Post-Mauryan Period

When Ashoka's successors lost their grip, the Mauryan empire shrank to Magadha. Around 185 BCE the last Mauryan king, Brihadratha, was reviewing his army when his own commander-in-chief (senapati), the Brahmin Pushyamitra Shunga, killed him and took the throne. This is how the Shunga dynasty began. It ruled for about 112 years (c. 185-73 BCE) from Pataliputra, with Vidisha (in Madhya Pradesh) as a second important centre. It was a much smaller state than the Mauryan empire: its core was the middle Ganga plain and parts of central India.

The Shunga story has two sides. Brahmanical revival: the Shungas performed Vedic sacrifices, and the period saw the growth of Sanskrit learning (Patanjali) and the shaping of the Manusmriti. Buddhist art: yet stupas at Bharhut and Sanchi were enlarged and decorated with railings during this age. Later Buddhist books accuse Pushyamitra of persecuting monks, but the evidence of building does not support a simple picture of persecution, so historians treat that charge as debated.

The Heliodorus pillar. At Besnagar (ancient Vidisha) stands a stone pillar topped once with the figure of Garuda, the vehicle of Vishnu. Its inscription says it was set up by Heliodorus, a Greek (Yavana) envoy sent by the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas of Taxila to the court of King Bhagabhadra. Heliodorus calls himself a Bhagavata, a devotee of Vasudeva (Krishna-Vishnu). It is early proof that the Bhagavata (Vaishnava) cult was spreading, and that foreigners were adopting Indian faiths.

The Kanvas. Devabhuti was killed by his Brahmin minister Vasudeva, who founded the Kanva dynasty (c. 73 BCE). Four Kanva kings ruled in turn: Vasudeva, Bhumimitra, Narayana and Susharman, for about 45 years in all. They were weak rulers of a shrunken kingdom, and the Puranas say that the last Kanva king, Susharman, was destroyed by the Satavahana king Simuka, which brings us to the Deccan.

The Satavahanas (also called Andhras in the Puranas) were the main power of the Deccan after the Mauryas. They ruled roughly from the 1st century BCE to the early 3rd century CE (about 230 BCE to 220 CE in some reckonings, but the later dating is safer for exams). Their early capital was Pratishthana (modern Paithan, Maharashtra on the Godavari). The founder is Simuka, who is said to have overthrown the last Kanva king. They spoke and wrote Prakrit in the Brahmi script, and their empire joined the Deccan to the coasts, which made them rich through trade.

Matronymics. Satavahana kings added the mother's name to their own: Gautamiputra (son of Gautami), Vasishthiputra (son of Vasishthi). This shows the high status of royal women, but the kings were still patriarchal: kingship passed from father to son. Do not call the Satavahanas matrilineal.

Administration and society. A Satavahana district was called an ahara (or rashtra), under an official called amatya or mahamatra. Kings made tax-free land grants to Brahmins and Buddhist monks, which is an early step towards the later land-grant system. Rich merchants and guilds gave caves and gifts at Karle, Nasik and Junnar. The Satavahanas also issued many lead and potin coins, which suited local trade; and they patronised both Brahmanism and Buddhism, with the Amaravati stupa in Andhra developed on a grand scale in their time.

Kharavela of Kalinga. While the Satavahanas rose in the west of the Deccan, Kharavela of the Chedi dynasty ruled Kalinga (Odisha) in about the 1st century BCE. His story is known almost only from the Hathigumpha inscription (Elephant Cave) at Udayagiri, near Bhubaneswar, written in Prakrit in Brahmi. It records his campaigns year by year: he attacked the Satavahana king Satakarni, defeated the Magadhan king Brihaspatimitra (often read as Pushyamitra, but this is debated), and restored the canal dug by the Nandas. Kharavela was a Jain: the Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves were cut for Jain monks, and they include the Hathigumpha, Ranigumpha (Swargapuri) and Ganesha Gumpha.

After the Mauryas the north-west gate of India opened to a series of invaders from Central Asia and beyond. They came in this order: Indo-Greeks (Bactrian Greeks, called Yavanas), Shakas (Scythians), Parthians (Pahlavas) and Kushanas. The memory aid: Greeks first, then Shakas, then Parthians, then Kushanas. Each pushed the previous people further into India, and the movement was set off far away: the Yueh-chi pushed the Shakas, and the Shakas moved on towards India.

Indo-Greeks. The Greeks of Bactria crossed the Hindu Kush and ruled parts of Afghanistan and the Punjab from the early 2nd century BCE. Demetrius came first, and the best known is Menander (Milinda, c. 165-130 BCE), whose capital was Sakala (modern Sialkot). Menander questioned the Buddhist monk Nagasena, and the dialogue is the Pali text Milindapanha ("Questions of Milinda"), a Buddhist philosophical text, in which Menander is shown accepting Buddhism. The Indo-Greeks left a lasting mark on coinage: they were the first rulers whose coins carry the king's name and portrait, in Greek on one side and Kharoshthi (Prakrit) on the other, and they issued a good number of gold coins as well. Their influence on art is seen in Gandhara.

