditions: it was extended to Islam as well. Their tolerance was a settled way of
governing, not a personal preference of one king. Amoghavarṣha I is the same pattern —
“strongly drawn to Jainism; however, he also patronised Hindu temples.”

Why a strong king would do this: the Rāṣhṭrakūṭa empire lived on trade as well as
land. Arab merchants brought the west-coast shipping described later in the chapter.
A ruler who protects a merchant community keeps its ships, its goods and its taxes.
Good governance and good business pointed the same way here — and Al-Masūdī’s
praise is itself proof it worked, since he wrote it after being treated well.

Tip on using sources: a foreign observer praising a distant king is usually worth
more than a court inscription praising its own patron. Compare this with Ravikīrti’s
inscription at Aihole on page 77, which the chapter says “is not free from
exaggerations”.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 74
Kalhaṇa and the writing of history (Rājatarangiṇī)

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 What qualities does Kalhaṇa think a historian should have?

Four qualities, and he names them himself: completeness, wide reading, accuracy, and
fairness.

He should join up the story. “My effort is to give a connected account where the narratives
of past events have become fragmentary in many respects.” A historian does not just collect
scraps; he makes sense of them as one story.
He should read everything already written. “I have examined eleven earlier works
composed by former scholars containing the chronicles of kings.” Eleven — he counted,
because being thorough was part of the job.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

He should correct errors from evidence. By consulting “inscriptions relating to temple
consecrations, royal grants, laudatory records, and other written works, I have overcome
many difficulties caused by errors.” He knows earlier books contain mistakes, and he checks
them against hard evidence.
He should judge without feeling. “That noble-minded poet is alone worthy of praise whose
words, like that of a judge, remain free from love or hatred in relating the facts of the past.”

Why he added a fifth aim: Kalhaṇa also wanted history to teach. His purpose, the
chapter says, was “to highlight the rulers’ ethical values — or lack of them”. Hence:
“Those who are intent on harassing their subjects perish with their families; on the
other hand, fortune waits on even the descendants of those who reinstate order
where there is chaos.” A modern historian would call this a moral judgement rather
than history — but notice that Kalhaṇa reaches it after the evidence, not before it. He
does not hide the crimes of the rulers he admires: he records that Queen Diddā,
whose building work he describes, also eliminated rivals ruthlessly, “including her
own grandsons”.

Q2 What do these lines reveal about his method of gathering information? In what
ways does it resemble or differ from the way history is currently written?

His method is recognisably the modern one — gather many sources, compare them,
prefer the hard evidence — but his purpose and his form are different.
His method, in his own order. (1) Read the eleven earlier chronicles. (2) Go to primary
evidence — temple consecration inscriptions, royal grants, laudatory records. (3) Use that
evidence to correct the errors in the books. (4) Write one connected narrative. (5) Keep the
judgement free of love and hatred.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

KALHAṆA, 12TH CENTURY A HISTORIAN TODAY

Resembles Uses many sources rather than one · treats inscriptions and grants as more reliable than
repeated stories · states his method openly so readers can judge it · aims at impartiality

Differs — Writes an epic poem in Sanskrit Writes prose, with footnotes naming every source so
form anyone can check

Differs — To draw moral lessons from the To explain why things happened; moral judgement is
purpose conduct of kings kept separate from the evidence

Differs — Mostly kings and dynasties Also farmers, traders, artisans, women, children —
subject “history from below”

Differs — Texts, inscriptions, grants, coins All of those plus archaeology, radiocarbon dating,
evidence DNA, climate data, satellite survey

Did you know? Kalhaṇa’s habit of checking a chronicle against an inscription is
exactly what this chapter does to Ravikīrti’s Aihole inscription (page 77): it praises
Pulakeśhin II in a “highly poetical style”, but “some of the ‘facts’ it presents are
contradicted by other inscriptions”. Cross-checking is 900 years old and still the core
skill.

Q3 Kalhaṇa also writes, “That noble-minded poet is alone worthy of praise whose
words, like that of a judge, remain free from love or hatred in relating the facts of
the past.” What does he mean by ‘free from love or hatred’? How would meeting this
condition make a historian more reliable?

He means the historian must not decide in advance whom to favour. ‘Love’ is the temptation
to praise your own king, your own dynasty, your own religion or region; ‘hatred’ is the
temptation to blacken an enemy. Kalhaṇa’s comparison is exact: a judge must hear both sides
and rule on the evidence even when the verdict goes against someone he likes.
How it makes a historian more reliable

Nothing gets left out. A writer who loves his subject quietly drops the awkward facts.
Kalhaṇa does not: he records Diddā’s temples and her killings.
Praise becomes worth something. If a historian praises everyone on his own side, his
praise carries no information. If he criticises his own side when the evidence requires it, his
praise becomes evidence.
Others can check him. An impartial account can be tested against inscriptions and other
chronicles. A partisan account only tells you what its author wanted you to believe.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The reader can think for herself. Given the facts without the author’s feelings attached, a
reader can form her own judgement — which is what history is for.

Why this is hard, not obvious: almost every source in this chapter was written by
someone with a side. Ravikīrti was Pulakeśhin II’s own court poet, and exaggerated.
The Chachnāma tells the Arab conquest of Sindh from the conquerors’ view. Al-
Masūdī and Sulaiman wrote as outsiders with opinions of their own — Sulaiman calls
a Pratīhāra king “no greater foe of the Muhammadan faith”. Kalhaṇa is asking for
something genuinely difficult, and that is why the chapter quotes him.

Try this: take one sentence from this chapter — “bin Qasim kept up the slaughter of
the inhabitants for three days” — and ask: who wrote it? (Al-Balādhurī, a 9th-century
Arab historian.) Was he on the Arab side? (Yes.) Does that make the account of the
slaughter more or less believable? (More — a writer sympathetic to bin Qasim had
no reason to invent it.) That is Kalhaṇa’s test in action.

LET’S EXPLORE — Pages 74–75
Ādi Śhankarāchārya, the Shankaracharya Hill (Fig. 3.14) and the four maṭhas

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 Śhankarāchārya taught that brahman is the ultimate reality or the pure
consciousness, and that the world as we perceive it is māyā or illusion. He
established four maṭhas (monasteries and centres of learning) at Badrinath, Puri,
Dwarka, and Sringeri. Mark the location of these cities on a map; why do you think
he chose four different corners of India rather than more central locations?

Mark them and the answer draws itself: the four maṭhas sit at the four extremes of India,
so together they enclose the whole country.

Page 18 of 58

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MAṬHA PRESENT-DAY DIRECTION WHAT IT STANDS AT THE EDGE OF

m
STATE
ase
. c o a g l
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Badrinath
m Uttarakhand North High in the Himalayas, near the source of the
a
agl
Ganga

Puri Odisha East On the Bay of Bengal

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em . ag
as
Dwarka Gujarat West On the Arabian Sea, at the tip of Saurashtra

Sringeri Karnataka a g l
South In the Western Ghats, the southern peninsula

co m
m.
Why the corners and not the centre — four reasons

o m l a se
To bind the whole land together. Four centres at four extremes make a single frame that
g convenient for people
.c everything in between. One central maṭha would have been
a
m
includes

l a se and useless to everyone else.
nearby
a g Because pilgrimage already ran that way. Badrinath, Puri and Dwarka were already great

s
pilgrimage places. Placing a centre of learning where pilgrims already came meant the
om a
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teaching would spread by itself, carried home by people from every region. (You met this

s e m Sacred’.)
idea in Part 1, in ‘How the Land Becomes
a
Because he taught one reality
agl behind many appearances. Śhankarāchārya taught that
brahman is the one ultimate reality and the world as we see it is māyā. A tradition saying “the
many are really one” is well expressed by four widely-separated maṭhas teaching one
co m
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se
philosophy.

o m l a
gone hostile king.
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Because a distant centre survives a local disaster. Four independent maṭhas in four

m a
se
regions
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agl
Vikramaśhilā, standing alone, was plundered and destroyed in the 12th century; the four
maṭhas are still functioning.

se m
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cosketch g l a
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em Gopādri Hill) above Srinagar, with the Jhelum
About Fig. 3.14 — the 19th-century

a s
gl
called Takht-i-Sulaiman, anciently
meandering below andaHimalayan peaks behind. Tradition says the 8th-century
teacher of advaita vedānta visited it, and the stone temple on top is known as the

. com
Shankaracharya or Jyeshteshwara temple. Its presence in Kashmir is the chapter’s
m
point on the very next page: “despite Kashmir’s mountainousegeography,
s
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throughout
. chistory a gl and cultural
o the kingdom remained well connected to the political
asem
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In-text Question — Page e75m . co agl
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The Deccan and Beyond

Q1 Do you remember Queen Prabhāvatī Gupta of the Vākāṭakas (Chapter 7 of Part 1 of
this textbook)?

Yes — she was the Gupta princess who married into the Vākāṭaka dynasty of the Deccan
and then ruled it as regent for her sons after her husband’s death. She was the daughter of
the Gupta emperor Chandragupta II, and her rule is known from her own land-grant
inscriptions.
Why the chapter reminds you of her here. The Vākāṭakas were the great power of the Deccan
in the age before this chapter begins. Their end is what clears the stage: “Once that dynasty
came to an end, several mighty kingdoms were locked in a contest for supremacy (Fig. 3.16)” —
the Chālukyas, Rāṣhṭrakūṭas, Pallavas, Pāṇḍyas, Cheras and Cholas.
She matters for two more reasons that the chapter builds on:

She shows a woman exercising real royal power — the same point the chapter makes
later for Queen Diddā of Kashmir and Tribhuvana Mahadevi I of the Bhauma-Karas in
Odisha, who issued land grants under the title ‘Paramabhaṭṭārikā Mahārājādhirāja
Tribhuvana Mahādevī’, ‘supreme sovereign empress, great queen of the three worlds’.
She shows north and south already linked by marriage and alliance. The pattern
continues in this chapter: Harṣha allies with the Varmans of Kāmarūpa, the Pāṇḍyas ally with
the Chālukyas and the Pallavas.

