Post Mauryan polities with special reference to the Kushanas and the

Satavahanas
'Post-Mauryan' is the name given to the period extending from approximately 200 BC to 300 AD,
that is, from the fall of the Mauryan dynasty to the rise of Gupta power. Though several important
new developments are seen in this phase, it is best viewed in terms of the continuity and
intensification of political, economic and social processes that started in the post-Vedic (6th century
BC) and matured in the Mauryan, culminating in the post-Mauryan. In this lesson, we survey the
chief features of the political formations of this period, with a special emphasis on two major
regimes: the Satavahanas and the Kushanas.

Our sources include literature (Brahmanical, Buddhist as well as foreign accounts), archaeological
excavations (cultures associated with the late Northern Black Polished Ware and post-Northern
Black Polished Ware), coins (of a large variety and number), inscriptions (in Prakrit and, for the first
time, Sanskrit), and architectural and art remains from these five hundred years.

The Shungas and the Chedis

Subsequent to the collapse and breakup of the vast Mauryan empire (321 BC to 180 BC), we see the
rise of a number of smaller territorial powers in its place in different regions of the subcontinent.
These were under local rulers or local elites who rose to prominence after the demise of Mauryan
control. In the Ganga valley, for instance, the Mauryas were immediately succeeded by the Shungas
under Pushyamitra, the general of the Mauryan army who is believed to have assassinated the last
Mauryan king, Brihadratha. The Shungas ruled for about a 100 years. They included in their kingdom
Pataliputra (Magadha), Ayodhya (central Uttar Pradesh) and Vidisha (eastern Malwa), and possibly
reached up to Shakala (Punjab). Viceroys seem to have been placed in some parts of the Shunga
kingdom.

The Shungas are believed to have been a brahmana dynasty. Pushyamitra is associated with the
performance of the Vedic ashvamedha sacrifice and with a hostile attitude to the Buddhist faith.
From the Shunga period we get the famous Heliodorus pillar at Vidisha (Besnagar). It is found in
association with the remains of a temple which was probably dedicated to the god Vishnu. The pillar
once had atop it an image of Garuda, Vishnu’s mythical mount, the eagle. An inscription on this pillar
tells us that it was erected by Heliodorus, a Greek ambassador to the court of the fifth Shunga king,
Bhagabhadra. Interestingly, it describes the Greek as a Bhagavata or worshipper of bhagavan Vishnu.

The Shungas were replaced by the Kanvas who quickly made way for the Mitras in the Ganga valley.

In Kalinga (south Orissa), Mahameghavahana Chedis set up a kingdom towards the end of the first
century BC. We know this from the Hathigumpha inscription of King Kharavela who belonged to this
dynasty.The rise of a regular monarchy in Orissa represents the spread of state polity and society to
new areas in this period. This is illustrated also by the Satavahana kingdom that, with its capital at
Pratishthana (modern Paithan on the Godavari river), covered Maharashtra and Andhra and, at
times, parts of north Karnataka, south and east Madhya Pradesh and Saurashtra.

The Satavahanas

The Satavahanas were a major ruling dynasty of the post-Mauryan period. They held sway from the
first century BC to the early third century AD, though some scholars date their origins from the third
century BC. There is uncertainty about who the Satavahanas were and where they came from. In
their inscriptions they claim to be exalted brahmanas (ekabahmana) who performed Vedic yajnas.
But the Vishnu, Matsya and Brahmanda Puranas call them Andhras, which are described as lowly
social groups. It seems likely that they adopted the claim to brahmanahood, as well as to the
performance of Vedic yajnas, to elevate their actual status. Or perhaps they were the result of the
union of a local social group with a brahmana.

Similarly, apart from the name 'Andhra', the discovery of early Satavahana coins at sites in Andhra
Pradesh led some historians to believe that the Satavahanas began their rule in the eastern Deccan
and then spread westwards. On the other hand, their early inscriptions in the Nasik and Nanaghat
caves point to the western Deccan as the original power centre of the Satavahanas. At any rate, the
Satavahanas adopted the title of 'Lord of Dakshinapatha' which shows they enjoyed sway over a vast
area in the Deccan. Pliny, the Roman chronicler, too says that the Andhras had many villages and
thirty walled towns and a large army of 100,000 infantry, 2000 cavalry and 1000 elephants.

