Actually, The northern part of the Indian sub-continent comprising the heartlands of its classical empires, the Mauryans and Guptas, was wracked in a centuries-long set of struggles known collectively as the Tripartite Struggle. Over the period from the late 8th c. through to the first Islamic conquest of Mahmud of Ghazni in the mid-10th c., this conflict was the driving agent of politics in the region.

The struggle was mainly for control of the central gangetic plain and its vast arable land. This mostly centered on the city of Kanauj. The reason it was called tripartite is that after dominating their neighboring princedoms in the post-Gupta disconnected political landscape (a chaotic time in its own right), three ruling families were able to begin to push their influence outward from their bases of operation. These were: the Palas of Bengali, the Rashtrakutras to the south, and the Pratiharas from the Malwa Plateau. the fighting amongst the noble Kshatriya class was intense and chaotic, often with broken alliances and dramatic betrayals. During the same period, campaigns were made into the southern Indian region of the Cholans, an area itself that was not unfamiliar with war and political intrigue. Eventually, the Pratiharas came out as victorious. They would rule the central district of northern India until the next bought of violence struck. This time, it was brought over the Khyber Pass and into the subcontinent by the Ghaznavid Empire.

Indeed, the Pratihara victory would be short lived. When Mahmud of Ghazni conquered the Sindh region of the subcontinent in the opening years of the 11th century (people still sing songs about the horrors of that war! see: Michael Wood's doc series on India), it set up the next struggle for Kanauj and its environs. Mahmud's armies repeatedly raided and ransacked the cities of the region until essentially his death in 1030. Viewing their efforts as Jihad against the evils of paganism, Mahmud and his armies did not mind laying the devastation on fairly thickly. With the death of Mahmud, the Ghaznavid threat receded. However, it would not be long before Islam would return to the subcontinent. The Mamluk dynasty established the first Delhi Sultanate in 1206. From its inception through to its own reduction by the Mughals in 1526, the Sultanates (there were five, one after the other) struggled to keep the central and southwestern portion of India under their control as insurgent movements continuously cropped up against Islamic authority.

Other than that, I'd say that India was peaceful during the period covered ;)

I suspect that answering this question will depend on how it's framed - are you asking whether there was "more-or-less peace" during the medieval period in India, or whether there was "more-or-less peace" between "these three old religions of India, the Jain, the Buddhists and the Hindus"?

I think the overgeneralization of India as one place in the medieval period and religions like Buddhism and Hinduism as singular sets of beliefs make this a difficult statement to support. There is a big difference between the port trading centers such as u/unclaimed_wallet mentions versus the north (modern Pakistan, Delhi, down to the Deccan) where Turkic Muslims had been invading and establishing their own sultanates since the 11th century (sometimes working with Hindu rulers, sometimes not so much).

TL/DR: Yes, this is an overgeneralization on multiple levels.

Ehhh...It is a bit like pre-Christian Rome, in that "tolerant" isn't really a term that is applicable. It is like praising an asparagus for not laying rotten eggs. "Tolerance" and "intolerance" is a concept that requires a fairly specific religious worldview, and it isn't really one that existed in India. It is also, therefore, just as incorrect to draw such a sharp division between Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. For one thing, "Hinduism" was a name used by the British to the great mass of "other" religions, and what we sometimes label "Hinduism" is often better thought of as "Brahman religion", the other religions basically being heterodox sects of it. This is particularly the case with the development of bhakti, which is basically a concept within "Hinduism" that stresses the importance of personal devotion to the divine, rather than the formal, ritualistic worship of "Brahmanism".

Ugh, forgive all the scare quotes, but my basic point is that the lines were much blurrier than between, say, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. A single important religious site like the Ellora Caves could have foci for what we would term Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu worship, as well as the various subsets of those. There is a very nice discussion of this in John Keay's India: A History.

As for peacefulness, this is actually a fairly interesting question without a terribly easy answer. There was certainly war, a great deal of it, and even a very brief glance at any Indian literature shows that martial qualities were valued. More to the point, the period has produced some truly awe inspiring fortifications. However, there is a persistent tradition that war in India was organized so as to produce little collateral damage: in other words, because the various princes were fighting over the produce of the peasants, they didn't really seek to harm the peasants. Whether this was true in practice, of course, is a different matter, and I am having a bit of a time tracking it down (I think it might be from Faxian?).