Tip: when the book asks “do you remember…?”, it is telling you the two chapters are
meant to be read together. Keep Part 1’s ‘The Gupta Era’ open beside this chapter —
the Guptas end there and this chapter begins in the space they leave.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 79
The Durga panel at Māmallapuram (Fig. 3.18)

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 Can you identify some of Durga’s many weapons? And her vāhana?

Her vāhana is the lion, and it is the easiest thing to find in the panel — the maned head,
the round eye and the carefully carved curls of the mane are right at the centre of the left
half, striding forward under her.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The weapons. Durga is carved with eight arms spread out like the spokes of a wheel, each
holding something. The granite is worn, so read them by shape rather than by detail:

The bow (dhanuṣ) — the long curved shaft slanting across her body, the clearest weapon in
the panel.
The arrow (bāṇa) — a straight shaft in the hand beside the bow-hand.
The sword (khaḍga) — a straight blade held out in an upper arm.
The shield — the round disc-like shape near a lower hand.
Disc and conch (chakra and śhankha) — the two rounded objects held high in the raised
hands.
A bell and a noose or club in the remaining hands, worn almost smooth.

Why eight arms: the sculptor is not drawing a woman with eight arms; he is
drawing power that acts in every direction at once. Each arm points a different way,
so the figure fills a circle of space while the body itself stays calm and upright. It is a
way of saying “she can meet any attack from any side” in stone.

Check it yourself: the panel is worn granite and lit from one side in the photograph,
so some objects are genuinely hard to name. Look at Fig. 3.18 in your own book,
count the arms first, then work outwards from the two you are sure of — the bow
and the lion.

Q2 What are the main differences between her attendants and the demon’s
attendants?

Hers are slim, upright, orderly and advancing; his are heavy, crouching, tumbling and
breaking up. The sculptor has told you who is winning without carving a single word.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

DURGA’S ATTENDANTS (LEFT) MAHIṢHĀSURA’S ATTENDANTS
(RIGHT)

Body type Slender, graceful, human, lightly built Squat and heavy, dwarf-like gaṇa figures,
thick-limbed

Posture Upright, striding forward, heads up Bending, crouching, one figure falling head-
first

Direction All moving the same way — towards Scattering, turning away, no common
the demon direction

What they are Drawing bows, raising swords, Collapsing at the demon’s feet, some already
doing keeping formation on the ground

Mood Calm and confident Alarmed and disordered

Why the sculptor made the contrast so sharp: he had one flat wall and no words.
So he used the oldest visual grammar there is — order against disorder, forward
against backward, light bodies against heavy ones. Anyone walking past, then or
now, reads the outcome of the battle in a second.

Q3 What does the demon’s slanted posture and general attitude indicate?

That he is losing. Mahiṣhāsura is carved leaning backwards, his weight going the wrong way —
away from Durga rather than towards her. Every detail of his figure says the same thing.

The lean is a retreat. A fighter who is winning leans in. His body tilts back and his feet are
unsettled — the moment before he gives ground.
His huge club is up on his shoulder, not swinging. He is powerfully built and heavily
armed, and it is doing him no good. Strength without balance is useless.
His head is turned towards her. He is reacting to her attack rather than making his own.
His parasol still floats above him. That round chhatra is the sign of a king. He is still
carrying the marks of his authority at the exact moment he is losing it — which makes the
fall look sharper.
His companions are already collapsing at his feet. Around him the panel has begun to
come apart.

Set that against Durga: seated firmly on her lion, upright, all eight arms active, her attendants
advancing in order. The chapter calls it “Durga’s confident assault”. The composition is one long
diagonal running from her calm centre down into his tilted, crumbling side.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why this is such good sculpture: the caption says the goddess is “about to slay” the
demon — the sculptor chose the moment before the end, not the end itself. That is
harder and better. Nothing is finished, so the viewer's eye finishes it, and the panel
stays in motion forever.

DON’T MISS OUT — Page 81
Inscriptions in two languages

DON’T MISS OUT

Q1 During this period, inscriptions began using both Sanskrit and regional languages
simultaneously. In land grants, the ruler and his dynastic history were often praised
in Sanskrit, while the operative details of the grant were recorded in the local
language. Why do you think such inscriptions were written in two languages?

Because the two halves of the inscription were meant for two different audiences. The
praise was for posterity and for the learned world; the details of the grant were for the villagers
who had to live by them. So each half was written in the language its readers could actually use.

PART OF THE LANGUAGE WHO IT WAS FOR WHAT IT HAD TO DO
INSCRIPTION

Praise of the king and his Sanskrit Scholars, priests, Carry prestige, and be
dynasty courts, other kings, readable anywhere in India
and readers in later — Sanskrit was the shared
centuries learned language from
Kashmir to Kānchī

The operative details — who The local language The donee, the Be understood exactly, so it
receives what land, its (Tamil, Kannada, village assembly, the could be enforced and
boundaries, the taxes, the Telugu…) neighbours, the disputes settled years later
conditions local officials

Three things this tells us.

A grant was a legal document, not only a monument. Boundaries and shares had to be
unambiguous to the people standing on that land. Poetry in a language they did not read
would have been useless.
Regional languages had come of age. Tamil, Kannada and Telugu were now fit to carry law
and administration, not only songs. The chapter notes that Chola “inscriptions make use of
both languages”, and that Telugu and Kannada literature flourished under the Eastern

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Chālukyas.
co m
Sanskrit was not being replaced — the two shared the work. This is the same pattern as
e m.
c o m g l as
.
the bhakti saints, who wrote in regional languages while Sanskrit learning continued in the
maṭhasm
e a
s
and monasteries.
a
aglWhy it also helped the king: a bilingual inscription lets a ruler speak in two voices

co m
at once — as a great emperor in the language of empire, and as a familiar local lord

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in the language of the village. Kannada-speaking farmers heard their own language ag
g l as
from the throne; visiting scholars read the Sanskrit and reported the king’s
greatness elsewhere. a

. c om
s e m form or a
Did you know? India still does this. Look at a currency note, a government

. com board — the national and the local languagesaside
railway station glaby side, each
a s em its own job. The habit is more than a thousand years old.
doing

a gl
m a s
In-text Question — Page 82
m.co agl
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Other Developments
a g
We have so far placed more emphasis on the rise and decline of the leading political
co m
.
Q1

e m
as
powers of this period. What happened to the society in the meantime?
m l
.co a g
a s em

agl Society did not simply wait while the kings fought — it reorganised itself, and the chapter
answers the question under four heads.
se m
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AREA WHAT CHANGED

Polity and Large unified empires gave way to smaller decentralised kingdoms. Core regions were ruled
administration directly; the rest through sāmantas. Direct territory was divided into provinces (bhuktis or
rāṣhṭras), districts (maṇḍalas) and villages. Villages stayed largely self-governed under
headmen, accountants and local committees, and from the 9th century south India saw
assemblies at several levels — the Chola inscriptions at Uttaramerur record how members of
the village sabhā were chosen.

Trade, economy The land grant system expanded greatly, creating a new class of landholders — and, since
and urbanisation many did not till the land themselves, powerful intermediaries who often exploited peasants.
Grants brought waste land under cultivation; tanks, wells and ponds were sponsored (the
Pallava tanks in Tamil Nadu still work). Trade flourished: small traders locally, ship-owning
merchants over long distances, the west coast trading with Iran, Iraq and East Africa and the
east coast with Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and China.

Social life Society “grew more complex and hence cannot be reduced to a simple description”. Jātis
multiplied, many based on occupation or region; tribes, migrants and occupational groups
were absorbed, while some — foreign traders, for instance — stayed outside. The system was
flexible, not rigid: the Pālas and Kākatīyas are said to have been originally Śhūdras and later
regarded as Kṣhatriyas. But terms like aspṛiśhya also appear, pointing to real discrimination.

Cultural life Rulers patronised Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions alike; these shared concepts (dharma,
karma), sacred spaces and motifs and “coexisted peacefully most of the time”. Tantric schools
appeared around the 6th century; Buddhism thrived in the east under the Pālas but declined
elsewhere as temple-based Hinduism and bhakti rose; Jainism stayed strong in western India
and Karnataka; and the Bhakti tradition spread from the Tamil Ālvārs and Nāyanmārs
across the whole society.

Why this is the right question to ask: dynasties are the easiest history to write,
because kings put up inscriptions about themselves. But most people in this period
were farmers, weavers, potters and traders who never appear in a royal record. To
reach them, historians read land grants, temple accounts, hero stones and
merchant-guild inscriptions — which is exactly why the chapter shows you the hero
stone at Eduthanur, where the inscription gives the names of a village chief and of his
dog.

Tip: notice the chapter also corrects a common claim. Some historians have
suggested that towns declined in this period; the chapter says “the evidence paints a
different and more complex picture” — Xuanzang saw Kauśhāmbī and Śhrāvastī
declining but Sthāneśhvara, Kānyakubja and Kāśhī thriving, and southern cities
flourished as political, economic and religious hubs.

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THINK ABOUT IT — Page 85
Social life — how the Kāyasthas became a jāti

THINK ABOUT IT

Q1 How does a professional group transform into a jāti? Such a process was complex
and could vary from region to region. Let us look at one example. The Kāyasthas,
historically known as scribes or clerks, were initially a professional group open to
different varṇas. In the 10th century, they became a distinct jāti. In parts of Bengal,
certain Brāhmaṇa surnames such as Vasu, Ghosha, Datta, and Dama, later came to
be associated with Kāyasthas, indicating a fusion of Brāhmaṇa and non-Brāhmaṇa
families. Over time, they married mainly within their group, forming the Kāyastha
jāti.

