South Asia (1252–1395 CE): Sultanates, Temples, and Oceanic Gateways
From the passes of Afghanistan to the lagoons of Kerala and the island atolls of the Maldives, South Asia in the Lower Late Medieval Age was a world of shifting capitals, converging faiths, and expanding sea routes. The monsoon remained the great architect of life, its alternating abundance and scarcity driving hydraulic ingenuity, agricultural diversity, and mercantile enterprise. By the fourteenth century, the subcontinent was knit together by caravan and sea, by shared institutions of devotion and trade, and by the political duality of the Delhi Sultanate in the north and the twin powers of Bahmani and Vijayanagara in the south.
The Delhi Sultanate, centered on the Punjab–Doab, inherited a century of consolidation. Under Alauddin Khalji (r. 1296–1316), frontier raids were repelled, revenue reforms rationalized, and the Sultan’s authority pressed deep into the Deccan. His successor, Muhammad bin Tughluq (r. 1325–1351), extended campaigns from Gujarat to Madurai but overreached; famines, revolts, and failed experiments in currency and administration frayed the realm. Firoz Shah Tughluq (r. 1351–1388) restored order through canal works, madrasas, and endowments that linked state and faith, but within a decade of his death the empire disintegrated. Timur’s invasion of 1398 CE devastated Delhi and the upper Ganga plain, closing a cycle of central dominance.
To the northwest, Afghan and Khurasani frontiers remained gateways of exchange. The Karts of Herat and later Timurid commanders dominated the trans-Hindu Kush approaches; horse caravans, falcons, and precious textiles passed through Kabul and Ghazni toward Lahore and Delhi. In Kashmir, the establishment of the Shah Mir sultans(from 1339) introduced Islam to the court without extinguishing the valley’s Sanskrit learning and artistry.
Eastward, Bengal broke decisively from Delhi’s control. The Ilyas Shahi dynasty (from 1352) ruled from Gauda and Pandua, maintaining fleets on the deltaic channels and embanking the rivers for rice, jute, and cane cultivation. Prosperous and cosmopolitan, Bengal’s silver tanka coinage and river ports connected it to Chittagong, Arakan, and the eastern seas. Along the Naf–Kaladan corridor, the Launggyet kingdom of northern Arakan mediated between Bengal and Upper Myanmar, its rice, salt fish, and elephants moving with the tides toward the Chindwin gateway and the rising Burmese capital of Ava.
In the Himalayan crescent, Nepal’s Malla era flowered. The city-states of Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur built tiered pagodas and brick–timber palaces; artisans forged gilt copper images and repoussé ornaments that blended Vajrayana and Hindu devotion. To the east, the valleys of Bhutan coalesced around monastic estates of the Drukpaorder; dzong-like fortresses presided over a landscape where pastoral and agrarian life merged with Himalayan Buddhism. The passes of Kuti, Kerung, and Nathu carried salt, wool, and paper between Tibet, Nepal, and the plains, sustaining a centuries-old vertical trade.
Across this vast northern arc, canals, embankments, and riverboats underwrote resilience. The Tughluq canals linked Yamuna and Ganga tracts; Bengal’s earthen polders contained the floods of the Brahmaputra–Meghna; and Newar stone spouts (hiti) distributed water through urban courtyards. Even amid invasion and rebellion, agrarian cycles and market towns endured. Sufi hospices offered refuge and credit; temple endowments and monastic networks stabilized rural life. The Chishti and Suhrawardi orders spread devotional Islam across towns and villages, while Bhakti poets in Maharashtra and the north began to reinterpret older Hindu spirituality in the vernacular.
South of the Narmada, a new political balance emerged. Delhi’s Deccan campaigns shattered older dynasties—the Yadavas, Hoysalas, and Kakatiyas—but opened space for regional power. In 1347, Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shahestablished the Bahmani Sultanate at Gulbarga (later Bidar), claiming the mantle of Persianate Islam in the Deccan. Within a decade, the brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya I founded the Vijayanagara Empire on the Tungabhadra, creating a Hindu imperial center whose granite walls, tank-fed gardens, and towering temples at Hampi proclaimed resilience against northern invasion. Between these two great states stretched a frontier of forts, irrigation tanks, and shifting alliances that defined peninsular politics for the next two centuries.
The southern littoral remained the meeting ground of oceans. The Pandya realm of Madurai collapsed under Khalji and Tughluq incursions; a brief Madurai Sultanate (1335–1378) yielded to Vijayanagara. Along the western coast, Calicut rose under the Zamorin as a premier Indian Ocean port. The Malabar backwaters and Kerala pepper gardens fed demand from the Red Sea to the South China Sea, while Quilon, Goa, and Nagapattinam thrived as multiethnic harbors. Chinese junks arrived in Yuan and early Ming decades, exchanging silks and copper for spices, pearls, and cottons.
In Sri Lanka, irrigation in the northern plains declined with the fall of Polonnaruwa. Highland and coastal polities at Gampola and Kotte shared the island with the Tamil Jaffna kingdom, its rulers mediating between South Indian and Sri Lankan trade. Buddhism persisted but lost its royal patronage, while Tamil Saivism and mercantile guilds dominated the northern coast. Across the open sea, the Maldives flourished as an Islamic sultanate and hub of cowrie export. Cowries served as small currency from Bengal to East Africa, while tuna, coir, and coral jewelry reached every shore of the Indian Ocean. The Lakshadweep islands integrated into Malabar’s spice circuits, and the distant Chagos atolls, still uninhabited, served as navigational markers for Arab and Indian seafarers.
Despite climatic cooling and intermittent famine, South Asia’s ingenuity endured. Canal and tank systems buffered monsoon irregularities; double-cropping spread across Bengal and the Deccan; and horse trade through the Afghan passes and maritime networks through Hormuz and Aden kept markets supplied. Islamic and Hindu institutions coexisted—mosques, madrasas, and khanqāhs beside temples, monasteries, and shrines—forming a dense spiritual landscape that bridged rural and urban life.
By 1395 CE, the subcontinent had become a mosaic of sultanates, temple kingdoms, and oceanic polities. Delhi remained a wounded but symbolic capital; Bengal flourished as an independent deltaic power; Kashmir and Nepal perfected their courtly arts; Bhutan and Arakan linked the Himalayas to the Bay; and in the south, the twin empires of Bahmani and Vijayanagara defined the political frontier. The Maldives exported currency to half the known world, while Calicut and Quilon stood as the new hinge between the Indian Ocean and the China seas.
Amid transition and turbulence, South Asia preserved its rhythms of irrigation, devotion, and exchange—a civilization resilient in its regional diversity and poised to enter the early modern age as one of the great centers of global commerce and culture.