The Satavahana territories were divided into a number of administrative divisions known as aharas.
We hear of different sorts of officials such as amatyas, mahamatras, mahasenapatis, and of scribes
and record keepers. However, the basic organization of the empire was feudatory which means that
there existed a number of local rulers or subordinate chiefs in the realm, known as the maharathis
and mahabhojas, whom the Satavahanas exercised political paramountcy over but did not eliminate.
Scholars have recently emphasized that this meant the Satavahanas, despite their claim to great
power, did not administratively integrate their empire. Coins of the local rulers found in different
localities attest the presence of these co-sharers in power who existed before the rise of the
Satavahanas. They had matrimonial links with the Satavahanas and with one another. Located in
central India as they were, the Satavahanas appear as something of a bridge between southern and
northern political and cultural traditions.

The Satavahanas were involved in a prolonged conflict with other powers bordering their realm,
such as the Shakas and Kshaharatas of western India. They clashed particularly over control of the
important ports of Bhrigukaccha (Broach), Kalyan and Surparaka (Sopara). Territories often changed
hands between these dynasties.

Some of the major Satavahana kings were Gautamiputra Satakarni (c. 106-130 AD) during whose
reign the empire seems to have territorially reached its peak, his son Vashishthiputra Pulumavi (130-
154 AD), and Yajnashri Satakarni (165-194 AD) whose coins have ships depicted on them. A later
Satavahana king was Hala, believed to be the author of the Prakrit work of poetry called
Gathasattasai. The use of metronyms (name deriving from the mother's name) by Satavahana kings
in their inscriptions and the fact that their queens, like Gautami Balashri, also issued inscriptions are
interesting features. They may derive from local Deccan kinship traditions and may suggest that
Satavahana women played an active role in some public affairs. Another remarkable aspect about
this dynasty is that they issued coins made of lead and its alloy, potin.

Another important feature of the Satavahana period is that the earliest examples of the issue of
royal grants of land that carried tax exemptions with them are from this period. The Nanaghat (first
century BC) and Nasik (second century AD) inscriptions refer to the grant of fields or entire villages
to priests as dakshina for officiating at a yajna and for the upkeep of Buddhist monks dwelling in a
cave, respectively. Such land was not to be entered by royal troops (apraveshya), was free from the
control of the king’s officers, and was exempt from tax (akaradayi). Such land grants from a slightly
later period (Gupta and post-Gupta) have been associated with the onset of Indian feudalism.
When the Satavahanas declined, their place was taken by different dynasties, like the Vakatakas,
Kadambas, and Ikshvakus, in different parts of their empire at about the time that the Guptas were
setting themselves up further north.

The Indo-Greeks, the Shakas and the Parthians

In the post-Mauryan period the north-west and west-central parts of the subcontinent witnessed
the rule of not one but several dynasties of external origin, often simultaneously, as a result of tribal
incursions from central Asia. This slowly transformed the character of the north-west into a cultural
crossroads, where influences and peoples from central Asia and the Indian subcontinent mingled
and created a pluralistic society. The first to come were the Indo-Greeks or Indo-Bactrians who were
from the area north-west of the Hindukush mountains, corresponding to north Afghanistan. They
expanded into the Indus valley and the Punjab and founded an empire there, occasionally making
inroads as far as the Ganga-Yamuna doab, between the second century BC and the first century AD.
They are known for and by their coins which not only included the earliest gold coins recovered
archaeologically in India but bore legends and portraits of individual kings, thus facilitating their
identification. Indo-Greek rule in the region was also responsible for the growth of Hellenistic
cultural influences seen in town planning, on the one hand, and sculpture, on the other. The most
famous Indo-Greek king is Menander (165-145 BC) who seems to have embraced Buddhism after an
extensive dialogue with a monk named Nagasena. The dialogue is captured in the Pali text
Milindapanho or The Questions of Milinda (Menander's Indianized name).