A profession becomes a jāti when the people who share the work also begin to share
marriages — at that point the group stops being something you join and becomes
something you are born into. The Kāyastha example in the box shows the steps.

STEP WHAT HAPPENS IN THE KĀYASTHA CASE

1. A skill is A specialised job becomes important Kingdoms grew, land grants multiplied, records
needed enough to support full-time workers had to be written and kept — so scribes and
clerks were in demand everywhere

2. An open Anyone with the skill can join, The Kāyasthas were “initially a professional
profession whatever their background group open to different varṇas”
forms

3. The skill is Reading, writing, accounts and legal Families of Brāhmaṇa and non-Brāhmaṇa
taught at home formulas pass from father to son, so origin end up in the same occupation — a fusion
the same families stay in the work

4. Marriage Members begin to marry mainly “Over time, they married mainly within their
closes the within the group group”
circle

5. It becomes a Birth, not skill, now decides By the 10th century the Kāyasthas were a
jāti membership; a shared name and distinct jāti; Bengali surnames such as Vasu,
identity follow Ghosha, Datta and Dama came to be associated
with them

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why marriage is the decisive step: as long as outsiders can enter, a group is an
occupation. Once people mostly marry inside it, the children are born inside it, and
within two or three generations membership is settled at birth. That is what turns a
profession into a jāti — and it is why the chapter builds its whole description of jātis
around marriage: “this created communities in which most people married within
their group.”

Tip — the chapter’s warning: “Such a process was complex and could vary from
region to region.” The Bengal story is one example, not a rule for all of India. The
chapter also reminds us that “much of the data on the jātis comes from texts, and
some from inscriptions, but overall there are many gaps and unanswered
questions”, and that varṇa and jāti were “flexible rather than rigid” — the Pālas and
Kākatīyas moved from being regarded as Śhūdras to being regarded as Kṣhatriyas.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 90

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The coins of Toramāṇa and Skandagupta (Fig. 3.26)

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 What details do you observe in these coins (Fig. 3.26)? Why do the coins of Toramāṇa
and Skandagupta appear so similar? What conclusions can you draw?

What Fig. 3.26 shows. Four photographs of silver coins in a row on a
pale blue ground.
First (left pair, obverse). A worn coin carrying the head and
shoulders of a ruler in profile, facing right, inside a border of
raised dots. A few small symbols and traces of a legend sit in the
field in front of the face.
Second (left pair, reverse). The same coin’s other side: a large
wheel-like disc with radiating spokes, ringed by a circle of dots,
and below it, under a straight dividing line, two big Brahmi
letters.
Third (right pair, obverse). A sharper, better-preserved coin —
again the head and shoulders of a ruler in profile facing right,
with elaborate curled hair gathered behind the head, a crescent-
shaped headdress, a large round earring, a beaded necklace and
a collar of small triangles.
Fourth (right pair, reverse). A bird with its tail fanned out,
standing facing the viewer and filling the whole flan, with a
circular legend running round the rim.
The book’s own caption reads: “(Left) A coin of the Hūṇa Toramāṇa,
with his name ‘Tora’ in Brahmi script. (Right) A coin of the Gupta
emperor Skandagupta.”

Fig. 3.26, page 90 — described here; see the textbook for the photographs of the coins
themselves.

They look alike because Toramāṇa, the Hūṇa ruler, deliberately copied the Gupta coin
design. Look at the four faces in Fig. 3.26 — two sides of Toramāṇa’s coin on the left, two sides
of Skandagupta’s on the right.
What you can see

Page 28 of 58

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co m
m.
TORAMĀṆA (LEFT PAIR) SKANDAGUPTA (RIGHT PAIR)

m as e
Metal and
.co
A small silver coin
a g l
A small silver coin of the same kind
size
se m
g l a
aFront The king’s head in profile, facing right, The king’s head in profile, facing right, more
(obverse) wearing a headdress, with a ring of raised finely modelled, with an ornamented collar

m
.co ag
dots along the edge and a border round the rim

em or
A round emblem like a spokedswheel
a
l below it
gand
Back A peacock with its tail fanned out, ringed by a
(reverse)
a
sun inside a circle of dots,
large Brahmi letters — his name, ‘Tora’
circular legend in Brahmi

co m
e m.
Layout Identical idea: ruler’s portrait on one side, a religious or dynastic emblem plus a Brahmi

m l as
.co
legend on the other

a g
se m
l a
Why they are so similar. The chapter gives the reason directly: the Hūṇas “adopted Sanskrit
g
a and Prakrit for their inscriptions and used Gupta-style royal titles, coin designs, and religious
s
symbols. Some of their coins, for instance, displayed the goddess Lakṣhmī and attributes of
m a
.co agl
Viṣhṇu or Śhiva.” Toramāṇa was not inventing a Hūṇa coinage; he was continuing the Gupta
one.
se m
g l a
What we can conclude
a
The invaders were absorbed, not the other way round. Within a generation or two the

. c om
Hūṇas were writing in Indian scripts and languages and using Indian symbols. By the 7th
century they had “assimilated into the very fabric of Indian society”. em

c o l as that looks exactly like
m coin is a claim to legitimacy. A new ruler who issuesgmoney
m .
A copied
a has changed, this coin is as
a s e
agl
the old ruler’s money is telling merchants and farmers: nothing
good as the last one, and I am the rightful successor. It is the cheapest way to be accepted.
Trade needed continuity. Traders will not accept a coin they do not recognise. Keeping the
se m
com g l a
.
familiar weight, metal, portrait and script kept the markets working.

e m a
as study them alongside inscriptions and travelogues.
Coins are evidence. Two small pieces of silver tell us about religion, script, language, art and

a g l
politics — which is why historians

Did you know? The peacock on Skandagupta’s coin is not decoration. The peacock is
co m
m .
e
the vāhana of Kārttikeya, also called Skanda — the emperor’s own name. Compare it
m l as
.co g
with Fig. 3.4 on page 64: Harṣha’s coin also carries “a peacock fanning its tail” on the

em a
s
reverse. The visual language of Indian coinage carried straight on across dynasties.
l a
ag c
m .
m a s e
LET’S EXPLORE — Page 91
e m . co agl
g l as
a

co m
m .
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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The queens of Sindh in the Chachnāma

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 What does this suggest about the way the indigenous people responded to
invasions?

That resistance did not end when the king fell — it continued, and it came from every part
of society, not only the army.
Look at the sequence in the chapter. King Dāhar fought from the back of an elephant and “was
killed by an arrow, following which his army was routed.” In most accounts of a conquest, that is
the end. Here it is not:

His widowed queen “put up a brave resistance” even after the battle was lost and the king
dead.
Another queen paid and inspired the surviving soldiers, distributing her treasure and
rousing them “to stand against the invaders”.
The chiefs came back. “Within two years of Qasim’s death, Indian chiefs rebelled and
regained most of the conquered territory.”
Other kingdoms joined in. Nāgabhaṭa I “crushed the large army of the powerful Mlechchha
king”, and Lalitāditya of Kashmir defeated an Arab chief three times.

The result over three centuries. The geographer al-Istakhri observed that after three centuries
of unremitting effort, Arab dominion in India was limited to two petty states in Sindh and
Punjab — and even there it survived only by giving up iconoclasm and working with local Hindus
and Buddhists.

Why this made conquest so hard: when resistance depends on one ruler, killing
him ends the war. When it is spread across queens, chiefs, soldiers and neighbouring
kings, there is no single point of collapse — the invader wins the battle and still has
to win the country. This is exactly why the chapter says Arab armies “achieved
military successes elsewhere” but “struggled for a long time” in India.

Tip on the source: the Chachnāma is a 13th-century Persian rendering of an older
Arabic account — written long after the events, and from the conquerors’ side. It is
worth noticing that even such a source records the courage of the defenders. Details
of a single episode may be uncertain; the pattern it describes is confirmed by other
evidence.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q2 Why do you think the queen chose to give away her treasure?

Because at that moment the treasure was worth more as courage than as gold. The
kingdom was about to fall; hoarded wealth would simply have become the conqueror’s loot.
Given to the soldiers, it could still buy something the treasury could not.

To keep an army in the field. Soldiers whose king is dead have no pay, no orders and every
reason to go home. Payment kept them together when the state that employed them had
collapsed.
To deny it to the enemy. The Chachnāma itself records what happened to the wealth of
Debal — the temple destroyed, the town plundered. Wealth distributed among defenders
could never become the invader’s prize.
To lead by example. She gave away everything she owned. A queen who keeps nothing
back is asking her soldiers for the same, and has the right to ask. The chapter says she
“inspired them to stand against the invaders” — the gift and the inspiration are one act.
To honour the brave. The treasure went specifically to “the brave soldiers”. It is a reward as
well as a payment — recognition that outlasts the battle.

The underlying idea: the queen was doing what kings did in peacetime for a
different reason. Harṣha gave away his wealth at Prayāga to turn treasure into
loyalty and reputation. She did the same thing in the last hours of a kingdom. In
both cases the lesson is the one this period keeps teaching — wealth is only useful
when it is moving.

Q3 What does this reveal about the role of women in warfare?

That women were not standing outside the war — they took command, financed the
fighting and made their own decisions about how to face defeat. Two queens appear in
these few lines and each acts differently.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

THE WHAT SHE DID WHAT ROLE THAT IS
QUEEN

Dāhar’s “Put up a brave resistance”, and when the Military leadership after the king’s
widow situation became hopeless, immolated herself death; then a choice about her own fate
along with other ladies rather than capture

Another Ordered her treasure distributed among the Command of the treasury and of morale
queen brave soldiers and inspired them to stand — the strategist’s role, not the fighter’s
against the invaders

Set beside the rest of the chapter, this is not an exception. Queen Diddā of Kashmir
“consolidated her power through strategic alliances” in the late 10th century. Tribhuvana
Mahadevi I of the Bhauma-Karas “strengthened the dynasty, suppressed rebellions,
demonstrated strong administrative skills” and ruled as ‘supreme sovereign empress’.
Bāṇabhaṭṭa’s Harṣhacharita shows women working in agriculture and crafts and serving in
courts, and many inscriptions record women funding temples and water works.

