Indo-Greek Kingdom: A Visual History

The Indo-Greek kingdoms were the states founded south of the Hindu Kush by Bactrian Greek kings after Demetrius crossed into India around 180 BC. Some 30 kings, known mostly from their bilingual Greek-Prakrit coins, ruled Gandhara, the Punjab and at times as far as Mathura. Menander I (about 165-130 BC) was the greatest, remembered in the Buddhist Milinda Panha as a convert. Divided into rival lines and pressed by Saka nomads and Indian powers, the last king Strato II vanished around 10 AD. Their fusion of Greek and Indian art produced Gandharan sculpture.

When it existed: the era ribbon

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Indo-Greek territory

Timeline of the Indo-Greek Kingdom

1. 180 BC
   Demetrius crosses the Hindu Kush
2. 165 BC
   Menander's reign begins
3. 150 BC
   Peak extent
4. 130 BC
   Menander dies
5. 125 BC
   Bactria lost to the Yuezhi
6. 85 BC
   Maues takes Taxila
7. 50 BC
   Azes I overruns the Punjab
8. 10
   Last Indo-Greek king

Invasion

As the Mauryas collapsed, Demetrius I of Bactria took Gandhara and the Punjab around 180 BC; his generals and successors, notably Apollodotus and Menander, pushed on to the Indus delta and towards the Ganges, and Indian texts recall Yavana (Greek) armies at Pataliputra. When Eucratides usurped Bactria around 170 BC the Indian Greeks became a separate kingdom, sometimes several.

Menander

Menander ruled from Sagala over the widest Indo-Greek realm, and his coins are found from Kabul to Delhi. The Milinda Panha records his debates with the monk Nagasena and his conversion to Buddhism; Plutarch says cities competed for his ashes. Under him and his successors Greek administration mixed with Indian religion, and coins showed the wheel of dharma alongside Athena and Zeus.

Fragmentation and end

After Menander the kingdom split into western (Paropamisadae, Gandhara) and eastern (Punjab) branches under a bewildering series of kings. The Yuezhi took Bactria around 125 BC, cutting the Greeks off; the Saka Maues took Taxila around 85 BC and Azes I most of the rest by 50 BC. Strato II and III held a corner of the eastern Punjab until about 10 AD, when the Sakas absorbed it. Greek script and Greek art lived on under the Kushans.

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

• Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (256 BC to 125 BC)
• Indo-Scythian Kingdom (150 BC to 400)
• Maurya Empire (322 BC to 185 BC)
• Eastern Maurya kingdom (232 BC to 185 BC)
• Kushan Empire (30 to 375)
• Seleucid Empire (312 BC to 63 BC)
• Macedonian Empire (359 BC to 323 BC)

8 surprising things about the Indo-Greek Kingdom

1. Indo-Greek coins carry Greek on one side and Kharoshthi Prakrit on the other, the earliest bilingual coins in the world.
2. Menander is the only Greek king who became a figure in Buddhist scripture, the Milinda Panha.
3. The Heliodorus pillar at Vidisha records a Greek ambassador who became a devotee of Vishnu around 110 BC.
4. The first images of the Buddha in human form, in Gandhara, show him with a Greek-style toga and wavy hair.
5. One Indo-Greek king, Agathocles, put Krishna and Balarama on his coins around 180 BC, their earliest known depiction.
6. The Yavanas are described in the Mahabharata and by the grammarian Patanjali, who mentions their siege of Saketa.
7. Some 30 Indo-Greek kings are known only from coins; their order and reigns are still debated.
8. The city of Sagala, Menander's capital, is modern Sialkot in Pakistan.

Sources

• Indo-Greek Kingdom Wikipedia
• Menander Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Indo-Greek Kingdom World History Encyclopedia
• A. K. Narain, The Indo-Greeks (1957) Oxford University Press

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