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Pusyamitra Sunga (also Pushyamitra Shunga) was the founder of the Indian Sunga dynasty (185-78 BCE). He reigned from 185 BCE to 151 BCE.

Originally a general and commander-in-chief on the armies of the Mauryan empire, he usurped power from the last Mauryan emperor Brhadrata in 185 BCE, and subsequently founded the Sunga dynasty. He then performed the Ashwamedha Yajna and brought Northern India under his rule. Inscriptions of the Sungas have been found as far as the Jalandhar in the Punjab.

Pusyamitra Sunga was a Hindu monarch, deeply established in the tradition of orthodox Brahminism. He allegedly became very active in persecuting the Buddhist faith, which the Mauryan empire had been promoting since Ashoka around 250 BCE. He is alleged to have shut down several Buddhist monasteries and discouraged Buddhist monks. Several Hindu temples were constructed during his reign, in such places as Nalanda, Bodhgaya, Sarnath or Mathura.

The north-western remnansts of the erstwhile Mauryan empire were attacked around 180 BCE by the Greek rulers of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and they conquered the Punjab and ruled Mathura for a time, and may have campaigned as far as Pataliputra.

The Greco-Bactrians established in India the Indo-Greek Kingdom, which was to last until the end of the 1st century BCE, and under which Buddhism flourished. One of the Indo-Greek kings, the "Saviour King" Menander, has been remembered as a great benefactor of the Buddhist faith.

Pusyamitra Sunga was succeeded in 151 BCE by his son Agnimitra.

See also:

History of Buddhism

External links

• Was Pusyamitra more secular than Ashoka? Article on the alleged Hindu persecution of Buddhism by Pushyamitra

• 151 BC deaths
• Indian monarchs