Why we hear so little about this otherwise: most inscriptions were commissioned
by kings about kings, so women appear only when they cannot be left out — when
they rule, or when they fund something, or when a chronicler happens to record
them. The chapter says plainly that a woman’s position “would vary widely from one
region to another and from one social layer to another”. So the honest conclusion is
not that women commonly commanded armies; it is that when circumstances
demanded it, they could and did — and no one at the time appears to have found it
strange.

Think about it further: the second queen’s act is the harder one to carry out.
Fighting is a decision made in a moment; deciding how to spend the last of the
treasury, and persuading beaten soldiers to fight on, takes authority that the court
must already have recognised.

THINK ABOUT IT — Page 92

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Sulaiman on a Gurjara-Pratīhāra ruler

THINK ABOUT IT

Q1 Sulaiman, a 9th-century Arab merchant and traveller, makes this comment on a
Gurjara-Pratīhāra ruler: “This king maintains numerous forces, and no other Indian
prince has so fine a cavalry. He is unfriendly to the Arabs … there is no greater foe
of the Muhammadan faith than he. ... He has riches, and his camels and horses are
numerous. … There is no country in India safer from robbers.” Why do you think the
author calls the ruler a ‘foe to the Muslim faith’?

Because this king was the one who kept stopping Arab armies — and Sulaiman, writing
from the Arab side, described a military enemy in religious words. The opposition was
political and territorial; the label is his interpretation of it.
The evidence in the chapter

The Gurjara-Pratīhāras “gained fame for pushing back Arab invasions into northwest India”.
When the Arabs pushed into Rājputāna and Mālwā, the Gwalior inscription records that
Nāgabhaṭa I “crushed the large army of the powerful Mlechchha king.”
Sulaiman’s own words explain the resentment: this king had the finest cavalry in India,
numerous forces, riches, camels and horses. He was simply the hardest opponent the Arabs
met on that frontier.

Why he used religious language for a military fact. In the 9th century, Arab expansion was
carried out in the name of faith — the Chachnāma has bin Qasim quoting the Quran to King
Dāhar. To a writer inside that world, a ruler who blocked Arab armies was naturally described as
an enemy of the faith rather than as an enemy of the caliphate’s ambitions. It is the same fact
seen through a religious lens.
And notice what Sulaiman does not say. He does not report that this king persecuted
Muslims, closed mosques or forced conversions. Compare Al-Masūdī on the Rāṣhṭrakūṭa ruler in
whose kingdom “Islam is honoured and protected”: the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas were not fighting the
Arabs on a frontier, and Muslim traders lived well on their coast. The difference between the two
reports is not a difference of religious policy — it is the difference between a frontier at war and
a coast at peace.

How to read a source like this: separate what the writer saw from what he
concluded. Sulaiman saw a strong army, fine cavalry, great wealth and roads so safe
that “there is no country in India safer from robbers” — that last line is high praise,
and it comes from the same pen. His conclusion, ‘foe to the faith’, is his own
judgement, made from where he stood.

Page 33 of 58

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co m
m.
Tip: a hostile source that admits your strengths is very good evidence. Sulaiman

m l a se
disliked this king and still recorded the best cavalry in India and the safest roads.
o g the same
Historians.ctrust that far more than they would trust a court poetasaying
se m
l a
ag
thing.

co m
e m . ag
as
THINK ABOUT IT — Page 93
Words shared by Sanskrit, Arabic and English
a g l

m
THINK ABOUT IT

co
se m.
o m l a
g can identify words
.c the three languages. By comparing these sounds, you
The table lists common everyday words, highlighting their similar pronunciation
a
Q1

se m
across
a
agl
that are closely related or share common roots in all three languages. With the help
of your teacher, use this observation to complete the table.

m a s
emARABIC
.co agl
a s
gl
SANSKRIT ENGLISH
a
sandal sandalwood

co m
m .
e
tāmbūla tanbūl

m l as
m .co karpūra a g
se
camphor

g l a
a pippalī filfil

se m
com
The table printed on page 93, reproduced with its blanks.
g l a
m . a
ase
agl

co m
.
The completed table. The blanks are filled by listening to the sounds: the consonants stay, the

e m
as
vowels shift as the word passes from one language to the next.
m l
.co a g
a s em SANSKRIT ARABIC ENGLISH WHAT THE WORD IS

agl
chandana sandal sandalwood The fragrant wood of the sandal tree
.c
s e m
m a
. co agl
tāmbūla tanbūl betel (leaf) The paan leaf, chewed after a meal

m
se camphor
l a
ag
karpūra kāfūr The white crystal burnt in worship

pippalī filfil pepper Long pepper — and then pepper generally

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m .
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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Follow one word all the way. Sanskrit pippalī → Greek peperi → Latin piper → English pepper;
and along the Arab sea route, pippalī → Arabic filfil. Same Indian word, two roads, and it is still
on your table at home.

Why the sounds change in these particular ways: a borrowed word gets reshaped
to fit the mouth of the borrower. Arabic has no p, so p regularly becomes f — that is
why pippalī arrives as filfil. Sanskrit ch softens to s in chandana → sandal. Sanskrit
karpūra loses its r-cluster and becomes kāfūr, then Latin gives it back as camphora →
camphor. Once you know the substitutions, you can spot the family resemblance
under the disguise.

Note on ‘betel’: the English word does not sound like tāmbūla or tanbūl, because it
travelled by a third route — Portuguese traders took it from Malayalam veṭṭila. So
this row shows the opposite lesson from the others: words for the same thing can
reach English by completely different roads. Say this in class if the teacher asks why
the sounds do not match.

Did you know? Every word in this table is a trade word — sandalwood, betel,
camphor, pepper. That is the chapter’s real point. Ships crossing the Arabian Sea with
the monsoon “carried not only spices and textiles but also ideas, languages, and
stories”, and the English word monsoon itself comes from Arabic mawsim, ‘season’.
Language is cargo you can still trace.

Before we move on … — Page 95
The chapter in six points

BEFORE WE MOVE ON …

Q1 The decline of the Gupta empire led to the rise of powerful regional kingdoms. No
single power could maintain lasting supremacy, as rival states had comparable
military strength, administrative systems, and strategic approaches.

This is the political shape of the whole chapter, and the second sentence explains the first.
Why no one could win. The three great powers of the Tripartite Struggle were evenly matched
in exactly the three things that decide a long war:

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Military strength. The Rāṣhṭrakūṭas had “innumerable” troops and elephants (Al-Masūdī);
the Gurjara-Pratīhāras had the finest cavalry in India (Sulaiman); the Pālas ruled “much of
eastern and northern India”. No one had a weapon the others lacked.
Administrative systems. All of them ran the same machinery — direct rule at the core,
sāmantas beyond it, provinces, districts and self-governing villages. So none could out-
govern the others or raise revenue faster.
Strategic approaches. All three wanted the same prize for the same reasons, and all three
could reach it. Look at Fig. 3.3 again — Kannauj lies open to west, east and south.

The evidence that it stayed a draw. The three “repeatedly warred against each other, with
fluctuating outcomes and no lasting victor”. The Rāṣhṭrakūṭas briefly occupied Kannauj and
later destroyed it — and even that only “hastened the disintegration” of the Pratīhāras without
making the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas masters of the north.

Why an empire’s decline produces this pattern: the officials, generals and
sāmantas of a fallen empire do not disappear — they become the founders of the
next kingdoms, carrying the old empire’s methods with them. So the successor
states start out roughly equal, because they all inherited the same toolkit. Equality of
that kind produces stalemate, not conquest.

Q2 Foreign invaders who came to India often assimilated and owned her cultural
traditions. However, with the advent of Islam, the situation changed. While Arab
armies achieved military successes elsewhere, they struggled for a long time before
making their first significant breach into the subcontinent.

Two different stories, set side by side.
The old pattern — assimilation. Part 1 of this textbook covered the Greeks, Śhakas and
Kuṣhāṇas; this chapter adds the Hūṇas, and the pattern is the same. Defeated by the Aulikaras
of Daśhapura, they then dissolved into Indian society: soldiers and local officials, one of them on
a temple’s administration council; Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions; Gupta-style titles and coin
designs; Lakṣhmī, Viṣhṇu and Śhiva on their money. Fig. 3.26 is the visible proof — Toramāṇa’s
coin next to Skandagupta’s.
What changed with the Arabs. Islam arrived as a faith that came with its own law, its own
scripture and its own idea of conquest — bin Qasim quotes the Quran to King Dāhar in the
Chachnāma, and Debal’s temple was destroyed. That kind of invader does not simply merge into
the local order.
Why it still took so long. The chapter is careful to say the Arabs “struggled for a long time”:

637 — naval raids on Thānā, Bhārukachchha and Debal, with no lasting territorial control.
Early attempts on the Afghan kingdoms also failed “as they met with fierce resistance”.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

712 — Sindh conquered, Dāhar killed. But within two years of Qasim’s death, Indian chiefs
rebelled and regained most of it.
Pushes into Rājputāna and Mālwā were short-lived; Nāgabhaṭa I and Lalitāditya beat them
back.
After three centuries, al-Istakhri records Arab rule reduced to two petty states in Sindh and
Punjab — surviving only by giving up iconoclasm and working with Hindus and Buddhists.

