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Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c16.s3: Section III. Importance of the Baimbika-Śuṅga Period of Indian History

Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c16.s3

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English

Section III. Importance of the Baimbika-Śuṅga Period of Indian History

c16.s3.1

The rule of the emperors of the "house" of Pushyamitra marks an important epoch in the history of India in general and of Central India in particular. The renewed incursions of the Yavanas, which once threatened to submerge the whole of the *Madhyadeśa*, received a check, and the Greek dynasties of the borderland reverted to the prudent policy of their Seleukidan precursors. There was an outburst of activity in the domains of religion, literature and art, comparable to that of the glorious epoch of the Guptas. In the history of these activities the names of three Central Indian localities stand pre-eminent: Vidiśā (Besnagar), Gonarda and Bhārhut. As Foucher points out "it was the ivory-workers of Vidiśā who carved, in the immediate vicinity of their town, one of the monumental gates of Sāñchī." Inscriptions at or near Vidiśā (and Ghosuṇḍī) testify to the growing importance and wide prevalence of the *Bhāgavata* religion. Though no Aśoka arose to champion this faith, the missionary propaganda of its votaries must have been effective even in the realms of Yavana princes, and a Yavana *dūta* or ambassador was one of its most notable converts. Gonarda¹ was the traditional birth-place of the celebrated Patañjali, the greatest literary genius of the period, Bhārhut saw the construction of the famous railing which has made the sovereignty of the Śuṅgas (*Sugaṇaṁ rāja*) immortal.

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¹ See IHQ. 1926, 267. According to the *Sutta Nipāta* Gonarda stood midway between Ujjain and Besnagar (Vidiśā)—*Carm. Lec.* 1918, 4; *Journal of the Andhra Historical Research Society*, Jan., 1935, pp. 1 ff. (Sircar's trans, of S. Lévi's note on Gonarda).

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