Overview
Successor to Maurya; Brahmanical revival and art patronage.
Shunga dynasty
Brahmanical successor dynasty to the Mauryas in the Gangetic heartland. Founded by the Maurya senapati Pushyamitra Shunga after he killed the last Maurya emperor Brihadratha at a military review in c. 185 BCE (per Bana's Harshacharita), and ending 112 years later (Puranic span) with the assassination of Devabhuti by his minister Vasudeva Kanva in c. 73 BCE. The late-Shunga king-list is thin and survives mainly in the Puranic Kaliyuga chapters (Pargiter 1913).
Territory Phases
Shunga Empire190 BCE – 160 BCE
Pushyamitra Shunga seizes power from the last Maurya emperor Brihadratha (~185 BCE). Initial consolidation of the Gangetic heartland. Performed Ashvamedha (horse sacrifice) to assert sovereignty.
Shunga Empire164 BCE – 140 BCE
Shunga expansion under Pushyamitra. Ashvamedha campaigns extend control south. Repelled Indo-Greek invasions from the northwest. Vidisha becomes an important secondary center. Patronage of Buddhist art at Sanchi continues despite Brahmanical revival.
Shunga Empire144 BCE – 87 BCE
Stable middle period of the Shunga dynasty. Gangetic heartland firmly controlled from Pataliputra. Northern Deccan influence maintained. Period of significant artistic and literary activity — expansion of Sanchi stupas, development of Sanskrit literature.
Shunga Empire91 BCE – 73 BCE
Late Shunga period. Slight westward territorial expansion. Last effective rulers of the dynasty. Internal weakening and succession disputes.
Shunga Empire (late)77 BCE – 73 BCE
Final years of the Shunga dynasty. Devabhuti, the last Shunga ruler, overthrown by his minister Vasudeva Kanva (~73 BCE), establishing the Kanva dynasty.
Key Rulers
Pushyamitra Shunga
Senapati (originally), King
185 BCE – 149 BCE
★★★★★
Founder of the Shunga dynasty. Originally the senapati (commander-in-chief) of the last Maurya emperor Brihadratha, whom he assassinated at a military review (c. 185 BCE) to seize the throne. Performed two Ashvamedha (horse sacrifice) rituals to assert universal sovereignty — directly attested in Patanjali's Mahabhashya, a contemporary witness ('iha Pushyamitram yajayamah', 'here we perform sacrifice for Pushyamitra'). Repelled Indo-Greek (Yavana) invasions of the Gangetic plain under Demetrius / Menander, also attested in the Mahabhashya. Brahmanical revival is a major theme in the later sources but should not be overread as hostility to Buddhism: Shunga patronage of the Sanchi and Bharhut stupas continued.
Agnimitra
149 BCE – 141 BCE
★★★
Son of Pushyamitra and the hero of Kalidasa's romantic play Malavikagnimitram, written centuries later. Served as governor (uparika) at Vidisha during his father's reign before succeeding him. Historically sparse — most of what is known comes from the Puranic dynastic lists and from Kalidasa's literary portrait.
Vasujyeshtha
Also known as: Sujyeshtha
141 BCE – 131 BCE
★
Vasumitra
131 BCE – 124 BCE
★★★
Grandson of Pushyamitra. Attested in Bana's Harshacharita as the victor over the Yavanas (Indo-Greeks) on the banks of the Sindhu (Indus), a late-Shunga echo of his grandfather's wars. Also attested in the Puranas.
Bhadraka
Also known as: Andhraka, Odraka
124 BCE – 122 BCE
★
Pulindaka
122 BCE – 119 BCE
★
Ghosha
119 BCE – 108 BCE
★
Vajramitra
108 BCE – 94 BCE
★
Bhagabhadra
Also known as: Bhagavata, Kasiputa Bhagabhadra
94 BCE – 83 BCE
★★★★
Late-Shunga king almost certainly identical with the "Kasiputa Bhagabhadra" named on the Heliodorus Garuda pillar at Besnagar (near Vidisha), erected in his 14th regnal year by the Greek ambassador Heliodorus son of Dion from Taxila, sent by the Indo-Greek king Antialkidas. Provides the only epigraphically-datable anchor for the middle Shunga reign sequence.
Devabhuti
Also known as: Devabhumi
83 BCE – 73 BCE
★★★★
Last ruler of the Shunga dynasty. Per Bana's Harshacharita (VI), the debauched Devabhuti was assassinated by his own minister Vasudeva Kanva, who sent a slave-girl disguised as the queen to kill the king in his chamber, thus ending the Shunga dynasty and founding the Kanva dynasty. Also attested in the Puranic king-lists.
Key Events
Pushyamitra's coup against Brihadratha185 BCE
Pataliputra
Per Bana's Harshacharita VI, Pushyamitra the Maurya senapati killed the last Maurya emperor Brihadratha at a military review (balavyapadesa-darsana) and seized the throne, founding the Shunga dynasty. Also recorded in the Puranic dynastic chapters (Vishnu, Matsya, Vayu). The transition from Maurya to Shunga is unambiguously attested in both primary traditions, though the exact year is conventional.
Indo-Greek invasion repelled by Pushyamitra180 BCE
Saketa / Madhyamika
Patanjali's Mahabhashya (c. 150 BCE), a near-contemporary witness, preserves the examples 'arunad Yavanah Saketam' ('the Yavana besieged Saketa') and 'arunad Yavano Madhyamikam' ('the Yavana besieged Madhyamika') in discussing imperfect verb usage — direct grammatical attestation of an Indo-Greek invasion deep into the Gangetic plain during or shortly before Patanjali's own lifetime. The Yavana is conventionally identified with Demetrius or (more likely per Tarn and Raychaudhuri) Menander / Milinda; the Shunga response under Pushyamitra drove them back.