Shakas. The Shakas were Central Asian nomads (Scythians) who were pushed out of their homeland by the Yueh-chi in about the 2nd century BCE and moved south into India. Maues (Moga) established the first Shaka rule in the north-west, in Gandhara, and several Shaka branches followed, at Taxila, Mathura and in western India. The Western Kshatrapas lasted longest. Their early line, the Kshaharatas, had Bhumaka and Nahapana (c. 1st-2nd century CE), who extended Shaka power in western India and were crushed by Gautamiputra Satakarni. The next line, the Kardamakas, began with Chashtana, and their greatest ruler was Rudradaman I (c. 130-150 CE). His Junagadh rock inscription (c. 150 CE) is the earliest long inscription in correct Sanskrit; it records the repair of the Sudarshana lake, first dug under the Mauryas. The Western Kshatrapas ruled from Ujjain until Chandragupta II defeated the last king, Rudrasimha III, in the late 4th century CE.

The Kushanas built the largest empire of the post-Mauryan age, and it joined India with Central Asia. They were one clan of the Yueh-chi, a nomadic people of north-west China who were pushed westward by the Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu). The Yueh-chi split into five branches; the Kushana branch, under Kujula Kadphises (Kadphises I), brought the others under one rule in Bactria and then crossed into the north-west of India in the 1st century CE. The empire stretched at its height from Central Asia (the Oxus region) through Afghanistan and the Punjab to the middle Ganga valley, and it held the profitable Silk Route.

Kanishka (reign traditionally from 78 CE) is the greatest Kushana. His capital was Purushapura (Peshawar), with Mathura as a second capital. He is remembered for three things. First, he is the great patron of Buddhism, especially the Mahayana form, and is said to have held the Fourth Buddhist Council in Kundalvana (Kashmir) under Vasumitra, with Ashvaghosha as his deputy. Second, his court had famous scholars: the poet-philosopher Ashvaghosha (Buddhacharita), the Buddhist teacher Nagarjuna (in tradition), the physician Charaka (Charaka Samhita) and the engineer-statesman Mathara. Third, he patronised the Gandhara and Mathura schools of art. The Saka (Shaka) Era of 78 CE, which India uses as its national calendar, is traditionally associated with him; a debate exists about the exact date of his accession, so exam answers follow the tradition.

Devaputra and coins. Kushana kings took the title Devaputra ("son of god"), a claim of divine status borrowed from Chinese and Roman ideas of the emperor; they also used titles like Rajadhiraja and Kaisara. Their gold coins (dinaras) show Greek, Iranian and Indian gods side by side, a mark of a mixed empire. These coins were mostly of high purity, probably because Roman gold flowed in for trade.

The first human images of the Buddha appeared in the Kushana age. Before this, Buddhist art showed him only through symbols such as the footprint, the wheel, the empty seat and the bodhi tree. Three great schools of sculpture grew almost together: Gandhara in the north-west, Mathura in the Ganga-Yamuna plain and Amaravati in the south-east. The Kushanas patronised Gandhara and Mathura, and the Satavahanas (later Ikshvakus) patronised Amaravati. The way to answer any question is to ask three things: the place, the stone and the influence.

Foreign tools, Indian soul. Gandhara sculptors were trained in Greco-Roman ways and made the Buddha like Apollo, but the subject was wholly Indian and Buddhist. Mathura, by contrast, grew from the old Indian Yaksha tradition, and the two schools influenced each other and later the Gupta age. They are best seen as one conversation in which Mathura's Indian body and Gandhara's drapery met. Note also that both flourished in the 1st-3rd centuries CE, although Gandhara continued into the 5th century in stucco.

The centuries between the Mauryas and the Guptas (roughly 200 BCE to 300 CE) were a time of busy trade, many towns, and mixed societies. Money was widely used, and merchants and craft guilds (shrenis) became rich enough to give donations to monasteries and caves. Rulers such as the Satavahanas and Kushanas encouraged this trade because it brought them revenue.

Trade with Rome. Trade between India and the Roman empire grew sharply in the 1st-2nd centuries CE, after Roman rule in Egypt opened the Red Sea route. Sailors learned to use the monsoon winds, a skill linked in tradition with the Greek pilot Hippalus. The best account is the Greek sailor's guide Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century CE), which lists Indian ports and goods. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder complained that Rome's gold was flowing away to India for luxuries. India exported pepper (so valued that it was called yavanapriya, "dear to the Yavanas"), cotton cloth, gems, pearls, ivory and spices, and received gold coins, wine, glassware and pottery. Roman coin hoards are found mainly in south India.

Why post-Mauryan coins matter. Different dynasties issued different metals: the Kushanas issued many gold coins (dinaras), the Western Kshatrapas issued silver, the Satavahanas mostly lead and potin. This pattern tells us who traded in what: Kushana gold was used for large international deals, while lead coins served local markets. A trader might be paid in several coin types in one journey.

Society. The foreign rulers (Yavanas, Shakas, Parthians, Kushanas) were gradually absorbed into Indian society, mostly as Kshatriyas. Brahmanical law books such as the Manusmriti tried to fit them into the varna scheme, calling some of them degraded Kshatriyas. Land grants to Brahmins and monks, first by the Satavahanas, became a feature of later centuries. Crafts such as weaving, ivory, bead and metal work were organised in guilds, and many artisans lived in towns such as Mathura, Taxila, Ujjain, Pataliputra and Paithan.