The Post-Mauryan Age: Shungas, Satavahanas, Indo-Greeks, Shakas and Kushanas — Rule, Trade, Towns and Art

Start Here — The Age of Many Powers

🎯 Exam priority: Steady Prelims, strong Mains (T2). With the Mauryan empire gone, power split. In the east and centre native dynasties (Shungas, Kanvas, Satavahanas) took over; in the north-west, waves of Central Asian rulers arrived. It was also the high point of crafts, towns and Indo-Roman trade, and the age in which Mahayana Buddhism, Gandhara-Mathura-Amaravati art and the first long Sanskrit inscription appeared.

UPSC's last ten years on this chapter: Shunga-era literature (Malavikagnimitra, 2016), Panini and Pushyamitra (2020), a pair of literary works and authors (2023), cave-shrine sites such as Besnagar, Bhaja and Sittanavasal (2023), Dhanyakataka and the Mahasanghikas (2023), Amaravati and its sculpture (2026), and Mains questions on Gandhara art (2014 and 2019). Expect more of the same kinds: a site, a ruler or a text, matched to a dynasty.

Dynasties at a Glance

Shungas and Kanvas

• Pushyamitra Shunga was the commander-in-chief of the last Mauryan king, whom he killed in public (c. 185 BCE). A brahmana, he performed Vedic sacrifices, including two ashvamedhas, as the revival of the brahmanical way of life. Buddhist writers say he persecuted their order, but archaeology shows the Buddhist sites at Bharhut and Sanchi being embellished in his dynasty's time.

• The Shungas held the Ganga basin against the Indo-Greeks. The Sanskrit play Malavikagnimitra (by Kalidasa, a Gupta-era poet) is a love story of Pushyamitra's son Agnimitra — the 2016 PYQ. Patanjali, the grammarian who wrote the Mahabhashya on Panini, was Pushyamitra's contemporary (Panini himself is much earlier, which is why the 2020 PYQ calling Panini 'associated with Pushyamitra' fails).

• Heliodorus pillar, Besnagar (Vidisha): a Greek envoy of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas, Heliodorus, set up a Garuda pillar in honour of Vasudeva during the reign of Bhagabhadra and called himself a Bhagavata — the best proof that foreigners were converted to Vaishnavism.

• The last Shunga, Devabhuti, was killed by his brahmana minister Vasudeva, founder of the Kanvas. They ruled Magadha briefly; the Satavahanas defeated them.

Kharavela of Kalinga

After Ashoka, Kalinga re-emerged under the Mahameghavahana (Chedi) dynasty. Its famed king Kharavela left the Hathigumpha inscription (Prakrit, Brahmi) at Udayagiri near Bhubaneswar, narrating his reign year by year: campaigns, canal works, public festivities and gifts, and patronage of Jain monks, for whom the Udayagiri–Khandagiri caves were cut. It is one of the earliest records of the 'regional revival' after the Mauryas.

The Satavahanas — The Deccan Empire

• Who they were. The Satavahanas are identified with the Andhras of the Puranas; their earliest inscriptions (1st century BCE) come not from Andhra but from Maharashtra, in the upper Godavari valley, with the capital at Pratishthana (Paithan). Founder: Simuka. Satakarni I is known from the Naneghat inscription of his queen Naganika, which records his Vedic sacrifices.

• Gautamiputra Satakarni (c. 106–130 CE) was the greatest. He crushed the Shaka Kshaharatas — over 8,000 silver coins of Nahapana found near Nasik were restruck with his name — and held Malwa and Kathiawar. His mother Gautami Balashri's Nasik inscription praises him as 'the one brahmana' who stopped the mixing of varnas.

• Rudradaman I (Saka) defeated the Satavahanas twice but spared them out of matrimonial ties; Yajna Sri Satakarni later recovered the north Konkan and Malwa and issued coins with ships — a sign of sea trade.

• Hala, a Satavahana king, is credited with the Prakrit anthology Gatha Saptashati. The language of administration was Prakrit in Brahmi.

Polity and society

• The kings are shown as upholders of dharma, compared with heroes like Rama, Bhima and Arjuna. Mauryan terms survive: ahara (district), amatya, mahamatra.

