Region · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Northern India

On the morning of 1 January 1200 the Atlas records 16 realms and principalities in Northern India, with 81 lords and officers, 173 towns, ports and sites, 58 church lands and religious houses and 54 provinces, peoples and free lands.

The realms

  1. The Chaulukya kingdom of GujaratBhima IIKingdom, with feudatory houses

    Gujarat is the richest kingdom in northern India and has the weakest government in it.

  2. The Chahamana houses of Nadol and JalorSamantasimha at NadolThree separate houses

    The Chahamanas were the greatest Rajput power of the twelfth century until Muizz al-Din beat Prithviraja III at the Second Battle of Tarain in 1192.

  3. The Guhilas of MewarRawal and cadet lines

    Mewar is a hill kingdom with a short grip on its plain.

  4. The independent Rajput housessee the lords' recordsScatter of independent houses

    Between the Ghurid garrisons, the Chaulukya feudatories and the Guhila hills there are houses that answer to none of them in the sources we could reach.

  5. The Chandelas of JejakabhuktiParamardidevaKingdom

    The Chandelas hold Bundelkhand from Mahoba, Kalanjara and Ajaigarh: granite ridges, reservoir tanks and hill forts between the Yamuna on the north and the Vindhyan scarp on the south.

  6. The Paramaras of MalwaSubhatavarmanKingdom

    The Paramaras hold the Malwa plateau from Dhara and Ujjain: the black-soil country between the Chambal and the Betwa and between the Vindhya scarp and the Narmada, with the Nimar below it.

  7. The Kalachuris of Tripuri and RatnapuraVijayasimha at TripuriTwo kingdoms of one house

    Two houses of one family share the colour.

  8. What remains of the GahadavalasHarishchandraRemnant of a kingdom

    The Gahadavalas had Varanasi, Kannauj and the Ganges plain as far as the Bihar edge under Govindachandra and Jayachandra.

  9. The hill rajas of the Himalayan footHill kingdoms

    A scatter of small lordships strung along the Siwalik foot and up into the hills from the Chenab to the Kali: Trigarta at Kangra with its fort and old treasury, Chamba, Kullu, Suket and Mandi, the Sutlej hill thakurais, Pathankot and Nurpur, Jammu and Basohli,

  10. The Senas of BengalLakshmanasenaKingdom

    The last Hindu kingdom of Bengal: a Brahmanical monarchy of Karnata descent that took the delta from the Palas and Varmans in the 1100s and on 1 January 1200 is ruled by the very old Lakshmanasena, in about the twenty-first or twenty-second year of his reign.

  11. Samatata and PattikeraA local line, king not named

    The plains and ridges east of the Meghna: the Lalmai-Mainamati ridge with its Buddhist monasteries, the rice plain of Comilla, Feni and Noakhali, and the port of Chittagong behind its hill spur.

  12. Magadha and AngaMonasteries and local lords

    South Bihar from the Son to the Rajmahal gap, with Anga on the Ganges, is the country of the great mahaviharas and the pilgrim towns of Gaya and Bodh Gaya, and in 1200 it has no king the sources name.

  13. The Karnatas of MithilaNarasimhadevaKingdom of Mithila

    A Brahmanical kingdom of the flat black silt of the Tirhut plain between the Gandak and the Kosi, founded in 1097 by the Karnata warrior Nanyadeva, probably out of the Pala service.

  14. The Eastern Gangas of KalingaRajaraja IIIKingdom

    The kingdom of Kalinga and Utkala: in the titles of Chodaganga, the lands from the Ganges to the Godavari; in fact on 1 January 1200 the coastal corridor from the Subarnarekha to the Ganjam and Srikakulam coast, with the forest and hill chiefs behind it.

  15. KamarupaKingdom

    A broken kingship.

  16. Self-governing peoples of Northern IndiaNone named for 1199-1200 in the sources readSelf-governing peoples

    Much of the ground round the kingdoms of this map is held by peoples who answer to no prince that the sources name, and is drawn in one pale colour, with each people's range outlined in its own record.

Self-governing peoples and other lands

Records of this region that belong to no single realm page.