The next to invade were the central Asian Scythians or Shakas (as they came to be known here).
They are described as vratya kshatriyas or degraded kshatriyas in the Dharmashastras, an attempt to
assimilate into the indigenous social system a foreign group which had nonetheless come into
power. Different branches of the Shakas took over different parts of north and central India,
establishing their rule at Taxila, for instance, at Mathura. Shaka chiefs were known as kshatrapas.
The strongest and longest lasting Shaka presence was in Malwa where it continued till the fourth
century AD. The best remembered kshatrapa of this line is Rudradaman I (c.130-150 AD) of the
Kardamaka family who extended his hold over Saurashtra, Kathiawar, Konkan and Sindh, apart from
Malwa. This brought him into prolonged, fluctuating conflict with the Satavahanas. This is something
that both the Satavahana Nasik inscription and Rudradaman's Junagadh inscription tell us about.
Significantly, Rudradaman's inscription is the first long epigraph in chaste Sanskrit that we get from
early India. Considering that Rudradaman was a Shaka, his use of Sanskrit, the exalted language of
the land, suggests an attempt to identify with local traditions and draw on their legitimizing power.

Close on the heels of the Shakas were the Parthians or Pehlavas, originally from Iran. They occupied
a relatively minor principality in the north-west, their best known king being Gondophernes.

The Kushanas

The last major central Asian force to enter the subcontinent in post-Mauryan times were the
Kushanas. The Kushanas were a branch of a tribe bordering China known as the Yueh chi. This tribe,
as a result of pressure from other tribes in their homeland, moved out to other regions. A section
known as the Little Yueh chi settled in north Tibet while the Great Yueh chi occupied five
principalities in the valley of the Oxus river in central Asia, displacing the Shakas on their way. Then
around the beginning of the first century AD, a chief by the name of Kujula Kadphises and his son
Vima brought together the five areas and laid the foundations of a unified Kushana empire that
extended from the Oxus river in the north to the Indus valley in the south, and from Khorasan in the
west to Punjab in the east.
Kushana power entered the subcontinent proper, and reached its height under a king named
Kanishka. His reign started in 78 AD, the date from which a new era, later erroneously called
Shakasamvat, was inaugurated. Under him the Kushana empire extended further eastwards into the
Ganga valley reaching right up to Varanasi, and southwards into the Malwa region. A vast expanse
spanning diverse cultures – Indic, Greek, west and central Asian – was thus brought under one
umbrella, leading to the commingling of peoples and practices. This vast empire also played a
strategic role in facilitating trade from China to west Asia and beyond, through India. The famous
Great Silk Route passed through its northern fringes.

Kanishka and his successors, like Huvishka, Kanishka II and Vasudeva I, ruled till circa 230 AD. The
heart of the Kushana empire was Bactria in central Asia; their Indian territories had twin capitals, at
Purushapura (Peshawar) and at Mathura. The Kushanas adopted grand titles like devaputra (son of
god), kaiser (emperor) and shahanushahi (king of kings). However, the Kushana kings did not
exercise direct and absolute control over the whole empire. Large parts were under subordinate
rulers (like the Shakas) with the title of kshatrapa or mahakshatrapa. Kushana coins and inscriptions
are mostly in the Bactrian language.

The Kushanas introduced new military and cultural features to the Indian subcontinent, such as an
improved cavalry with the use of reins and saddle or the trouser-tunic-and-coat style of dressing. At
the same time, they vigorously embraced elements of indigenous cultures as reflected in their
patronage of Buddhism and Shaivism and of Sanskrit literature. Thus the fourth great Buddhist
council was held in Kashmir under Kanishka and Ashvaghosha, the great Buddhist poet who
composed the first full Sanskrit kavyas, the Buddhacharita and the Saundarananda, was at
Kanishka’s court. The coins issued by Kanishka’s predecessors like Vima declare them to have been
devotees of Shiva.

As the power of the Kushanas declined, various local dynasties subdued by them resurfaced all over
north and central India. These included the Shakas of Malwa and a number of Naga, Mitra and Datta
kings, as well as non-monarchical ‘tribal’ ganas like the Arjunayanas, Malavas and Yaudheyas who
are known from their coins, seals and inscriptions. These were the conditions in which a new phase
started with the rise to power of the Guptas in the early fourth century AD.