• Military and feudal elements: the senapati was a provincial governor; the village was under a gaulmika, head of a military unit; camps (kataka, skandhavara) served as administrative bases. There were three grades of feudatories — raja (with coin-minting rights), mahabhoja and senapati.

• First tax-free land grants to brahmanas and Buddhist monks, which made grantee villages small independent 'islands' — the seed of later feudalism.

• Matrilineal names — Gautamiputra, Vasishthiputra — show the importance of mothers; yet succession stayed patriarchal. Queens made religious gifts and sometimes acted as regents.

• Economy: paddy transplantation in the Krishna–Godavari rice bowl, cotton, iron (Karimnagar, Warangal), gold workings at Kolar; lead, potin and copper coins — they issued no gold coins. Pliny credits the Andhras with 30 walled towns.

Art

• Rock-cut chaityas (halls with an apsidal end and a stupa) and viharas: Bhaja, Karle (about 40 m long — the grandest chaitya), Nasik, Kanheri and Junnar. Karle is on the trade route from the ports to the interior.

• Sanchi's four toranas were added in Satavahana times; Amaravati (stupa begun about 200 BCE, rebuilt in the 2nd century CE) and Nagarjunakonda (under the Ikshvakus, also with the earliest brahmanical brick temples) were the great Andhra centres. Dhanyakataka — the 2023 PYQ — near Amaravati was a Mahasanghika Buddhist centre.

Foreign Dynasties of the North-West

Why they came

The Seleucid weakness in Bactria, plus pressure from nomadic Scythians (unable to push into China after the Great Wall), pushed the Bactrian Greeks, then the Shakas, Parthians and Kushanas, into India. The Mauryan successors were too weak to resist.

Indo-Greeks

• Came first (from c. 200 BCE); two Greek houses ruled together. Menander (Milinda, c. 165–145 BCE) from Sakala (Sialkot) was converted to Buddhism by Nagasena; their dialogue is the Milinda Panho.

• They were the first to issue coins that can be attributed to named kings (with portraits, in Greek and Kharosthi/Prakrit) and the first to issue gold coins in India; the Kushans multiplied them.

• They introduced military governors (strategos), helped create Gandhara art, the curtain in the Indian theatre (yavanika), and Greek astrological terms (horasastra from 'horoscope').

Shakas and Parthians

• The Shakas had five branches (Afghanistan, Punjab/Taxila, Mathura, western India, upper Deccan). The Western Kshatrapas of Ujjain–Saurashtra lasted till the 4th century.

• Rudradaman I (c. 130–150 CE) repaired the Mauryan Sudarshana lake and issued the first long inscription in chaste Sanskrit at Junagadh (c. 150 CE) — in kavya style, though still in Brahmi.

• The Vikrama era (58 BCE) is linked by tradition to a king of Ujjain's victory over the Shakas. The Parthian Gondophernes is associated with the tradition that St Thomas came to India.

Kushanas

• A branch of the Yuezhi from Central Asia; the first dynasty was Kujula Kadphises and Vima Kadphises (who issued many gold coins). The later house, by the Rabatak inscription (in Bactrian written in the Greek script), runs Kujula Kadphises → Vima Taktu → Vima Kadphises → Kanishka.

• Kanishka: capitals at Purushapura (Peshawar) and Mathura; a huge relic stupa at Peshawar; the Saka era of 78 CE is traditionally his (the date is debated); patron of Mahayana; the Fourth Buddhist Council in Kashmir (Kundalvana), presided over by Vasumitra with Ashvaghosha; court of Ashvaghosha (Buddhacharita), Nagarjuna and the physician Charaka.

• Title Devaputra (son of god, borrowed from the Chinese 'son of heaven'), 'king of kings', and a satrap system with joint rule by father and son. They controlled the Silk Route and gathered rich tolls.

• Gold coins of high purity (often higher than the Gupta ones), copper coins in Roman style, deities of many religions on the coins (Shiva, the Buddha, Greek and Zoroastrian gods).

• Legacy: better cavalry, saddles and reins, trousers, tunics, long coats and boots; assimilation of foreigners as 'second-class kshatriyas' (Manu calls the Shakas and Parthians fallen kshatriyas).