What I would consider one of the first great tolerant rulers of India, Ashoka of the Mauryan Empire: (from here: http://www.pbs.org/thestoryofindia/timeline/2/)

Ashoka (Asoka), the third emperor of the Mauryan Empire, reigned from c. 269-233 BCE, and his exemplary story remains popular in folk plays and legends across southern Asia. The emperor ruled a vast territory that stretched from the Bay of Bengal to Kandahar and from the North-West Frontier of Pakistan to below the Krishna River in southern India. The year 261 BCE marks a turning point in Ashoka's reign when, in part to increase access to the Ganges River, he conquered the east coast kingdom of Kalinga. By Ashoka's account, more than 250,000 people were killed, made captive or later died of starvation. Feeling remorseful about this massive suffering and loss, the emperor converted to Buddhism and made dharma, or dhamma, the central foundation of his personal and political life.

Throughout his kingdom, the emperor inscribed laws and injunctions inspired by dharma on rocks and pillars, some of them crowned with elaborate sculptures. Many of these edicts begin "Thus speaks Devanampiya Piyadassi [Beloved of the Gods]" and counsel good behavior including decency, piety, honoring parents and teachers and protection of the environment and natural world. Guided by this principle, Ashoka abolished practices that caused unnecessary suffering to men and animals and advanced religious toleration. To further the influence of dharma, he sent his son, a Buddhist monk, to Sri Lanka, and emissaries to countries including Greece and Syria. To some historians, the edicts unified an extended empire, one that was organized into five parts governed by Ashoka and four governors. After his reign, Ashoka has become an enduring symbol of enlightened rule, non-violence, and religious tolerance. In 1950, the Lion Capital of Ashoka, a sandstone sculpture erected in 250 BCE, was adopted as India's official emblem by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Then came the Kushans:

After the death of Ashoka the Great in 232 BCE, his successors slowly lost their grip on the territories of the Mauryan Empire, and northern India broke up into a number of smaller states ruled by local dynasties. In central India though, a major power continued for over four hundred years: the Satavahana Empire (c. 230BCE-220CE). In the north after a period of internecine warfare, and further incursions and invasions from Central Asia the next great Indian power was created by the Yueh-chi, or Kushans. One of the groups who migrated from what is now Chinese Central Asia into what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India, the Kushans formed one of the great empires of the classical epoch, ruling at their height from the Aral Sea to the Bay of Bengal.

The Kushans built an empire supported by trade on the Silk Road, and lavished their wealth on the arts and on Buddhist monasteries, importing Greek artisans to carve elaborate sculptures depicting the life of the Buddha. This synthesis of western artisans carving eastern subjects became known as Gandharan art. During this era, the first Buddhist missionaries travelled to China, with two Indian monks founding the first Chinese monastery and spreading the teachings of Buddhism by translating its sacred texts into the local languages.

The Kushans practiced an ecumenical rule, supporting many deities of different religions in their multi-racial empire. The greatest Kushan ruler, King Kanishka, closely affiliated himself to Buddhism, choosing the Mahayana tradition, and thereby influencing the direction of Buddhism in China and Tibet. His enormous stupa, erected in Peshawar was regarded as one of the greatest wonders of the Asian world: it was still standing 500 years later, as described by a Chinese pilgrim in the 7th century CE, though only its foundations survived into modern times.

The Kushans also developed a highly ornate and sophisticated system of coinage, with beautiful gold coins depicting rulers and gods in superb detail. Along with new inscriptional finds the coinage has allowed modern scholars to date the Kushan ulers more precisely, and is providing new insight into the events of the era which the great 18th century historian Edward Gibbon called "the happiest time in the history of humanity".

There's a ton more information at the website where you can explore each ruler set in the different areas...but yes, overall, India had it's moments of religious tolerance....there was also war and dominance, but it seemed to be handled in a slightly more enlightened way.

