Western India, thanks to the many impregnable fortresses in Rajputana, was usually divided among local dynasties from the time of the Gupta power to the advent of the Muslims.
A dynasty of Maitrakas, foreigners of the Rajput type, usually independent at Valabhi in Surashtra, created a Buddhist scholastic center that rivaled Nalanda. Their gifts reveal that Buddhist images were honored with puja of the kind devoted to Hindu gods.
The GURJARA horde of central Asiatic nomads established a dynasty of 12 kings at Mandor in central Rajputana. Two retired to Jain contemplation, and a third to self-starvation.
The GURJARA-PRATHIHARA DYNASTY, by uniting much of northern India, excluded the Muslims till the end of the 10th century. Prominent early rulers were Nagabhata I (c. 740–60), who defeated the Arabs; Vatsaraja (c. 775–800); and Nagabhata II (c. 800–36), conqueror of Kanauj.
A Dravidian dynasty of Chandellas (in present Bundelkhand) built numerous Vaishnava temples, notably at Khajuraho, under Yasovarman (c. 930–54) and Dhanga (954–1002).
The Paramaras of Dhara, near Indore, were known for two rulers: Munja (974–c. 994) who invaded the Deccan, and Bhoja (c. 1018–60), author of books on astronomy, poetics, and architecture, and founder of a Sanskrit college.
The Ghaznavid (Yamini) dynasty ruled at Ghazni and Lahore. It was founded by Subaktagin (977–97), a Turkish slave converted to Islam, who extended his rule from the Oxus to the Indus and broke the power of a Deccan confederacy that included King Jaipal of Bhatinda, the Gurjara-Prathihara king of Kanauj, and the Chandella king Dhanga.
MAHMUD OF GHAZNI made 17 plundering raids into the Punjab (defeat of Jaipal, 1001) to Kangra (1009), Mathura and Kanauj (1018–19), Gwalior (1022), and Somnath (1024–26). Vast destruction, pillage of immensely rich Hindu temples, and wholesale massacre resulted only in enrichment of Ghazni and annexation of the Punjab. Ghazni, heir to the rich artistic heritage of the Samanids of northeastern Persia, was now one of the most brilliant capitals of the Islamic world. Alberuni (973–1048) of Khiva, the leading scientist of his time, followed Mahmud to the Punjab, learned Sanskrit, and wrote the invaluable Tahkik-i Hind (Inquiry into India).
