In Indian context, most of history till the medieval times, is through poetry.

Ancient India is a curious case in the sense that there are a lot of literary works and unbroken civilisation, but the history records are lacking. Most of the ancient history is fleshed through the accounts of travellers. But the few historical texts available are mostly in the form of epics or long form poetry.

First that come into mind are Mahabharat and Ramayan. These are the largest known epics of all times. They contain the lineage of various kings and kingdoms of ancient India. While, a lot of the information, including the principal dynasties of both the epics, are believed to have actually existed, their chronology and accuracy is not completely verified. THe major issue being that both of them were part of the oral tradition and had been subject to a lot of modifications. Mahabharat is supposed to have evolved from earlier historical work Jaya. The first chief of Archaelogical Survey of India estimated the main battle to have happened around 836 B.C.E. ( B. B. Lal, Mahabharata and Archaeology in Gupta and Ramachandran (1976), p.57-58 ) while John Keay believes it to be around 950 B.C.E (India: A History).

The next sources of ancient Indian history is Puranas. They are anonymous set of texts in verse form, encompassing a wide array of topics, including history. The issue with them also remains of reliability. The manuscripts and records found are inconsistent. In the absence of attribution to authors it is difficult to judge authenticity through context. Due to lack of other sources, attempts were made to use them as historical reference but the western scholars had based it on a set of randomly selected manuscripts. With limited confidence, they have provided some records for dynasties in present Telengana and Andhra Pradesh.

WE have also have the PrithviRaj Raso and Prithvi Raj Vijayeya. Both are believed to be composed by different court poets of the Indian hero and ruler Prithvi Raj Chauhan. Both are in poem form in appreciation and extol Prithvi Raj. While Prithvi Raj Raso is generally more popular in India as it gained popularity with the warrior clans of Rajput (of whom Prithvi Raj was a descendant), Prithvi Raj Vijaeya is now regarded as more authentic though exaggerating at times. It gives a history of the lineage of Prithvi Raj Chauhan and his contemporaries. It is incomplete but does recount of the first victory against Mahmud Ghori.

Before the Islamic invasion of India starts and this tradition is ended, we have the last example of Rajaratnagiri. This is a history of kings of Kashmir in the form of metreical verses. It is widely regarded as teh oldest Indian work that can be considered historical, despite the inaccuracies. It has been widely referenced by scholars to chalk out the history of Kashmir and neighbors.