Primary sources for Northern India

  • Epigraphia Indica: inscriptions of the Chandelas, Paramaras, Gahadavalas, Chaulukyas, Senas and Eastern Gangas, Various (edited for the Archaeological Survey of India by J. Burgess, E. Hultzsch, F. Kielhorn, Sten Konow, F. W. Thomas and successors) (inscriptions of the 1180s to 1210s; the series ran from 1892). The main record series for the Hindu kingdoms of northern India around 1200.
  • Historical Inscriptions of Gujarat, Various (the Chaulukya and Vaghela chanceries), edited by G. V. Acharya (inscriptions of the 10th to 14th centuries; edited 1933 to 1942). The standard corpus of Gujarat's inscriptions.
  • Inscriptions of Bengal, vol. 3, Various (the Sena kings' chanceries), edited by N. G. Majumdar (copper plates of the 10th to early 13th centuries; edited 1929). The one-volume edition of the Sena copper plates, the main documentary evidence for Bengal around 1200.
  • Inscriptions of the Kalachuri-Chedi Era, Various, edited by V. V. Mirashi (inscriptions of the 7th to 13th centuries; edited 1955). Collects every known record of the Kalachuris of Tripuri (Dahala) and of Ratnapura (south Kosala), with text, translation and a long historical introduction.
  • Inscriptions of the Paramaras, Chandellas, Kachchhapaghatas and two minor dynasties, Various, edited by H. V. Trivedi (inscriptions of the 9th to 14th centuries; edited 1978 to 1991). The collected records of the Paramaras of Malwa (parts 1 and 2) and of the Chandelas of Jejakabhukti (part 3), re-edited from Epigraphia Indica and earlier journals with new finds.
  • The Crown of Glorious Deeds, Hasan Nizami (Sadr al-Din Muhammad ibn Hasan Nizami of Nishapur) (begun about 1205 at Delhi, carried on to about 1217). The earliest history written in Muslim India and the only contemporary account of Qutb al-Din Aibak's campaigns.
  • The History of India as Told by its Own Historians: the Muhammadan Period, vol. 2, Various (Ibn al-Athir, Hasan Nizami, Awfi, Juzjani and others), edited by H. M. Elliot and John Dowson (the sources date from the 1190s to the 14th century; the collection was published in 1869). A one-volume anthology of the Arabic and Persian accounts of the Ghurid conquest.
  • The Nasirean Generations (a general history of the Muslim dynasties), Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (completed 1260 at Delhi). The fullest narrative of the Ghurid conquest of northern India.
  • The River of Kings, with Jonaraja's continuation, Kalhana; continued by Jonaraja (Kalhana 1148 to 1150; Jonaraja about 1459). Kalhana's chronicle stops in 1149, so for 1200 the witness is Jonaraja, writing three centuries later and very briefly.
  • The Song of Govinda, Jayadeva (late 12th century, by tradition at the court of Lakshmanasena of Bengal). A literary witness, not a chronicle.
  • The Tree of Genealogies, and the Manners of War and Bravery, Fakhr-i Mudabbir (Fakhr al-Din Muhammad ibn Mansur Mubarakshah) (the Shajara about 1206, dedicated to Qutb al-Din Aibak; the Adab al-harb in the 1220s for Iltutmish). The prose introduction to the Shajara, written within six years of 1200, praises Aibak and tells of his rise under Mu'izz al-Din of Ghur, his consecration at Lahore in 1206 and the Ghurid campaigns in Hindustan, with some notice of the Turkish peoples.
  • The Victory of Prithviraja, Jayanaka (a Kashmiri poet at the Chahamana court) (about 1191 to 1192, left unfinished). A court epic written at Ajmer in the months between Prithviraja III's victory at Tarain in 1191 and his defeat and death in 1192.
  • The Wishing-Stone of Narratives, Merutunga (a Jain monk of the Nagendra gaccha) (1305 (Vikrama 1361) at Vadhvan in Gujarat). A Jain collection of historical anecdotes about the kings of Gujarat and Malwa, a century after 1200.
  • The Nasirid Generations: a General History of the Muslim Dynasties, Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (1259 to 1260, at Delhi). The Ghurid court's own history, by a man born in 1193 whose family served the sultans of Ghur and Ghazna.
  • Sanskrit and Old Canarese Inscriptions relating to the Yadava Kings of Devagiri, Various (Yadava chancery), edited by J. F. Fleet (inscriptions of the 12th and 13th centuries; edited 1876). The first collected edition of the Yadava (Seuna) records, with texts and translations, from the Indian Antiquary.
  • The Gopala Raja Chronicle, and the Nepalese colophons, Anonymous (chronicle); various scribes (colophons) (the chronicle about 1389; the colophons are contemporary notes of the 11th to 14th centuries). The Nepal valley in 1200 is known chiefly from dated manuscript colophons and short inscriptions, which name the reigning king with the Nepal era year, and from the Gopalarajavamsavali, a chronicle written about 1389 that lists the kings with regnal years.

The whole sources library

How these entries are made

Every entry describes one morning, 1 January 1200, and keeps later events in a dated "what the year holds" list with the conditions each depended on. Each entry names its sources, rates its confidence and says where the sources disagree. Published 4 November 2026. Corrections are welcome.