Post-Gupta fragmentation, the regional kingdoms, the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal state — the period where the historiographical debates are liveliest.
Early medieval regional formations including the Tripartite Struggle between the Pratiharas, Palas and Rashtrakutas; the southern dynasties, above all the Cholas; the Delhi Sultanate; and the Mughal empire.
Two in particular are genuinely open rather than settled: whether the land-grant evidence supports an Indian feudalism (the R.S. Sharma thesis, against B.D. Chattopadhyaya’s critique), and whether early medieval India saw real urban decline. Both are worth holding as contested positions rather than settled conclusions.
Mahmud of Ghazni’s raids and Muhammad of Ghor’s campaigns are commonly run together, but they are different in kind: the first were plundering expeditions, the second established territorial control that led to the Sultanate.
These notes begin in depth with Early Medieval India — the fragmentation after the Guptas, the land-grant question, and the temple-building and early southern Bhakti movement that belong to the same centuries.