Why the difference matters: the Hūṇas had no separate identity to defend, so
India absorbed them. The Arabs did, so India could not absorb them — but neither
could they overcome India’s many independent kingdoms, each of which had to be
beaten separately. The result was three centuries of stalemate. The next chapter
picks up the story from there.

Q3 Regardless of their own inclination, rulers generally patronised Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Jainism, promoting a vibrant cultural pluralism. The period saw the
rise of the Bhakti tradition, which soon spread across India.

Every major dynasty in this chapter supports the first half of this point.

RULER OR PERSONAL LEANING WHOM THEY PATRONISED
DYNASTY

Harṣha Inscriptions call him a devotee “Showing respect for all schools of thought and belief”;
of Śhiva; other sources say he at Prayāga he gave to Buddhists, Brahmins and the
was deeply attached to poor
Buddhism

Dharmapāla Great patron of Mahāyāna Founded Vikramaśhilā and Somapura, supported
and the Pālas Buddhism Nālandā; several of his successors were said to be
devotees of Śhiva

Rāṣhṭrakūṭas Amoghavarṣha I was strongly “Equally patronised Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain schools
drawn to Jainism of thought”; Krishna I built the Kailaśhanātha temple;
Amoghavarṣha also patronised Hindu temples — and
Al-Masūdī found mosques built and protected

Pallavas — “Patrons of Jain, Vaishnavite and Shaivite schools of
thought”

Eastern — “Promoted several Hindu and Jain sects, as well as
Chālukyas Buddhist centres”

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why this was possible. The chapter explains it in the THINK ABOUT IT box on page 69: “in
ancient India, the concept of religion was more fluid than it is today… people often did not
regard belief systems involving Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism as separate, but rather as
branches of a common philosophical tree.” The traditions shared central concepts such as
dharma and karma, shared sacred spaces and artistic motifs, and sometimes shared deities.
And then bhakti. From the 6th century, devotion “addressed to a deity” — which had existed
much earlier — spread “among all layers of society and across India”. The spark came from the
Tamil south: the 12 Ālvārs, devotees of Viṣhṇu (one of them, Āṇḍāḷ, a woman), and the 63
Nāyanārs or Nāyanmārs, devotees of Śhiva (including three women). More saints followed
elsewhere, from diverse social backgrounds, composing mostly in regional languages.

Why bhakti spread so far so fast: it needed nothing that a poor person did not
already have. Not Sanskrit — the poems were in the mother tongue. Not wealth —
no sacrifice had to be paid for. Not birth — several bhakti saints were Śhūdras, and
several were women. Devotion “open to everyone” is very hard to stop, and the
chapter says its impact is “lingering to this day”.

Be accurate about this: the chapter is careful to say the traditions coexisted
peacefully “most of the time, despite occasional rivalries, as between Shaivites and
Jainas in south India.” Pluralism here means broad tolerance, not the complete
absence of conflict.

Q4 This period saw remarkable achievements in language, literature, art, sciences and
technologies.

Here is the whole harvest of the chapter, in one place.

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co m
m.
FIELD ACHIEVEMENT WHO / WHERE

mKādambarī — “one of the world’s first novels”, with a plot as e
Sanskrit
.co running across births, dreams and divine worlds; and the a g l
Bāṇabhaṭṭa, at Harṣha’s

s em
literature
a
court (completed by his son)

ag l Harṣhacharita, a royal biography

Drama and Three Sanskrit plays; elaborate Sanskrit poetry; a satirical Harṣha himself; Daṇḍin at

m
.co ag
poetry play the Pallava court;

sem
Mahendravarman I

History
a gla
Rājatarangiṇī, ‘the River of Kings’ — with a stated Kalhaṇa of Kashmir, 12th
writing method: eleven earlier works, inscriptions, grants and century
records
co m
em.
m l as
.co Kannada and Sanskrit works by Amoghavarṣha; Telugu
Regional Tamil bhakti poetry of the Ālvārs and Nāyanmārs; Across the south and the

a g
m
literatures Deccan

l a se and Kannada under the Eastern Chālukyas; Tamil and

a g Sanskrit under the Pallavas and Cholas

om but a gigantic
Krishna I (Rāṣhṭrakūṭa);
a s
agl
Rock-cut The Kailaśhanātha temple at Ellora, the largest rock-cut
architecture
sculpture”; the cave templesm
. c
temple in India — “not a construction Chālukyas; Pallavas

monolithic temples ofla s e of Badami; the caves and

ag
Māmallapuram

m
Sculpture The Durga panel at Māmallapuram (Fig. 3.18); the 10th- Pallavas; Jain patrons in

. co
Karnataka; Cholas
century monolithic Bāhubalī at Shravanabelagola; early
Chola Naṭarāja bronzes
se m
com l a
m . ag Translated into Persian, then
ase
Mathematics Brahmagupta (born 598 CE at Bhillamāla), whose

agl
Brahmasphutasiddhānta gave the rules of arithmetic with Latin; shaped mathematics
zero, negative numbers and fractions and new techniques in the Arab world and Europe
for solving equations — “one of the founders of modern
se m
algebra”
com g l a
m . a
More
gl ase
Bhāskara I — pioneering work in trigonometry and a long Mahāvīra worked at the
mathematics
a
commentary on the Āryabhaṭīya; Virahānka — first to
establish the Virahānka-Fibonacci sequence; Mahāvīra —
court of Amoghavarṣha
Nṛipatunga

com
the first work of mathematics independent of astronomy

.
m scholars of this period
com ase
agl
Astronomy Refined techniques for predicting planetary positions; Many

m.
reliable calendars; precise prediction of solar and lunar

ase
l
eclipses

a g Dharmapāla, late 8th
.c
m
Learning and Vikramaśhilā — six colleges, monasteries, temples, lecture
institutions
m
halls, a vast library, nearly 3,000 scholars, entrance tested century, on the banks of the
a s e
. c o agl
by a dvārapaṇḍita; and Nālandā, still supported; “there Ganga

s e m thousands” of such centres across
a
were hundreds, if not

agl
India

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m .
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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

FIELD ACHIEVEMENT WHO / WHERE

Water Large and small irrigation works; the Pallava tanks of Pallavas and other rulers;
technology Tamil Nadu, “many of which are still functional today” many wells and ponds
sponsored by donors

What made it all possible: the chapter names it — royal patronage. “As with art and
literature, such a long tradition would not have been possible without royal
patronage.” Kings competing for prestige paid for temples, poets, monasteries and
astronomers. The rivalry that produced the Tripartite Struggle also produced Ellora
and Vikramaśhilā.

Did you know? Brahmagupta was born in Bhillamāla — the first capital of the
Gurjara-Pratīhāras. The same small town in western Rajasthan gave India a dynasty
and the rules for calculating with zero.

Q5 The multiplication of jātis made the society more complex, but the varṇa-jāti
system remained flexible.

Both halves are true at once, and the chapter proves each with its own evidence.
More complex. Traditional jātis “multiplied, with many new ones based on occupation or
region”. Local tribes, border populations, foreign migrants and occupational or religious groups
were absorbed into the varṇa-jāti system, while some — foreign traders, for example —
remained outside. Marriage mostly took place within the group, so the new divisions hardened
into communities. The Kāyasthas are the chapter’s worked example: an open profession of
scribes and clerks in the 10th century became a distinct jāti.
Still flexible.

Groups moved up. Several sources indicate that the Pālas and the Kākatīyas “were
originally Śhūdras… but in the course of time, they would have been regarded as Kṣhatriyas.”
A dynasty could change its varṇa standing.
The rules were not the same everywhere. “The system varied widely across regions,
showing that varṇa and jāti were flexible rather than rigid.”
Groups merged. In Bengal, Brāhmaṇa surnames such as Vasu, Ghosha, Datta and Dama
came to be associated with the Kāyasthas — “a fusion of Brāhmaṇa and non-Brāhmaṇa
families.”
People worked together. Different varṇas and jātis “often functioned cooperatively, as they
depended on each other’s work and function, at least at the economic level.”
Bhakti cut across all of it. “Several bhakti saints, for instance, were Śhūdras.”

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Do not soften the other half. The chapter also records the word aspṛiśhya, “not to
be touched”, appearing in a few texts, and quotes Xuanzang: “Butchers, fishers,
dancers, executioners, and scavengers, and so on, have their abodes without the
city. ... Their houses are surrounded by low walls, and form the suburbs.” Flexible
does not mean fair. Both facts belong in an honest answer.

Why historians are cautious here: “Much of the data on the jātis comes from texts,
and some from inscriptions, but overall there are many gaps and unanswered
questions.” Texts often record the rule rather than the practice. That is why the
chapter says society in this period “cannot be reduced to a simple description” —
and why you should distrust any single sentence that claims to sum it up.

Q6 Trade during this period connected local economies with distant markets, both in
India and abroad, spurring urban growth, fostering cultural exchange, and
integrating India into broader trade networks.

Trade in this period ran on three scales at once, and each fed the next.

SCALE WHO RAN IT WHAT THE CHAPTER SAYS

Local Small traders Trade and markets flourished in regional trade centres; temples
acted as centres of commerce in the south

Long-distance Ship-owning Guilds of traders, artisans and moneylenders supported
within and merchants and religious and charitable activities; in south India one was active
beyond India merchant guilds in coastal and inland trade, the other became the largest inter-
regional merchant association

Overseas Shipping from both West coast to ports in present-day Iran, Iraq and East Africa;
coasts, from the 8th east coast to Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and all the way to
century onward Chinese ports

What made the goods available. Land grants brought new land under cultivation; irrigation
works and tanks were built; “with better irrigation and agricultural growth, cash crops thrived,
supporting agro-based crafts and industries.” A surplus is what a trade route needs.
What trade did to the cities. The chapter takes on a disputed claim here. Some historians have
suggested urban decline in this period; “the evidence paints a different and more complex
picture.” In north India most older cities remained occupied and new ones emerged —

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Xuanzang saw Kauśhāmbī and Śhrāvastī declining but Sthāneśhvara, Kānyakubja and Kāśhī
thriving. In south India, cities “continued to flourish as political, economic, and religious hubs,
with temples acting as centres of commerce and ports fuelling maritime trade.”
What trade carried besides goods. A set of Chera copper-plate inscriptions “significantly refers
to the presence of Christian, Muslim and Jewish traders from West Asia, showing again how
India was a hub of international trade” — three faiths living and trading on the Indian coast. And
with the ships came words: chandana → sandal, pippalī → filfil, mawsim → monsoon.