Foreign contributions to Indian religion

Buddhism in its original form was too abstract for newcomers; the image-worshipping Mahayana grew in response, and Hindu bhakti to Vishnu and Shiva flourished.

Crafts, Trade and Towns

Historians of the period describe 200 BCE–200 CE as the most flourishing phase of crafts and commerce in ancient India.

• Crafts. The Milinda Panho lists 75 occupations (60 craft-related); the Mahavastu counts 36 kinds of workers in Rajgir. Eight metals (gold, silver, lead, tin, copper, brass, iron, precious stones) were worked; ironwork was strong in Telangana (Karimnagar, Nalgonda). Mathura made shataka cloth; dye vats have been found at Uraiyur and Arikamedu; glass-blowing reached India; terracottas (Yelleshwaram, Kondapur) were mass-produced from moulds.

• Guilds (shrenis) of potters, oil-millers, weavers and flour-makers took deposits from lay Buddhists and rulers, acting as banks to feed monks and brahmanas.

• Routes. The north-west's Uttarapatha ran from Taxila to Mathura, Ujjain and Broach; Ujjain was the node for routes from Kausambi and Mathura; Silk Route links via Taxila.

• Indo-Roman trade. Land routes were disrupted by Parthians and Central Asian movements, so by the 1st century CE sea trade dominated, aided by the monsoon winds. Ports: Broach (Bharuch), Sopara, Arikamedu (Pondicherry), Tamralipti, Muziris, Puhar. India exported spices (pepper — called yavanapriya), muslin, pearls, gems, ivory, steel cutlery; Rome sent gold and silver coins, wine amphorae, glass and lead. Pliny (Natural History, 77 CE) complained that Rome was being drained of gold. About 85 finds of Roman coins in India, most south of the Vindhyas. The anonymous Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century CE) is the main merchant's guide.

• Money. Gold (Kushan), silver, copper, bronze, lead and potin coins; local dynasties such as the Yaudheyas, Nagas and Mitras minted copper and bronze. Money economy reached the common people as never before.

• Towns. Kushan layers at Mathura (Sonkh has seven Kushan levels against one Gupta), Sravasti, Kausambi and Varanasi; Ujjain's agate and carnelian bead industry; Satavahana towns at Tagar (Ter), Paithan, Dhanyakataka, Nagarjunakonda. Decline followed the fall of the Kushans and Rome's curbs on Indian trade from the 3rd century CE.

Religion, Literature and Art

Religion

• Vaishnavism and Shaivism spread with the bhakti idea (Heliodorus; Vasudeva Kushana). Mahayana arose with the Buddha worshipped as divine and bodhisattvas revered, and the Fourth Council under Kanishka. Jainism flourished at Mathura and in Kalinga.

Literature and science

• Sanskrit gained status: Patanjali's Mahabhashya and (traditionally) the Yoga Sutras; Ashvaghosha's Buddhacharita and Saundarananda; Charaka (Charaka Samhita) and Sushruta in medicine; Greek influence in astronomy and astrology. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit texts: Mahavastu, Divyavadana. Prakrit: Gatha Saptashati.

• Bhavabhuti, Hastimalla and Kshemeshvara (2021 PYQ) were later Sanskrit dramatists. Do not mistake them for temple architects or philosophers.

Sculpture — three schools

Architecture

• Stupa art: Bharhut (Shunga-time railings with Jataka scenes), Sanchi (Shunga stone encasing, Satavahana toranas), Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda. Cave art: Bhaja, Karle, Nasik, Kanheri, Udayagiri–Khandagiri.

• The same stupas and caves are treated again, as architecture and sculpture, in the Part C articles; this article gives you the dynastic frame.

Inscriptions, Terms and Texts — Prelims Cheat Sheet

UPSC loves the connection between a record and a ruler. Learn the table; then read the foreign-origin terms and the smaller powers.

Terms that came with the foreigners

Indo-Roman trade — at a glance

Native powers outside the great dynasties

Sources of knowledge for the period

• Indian: Puranas, Mahabhashya, Malavikagnimitra, Milinda Panho, Buddhacharita, Gatha Saptashati, Sangam poems, inscriptions and coins.

• Foreign: the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, Pliny's Natural History, Ptolemy's Geography, Chinese annals (Han and later), Roman coin hoards.

