Harsha and the kingdoms after the Guptas

After the Gupta Empire faded, northern India broke into competing kingdoms. The most famous of their rulers was Harsha, also called Harshavardhana, who reigned from 606 to 647 CE from his capital Kannauj. His court poet Banabhatta wrote the Harshacharita, a biography that praises Harsha, and the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, who travelled in India from about 630 to 645 CE, left a detailed account of Harsha's assemblies, charities, and administration. Both sources are admiring, so historians read them with care.

Harsha's empire covered much of the northern plains, but it had limits. In the Deccan, the Chalukya king Pulakeshin II defeated Harsha's advance, an event recorded in the Aihole inscription of 634 CE. Harsha is remembered for the great religious assemblies at Kannauj and at Prayaga, modern Prayagraj, where he is said to have distributed his wealth to holy men and the poor every five years. He supported Buddhism while also honouring Hindu gods, a pattern of royal generosity to many sects that was common among Indian kings.

The post-Gupta centuries also saw strong southern kingdoms. The Pallavas of Kanchipuram built rock-cut and structural temples, including the shore temple at Mahabalipuram, and their king Narasimhavarman I defeated the Chalukyas and took the port of Vatapi in the seventh century CE. The Chalukyas of Vatapi, under Pulakeshin II, and later the Rashtrakutas, contested the Deccan with the Pallavas for generations. These rivalries show that the Deccan was not a periphery but a centre of power in its own right.

When Harsha died in 647 CE without an heir, his empire quickly broke apart, and Kannauj became a prize fought over by later dynasties. The period is a useful reminder that empires in ancient India were often short-lived networks of alliances and tribute, not tightly centralised states, and that the most durable achievements of the age, its temples, universities, and literature, often outlasted the kings who patronised them.