ROMILA THAPAR AND UPINDER SINGH
Post-Mauryan Polities with special reference to the Kushanas and the Satavahanas; Gana-Sanghas.
Political events in india became diffuse after the mauryan period involving a variety of kings.eras and people.On one hand The people of the peninsula and south india were seeking to define their polities and experiencing the need of maritime trade and on the other Northern India was caught up in the turmoil of happenings in central Asia. There is a tendency to give importance to events in the north east due to the range of evidence available but events in other parts of the subcontinent were equally substantial.The focus of politics did not shift to the north-west as there were multiple centers of political ambition.
Coins and inscriptions are our primary evidence. Inscriptions from this time on recorded donations and grants or else were royal eulogies.
(Shungas)
The immediate heirs of the Mauryas were the Shungas,a brahman family, who were officials under the Mauryas. According to harshacharitha , Pushyamitra , commander in chief of the Mauryan army killed the mauryan king Brihadratha and put an end to maurya rule in 187 BC. Pushyamithra’s empire extended over only part of the erstwhile Maurya empire and included pataliputhra, vidisha and ayodhya .The Buddhist sources such as the Divyadana claim that the Shungas destroyed Buddhist monuments and persecuted the Buddhists but this is refuted by archaeological evidence which suggest that Buddhist monastries in the Shunga domain were in disrepair at this time and were being renovated. The Shungas also clashed with Greeks for example Patanjali refers to Yavanas coming upto Saketha and Madhyamika. The Shungas were occupied with wars from various frontiers and the decline of the Mauryan empire was followed by an intense competition in the creation of kingdoms.Within a hundred years the kingdom dwindled to the boundaries of Magadha and even here the Shunga hold was precarious.This situation persisted for another half a century under another brahaman dynasty, The Kanvas, who usurped the Shunga throne and its kings ruled until the late first century BC.
One striking feature of this time is the reappearance of tribal or clan-based polities in Punjab,Haryana and Rajasthan. Their presence is established through coins and we know of the Arjunayanans, Kunindas, Audambaras, Trigartas, Agastyas, Shibis and Yaudheyas.
Monarchical systems,however , were more widespread by now.Kalinga in Orissa was an independent kingdom in the mid-first century BC under Kharavela. Kalinga was associated with jaina monastries encouraged by the initial patronage of Kharavela. Kharavela was of Meghavahana lineage associated with the Chedis.The Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela gives almost an year by year biographical sketch of Kharavela.
(Indo-Greeks,Shakas, Scythians and Parthians )
The end of Achaemenid rule in Iran and the death of Alexander gave rise to kingdoms ruled by his erstwhile generals. The Indo-greeks ruled north-west india and are referred to as Yavanas in indiansources.The best remembered of the Indo-Greeks kings was undoubtedly Menander who as Milinda attained fame in Buddhist text Milinda-panha(the questions of king Milinda).Menander, ruling from 150 to 135 BC stabilized Indo-Greek power in addition to extending its frontiers in india.He is known to have held the Swat valley and Punjab.He is thought to have conquered territory in the Ganges plain but failed to retain it.The history of Indo-Greeks has been reconstructed mainly on the evidence of their coins,.
The decline of the Greek kingdoms in the north- west coincided with an attack on Bactria by nomadic peoples from central Asia.Those who initially attacked Bactria included the Parthians and Scythians referred to as Pahlavas and Shakas in indian sources.Scytho-Parthian rule was established in north-western india around the Christian era. Such nomadic pastoralists were unlikely people who found large kingdoms but in the interaction with existing kingdoms a pattern evolved in which the nomads came to dominate the sedentary societies and this eventually gave rise to kingdoms. In the process the pastoralists themselves underwent mutations that permitted them to emerge as competent rulers.
The Parthians, the Shakas and the Yueh-Chih arrived In India turn by turn. The Shaka king Maues or Moga(80 BC) established Shaka power in Gandhara.
Mithradates II established a Parthian presence in India, also in the first century BC as did Vonones a little later. Gondophares or gondophernes achieved fame through his association with that of St.Thomas.
(Kushanas)
The Shaka administration was largely along the lines of the Achaemenid and Seleucid systems in Iran. The kingdom was divided into provinces each under a military governor called Mahakshatrapa.Each of these provinces was further subdivided into units under the control of lesser governors or satraps.The Shakas were driven southwards by the Yeuh-chih. According to a chinese sourceKujulaKadphises who was one of their chiefs, united the five tribes of the Yeuh-chih and led them into the north-western India establishing himself in Bactria and extending his control to Kabul and Kashmir thus initiating the Kushana kingdom.
