Madhya Pradesh, the heart of India, holds some of the oldest traces of human life in the subcontinent. The rock shelters of Bhimbetka near Bhopal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, contain paintings of hunters, dancers and animals made over thousands of years, with the earliest dating back to the Stone Age. The Narmada valley has also yielded ancient stone tools. In the first millennium BCE the region was home to kingdoms such as Avanti, whose capital Ujjain became one of the great cities of ancient India.
In the 3rd century BCE the area was part of the Mauryan Empire, and Ashoka is traditionally said to have served as governor at Ujjain before becoming emperor. He commissioned the original Great Stupa at Sanchi, which was later enlarged and given its famous carved gateways. Sanchi is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Near Vidisha stands the Heliodorus Pillar, set up in the 2nd century BCE by an envoy of a Greek king who called himself a devotee of Vishnu. Under the Gupta Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, sculptors carved the Udayagiri Caves, and the poet Kalidasa is closely associated with Ujjain.
Several important dynasties ruled in the following centuries. The Paramaras of Malwa, including the scholar king Bhoja in the 11th century, built temples and promoted learning, and the great unfinished Shiva temple at Bhojpur is linked to his reign. The Chandelas of Bundelkhand built the temples of Khajuraho between the 10th and 12th centuries, another UNESCO World Heritage Site famous for its sculpture.
In the medieval period the Delhi Sultanate extended its power here, followed by the independent Malwa Sultanate, whose hilltop capital at Mandu is famous for the Jahaz Mahal and the romantic legend of Baz Bahadur and Rani Roopmati. The Tomar ruler Man Singh built the splendid Man Mandir palace inside Gwalior Fort, the Bundela kings created the palaces and temples of Orchha, and the Gond kingdom of Garha Mandla flourished in the east. Its queen, Rani Durgavati, died fighting a Mughal army in 1564. In the 18th century the Marathas became dominant, with the Scindias ruling from Gwalior and the Holkars from Indore. Ahilyabai Holkar, who governed from Maheshwar, is remembered for her wise rule and temple building. In Bhopal, a line of women rulers known as the Begums governed for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Under the British, the region was divided between the Central Provinces, administered from Nagpur, and many princely states grouped under the Central India Agency. During the revolt of 1857, Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi died in battle near Gwalior in 1858, and her ally Tatya Tope was executed at Shivpuri the following year. The revolutionary Chandrashekhar Azad was born in the region that is now Alirajpur district.
After independence there were several separate units, including Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh, Bhopal State and the original Madhya Pradesh based in Nagpur. On 1 November 1956 the States Reorganisation Act merged them into a new Madhya Pradesh with Bhopal as its capital, while the Marathi speaking Vidarbha region went to Bombay State. On 1 November 2000 the eastern districts were separated to form the new state of Chhattisgarh. Today Sanchi, Khajuraho, Gwalior, Orchha and Mandu make Madhya Pradesh one of the richest destinations in India for history lovers.
Photo: PLBechly, CC BY-SA 4.0
