List of Hindu empires and dynasties
The following list enumerates Hindu monarchies in chronological order of establishment dates. These monarchies were widespread in South Asia since about 1500 BC, went into slow decline in the medieval times, with most gone by the end of the 17th century, although the last one, the Kingdom of Nepal, dissolved only in the 2008.
Debate about early Indian history
The history of India up to the times of the Buddha, with his life generally placed into the 6th or 5th century BCE, is a subject of a major scholarly debate. The vast majority of historians in the Western world accept the theory of Aryan Migration with dates for the displacement of Indus civilization by Aryans and the earliest texts of the Rigveda. The Indian scholars, on the other hand, are mostly supporters of the Indigenous Aryanism that declares the indigenous nature of the Indian civilization and the date for the earliest Rigvedas.Early Indian history does not have an equivalent of chronicles like the ones established in the West by Herodotus in the 5th century BC or Kojiki / Nihongi in Japan. "With the single exception of Rajatarangini, there is no historical text in Sanskrit dealing with the whole or even parts of India". While there are texts in Sanskrit, the Puranas, that profess to include the early Indian history, the Western scholars assume them to be compiled by brahmins in the 1st millennium CE, thus only being contemporary with the described facts from the time of the Guptas. These texts are considered by Western scholars to be legendary, corresponding kingdoms are listed separately in the [|Puranic kings] section.
Ancient dynasties
| Empire or Dynasty | Established | Disestablished | Capital | Language | Today part of | Map | - | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kuru kingdom | 2500 BCE | 340 BCE | Āsandīvat, Hastinapura, Indraprastha | Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit |  Indiacn|date=September 2024cn|date=September 2024Classical polities (c. 200s BCE – 500s CE)
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Nepal