Note on a detail: the chapter says “a similar activity prevailed on the east coast
under the Cheras”. The Cheras, as the same chapter states, were “along the Kerala
coast” — that is India’s west coast, and the Chera copper plates come from there.
Read that sentence as being about the Cheras’ own (western) seaboard.

Why trade quietly matters more than the wars: the Tripartite Struggle left no
lasting victor and changed very little. Trade in the same centuries built cities, funded
temples, fed guilds that paid for charity, brought three foreign faiths peacefully onto
the Kerala coast, and carried Indian numerals to Baghdad and on to Europe. Ships
did more than armies.

Questions and activities — Page 96
End-of-chapter exercise

Q1 If you lived in Kannauj during the struggle between the Pālas, the Pratīhāras and
the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas, how would it change your daily life and your estimate of the
rulers? Write a letter on this to your friend living in Kanchipuram.

How to do this well. This is a letter, so it must sound like one person writing to another — not
like a textbook. But every complaint and every observation in it should come from something
the chapter actually says.
What a good answer must contain

Letter form: place and date at the top, a greeting, three or four short paragraphs, a closing.
Daily life, concretely: the market, the fields, the river route, taxes, safety on the roads,
whether the temple work continues — not just “there was war”.
Why Kannauj in particular: it is the prize of the Tripartite Struggle because it commands
the Ganga and the richest plain in north India.
An opinion about the rulers, with a reason. That is what “your estimate of the rulers” asks
for.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Something addressed to Kanchipuram: your friend lives in a Pallava (later Chola) capital far
to the south — a rich trading city that is not being fought over. The contrast is the point of
the letter.
Nothing invented that contradicts the chapter — the struggle ran through the 8th and
9th centuries “with fluctuating outcomes and no lasting victor”.

Page 43 of 58

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
Sample answer:

ase
. com a g l
m
Kānyakubja, on the Ganga
Theas e of Śhrāvaṇa
ag l month

Dear Ilango,
co m
m . ag
l a se
Your letter reached me only after four months, and the trader who carried it said the
ag twice on the way. That will tell you most of what
road from the Deccan was closed
my life is like now.

. c om
m from the
We are on our third overlord in my lifetime. First the Pratīhāra armyecame
s
m a
gl came up from
co everyone said the trouble was over. Then the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas
.
west and
a
a s em the Narmada, and their elephants stood in our fields for a season. Now
gl people say the Pālas are moving up the river again. My father says the flags on the
beyond
a
s
fort change but the tax collector does not.
m a
em
.co agl
a s
What has actually changed is this. Grain is dear, because carts do not risk the road

agl who is a boatman, does well in a quiet year and
when armies are near. My uncle,
nothing in a year like this. The stonecutters were sent away in the middle of building

c o m
the tank behind our street, and the pit is still open. On the other hand, the market
.
m horse-dealers
s e
has never had so many kinds of people in it — soldiers from Bengal,

c m west, a scribe who writes in a Kannada hand. agla
fromothe
.
m
ase
agl You ask what I think of these kings. Honestly, I do not think any of them is wicked.
They build temples, they feed Brahmins and Buddhist monks alike, they keep poets
se m
com
at court. But not one of them can hold this city, and each knows the other two will
g l a
m . a
ase
come back. So they take Kannauj, empty it, and leave. I have come to think that a

agl
ruler who stays is worth more than a ruler who conquers.

You are lucky in Kānchī. Your kings have to think about ships and merchants and
co m
m .
e
temples, not about who is coming next year from three directions. Write to me about
m l as
.co g
the new stone temples at Māmallapuram. I would like to hear about something

em a
s
being finished.
l a
ag c
Your friend,
m .
m a s e
co agl
Devadatta

m .
as e
a g l

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why the last paragraph is the strongest part: the question asks for a change in
your estimate of the rulers. A good answer does not simply say “war is bad”. It
notices that these were capable, cultured kings — and that being capable was not
enough, because they were evenly matched. That is exactly what the chapter
concludes.

Q2 Emperors and kings during this period controlled only core regions and governed
other regions through subordinate vassals. What would be the advantages and the
challenges of such a system?

The sāmanta system let a king rule far more territory than he could ever administer
himself — and it made that territory permanently unreliable. The chapter states the bargain
in one sentence: sāmantas “were indispensable, as they led armies and managed local
administration. Yet, their loyalty could be fragile.”

ADVANTAGES CHALLENGES

Size becomes possible. No 8th-century king could move Loyalty is conditional. A sāmanta obeyed while the
messages and officials fast enough to run a centre looked strong. The chapter notes that loyalty
subcontinental empire directly. Delegation was the only weakened “especially when they felt that the empire’s
way to be large at all. central authority was weakening”.

Local knowledge governs locally. A sāmanta already Sāmantas can grow stronger than their overlords. The
knew the region’s language, customs, families and clearest example is in this chapter: the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas
disputes. Rule felt familiar, so it was accepted. were once sāmantas under the Chālukyas, and
Dantidurga overthrew them.

Ready-made armies. Sāmantas came with their own The army is borrowed. An army that belongs to your
troops. The emperor did not have to raise, pay and feed vassals can be withheld at the worst moment, or turned
every soldier from the capital. against you.

Cheap and quick expansion. A defeated king could be Defeat is never final. A defeated ruler left on his throne
left in place as a tributary instead of being replaced — remains a ruler, waiting.
less fighting, faster settlement, immediate tribute.

Shock absorption. A rebellion in one province did not Uneven rule. Law, taxes and justice varied from one
automatically shake the rest. sāmanta’s territory to the next; the subject had no
appeal beyond his local lord.

Villages kept running themselves. Below the sāmantas, Empires became short-lived. This is why so few
villages “remained largely self-governed” under kingdoms of this period “lasted more than a couple of
headmen, accountants and local committees — and in centuries”.
the south, elected sabhās.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why kings accepted the risk: the alternative was to rule a small kingdom well or a
large one not at all. Given the speed of a horse and the reach of a message in the
8th century, delegation was not a preference — it was the only technology of empire
available. The weakness was built into the design, and every dynasty in this chapter
eventually paid for it.

Tip: compare it with the directly-ruled core — provinces (bhuktis or rāṣhṭras), districts
(maṇḍalas) and villages, each with its own officials appointed from above. The core is
reliable and small; the sāmanta belt is large and unreliable. Every emperor in this
chapter is trying to make the first grow at the expense of the second.

Q3 In what ways were the invasions of the Hūṇas and the Arabs different in their aims,
methods, and impact on the Indian subcontinent? Prepare a write-up, discuss and
present it in the class.

How to do this well. The question names three headings — aims, methods, impact — so build
the write-up on exactly those three, compare the two invasions under each, and finish with one
conclusion. Keep every claim traceable to the chapter.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

THE HŪṆAS THE ARABS

Who they A branch of the Huns, nomadic people Armies of the new Islamic state, spreading “far into
were from Central Asia, in India from the Asia and Africa” within a few years of Muhammad’s
5th–6th centuries death in 632 CE

Aims Conquest, plunder and land to settle Territorial conquest carried out in the name of faith.
on. No separate religion or law to In the Chachnāma, bin Qasim tells Dāhar he
impose — they later took up Indian considers it “my bounden duty to carry on this
ones religious war”

Methods Horse-riding, archery and “lightning- First naval raids on the coast (637: Thānā,
fast attacks”; deep raids into the Ganga Bhārukachchha, Debal); then, in 712, an organised
plains by two leaders in succession state army under Muhammad bin Qasim sent by the
governor of Iraq. Debal was stormed and, according
to Al-Balādhurī, its temple destroyed and the
slaughter kept up for three days

Who The Aulikara kings of Daśhapura Rebelling Indian chiefs within two years of Qasim’s
stopped (Mandsaur); Yaśhodharma’s victory death; Nāgabhaṭa I of the Gurjara-Pratīhāras;
them pillars still stand there (Fig. 3.25) Lalitāditya of Kashmir, three times

Impact — Weakened the Guptas earlier, but Sindh conquered, but nothing beyond. After three
political “could not affect India much at that centuries, al-Istakhri records Arab rule limited to
time”; their power in India ended with two petty states in Sindh and Punjab
the Aulikara defeats

Impact — Complete assimilation: soldiers and A separate faith and law remained. But the Arabs
cultural local officials, one on a temple council later changed policy in Sindh — temples were
(goṣhṭhika); Sanskrit and Prakrit rebuilt, worship continued, priests kept their share
inscriptions; Gupta-style titles and of revenue; iconoclasm was given up
coins; Lakṣhmī, Viṣhṇu and Śhiva on
their money

Impact — They disappear as a people. Their story The most lasting effect was intellectual, not military:
long term is an example of India absorbing an in the 9th century Sanskrit works on mathematics,
invader astronomy and medicine were translated into Arabic
at Baghdad, and India’s decimal system and zero
passed through the Arabs to Europe

The conclusion to end the write-up on. Both invasions were resisted and both were contained.
The difference is what happened afterwards: the Hūṇas dissolved into India, while the Arabs
remained distinct — yet even they, in Sindh, ended up governing through accommodation. And
the deepest exchange between India and the Arab world was not caused by any invasion at all:
it came through ships, trade and translation.

