1 102 A The Kushans @ The most powerful of South Asia's nomad conquerors, the Kushans ruled a cosmopolitan and prosperous empire from the 1st century AD. They helped open up the Silk Road, linking China in trade with the west and allowing the eastward spread of Buddhism, of which they were generous patrons.
# Kushans, Head of Central Asia
2 102 B The Guptas @ Patrons of Hinduism, which was now the principal religion of India, the indigenous Gupta dynasty ruled from 4th century AD. Their reign is regarded as South Asia's golden age, when the arts, crafts and sciences flourished and the pattern of Classical Indian civilization was set.
# Guptas, Gupta people
3 101 x By about 2000 BC, settlement was expanding dramatically in western India, into zones suitable for millet cultivation. Farmers from this region may also have spread southward among the agricultural communities of the Deccan.
# PW Western India
4 102 C The south @ From the late centuries BC, south India and Sri Lanka, independent kingdoms often in conflict with each other, had derived their prosperity from irrigated rice cultivation and from sea-borne trade with the western world and the developing states of South-East Asia, China also participating directly from the 3rd century AD.
