The Gupta Empire

A new dynasty centred on Pataliputra subdues northern India and holds it for more than two centuries. The rulers do not remake their subjects' lives but take tribute from dependent kings, and in this comparative calm takes shape what will later be called classical Indian culture: the plays and poems of Kalidasa, the digests of grammar and law, the first stone Hindu temples. Astronomers refine the calendar, physicians compile their treatises, and craftsmen cast in Delhi an iron pillar that rust has hardly touched. In the middle of the sixth century the realm is broken by the raids of the Hephthalites.