The Kushana dynasty was in the ascendant in central Asia under Kanishka.The accession of Kanishka has been dated anywhere between AD 78 and AD 144.An era based on 78 AD has come to be called the Shaka era but is also linked by some to the accession of Kanishka. The Kushana kingdom may well have reached to the middle ganges plain where Kushana inscriptions have been found. However their most important cities were Purushapura near modern Peshawar and Mthura.The inclusion of parts of central Asia in Kushana kingdom as far as Kashgar converted it into an extensive state that had the makings of an empire. India and China were brought closer through the interlinking oases and through Kushana territory bordering on both.The larger part of this empire was in central Asia with it hub in Bactria.
Given the territorial expanse of the empire and the intermingling of peoples royal patronage had to be extended to a variety of religions-buddhsim,Jainism and the bhagavatha and Shaiva sects, Zoroastrianism and the Hellinistic cults.The northern Buddhist claimed Kanishka as a royal patron associating him with the fourth Buddhist council.For the Kushanas an overt association with divinity may be seen as part of the propaganda of royalty. The Kushana title of daivaputra (son of heaven) probably derived from Chinese usage although it may have been influenced by the claims to divine status among the Roman emperors and their cult who also took a similar title, diva filius. Even stronger associations with divinity lay in the sanctuaries built to deify the kings after his death- the devakula. The Kushanas may have found this and appropriate form of acquiring respect as rulers in an area where they were migrants.
The Indo-Greeks and the Kushanas took exalted titles. The indo-Greeks used basileos basilei (king of kings) and the Kushana borrowed titles from the Persians, Chinese and Romans rendering them as Maharajatiraja (king of kings), daivaputra (son of heaven), Soter (savior) and kaisara (Caesar).
The Kushanas despite covering an extensive territory did not govern as an imperial system. The nature of control varied from region to region. Some areas were directly administered in others greater power lay with local satraps and in still others control was exercised through existing rulers who had accepted Kushana suzerainty. The office of Mahakshatrapa was frequently the precursor to independent kingship.
Kushana governance diminished weakened by the confrontations with rising power of the Iranian Sassanids and nibbled at by the assertive gana-sanghas of Punjab and Rajasthan. The distinctiveness of the Kushana presence was slowly being eroded as is symbolized in the name of a late ruler ,VAsudeva, reminiscent of the association of Heliodorus with the Bhagavatha cult.In AD 226 Ardashir overthrew the Parthians and established Sassanian ascendancy. His successor conquered Peshawar and Taxila in the mid-third century and the Kushana kings were subordinated to the Sassanians.
The coming of the Kushana had pushed the Shakas south into the region of Kutch, Kathiawar and Malwa in western India.Here they were to remain and to rule until the late fourth century AD. The rule of the Kshatrapa in the mid-second century stands out Largely for the cultural change that he patronized.
The junagarh inscription of Rudradaman in Saurashtra is dated to AD 150. It refers in eulogistic terms to rudradamans conquest in narmada valley, his campaigns against the Satvahana kings and his victory over the Yaudheya gana-sangha in Rajasthan. This inscription is an early example of what was to become a prashasti– eulogy- a style characteristics of royal biographies. As a form of legitimation the prashasti could project even chiefs and governors as ideal kshatriya rulers irrespective of their origins.
(Shakakshatrapas of western India)
The scythe-parthians ruled through their Kshatrapas. There were two important lines of Kshatrapa rulers-The Kshaharatas and Kardamakas. The Kshaharata dynasty include rulers such as Bhumaka and Nahapana. Bhumaka seems to have originally ode allegiance to Kanishka. His coins with legends in Brahmi and Kharoshthi have been found in coastal Gujarat. Some also occur in Malwa and Ajmer area. The Shakakshatrapas were involved in prolonged conflict with Satavahanas,a powerful dynasty in Deccan. In 124-25 a.d. Nahapana was killed by the Satavahanas ruler Gautami Putrasatakarna. At about the time Kshaharata dynasty came to an end, another line of Shakashatrapas came to force in western India. The founder of this dynasty was Chashtana. The Kardamagas had a practice of senior and junior rulers. After Chashtana his son Jayadaman and later his son Rudradaman 1 came to power.Rudradaman 1 is known from his coins but more so from his Junagarh inscriptions dated in the Shaka year 72. During the early period of 3rd century, a new line of Kshatrapa rulers were established by Rudrasimha 2.