Pushyamitra's Ashvamedha sacrifices180 BCE
Vidisha
Pushyamitra performed two Ashvamedha (horse sacrifice) rituals to assert universal sovereignty, reviving a Vedic royal ritual that had been in abeyance under the Buddhist-leaning Mauryas. Directly attested in Patanjali's Mahabhashya ('iha Pushyamitram yajayamah', 'here we perform sacrifice for Pushyamitra') — one of the rare points where a grammatical example preserves a contemporary political event. The sacrifices are the locus classicus of the so-called "Brahmanical revival" under the Shungas.
Vasumitra defeats Yavanas on the Sindhu130 BCE
Banks of the Sindhu (Indus)
Bana's Harshacharita records that Vasumitra, the grandson of Pushyamitra, defeated a Yavana (Indo-Greek) force on the banks of the Sindhu (Indus) — a late echo of the Shunga wars with the Indo-Greek kingdoms of the northwest. The account is literary and late, with no epigraphic corroboration, but fits the broader pattern of continuing Shunga-Indo-Greek frontier conflict through the later 2nd century BCE.
Heliodorus Garuda pillar inscription at Besnagar110 BCE
Besnagar (near Vidisha)
One of the most important single inscriptions of the post-Mauryan period: epigraphic anchor for the middle Shunga king-list, proof of Indo-Greek diplomatic contact with the Shungas, and earliest datable witness to the worship of Vasudeva-Krishna as supreme deity.
Shunga expansion of the Sanchi and Bharhut stupas100 BCE
Sanchi
Under Shunga patronage, the existing Mauryan brick core of the Great Stupa at Sanchi (Stupa 1) was encased in stone, and the massive vedika (railing) and the first of the four toranas (gateways) — canonical early Indian narrative relief sculpture — were erected during the 2nd and early 1st centuries BCE. The Bharhut stupa railing, now in the Indian Museum Kolkata, is of the same Shunga-period horizon and carries donor inscriptions in early Brahmi. Shunga patronage of Buddhist monument-building directly qualifies the inherited historiographic picture of a purely Brahmanical-reaction dynasty suggested by Pushyamitra's Ashvamedhas.
Assassination of Devabhuti by Vasudeva Kanva73 BCE
Pataliputra
Per Bana's Harshacharita VI, the minister Vasudeva Kanva ended the Shunga dynasty by arranging the assassination of the debauched last Shunga king Devabhuti: a slave-girl disguised as the queen entered the royal chamber and killed the king. Vasudeva seized the throne, founding the short-lived Kanva dynasty (c. 73–28 BCE). Also recorded in the Puranic dynastic chapters.
Related Civilisations
Predecessors
Successors
Sources
- Thapar, R. (2002) Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas
- Singh, U. (2008) A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India
- Pargiter, F.E. (1913) The Purana Text of the Dynasties of the Kali Age(Critical edition and English translation collating the post-Mauryan dynastic lists from the Vishnu, Matsya, Vayu, Brahmanda and Bhagavata Puranas. The sole source for the four-ruler Kanva name-list (Vasudeva, Bhumimitra, Narayana, Susharman) and the formulaic statement that 'the Kanvayanas will be destroyed by the Andhra-bhrityas'.)
- Raychaudhuri, H.C. (1953) Political History of Ancient India(The standard narrative reconstruction of the political history from the accession of Parikshit to the extinction of the Gupta dynasty. Chapters on Pushyamitra, the Indo-Greek wars, and the Shunga succession remain the most detailed stitching together of the Puranic king-lists with Patanjali and the Harshacharita.)
- Kielhorn, F. (1880) The Vyakarana-Mahabhashya of Patanjali(Standard critical edition of Patanjali's Mahabhashya (c. 150 BCE), a contemporary witness to the Shunga dynasty. The Mahabhashya preserves the famous examples 'iha Pushyamitram yajayamah' ('here we sacrifice for Pushyamitra') — direct evidence of Pushyamitra's Ashvamedha ritual — and 'arunad Yavanah Saketam / arunad Yavano Madhyamikam' ('the Yavana besieged Saketa / besieged Madhyamika'), attesting the Indo-Greek invasion of the Gangetic plain.)
- Cowell, E.B. & Thomas, F.W. (1897) The Harsa-carita of Bana(English translation of Bana's 7th-century Sanskrit biography of Harsha. Harshacharita VI preserves the two framing narratives of the Shunga dynasty: Pushyamitra the senapati killing the last Maurya Brihadratha at a military review, and the minister Vasudeva Kanva using a slave-girl disguised as the queen to assassinate the last Shunga Devabhuti. Also preserves Vasumitra's victory over the Yavanas on the Sindhu.)
- Sircar, D.C. (1942) Select Inscriptions Bearing on Indian History and Civilization, Vol. I(Standard epigraphic corpus. Includes the Besnagar / Heliodorus Garuda-pillar inscription (no. 2 in Sircar's collection), recording that Heliodorus, son of Dion, a Greek ambassador from Taxila sent by the Indo-Greek king Antialkidas, erected the pillar 'in honour of Vasudeva, the god of gods' during the 14th regnal year of the Shunga king Kasiputa Bhagabhadra — one of the earliest datable Vaishnava inscriptions.)