A country of southern Asia covering most of the Indian subcontinent. Aryans from the northwest invaded c. 1500 BC, pushing Dravidian and other peoples to the south. Most of India was unified by the emperor Asoka in the 3rd century BC. It experienced a golden age in the 4th and 5th centuries AD before being invaded c. 1000 by Muslims and later by the Mongol conqueror Baber, who established the Mogul empire (1526-1857). Various European powers established trading posts in the 16th and 17th centuries, with the British assuming authority over India in 1857. In the 20th century, India gained its independence from Great Britain (1947) following a campaign of civil disobedience led by the pacifist Mohandas Gandhi. Its concomitant partition into the separate countries of India and Pakistan resulted in a tumultuous migration of Muslims to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs to India in which approximately one million people died. New Delhi is the capital and Mumbai (Bombay) the largest city. Population: 1,130,000,000.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.