• Archaeology: Taxila (Sirkap), Begram, Sonkh, Arikamedu, Nagarjunakonda, Peddabankur.

Mahayana and the Making of Image Worship

The post-Mauryan centuries recast Indian religion. Four developments matter for the exam.

• Mahayana Buddhism. The Buddha was now worshipped as a divine being; the bodhisattva ideal — postponing one's own liberation to help all beings — became central; the language shifted from Pali to Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. Its philosophers Nagarjuna (Madhyamika, shunyata) and, later, Asanga and Vasubandhu (Yogachara) belong to this stream. Kanishka's patronage and the Kashmir council fixed Mahayana's position. This is the 2019 and 2020 PYQ territory covered in the Buddhism article.

• The Buddha image. The first anthropomorphic images appear in Gandhara and Mathura in the early centuries CE; before that the Buddha was shown by symbols — empty seat, footprints, Bodhi tree, wheel, stupa (the 2026 PYQ asked what an empty seat means: the Buddha's meditation).

• Bhakti and Vaishnavism. Foreign rulers became Bhagavatas; Vasudeva-Krishna worship spread; the Kushan king Vasudeva's very name is a sign.

• Jainism. Mathura's Kankali Tila is a major Jain site with Kushan-era images; Kalinga under Kharavela patronised the order.

How UPSC Has Asked It — And What Could Come Next

Seen so far

• Literature-to-dynasty matches (2016, 2020, 2021, 2023); cave and site identifications (2023); Buddhist centres (Dhanyakataka, 2023); a school of sculpture and its extent (Amaravati, 2026); Mains on Gandhara (2014 and 2019).

Our reading of what is likely

• Inscription-to-ruler pairs: Hathigumpha–Kharavela; Nasik prashasti–Gautami Balashri/Gautamiputra; Naneghat–Naganika; Junagadh–Rudradaman; Besnagar–Heliodorus; Rabatak–Kanishka.

• Firsts: first named-king coins and first gold coins (Indo-Greeks), first land grants (Satavahanas), first long Sanskrit inscription (Rudradaman), first gold coins on a large scale (Kushanas), first Buddha images (Gandhara and Mathura).

• Sculpture comparison: a three-column question (material, influence, region) is very likely again in Mains. Remember: Mathura = indigenous; Gandhara = Greco-Roman; Amaravati = narrative.

• Trade geography: ports and goods (Arikamedu/Poduke, Muziris, Broach, Sopara), the Periplus, Pliny; and the cities that declined after the Kushans.

• Traps: Kalidasa belongs to the Gupta age, not the Shunga; the Satavahanas issued no gold coins; Menander was a Greek, not a Shaka; the Saka era (78 CE) is not the Vikrama era (58 BCE).

Further Reading

• Standard NCERT-level texts and reference books on ancient, medieval and cultural Indian history (any UPSC reading list).

Test Yourself: Practice Questions & PYQs

Match each ruler or text with a dynasty, and each site with a religion, before opening the answer.

Practice Questions

Q1. Which Shunga king's son is the hero of the Sanskrit play 'Malavikagnimitra'?

• (a) Pushyamitra

• (b) Bhagabhadra

• (c) Agnimitra

• (d) Bimbisara

Q2. The Hathigumpha inscription at Udayagiri records the reign of:

• (a) Rudradaman I

• (b) Kanishka

• (c) Gautamiputra Satakarni

• (d) Kharavela

Q3. Which Satavahana ruler's mother issued the Nasik inscription praising him?

• (a) Yajna Sri Satakarni

• (b) Satakarni I

• (c) Gautamiputra Satakarni

• (d) Hala

Q4. Which of the following was NOT issued by the Satavahanas?

• (a) Lead coins

• (b) Gold coins

• (c) Copper coins

• (d) Potin coins

Q5. The first long inscription in chaste Sanskrit in India was issued by:

• (a) Samudragupta

• (b) Kanishka

• (c) Rudradaman I

• (d) Ashoka

Q6. The Rabatak inscription gives the genealogy of:

• (a) The Satavahanas

• (b) The Kushanas

• (c) The Indo-Greeks

• (d) The Western Kshatrapas

Q7. Milinda, the Indo-Greek king who debated with a Buddhist monk, is better known as:

• (a) Menander

• (b) Demetrius

• (c) Antialcidas

• (d) Eucratides

Q8. Which school of sculpture used spotted red sandstone and is regarded as the most indigenous?

