NCERT Class 12 - Themes in Indian History Part I, Chapter 2

Indo-Greeks, Shakas and Kushanas

Between the Mauryas and the Guptas a series of Central Asian and Greek rulers held the north-west. They left India its first portrait coins, its first long Sanskrit inscription, the Gandhara style of art and a lasting link with Central Asian trade.

The Indo-Greeks

• Also called Bactrian Greeks, they entered India after about 200 BCE.
• They were the first to issue gold coins in India, and the first to put the king's portrait and name on coins - which is why their chronology is so well known.
• Menander, known in Indian texts as Milinda, ruled from Sakala (Sialkot). His dialogue with the monk Nagasena is recorded in the Pali text Milindapanho, the Questions of Milinda, after which he became a Buddhist.
• The Heliodorus pillar at Besnagar near Vidisha was set up by a Greek ambassador who calls himself a Bhagavata, a devotee of Vasudeva - the earliest clear evidence of the Bhagavata cult.
• Greek contact influenced Indian astronomy and coinage; the term horashastra for astrology reflects it.

The Shakas and Parthians

• The Shakas, or Scythians, followed the Greeks and ruled in several branches; the most important were the Western Kshatrapas of Ujjain.
• Rudradaman I is their best-known king. His Junagadh rock inscription of about 150 CE is the first long inscription in chaste Sanskrit, breaking the Prakrit tradition of official records.
• The same inscription records that he repaired the Sudarshana lake, first built in Chandragupta Maurya's time and improved under Ashoka.
• The Shaka era beginning in 78 CE is the era used in India's national calendar.
• A ruler of Ujjain who defeated the Shakas is linked in tradition with the Vikrama era of 57 BCE.
• The Parthians (Pahlavas) ruled briefly; under Gondophernes, tradition says St Thomas came to India.

The Kushanas

• Originally the Yuezhi of Central Asia, they built an empire stretching from Central Asia to the Ganga plain, with capitals at Purushapura (Peshawar) and Mathura.
• Vima Kadphises issued a large number of gold coins and showed Shiva and the bull on them.
• Kanishka, whose accession is generally placed in 78 CE, is the greatest Kushana ruler and is credited with starting the Shaka era.
• He convened the Fourth Buddhist Council in Kashmir and supported the spread of Mahayana Buddhism into Central Asia and China.
• His court is associated with Ashvaghosha, author of the Buddhacharita, the physician Charaka, the philosopher Nagarjuna and the scholar Vasumitra.

Art and trade under the Kushanas

• The Gandhara school combined Buddhist subject matter with Greco-Roman technique, carving in grey schist.
• The Mathura school worked in spotted red sandstone and produced the first images of the Buddha in an Indian idiom, along with Jain and brahmanical figures.
• Kushana gold coins circulated widely, and the empire controlled the Silk Route, taxing the flow of goods between China and Rome.
• The period saw heavy Roman trade - Indian textiles, spices and gems went west, and Roman gold came east.