Shunga Empire

The Shunga Empire ruled much of northern and central India from about 185 to around 73 BCE, after the Maurya Empire. It was founded by Pushyamitra Shunga, the commander-in-chief of the last Maurya king.

After Ashoka's death around 232 BCE, the Maurya Empire weakened, losing territory in the north-west and the Deccan. According to the Puranas and the poet Bana, around 185 BCE the general Pushyamitra Shunga killed the last Maurya emperor, Brihadratha, during a military review, in front of the army, and took the throne. He ruled from Pataliputra, in Magadha.

The Shunga period saw invasions from the north-west by the Indo-Greek kings, descendants of the Greek rulers of Bactria who had crossed the Hindu Kush. The grammarian Patanjali mentions a Greek siege of Saketa, near Ayodhya, and the Gargi Samhita, an astrological text, describes Greeks reaching Pataliputra. The Indo-Greek king Menander, known in Buddhist texts as Milinda, whose dialogues with the monk Nagasena are recorded in the Milindapanha, ruled much of the north-west. The Shungas fought them, and a play by Kalidasa, written centuries later, describes Pushyamitra's grandson Vasumitra defeating Greek cavalry on the "Sindhu" river during the horse sacrifice. This may mean the Indus, but historians think the Sindh or Kali Sindh rivers of central India more likely.

Pushyamitra is said to have performed the ashvamedha, the ancient Vedic horse sacrifice, which proclaimed a king's supremacy: a horse was allowed to wander for a year, followed by soldiers, and any king whose land it entered had to submit or fight. An inscription at Ayodhya mentions his two horse sacrifices. His reign is often seen as a revival of Brahmanical religion after the Buddhist patronage of the Mauryas.

Some later Buddhist texts, such as the Ashokavadana, accuse Pushyamitra of persecuting Buddhists, destroying monasteries and offering a reward for the heads of monks. Many historians doubt these stories, noting that important Buddhist monuments were built or enlarged during Shunga rule, perhaps by private donors and guilds.

The Shunga period was important for Indian art. The stupa at Bharhut, in Madhya Pradesh, with its stone railings and gateways, carved with scenes from the Jataka tales of the Buddha's previous lives, yakshas, yakshis and inscriptions naming donors, dates from this period; most of it is now in the Indian Museum in Kolkata. The great stupa at Sanchi was enlarged and encased in stone, and given stone railings. Shunga terracotta figurines of women and deities are common. The Buddha was still represented by symbols, such as footprints, an empty throne or a tree, not in human form.

At Besnagar, near Vidisha, a stone pillar records that Heliodorus, son of Dion, a Greek from Taxila and an ambassador of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas to the court of King Bhagabhadra, probably a Shunga ruler, set up the pillar as a Garuda standard in honour of Vasudeva, a form of Vishnu, calling himself a Bhagavata, a devotee. It is an early evidence of devotional Hinduism and of Greek converts.

The later Shunga kings were weak. Around 73 BCE (some sources say 75 BCE), the last Shunga ruler, Devabhuti, was killed, according to the Puranas, by his minister Vasudeva Kanva, who founded the short-lived Kanva dynasty. Shunga rulers may have continued in some regions, such as Vidisha, for a time.

Our maps show the Shunga Empire on the 100 BCE map, with an outline of about 1.7 million square kilometres, almost all within today's India and a part in Bangladesh. The basemap draws it broadly, covering the sites of Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Dhaka, larger than most historians would draw the Shunga state. Before it, the region belongs to the Maurya Empire.