The Shungas and the Vedic revival

Detail

Who the Shungas were

• Pushyamitra Shunga founded the dynasty. He ruled parts of north and central India.
• The dynasty began about 185 BCE, replacing the Mauryan dynasty. [2]
• Pushyamitra was a Brahman. He killed Brihadratha, the last Mauryan ruler, at a military parade and took power. [2]
• He ruled for roughly 36 years. Total Shunga rule lasted about 112 years, ending about 73 BCE. [2] This matches the NCERT line that the dynasty was gone about a century after him.
• His empire was smaller than the Mauryan empire. The Shungas did not hold the far-flung provinces Ashoka once controlled.

The ashvamedha yajna — how a king proved he was supreme

• Pushyamitra performed the ashvamedha yajna (horse sacrifice) to show he was the paramount ruler — the king above all other kings.
• How it worked, step by step:
• A horse was let loose to wander freely.
• Soldiers followed the horse wherever it went.
• If a local ruler let the horse pass, that land was counted as part of the empire.
• If a ruler stopped the horse, that was a challenge — and it meant battle.

• The horse was then sacrificed in a grand ritual at the capital.

• Why it mattered: this was a new way of claiming kingship. Power was announced through ritual, not only through conquest or inscriptions. Brahmanas who performed the yajna got gifts and status, so the ritual tied the king and the priests together.

Relations with the Greeks

• After some early military campaigns, Pushyamitra kept friendly relations with the Greeks (the Indo-Greeks ruling the north-west).
• So the picture is not one of endless war. Contact with the north-west continued, and this kept trade routes and ideas moving.

Vedic revival with other faiths still growing

• The period saw a revival of Vedic rituals and practices — yajnas came back into public life under royal support.
• But other schools of thought kept flourishing at the same time. Buddhism, Jainism and other traditions did not stop.
• This is the NCERT's repeated pluralism point: one tradition rising does not mean the others were wiped out. The best proof is that Buddhist art (Bharhut) was being built in the very same Shunga period.

Note: Britannica says Pushyamitra "is said to have persecuted Buddhists", while adding that Buddhism still flourished in many areas under his control. [2] The NCERT scaffold gives no persecution claim — keep the NCERT version (revival plus continued flourishing of other schools) in your answer. Treat persecution as a disputed later tradition, not settled fact.

Sanskrit and Patanjali

• Sanskrit became a preferred language of philosophy and literature in this period. Earlier, Prakrit had dominated royal inscriptions (as in Ashoka's edicts).
• Patanjali compiled the Yoga Sutras in this period (NCERT chapter claim).
• Patanjali is dated by Britannica to the 2nd century BCE (another view puts a Patanjali in the 5th century CE). [3]
• He is also credited with the Mahabhashya ("Great Commentary") — a defence of the grammarian Panini against his critic Katyayana. [3]
• Britannica adds that the Yoga-sutras seem to span several centuries: the first three books around the 2nd century BCE, the last book around the 5th century CE. [3]

Note: the multi-century dating of the Yoga-sutras [3] is a scholarly view. For the exam, hold the NCERT link — Patanjali · Yoga Sutras · Shunga period.

Bharhut Stupa — the earliest Buddhist art

• The Bharhut Stupa is in Madhya Pradesh (Satna district). [7]
• The stupa was probably built in Ashoka's time, and it received its carved railings and reliefs in the Shunga period.
• It was originally built of brick, and was enlarged in the 2nd century BCE, when the stone railing with entrances at the four cardinal points (north, south, east, west) was put up. [4]
• The reliefs show scenes from the Buddha's life, and Jataka stories (tales of the Buddha's earlier births). [4][5]
• The panels also include Lakshmi, singers and dancers, and elephants carrying the dharma-wheel — so Buddhist and popular/auspicious images sit side by side on the same monument.
• These are among the earliest examples of Buddhist art in India.

Style and technique at Bharhut

• The stone railing copies wooden post-and-rail building — stone carved to look like carpentry. This shows the shift from wood to stone in Indian building. [4]
• The railing is decorated with medallions (round panels) and lunates (half-moon panels), mostly filled with the lotus design; some have a man's or woman's head at the centre. [4]
• Story scenes run on the railing medallions and on the coping (the long top rail). [4]
• Bharhut sculpture is dated to the mid-2nd century BCE. [4]

Discovery and where the stones are today

• The stupa ruins were found by Major General Alexander Cunningham (first head of the Archaeological Survey of India) in 1873. [5]
• He recovered the railings and one gateway during 1872–74 and had them sent to the Indian Museum. [7]
• Most surviving remains — railings and entrance gateways — are now in the Indian Museum, Kolkata, which has a dedicated Bharhut gallery. [4][6]
• Some Bharhut railing pieces are also held abroad, for example railing coping fragments and a yakshi (female nature spirit) railing-pillar face in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, labelled Shunga. [7]

Prelims Hooks

• Pushyamitra Shunga founded the Shunga dynasty about 185 BCE by killing the last Mauryan ruler Brihadratha. [2]
• Shunga rule lasted about 112 years, ending about 73 BCE; Pushyamitra himself ruled about 36 years. [2]
• The ashvamedha yajna = horse set free with soldiers following; unchallenged land joins the empire, a challenge means war.
• Patanjali — Yoga Sutras (NCERT) and the Mahabhashya, a defence of Panini against Katyayana. [3]
• Bharhut Stupa is in Madhya Pradesh; built of brick, probably in Ashoka's time; stone railing added in the 2nd century BCE with gateways at the four cardinal points. [4]
• Bharhut railing panels show Jataka stories, the Buddha's life, Lakshmi, singers and dancers, and elephants with the dharma-wheel.
• Alexander Cunningham discovered Bharhut in 1873 and recovered railings and a gateway in 1872–74. [5][7]
• The main Bharhut remains are in the Indian Museum, Kolkata. [4][6]
• Bharhut's stone railing imitates wooden post-and-rail construction. [4]
• Sanskrit rose as the preferred language of philosophy and literature in the Shunga period.

Mains Points

• Ritual as a tool of legitimacy. The Mauryas used edicts, officials and dhamma to speak to subjects. Pushyamitra used the ashvamedha instead. Link this to the class 12 theme of new notions of kingship — when an empire shrinks, a ruler needs cheaper, more visible ways to claim supremacy, and a public yajna does exactly that.
• Revival is not replacement. The Vedic revival and the Bharhut Buddhist carvings belong to the same century. Use this to argue that Indian religious history in this age is layered, not a zero-sum fight, and to handle the "Shunga persecution of Buddhism" claim with care — even the source that reports it notes Buddhism still flourished. [2]
• Who paid for the art? Bharhut's railings were largely gifts from many donors — monks, nuns, traders, townspeople. Tie this to towns and trade: surplus from farming and trade funded the stone monuments, so art growth and economic growth go together.
• From wood to stone; from Prakrit to Sanskrit. Two parallel shifts mark the post-Mauryan turn — building technique moving to stone copying wooden forms at Bharhut [4], and the language of high learning moving towards Sanskrit. Both show a society investing in things meant to last.