Page 47 of 58

Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

For the class presentation: put Fig. 3.26 (Toramāṇa’s coin beside Skandagupta’s) on
one side of the board and the sentence about Indian numerals reaching Europe on
the other. Those two images carry the whole argument — one invasion ended in a
copied coin, the other in a borrowed number system.

Q4 Imagine you are a common citizen watching the Prayāga assembly. How would you
react to Harṣha giving away most of his wealth?

How to do this well. The question asks for a reaction, so write in the first person and say what
you see before you say what you think. A good answer holds two feelings at once — awe at the
spectacle, and a practical question about where the wealth came from. Both are honest for a
common citizen.
What a good answer needs

The facts from the chapter: the assembly was held at Prayāga, at the confluence of the
Ganga and Yamuna; it took place every five years; after performing sacred rites the king
gave away much wealth “to Buddhists, Brahmins, and the poor”.
A citizen’s viewpoint, not a historian’s — the crowd, the noise, the queues, what your family
gained or did not gain.
At least one reason to admire it and one reason to question it.
An awareness that you are one of the poor to whom the giving was directed — that is
what makes your reaction different from a courtier’s.

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co m
m.
Sample answer:

o m l a se
.c seen so many people in one place. We walked two days
a g to reach the
m
I had never

l a se and still could not get near the front. There were monks in yellow, Brahmins
g their students, soldiers keeping a lane open, and people like us — potters,
sangam
awith
weavers, boatmen — standing behind everyone else in the dust.
co m
m . ag
l a se
When the giving began it went on and on. Cloth, grain, gold, vessels. They say the
ag nothing left, and that he does this every five
king kept giving until he had almost
years. My mother said it was the finest thing she had seen in her life, and cried. My

co m
m.
grandfather, who is harder to impress, said quietly, “Whose grain is it?”

m as e
.co
I think both of them were right. It is a great thing that the king came out from
a g l
a s em his walls and gave with his own hands, and that he gave to the Buddhists,
gl the Brahmins and the poor, without asking which of them we were. Nobody was
behind
a
s
turned away for the wrong belief. That is worth something. Our headman has less
m a
.co agl
than the king and shares far less.

a s em
a l
But I also thought about myggrandfather’s question all the way home. This wealth
was collected from villages like ours as tax. Giving some of it back in one glorious
afternoon is not the same as leaving it with us in the first place. And a gift comes
co m
m .
once in five years; the tax collector comes every harvest.
m as e
.co a g l
s m my honest reaction is this: I was proud of my king, and I would rather he built the
eSo
a
gl tank our village has been asking for.
a
se m
comit neither flatters the king nor sneers at him g l a
. a
em A ceremony of public giving really did bind ruler
Why the sample ends where it does:

a s
aglit really was paid for by the subjects. Saying both is a
— it does what the chapter does.
and subject together, and
better answer than picking one.

co m
m .
m as e
.co a g l
se m
g l a
a c
m .
m a s e
e m . co agl
g l as
a

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m .
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.co


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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q5 Forming groups, let each group choose one Ālvār and one Nāyanār and prepare a
biography poster or booklet. Include their life stories and a sample poem or two (in
translation).

How to do this well. This is a research and design task, so divide the work: one pair finds the
life story, one pair finds and copies out the poems from a named translation, one pair designs
the layout. Never invent a verse — a bhakti poem must be quoted from a real published
translation, with the translator and book named on the poster.
What the chapter gives you to start from

Two groups of Tamil poet-devotees produced devotional literature that “had an enormous
impact”: the 12 Ālvārs, devotees of Viṣhṇu — one of them, Āṇḍāḷ, was a woman; and the 63
Nāyanārs or Nāyanmārs, devotees of Śhiva — including three women.
The chapter’s timeline dates the start of the bhakti tradition in south India to about 650 CE.
Fig. 3.24 shows a statue of Kāraikāl Ammaiyār, “one of the female Nāyanmār saints, who
probably lived in the 6th century CE”.
The saints “emerged from diverse social backgrounds”, composed “mostly in regional
languages”, and invoked “a direct personal relationship with the divine that was open to
everyone — cutting across gender and social divisions”.

What a good poster must contain

PANEL WHAT GOES IN IT

1. Name and Name in Tamil and English, the century, and which deity — Viṣhṇu for an Ālvār, Śhiva for a
dates Nāyanmār

2. Life story Where they lived, their background, the turning point in their life, what they are remembered
for. Mark clearly which parts are traditional accounts rather than documented history

3. The poems One or two short passages in translation, with the Tamil title of the work, the translator’s name
and the book or website you took it from

4. Why they One paragraph linking them to the chapter — devotion in the mother tongue, open to all castes
matter and to women

5. Picture A drawing or printed image, and a small map of Tamil Nadu with their place marked
and map

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Sample answer — the plan our group made:

Our Ālvār: Āṇḍāḷ. The chapter tells us she was the only woman among the twelve
Ālvārs and a devotee of Viṣhṇu. Everything else we will look up and cite: tradition
connects her with Srivilliputhur, and the works attributed to her are the Tiruppāvai
and the Nāchchiyār Tirumoḷi. We will take two verses of the Tiruppāvai from a
published English translation in the school library and print the translator’s name
under them.

Our Nāyanmār: Kāraikāl Ammaiyār. The chapter shows her statue in Fig. 3.24 and
says she was one of the three women among the sixty-three Nāyanmārs and
probably lived in the 6th century CE — which makes her one of the earliest bhakti
poets of all. Tradition connects her with Karaikal on the Tamil coast. Her hymns to
Śhiva are famous for their fearlessness; we will quote four lines from a translation
we can name.

Our closing panel will hold one sentence from the chapter: their poetry “invoked a
direct personal relationship with the divine that was open to everyone — cutting
across gender and social divisions and reshaping Indian society and literature. Its
impact is lingering to this day.” Beside it we will write one line of our own: both of the
saints on this poster were women, and both were writing more than 1,300 years ago.

Why the citation rule matters here: bhakti poems are still recited every day, and
many loose “translations” circulate online with no source. A poster that names its
translator is doing exactly what Kalhaṇa said a good historian does — telling the
reader where the material came from, so it can be checked.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q6 You will notice that our maps show only ancient names for the kingdoms’ capitals
and main cities. Using a pencil, mark the modern names next to their original
names. Refer the current map of India and try to locate those cities on it.

N

35°N

Jhelum
Chenab
Ravi Beas
Sutlej
Sthāneśhvara
30°N

Ganga
Yamuna
Kānyakubja Ghaghara Gandak
S
MAN
VA R
AS
ĀR -

Indus
P U Ṣ H YA B H Ū T I S
ĪH RA

Chambal
Brahmaputra
Prayāga Kāśhī
AT J A

25°N Betwa
PĀ L A S
PR UR

Ujjayinī Son
G

Narmada S
ṬA
KŪ
Tapti Mahanadi

Ṭ RA BAY OF
20°N ARABIAN H
R ĀṢ Godavari BENGAL
SEA
Mānyakheṭa
Krishna

70°E 75°E 80°E 85°E 90°E 95°E

Fig. 3.3, page 63 — the chapter’s map of the dynasties, carrying only the ancient names
of the capitals and main cities. Redrawn at true latitude and longitude.

Here is every ancient name in the chapter with the modern name the chapter itself gives.
Pencil these onto Fig. 3.3 (page 63), Fig. 3.7 (page 66) and Fig. 3.16 (page 76).

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

ANCIENT MODERN NAME PRESENT-DAY WHOSE CITY
NAME STATE / REGION

Kānyakubja Kannauj (Kanauj) Uttar Pradesh Harṣha’s capital; the prize of the
Tripartite Struggle

Sthāneśhvara Thanesar Haryana Earlier Puṣhyabhūti capital

Prayāga Prayagraj Uttar Pradesh Harṣha’s five-yearly assembly, at
the Ganga–Yamuna confluence

Ujjayinī Ujjain Madhya Pradesh Later Gurjara-Pratīhāra capital

Bhillamāla Bhinmal Western Rajasthan First Gurjara-Pratīhāra capital;
Brahmagupta’s birthplace

Mānyakheṭa Malkheda Karnataka Rāṣhṭrakūṭa capital

Vātāpi Badami Karnataka Chālukya capital of Pulakeśhin
II; cave temples

Āryapura / Aihole Karnataka Earlier Chālukya capital; Meguti
Ayyavole temple inscription

Kalyāṇī Basavakalyan Northern Karnataka Capital of the Western
Chālukyas from the 10th
century

Kānchī / Kanchipuram Tamil Nadu Pallava capital
Kānchipura

Māmallapuram Mahabalipuram Tamil Nadu Pallava port and rock-cut
monuments

Tanjāvūr Thanjavur Tamil Nadu Chola capital from Vijayālaya
onward

Madurai Madurai (name Tamil Nadu Pāṇḍya capital
unchanged)

Vengi In present-day Andhra Coastal Andhra Eastern Chālukya capital
Pradesh

Daśhapura Mandsaur Madhya Pradesh Aulikara capital; Yaśhodharma’s
victory pillars

