Dynasties of Ancient Punjab

Achaemenid Persian Empire

The Mahajanapadas did not face any invasions from Northeast or South India. The smaller principalities in the Northeast were gradually merging into Magadha. However, the Northwestern Mahajanapadas of Gandhara and Kamboja were fighting, creating political instability in the region. The western boundary of Gandhara and Kamboja touched the eastern edge of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.

During the 6th century BCE, Gandhara was governed under the reign of King Pukkusati. Pukkusati had been contemporary to the Achamenid king Cyrus the Great.

Achaemenid rulers of Iran were expanding their empire to include the Magadhan rulers. The Persian rulers were attracted to Gandhara and Kamboja for various reasons.

• First, the area of these states was fertile and rich in natural resources.
• Second, Taxila, capital of Gandhara, was famous for its trade and markets. The region was penetrable through the passes in the Hindu Kush.
• Also, it is noteworthy that this area did not have any powerful kingdom like that of Magadha to weld the warring communities into one organized kingdom.

Thus, the Persians utilized the political instability to capture these kingdoms. Initially, the Persian ruler Cyrus annexed Punjab lying to the west of the Indus, namely Kabul and Hindu Kush Mountains including Gandhara, and Sindh. However, Darius-I along with his father Gustasp penetrated deep inside north-west India in 516 BC capturing the whole of Punjab.

Inclusion of Punjab in Persian Satrap

After the Darius-I attack, Punjab was merged into the Persian Empire and converted into satrapies, which had a total number of 28 satrapies. These conquered satrapies had fertile land and hard-working strong men, which generated vast revenue and provided soldiers for the Persian army. It is believed that Sindh and Punjab Satrapies were the richest ones in the Persian empire. We can find the account of these Persian invasions in writings of Herodotus and in the inscriptions at Naqsh-e Rostam.

Apparently, this part of India continued to be a part of the Iranian empire until its invasion by Alexander.

Magadha Empire

The rise of the Magadha, as already mentioned, happened contemporary to Persian Invasions. The rise of the empire can be attributed to Bimbisara of the Haryanka Dynasty, who was contemporary of Gautam Buddha (founder of Buddhism). However, the one who consolidated all the 16 Mahajanapads under one empire was Mahapadma Nanda, founder of the Nanda Dynasty. Thus, the rest of Kamboja and Gandhar came under the control of Magadha. Subsequently, during the Nanda Dynasty, the boundary of the Magadha empire touched the Persian empire. However, the doom of Persia was on its way with the rise of Greeks.

Greek Invasions

In the fourth century BC, the Greeks and the Iranians fought for the supremacy of the world. The Greco-Persian wars broke down in 492 BC and under the able leadership of Alexander of Macedonia, the Greeks eventually destroyed the Iranian empire. Alexander conquered not only Asia Minor and Iraq but also Iran. Thereafter, Alexander marched into present-day Afghanistan with a large army. The Greek scribes located a dozen small political units in the region ruling out the possibility that these were great kingdoms in the late 4th century.

March towards India: 

Consequently, it was a piece of cake for Alexander to conquer these principalities one by one. By 326 BC, he marched into India through the Khyber Pass and most of the political units of the former Gandhara and Kamboja fell to Alexander’s forces. However, among the rulers of these territories, the two important ones were Ambhi, the King of Taxila, and Porus, the King of Paurava (area lying between the Jhelum and the Chenab). Together they could have resisted Alexander’s advance, but they could not put up a joint front and the Khyber pass remained unguarded.

Ambhi submitted to Alexander without much fight. Thereafter, the Macedonian Army proceeded towards Jhelum, where the famous battle of Hydaspes (Jhelum’s Greek name) was fought. Porus resisted the Macedonians for quite some time but had to give up considering Alexander’s massive army. Impressed by his techniques and spirit, Alexander allowed him to retain his kingdom. Thereafter, Porus held the position of a Macedonian subordinate ruler. A painting by Charles Le Brun depicts The Battle of the Hydaspes fought between Alexander the Great and Hindu King Porus.

Retreat of Alexander 

Alexander advanced towards the Beas River. However, he could not proceed further. Although he wanted to move still further eastward, his army refused to accompany him because their spirits were depressed as a lot of comrades died helplessly in the battle with Porus. The soldiers had grown war-weary, and diseased. They refused to face the vastly superior imperial army of the Magadha Empire under the Nanda. The king who had never known defeat at the hands of his enemies had to accept defeat from his own men. Finally, giant altars were put up at Beas River to mark the easternmost extent of his empire.

Also, Alexander described his encounters with trans-Indus tribes of Punjab in a letter to his mother, ‘I am involved in the land of leonine and brave people, where every foot of the ground is like a wall of steel, confronting my soldiers. You have brought only one son into the world, but everyone in this land can be called an Alexander.’ Therefore, it would not be wrong to mention that even if Alexander won the battles, he was deeply shaken by the bravery of Indian people.