Fantastic documentary overall for folks looking to learn more on the Story of India.

This comes up a lot,

India was never really a nation. You have several nations and diverse cultures. Even these cultures were not united most of the time, as you see by the huge number of regional kings who warred with each other constantly. There are some cases of Indian empires; Gupta, Maurya, Mughal, Marathi, and British Empires, but they ultimately were extremely uncentralized and federated.

One example that comes off the top of my mind that disproves the idea of Indian solidarity is the Sepoy Mutiny. It's been retold today as a first attempt of the struggle of "India" against Britain, but you have certain disconcerting facts; like that of the Sikhs of Punjab supporting the British in crushing the mutiny. One reason was because many of the sepoys were Bengali, and had helped in taking down the Punjabi Sikh Empire alongside the British. The Sikhs thought it was appropriate that they denied the Bengalis their sovereignty as well.

Basically, there could be no real ethnic plurality between Indians because the concept of "Indian" did not exist.

However, one thing that is generally true is that Hinduism, one of the native religions of the subcontinent, generally did not cause warfare to the degree Christianity and Islam might have; religious tolerance was the norm, other than select Muslim emperors. However, part of that may be due to the ambiguity on what Hinduism is; it's really an amalgamation of hundreds of diverse regional and philosophical beliefs within the subcontinent.

(On my phone, will update with links in a bit)

First of all, the very term or political entity called "India" is an anachronism in the times that we are talking about. Talking about a single history of India pre-1947 basically borders on the absurd. India, in all its history was never one "country" as we understand it today. While there was always some semblance of cultural contiguity (which itself was constantly evolving), there was never any political contiguity -- at least not one that survived more than a century or two at a time.

In many ways, India was and even now is more like Europe. Each one of the 25-odd states are at least as different from each other as Spain is from France or Sweden is from Poland. The differences grow more stark as the distances increase. And each of these states that are more or less reminiscent of the independent political entities that existed over the centuries have their own histories -- some of these histories look nothing like the others. For example, Kerala and Punjab share practically nothing. Not food, not clothes, not customs, not language, not music, not art, not history, not geography. Nothing. Even where the histories and geographies overlap, there is plenty that sets them apart. Again not unlike Spain and France. Or France and England.

So, talking about the history of the entire Indian sub-continent in one breath is like asking about the history of South America or Europe. Yes, there were times when most of India (and Pakistan and Afghanistan) was one political entity, like say, under Ashoka. But that means nothing. I'd wager half the people living then probably didn't even know they were living under Ashoka - whoever that would have been.

The fortunes of every far flung corner of the "country" was never the same (not even "more or less"). Different parts saw strife at different times. And often for very different reasons. Not appreciating this fact would be like assuming that the fortunes of everyone living in the humongous Byzantine or Mongolian empires that straddled entire continents was the same.

The Indian subcontinent was a set of kingdom states during the medieval time period. There was some that reached empire status and wielded control of vast amounts but never the entire subcontinent. There was warfare but for the most part it was rooted in politics and power more than religon being the driver. In general whether the rulers were Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist or another religion the general population was often a mix of religions. The fact that so many religions were permitted to flourish for hundreds if not thousands of years free of persecution shows the level of tolerance during most of that time period. For reference you can look up the history of Hyderbad which had rulers of many religions. Another good reference is looking at the history of Zoroastrianism, Bahaii, Jainism, Sikhism, St Thomas Christians and Judaism in India. The Portuguese in the 16th century were probably the most forceful on imposing their religious customs on the regions under their control during this time period. A literary reference to the foundation of this tolerance can be found in the ancient Sanskrit epic Mahabharata where the concept of Aryabhoomi is explained. It is also present in the edicts of Ashoka.This was also mentioned in the recent discourse on the four noble truths of Buddhism held by the Dalai Lama in December.

I read the statement in a different way, and I'd like to know the answer to the question of "is it historical" as I read it:

Was there religious tension among the general populace? Did local leaders persecute other religions in their own territory? Did the population attack heretics and infidels? Did religious leaders call crusades to expand their faith?