The Treatise written by Manu, the lawgiver in Indian mythology, designated Haryana as Brahmavart from where the Brahmanical religion and social system grew up and spread outwards to the rest of the country. In a sense, therefore, one can say that much of the Hindu religion and society was formed on the flat, dry plains of the present-day Haryana.

In the epic of the Mahabharata, it was at Kurukshetra, during a battle between that Kaurava and Pandava princes that Lord Krishna delivered one of his most important messages through the celestial sermon-the Geeta.

With Delhi as the prize awaiting generations of invaders, Haryana served as a sort of a geographical corridor. Over the centuries, waves of invaders poured across the plains of Haryana, sometimes fighting battles there. At the end of the 14th century, Timur led an army through the state towards Delhi. In 1526, the invading Mughals defeated the armies of the ruling Lodi dynasty at the Battle of Panipat and 30 years later, in 1556, the Mughals won yet another decisive battle there.

By the mid-18th century, the Marathas were in control of Haryana, an era that was brought to an end after the Afghans under Ahmed Shah Abdali defeated the Maratha forces in the third battle of Panipat in 1761.