Middle kingdoms of India in the context of "Bhakti movement"

India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area; the most populous country since 2023; and, since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Myanmar, Thailand, and Indonesia.

Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago. Their long occupation, predominantly in isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse. Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE. By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest. Its hymns recorded the early dawnings of Hinduism in India. India's pre-existing Dravidian languages were supplanted in the northern regions. By 400 BCE, caste had emerged within Hinduism, and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity. Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires. Widespread creativity suffused this era, but the status of women declined, and untouchability became an organised belief. In South India, the Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian language scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia.

During the first half of the 8th century, a series of battles took place in the Indian subcontinent between the Umayyad Caliphate and Indian kingdoms situated to the east of the Indus River, subsequent to the Arab conquest of Sindh (present day Pakistan) during 711–713.

The Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) launched a few raids in India, but no larger campaign took place. The second wave of military expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate lasted from 692 to 718. The reign of Al-Walid I (705–715) saw the most dramatic Marwanid Umayyad conquests in a period of barely ten years; North Africa, Iberia, Transoxiana, and Sindh were subdued and conquered by the Arabs. Sindh, ruled by King Dahir of the Brahmin dynasty, was captured by the Umayyad general Muhammad bin Qasim, which became a second-level province of the Caliphate (iqlim) and a suitable base for excursions into India, but, after bin Qasim's departure in 715 most of his captured territories were recaptured by Indian kings.

The Licchavis of Vaishali (Māgadhī Prakrit: 𑀮𑀺𑀘𑁆𑀙𑀯𑀺 Licchavi; Pāli: Licchavi; Sanskrit: ऋक्षवी Ṛkṣavī; English: "Bear Clan") were an ancient Indo-Aryan tribe and dynasty of north-eastern South Asia whose existence is attested from the Iron Age to the Classical Age. The population of Licchavi, the Licchavikas, were organised into a gaṇasaṅgha (an aristocratic oligarchic republic), presently referred to as the Licchavi Republic, which was the leading state of the larger Vajjika League.

Following their eventual subjugation in the Magadha-Vajji war, the Licchavis continued to reside in the region of Vaishali. The fourth century A.D. Gupta Emperor, Samudragupta was the son of a Licchavi princess and referred to himself as a Licchavi-Dauhitra.

Xionites, Chionites, or Chionitae (Middle Persian: Xiyōn or Hiyōn; Avestan: X́iiaona-; Sogdian xwn; Pahlavi Xyōn) were a nomadic people in the Central Asian regions of Transoxiana and Bactria.

The Xionites appear to be synonymous with the Huna peoples of the South Asian regions of classical/medieval India, and possibly also the Huns of European late antiquity, who were in turn connected onomastically to the Xiongnu in Chinese history.

The Nayanars (or Nayanmars; Tamil: நாயன்மார், romanized: Nāyaṉmār, lit. 'teachers') were a group of 63 Tamil saints living during the 6th to 8th centuries CE. Along with the Alvars, their contemporaries, they influenced the Bhakti movement in early medieval South India. The names of the Nayanars were first compiled by Sundarar. The list was expanded by Nambiyandar Nambi during his compilation of material by the poets for the Tirumurai collection, and would include Sundarar himself and Sundarar's parents.

The Nalvar (lit. 'The Four') are the three foremost Nayanars Appar, Sundarar, Sambandar along with Manikkavacakar.

Music in ancient India, can be reproduced from written works dating to the Indian classical period, such as the Nātya Shastra, and through surviving examples of liturgical music such as the hymns of the Samaveda. Musical instruments dating to the prehistoric period have been recovered from archaeological excavations.