He had to retreat immediately, giving him a small time to organize his conquests. The rulers who submitted to his authority were given back their estates while the other possessions were divided into three parts and placed under three Greek governors. He also set up various cities like Boukephala on the Jhelum, and Alexandria in Sindh.

Impact of Foreign Invasions

These foreign invasions, especially Alexander’s, brought ancient Europe in close contact with ancient South Asia. The successful campaigns led to the establishment of several Greek and Persian colonies in Punjab. The Greek invasion led to the establishment of direct contact between India and Greece in various fields opening up four distinct routes by land and sea, which led to an increase of existing facilities for trade. This also led to the fusion of new cultures. For instance, Greeks learned philosophy, religion, etc. from the Indians while the Indians learned Greek coinage, art, astronomy, etc.

Punjab after the Alexander conquest: 

Alexander left some forces along the Indus River region. In the Punjab region, he left Eudemus in-charge of his army. However, Alexander could not live long after this conquest. Consequently, Eudemus became ruler of Punjab. The other important Alexander’s General, Seleueus Nicator, established the Seleucid Empire on the west of the Indus region after Alexander’s death.

Mauryan Kingdom

After Alexander abandoned his India’s conquest in 324 BC, Chandragupta defeated some Greek-ruled cities in the north-western part of the country with the help of strategy provided by Kautilya. Then, they advanced eastward towards Magadha. In a series of battles, he defeated Dhana Nanda and laid the foundations of the Mauryan Empire in about 321 BC. This marks the beginning of the first largest Empire of India. The machinations of Chanakya against Chandragupta’s enemies are described in detail in the Mudrarakshasa, a play written by Vishakha datta in the ninth century.

After getting the rich provinces of Punjab into his empire, Chandragupta liberated northwestern India from the bondage of Seleucus. Consequently, a peace treaty was concluded in which Seleucus ceded all territories west of the Indus, including Southern Afghanistan while Chandragupta granted him 500 elephants. Chandragupta also married his only daughter, Helena, under this treaty.

Chandragupta, thus, built up a vast empire. The province of Gandhara included modern-day Punjab. During the Mauryan era, Punjab held a pivotal position as a core territory within the empire, with Taxila serving as the provincial capital of the North West in Gandhara.

Bindusara, Chandragupta’s son, succeeded him. During the reign of Bindusara, his son Ashoka was made Governor of the province of Gandhara. The Punjab prospered under Mauryan rule.

Ashoka succeeded Bindusara, who extended the Mauryan Empire from Afghanistan to Mysore in South India. It is believed that Ashoka was a ruthless king until finally the War of Kalinga (261 BC) acted as a turning point in his reign as a large number of people were killed and injured in this war. Ashoka could not bear this and became a Buddhist follower. He gave up killing and began the Doctrine of Dhamma. He died in 232 BC after which his descendants were weak and incapable.

According to the Taranatha, following the death of Ashoka, the northwestern region seceded from the Maurya Empire, and Virasena emerged as its king.

Shunga Dynasty

After the disintegration of the Mauryan Empire and it was succeeded by the Shunga Dynasty. The Shunga dynasty was the fifth ruling dynasty of Magadha and controlled most of the northern Indian subcontinent from around 187 to 75 BCE

Pushyamitra Shunga, the Commander-in-Chief of Brihadratha (last Mauryan ruler), dethroned the Mauryan ruler and established his empire. Pushyamitra died after ruling for 36 years (187–151 BCE). He was succeeded by son Agnimitra.

However, contemporarily, in some parts of Punjab, the Mauryas were succeeded by foreign invaders from Central Asia as a series of invasions began in about 200 BC. The invaders (Indo-Greeks, Shakas, Parthians, and Kushans) came one after another.

Indo-Greek Kingdom

The Indo-Greek kingdom was founded when the Graeco-Bactrian king Demetrius (and later Eucratides) invaded Punjab from Bactria in 200 BC, taking advantage of decline of Mauryans.

The Bactrian king Demetrius-I added Punjab to his kingdom in the early 2nd century BC. However, the best known of the Indo-Greek kings was Menander 1 (known as Milinda from Pali literature in India), who established an independent kingdom centered at Taxila around 160 BC. He later moved his capital to Sakala (present-day Sialkot in Punjab Pakistan). He converted to Buddhism under the sage Nagasena. Greeks were first to issue gold coins in India.The Indo-Greeks started Hellenistic art, the elements of which are quite visible in the Gandhara Art.

Following the death of Menander, most of his empire splintered and Indo-Greek influence was considerably reduced. Many new kingdoms and republics east of the Ravi River began to mint new coinage depicting military victories. The most prominent entities to form were the Yaudheya Republic, Arjunayanas, and the Audumbaras. They checked the  Indo-Greek advance all the way up the upper bari doab.