Prāgjyotiṣha Close to today’s Assam Varman capital of Kāmarūpa
Guwahati

Thānā Thane Maharashtra Arab naval raid, 637

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
ANCIENT MODERN NAME PRESENT-DAY WHOSE CITY

as e
com
NAME STATE / REGION

. a g l
m
ase
Bhārukachchha Bharuch Gujarat Arab naval raid, 637

gl / Alor
aAror Rohri Sindh (Pakistan) King Dāhar’s capital

m
.co ag
Debal A port city in the delta of Sindh (Pakistan) The first town to fall to bin

sem
the Indus Qasim

a
Kāśhmīra Kashmir
agl Jammu & Kashmir Kārkoṭa kingdom; Lalitāditya,
Queen Diddā

co m
em.
Gopādri Hill Shankaracharya Hill Near Srinagar Fig. 3.14

m l as
.co
(Takht-i-Sulaiman)

a g
se m
l a
Vikramaśhilā In present-day Bihar, on Bihar Dharmapāla’s university

a g the Ganga

a s
com
Bangladesh Pāla monastery

agl
Somapura In present-day
Bangladesh
m .
e
as Uttar Pradesh
agl
Kāśhī Varanasi A thriving city in Xuanzang’s
account

c o m
.
m coast, and
s
Two the chapter leaves open: Korkai, the Pāṇḍya port on the Tamil
e
. c
Vengi omare given only by region, not by a modern city nameag—lawrite “Tamil Nadu
m and “coastal Andhra Pradesh” in pencil and mark them with a question mark.
ecoast”
g l as It is better to show what a source does not tell you than to fill the gap with a guess.
a
se m
m
cokeeping: g l a
. a
em
Why the ancient names are worth they carry information the modern
names have lost. Kānyakubja,sPrāgjyotiṣha
Xuanzang’s travelogue a
l a and Mānyakheṭa appear in inscriptions, in
g in the Rājatarangiṇī — so when a historian reads any of
and
these sources, the old name is the key that locates the place on a modern map.

co m
m .
m as e
.co a g l
s e mQ7 Match the ruler or the dynasty with the city. (a) Rāṣhṭrakūṭas (b) Gurjara-Pratīhāras

agla (c) Cholas (d) Harṣhavardhana (e) Pallavas — (i) Kānchī (ii) Tanjāvūr (iii) Mānyakheṭa

.c
m
(iv) Ujjayinī (v) Kānyakubja

m a s e
e m . co agl
g l as
a
The matched pairs.

co m
m .
m ase
.co


a g l Page 54 of 58

Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

RULER / CITY WHY
DYNASTY

(a) Rāṣhṭrakūṭas (iii) They shifted their power centre to present-day Karnataka, “with
Mānyakheṭa their capital at Mānyakheṭa (modern Malkheda)”

(b) Gurjara- (iv) Ujjayinī Their early capital was Bhillamāla; “it seems to have shifted later
Pratīhāras to Ujjayinī”

(c) Cholas (ii) Tanjāvūr Vijayālaya founded the revived Chola kingdom “from his new
capital at Tanjāvūr (now spelt ‘Thanjavur’)”

(d) (v) He ascended the throne in 606 CE at Kannauj, “anciently known
Harṣhavardhana Kānyakubja as Kānyakubja”

(e) Pallavas (i) Kānchī “With its capital at Kānchī (or Kānchipura, present-day
Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu)”

Tip for matching questions: do the ones you are certain of first and cross them off
both lists. Here, Harṣha–Kānyakubja and Pallavas–Kānchī are the surest, which
leaves only three pairs to sort — and Cholas–Tanjāvūr is the next easiest. Then
Mānyakheṭa and Ujjayinī fall into place on their own.

Notice what the list is really testing: every one of these five cities lies in a different
part of India — Karnataka, Malwa, the Kāveri delta, the Ganga plain and the Tamil
coast. Getting the match right is the same as remembering the chapter’s main point:
power in these centuries was regional, and each region had its own capital.

Chapter at a glance
The Guptas are gone, but India is not empty — it is crowded. This chapter covers
roughly 600 CE to 1200 CE (with the next chapter), six centuries that historians have called
‘post-classical’, ‘late classical’ or ‘early medieval’. Instead of one great empire there are many
strong regional kingdoms. Some call this a time of rivalry and disorder; the chapter asks you
to look again and see “a land buzzing with new ideas, art, and culture, different in each
region, yet all part of one India.”
Harṣhavardhana is the last great north Indian emperor of the age. He came to the
throne at Kannauj in 606 CE, from the Puṣhyabhūti (Vardhana) dynasty whose earlier
capital was Sthāneśhvara. He was a poet and dramatist, patronised Bāṇabhaṭṭa,
welcomed the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (in India 630–644), and gave away his wealth at

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Prayāga every five years. He was stopped at the Narmada by Pulakeśhin II of the
Chālukyas, and died in 647.
After Harṣha, three powers fight over Kannauj for two hundred years. The Pālas from
the east (Gopāla chosen in 750 CE; Dharmapāla founded Vikramaśhilā), the Gurjara-
Pratīhāras from the west (Nāgabhaṭa I; King Bhoja) and the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas from the
Deccan (Dantidurga; Krishna I who carved the Kailaśhanātha temple at Ellora;
Amoghavarṣha I ‘Nṛipatunga’) fought this indecisive Tripartite Struggle — with no lasting
victor.
The Deccan and the South are just as alive. The Chālukyas of Vātāpi, the Pallavas of
Kānchī who carved Māmallapuram, the Pāṇḍyas of Madurai, the Cheras of the Kerala coast
and the Cholas reborn under Vijayālaya at Tanjāvūr — all rise, clash and build. In the north,
Kashmir under the Kārkoṭas gives us Kalhaṇa’s Rājatarangiṇī, India’s great chronicle of
kings.
Under the wars, society keeps changing. Empires ruled their core directly and the rest
through sāmantas; villages stayed self-governed and south India built village sabhās. Land
grants spread cultivation; trade ran from Iraq and Africa to China. Jātis multiplied but
stayed flexible, the Bhakti tradition spread from the Tamil Ālvārs and Nāyanmārs across
all social layers, and Brahmagupta, Bhāskara I, Virahānka and Mahāvīra pushed
mathematics forward.
Two waves of invaders arrive — and are answered very differently. The Hūṇas were
beaten by the Aulikaras of Daśhapura and, within a century, had assimilated: they used
Sanskrit, Gupta-style titles and Gupta-style coins. The Arabs raided the coast in 637 and
conquered Sindh under Muhammad bin Qasim in 712, but were held back for three
centuries by Indian resistance, and their political and religious impact stayed limited.

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Quick revision

TERM WHAT IT MEANS WHERE IT WORTH REMEMBERING
APPEARS IN THE
CHAPTER

Tripartite A situation that involves Word box, page 67 The Pālas, Gurjara-Pratīhāras and
three distinct parties or Rāṣhṭrakūṭas fought over Kannauj
players through the 8th and 9th centuries — no
lasting victor

Sāmanta A subordinate ruler — the ‘Polity and They led armies and ran local
equivalent of a tributary or administration’, administration, but their loyalty could be
vassal page 82 fragile; the Rāṣhṭrakūṭas were once
sāmantas of the Chālukyas and
overthrew them

Bhukti / Province and district — Page 82 Below them came villages, the lowest
rāṣhṭra, the units of directly-ruled units, run by headmen, accountants and
maṇḍala territory local committees

Sabhā A village assembly, its Page 82 The 10th-century Chola inscriptions at
members chosen by a set Uttaramerur record the selection
process process — a democratic tradition
reaching back 1,500 years to the
janapadas

Monolithic Made of a single (‘mono’) Word box, page 78 The Pallava temples of Māmallapuram,
stone or rock (‘lithic’) the Kailaśhanātha temple at Ellora, and
the 10th-century Bāhubalī at
Shravanabelagola

Dvārapaṇḍita ‘Scholar gatekeeper’ — Vikramaśhilā, page Each of Vikramaśhilā’s six colleges had
the teacher who tested 69 one; nearly 3,000 scholars studied there
every student seeking
admission

Mlechchha Originally, those who did Word box, page 92 The Gwalior inscription says Nāgabhaṭa
not speak clearly or follow I “crushed the large army of the powerful
Vedic culture; later, Mlechchha king”
foreigners

Idol / image A worshipped image. The Word box, page 91 The book explains why it changes the
chapter prefers ‘image’, word — ‘idol’ carries the disapproval of
mūrti or vigraha those who condemned image-worship

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Class 7 Social Science Chapter 15 Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

TERM WHAT IT MEANS WHERE IT WORTH REMEMBERING
APPEARS IN THE
CHAPTER

Infidel For medieval Islam, non- Word box, page 91 Quoted from the Chachnāma’s report of
Muslims — especially bin Qasim’s message to King Dāhar
Hindus, Buddhists or Jains

Aspṛiśhya Literally ‘not to be ‘Social life’, page 85 The term appears in a few texts and
touched’ points to discrimination against
communities regarded as ‘impure’;
Xuanzang describes such groups living
outside the city

Jāti A community, usually Pages 84–85 Jātis multiplied in this period, but stayed
based on occupation or flexible — the Pālas and Kākatīyas were
region, in which most said to be originally Śhūdras and later
people married within the regarded as Kṣhatriyas
group

Rājatarangiṇī ‘The River of Kings’ — Pages 73–74 He consulted eleven earlier works plus
Kalhaṇa’s 12th-century inscriptions, grants and records — and
Sanskrit epic history of wanted history to teach moral lessons
Kashmir

Bhakti Personal devotion to a Pages 87–88 From the 6th century it spread massively
deity, placed above Vedic across India; the spark came from the
sacrifice Tamil 12 Ālvārs (Viṣhṇu) and 63
Nāyanmārs (Śhiva)

Merchant Associations of traders, LET’S REMEMBER, They supported religious and charitable
guilds artisans and moneylenders page 84 activities; in south India one guild was
active in coastal and inland trade, the
other became the largest inter-regional
merchant association

Goṣhṭhika A temple’s administration ‘The Hūṇas’ One inscription records a Hūṇa serving
council challenge’, page 90 on such a council — proof of how
completely they assimilated

Chachnāma A 13th-century Persian Pages 91–92 A source to be used with care — it is late,
rendering of an older and written from the conquerors’ side
Arabic account of the
Arab conquest of Sindh

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