• (a) Gandhara

• (b) Sarnath

• (c) Amaravati

• (d) Mathura

Q9. The sea trade between India and the Roman empire in the first century CE was helped chiefly by:

• (a) Knowledge of the monsoon winds

• (b) The Mauryan navy

• (c) A Roman naval base at Madras

• (d) The Suez canal

Q10. The pillar at Besnagar in honour of Vasudeva was set up by:

• (a) Gondophernes

• (b) Heliodorus

• (c) Nagasena

• (d) Menander

UPSC Previous Year Questions (PYQs)

Real UPSC Prelims questions on the post-Mauryan period, 2016–2026, answers matched to UPSC's official key. Explanations in our own words.

Q11. (UPSC Prelims 2016) Which one of the following books of ancient India has the love story of the son of the founder of Sunga dynasty?

• (a) Swapnavasavadatta

• (b) Ratnavali

• (c) Malavikagnimitra

• (d) Meghadoota

Q12. (UPSC Prelims 2020) With reference to the scholars/litterateurs of ancient India, consider the following statements: 1. Panini is associated with Pushyamitra Shunga. 2. Amarasimha is associated with Harshavardhana. 3. Kalidasa is associated with Chandra Gupta II. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

• (a) 1, 2 and 3

• (b) 1 and 2 only

• (c) 3 only

• (d) 2 and 3 only

Q13. (UPSC Prelims 2021) With reference to the history of ancient India, Bhavabhuti, Hastimalla and Kshemeshvara were famous

• (a) philosophers

• (b) temple architects

• (c) Jain monks

• (d) playwrights

Q14. (UPSC Prelims 2023) With reference to ancient Indian History, consider the following pairs: Literary work : Author 1. Devichandragupta : Bilhana 2. Hammira-Mahakavya : Nayachandra Suri 3. Milinda-panha : Nagarjuna 4. Nitivakyamrita : Somadeva Suri How many of the above pairs are correctly matched?

• (a) Only two

• (b) All four

• (c) Only three

• (d) Only one

Q15. (UPSC Prelims 2023) Consider the following pairs: Site : Well known for 1. Besnagar : Shaivite cave shrine 2. Bhaja : Buddhist cave shrine 3. Sittanavasal : Jain cave shrine How many of the above pairs are correctly matched?

• (a) Only two

• (b) All three

• (c) Only one

• (d) None

Q16. (UPSC Prelims 2023) In which one of the following regions was Dhanyakataka, which flourished as a prominent Buddhist centre under the Mahasanghikas, located?

• (a) Magadha

• (b) Andhra

• (c) Kalinga

• (d) Gandhara

Q17. (UPSC Prelims 2026, provisional key) Which of the following statements on the Amaravati Stupa and its relief sculpture is/are correct? 1. It was located in the lower Krishna valley. 2. In India, it was next only to the Sanchi Stupa in size. 3. The Amaravati school of sculpture made a lasting impact on the later South Indian sculpture, and its products were carried to Sri Lanka and South-east Asia. Select the answer using the code given below:

• (a) 2 and 3 only

• (b) 1 only

• (c) 1, 2 and 3

• (d) 1 and 3 only

Mains Practice Questions

Use these to frame full-length answers. You don't have to answer one exactly — they show the angles UPSC tests, so let them guide which points you cover.

• Compare the Gandhara, Mathura and Amaravati schools of sculpture.

• How far did Central Asian contacts change Indian polity, religion and art in the post-Mauryan centuries?

• Why is the period of the Kushanas and Satavahanas called the golden age of ancient trade and towns?

• Examine the significance of the Satavahanas in the history of the Deccan.

Mains PYQs — Last 10 Years (UPSC GS-I)

The exact questions UPSC has actually asked on this topic over the last decade. Practise writing full-length answers to these.

• Gandhara sculpture owed as much to the Romans as to the Greeks. Explain. (UPSC GS-I, 2014)

• Highlight the Central Asian and Greco-Bactrian elements in the Gandhara art. (UPSC GS-I, 2019)