(The Satavahanas)
According to Thapar,In the first century BC the Satavahana dynasty was established in the western Deccan. Whereas some historians place the beginning of Satavahanas rule in c.271 BC and others in c.30 BC. It is likely that the rule of this dynasty began in the mid 1st century AD and ended in the early 3rd century AD. The fact that the Puranas call them Andhras suggests that they were originally based in Andhra region or they belonged to the Andhra tribe. The term Andhra –bhritya in the puranas is taken by some historians to indicate that the ancestors of the sathavahanas were subordinates of the mauryas.
The rise of the Satavahanas follows the pattern of the transition from chiefdom to kingdom with the newly established kings performing Vedic sacrifices as an act of legitimation. Their designations of administrators in their administration system reflects some continuation from chiefdoms.it is thought the Satavahanas developed political ambitions because they held administrative positions under the Mauryas and like many others saw the potentialities of independent kingship at the disintegration of the Mauryan empire.
The earliest of the Satavahana kings to receive recognition was Satakarni because of his policy of military expansion. He was described as ruling in the west and being the king against whom Kharavela of Kalinga campaigned. He was also said to be the ‘Lord of Pratishthana’, the capital of the Satavahanas. Numismatic evidence suggests that he ruled around 50 BC. An inscription at Sanchi in central India refers to him as Rajan Shri Shatakarni .His conquest took him to the north of Narmada into eastern Malwa which at time was being threatened by the Shakas.His next move was in the southerly direction and conquered the Godavari Valley.Satakarni performed the horse sacrifice to put a stamp on his rulership.
The western possessions of the Satavahanas were however annexed by the very people whom Satakarni had feared-The Shakas- who were now powerful in western India, north of the river Narmada. Coins struck by the Shaka satrap, Nahapana have been found in the Nasik area which could mean that by the first century AD the Shakas controlled this region.but the Satavahanas appear to have regained their western possessions soon after this for the coins of Nahapana are often found overstruck by the name of Gautamiputra Satakarni who was responsible for re-establishing Satavahana power in western India.
Vasishthiputra the son of Gautamiputra ruling in the early second century had the additional name of Shri Pulamavi.The Deccan was becoming a connecting link between the north and south not only in terms of politics but also in trade and spread of Buddhism and Jainism Vasishthiputra states that Gautamiputra had uprooted the Shakas and had destroyed the pride of the Kshatriya and that he had stopped the contamination of the four Varnas .In Brahmanical social codes the Shakas were ranked as being of low caste and the Yavanas as degenerate kshatriyas the same terms being used for the Shakas,Yavanas and Parthians in a royal Satavaha,a inscription.
In an effort to ease the relations between the Satavahanas and the Shakas, a matrimonial alliance brought together the daughter of Rudradaman and the Satavahana king. This is interesting because the Satavahanas were boasting of having stopped the contamination of the four Varnas and still took a bride from the Shaka family. Rudradaman’s statement that he twice defeated the Satavahana king in battle but refrained from killing him because of a close relationship, points towards the failure of the alliance.After the death of Rudradaman, the Satavahanas were more successful in their attacks on the Shaka territory. Towards the end of the second century the Satavahana domain stretched from western india to the Krishna delta and northern Tamil Nadu. The next century saw the weakening of the Satavahanas, with a corresponding increase in the power of local governors claiming independent status.
The Satavahana administration was characterized by an hierarchical distribution of power instead of concentration of power in the state. Satavahana territory was divided into small provinces each under civil and military officer(amatya, mahabhoja ,mahasenapati, maharathi).Some of the officers were allowed to marry into royal family and some were even allowed to mint their own coins. So when the Satavahanas power collapsed they followed the usual pattern of setting themselves up as independent rulers. Some Satavahana kings used matronymics which led to a controversy whether this was method of identifying the ruler more precisely or the influence of a local matrilineal custom.
The Abhiras and the Traikutakas of western India made the declining Satavahana power their target. The Vakatakas were the next to dominate the deccan. The Kalachuri-Chedi dynasty was the next to assert its control over the northern part of the peninsula. A number of small kingdoms came alive in the Ganges plain.Their most important role was to restrain the powers of the north-west from overrunning the plain. Further south in the peninsula the kingdoms of the Shalankayanas, Brihatpalyanas and Ikshvakus arose in about third-fourth centuries AD. The first two ruled in the west Godavari district and the Masulipatnam area and the the third one was located further south in the Krishna valley.