Eastern Maurya Kingdom: A Visual History

After Ashoka's death around 232 BC the Maurya Empire appears to have divided, with one line of his descendants ruling the eastern provinces from Pataliputra while others held the west from Taxila or Ujjain. The eastern kingdom kept Magadha and the Ganges valley through six shadowy kings, Dasharatha, Samprati, Shalishuka, Devavarman, Shatadhanvan and Brihadratha, while Kalinga, the Deccan and the north-west slipped away and the Bactrian Greeks pressed east. Brihadratha was assassinated by his commander Pushyamitra Shunga in about 185 BC.

When it existed: the era ribbon

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Territory of the late Mauryas

Timeline of the Eastern Maurya kingdom

1. 232 BC
   Ashoka diesThe empire divides.
2. 224 BC
   Dasharatha's Barabar cave dedications
3. 215 BC
   SampratiJain tradition's great patron.
4. 190 BC
   Greek pressure in the north-west
5. 185 BC
   Brihadratha assassinatedShunga dynasty founded.

Division after Ashoka

The sources for the late Mauryas are thin: king lists in the Puranas, Buddhist and Jain traditions, and a few inscriptions. Dasharatha, who dedicated caves to the Ajivikas near Gaya, seems to have ruled the east while his cousin or brother Samprati, a Jain patron in later legend, held Ujjain and the west; the two may have shared power. Ashoka's grandsons lacked his prestige and the loyalty of the provinces.

Contraction

Kalinga regained independence under the Chedi dynasty (Kharavela's Hathigumpha inscription describes its later revival). The Deccan passed to the Satavahanas. In the north-west the Bactrian Greeks under Demetrius and Menander crossed the Hindu Kush around 180 BC and Greek forces are said to have reached Pataliputra itself. The Yuga Purana describes the terror in the capital.

Assassination

Brihadratha, the last Maurya, was killed by his Brahmin commander-in-chief Pushyamitra Shunga while reviewing the army in about 185 BC. The Shunga dynasty ruled Magadha for the next century, restored the Vedic horse sacrifice, fought off the Greeks and, according to Buddhist tradition, persecuted Buddhism, though the great stupa at Sanchi was enlarged under them.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Maurya Empire (322 BC to 185 BC)
• Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (256 BC to 125 BC)
• Indo-Greek Kingdom (180 BC to 10)
• Satavahana dynasty (100 BC to 225)
• Magadha (600 BC to 320 BC)
• Indo-Scythian Kingdom (150 BC to 400)

Wars of the same era and region

• Kalinga War (262 BC to 261 BC)

8 surprising things about the Eastern Maurya kingdom

1. The Barabar caves near Gaya, dedicated by Ashoka and his grandson Dasharatha, are India's oldest surviving rock-cut caves and inspired the Marabar Caves of A Passage to India.
2. Samprati is credited in Jain texts with building thousands of temples and sending missionaries as far as Persia.
3. The Yuga Purana says the Yavanas (Greeks) reached Pataliputra and 'the mud walls' fell, one of the very few references to Greeks in the Ganges valley.
4. The Puranas give the Mauryas ten kings and 137 years, which fits 322 to 185 BC exactly.
5. Pushyamitra Shunga's assassination of his king in front of the army is one of the earliest recorded military coups in India.
6. The Buddhist text Divyavadana claims Pushyamitra offered a bounty for monks' heads; historians treat this as sectarian polemic.
7. The Shungas who succeeded the Mauryas gave their name to the 'Shunga' style of early Indian sculpture at Bharhut and Sanchi.
8. The very existence of an 'eastern' and 'western' Maurya split is inferred rather than documented.

Sources

• Maurya Empire: Decline Wikipedia
• Shunga dynasty Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Dasharatha Maurya Wikipedia
• Romila Thapar, Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas (1961) Oxford University Press

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