The Indo-Greeks ultimately disappeared as a political entity around 10 AD following the invasions of the Indo-Scythians.

Shakas

The Shakas were descendents of the Scythians, the nomadic people that migrated from southern Siberia to Punjab around the middle 2nd century BC to 1st century BC. They displaced the Indo-Greeks and ruled a kingdom that stretched from Gandhara to Mathura.

Rudradaman I was the most famous ruler among them who ruled in the 2nd Century AD. He spread his empire around the whole of western India covering areas like Gujarat, Malwa Plateau, etc. He issued the Junagarh Inscription, the 1st inscription in the Sanskrit language. The Shakas were succeeded by Parthians in Punjab. However, they were completely eliminated by the Gupta Dynasty.

Parthians

The Parni, a nomadic Central Asian tribe, invaded Parthia (area beside Bactria in present-day Iran) in the middle of the 3rd century BC, driving away the Greeks, who had just then proclaimed independence from the Seleucids. Following the decline of the central Pathian authority after clashes with the Roman Empire, a local Parthian leader, Gondophares established the Indo-Parthian Kingdom in the 1st century AD. The kingdom was ruled from Taxila and covered much of modern southeast Afghanistan and Pakistan. The main evidence proving this consisted of the coins and coin-molds of Gondophernes discovered at Sunet and Rohira.

Kushans

The Kushan kingdom was founded by King Heraios and was consequently expanded by his successor, Kujula. About the middle of the 1st century CE, the Kushan Empire expanded out of central Asia into the Punjab under the leadership of their first emperor, Kujula Kadphises.

The fourth Kushan emperor, Kanishka-I had a winter capital at Purushapura (Peshawar in Pakistan) and a summer capital at Kapisa (Bagram in Afghanistan). The kingdom linked the Indian Ocean maritime trade with the commerce of the Silk Road through the Indus valley, particularly between Rome and China. At its height, the empire extended from the Aral Sea to northern India, encouraging long-distance trade.

Kanishka also convened a Buddhist council (fourth) in Kashmir. The travelog of Chinese pilgrims Fa Xian and Huen Tsang describes the famed Buddhist seminary at Taxila and the status of Buddhism in the region of Punjab in this period. It is also evident that the Saka Era was founded by Kanishka in the year 78 AD.

Gupta Empire in Punjab

The Gupta empire existed approximately from 320-600 AD and covered much of the Indian Subcontinent including Punjab. It was founded by Maharaja Sri-Gupta. However, the real founder is considered to be Chandragupta-I. After Chandragupta-I, his son Samundragupta succeeded him.

The dynasty was the model of classical civilization and was marked by extensive inventions and discoveries. The high points of this cultural creativity are magnificent architecture, sculptures, and paintings. Science and political administration reached new heights during this era. The empire gradually declined due to substantial loss of territory and imperial authority caused by their own erstwhile feudatories and the invasion by the Hunas from Central Asia.

After the collapse of the Gupta Empire in the 6th century, India was ruled by numerous regional kingdoms. However, a minor line of the Gupta clan continued to rule Magadha who were ultimately ousted by the Vardhana king Harsha, who established an empire in the first half of the 7th century.

Hunas

The Hunas were the Iranian-speaking nomadic tribes. After the death of Gupta Ruler Skandagupta, Huns invaded Gandhara and Punjab from the Kabul valley under the command of Toramana in 470 AD. During the reign of Mihirakula (son of Toramana), the capital was Sakala (Sialkot in Pakistan). The Hunas were, however, defeated and driven out of India in the mid-6th century.

Pushyabhuti Dynasty (Vardhana Empire)

The Pushyabhuti Dynasty (500-647 AD) rose after the downfall of the Gupta Empire in the 6th century AD in northern India. It included major areas of the Punjab region. Also known as the Vardhana Dynasty, the core area of their kingdom was situated in what is now the state of Haryana in India with the capital at Sthaneshwar of Thaneshwar (present-day Thanesar), and later at Kanyakubja (modern-day Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh state). The most notable ruler of this dynasty was its last ruler, Emperor Harshavardhana or Harsha (606-647 AD). The Chinese traveler Huen Tsang visited India during this time. His travelogs mention the greatness of the ancient town of Sirhind.

The Pushyabhutis established a powerful kingdom vying with other regional powers for political supremacy in India and, under Harsha, achieved imperial status. However, it was short-lived, and Kannauj came to be known ultimately as the base kingdom for future empires.

Beginning of a New Era

The death of Harshavardhana marks the end of the Ancient History of India. On the whole, the sixth and seventh centuries witnessed some striking developments in polity, society, economy, language, literature, script, and religion; in a nutshell, almost everything was changing.

So, a new stage in Indian history has come out, and consequently, we will study the Medieval History of Punjab in the next section.

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