Shunga–Greek War

The Shunga-Greek War comprised several conflicts between the Shunga Empire and the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. It is predominantly based on the Sanskrit play "Mālavikāgnimitram".^[4]

Shunga–Greek War
Part of Greek campaigns in India
Possible extent of Shunga Empire c. 150 BCE.[1]
Date 2nd Century BCE Location Indian Subcontinent Result Shunga victory[2][3]
Belligerents
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom	Shunga Empire
Commanders and leaders
Demetrius I of Bactria Menander I	Vasumitra Shunga[4][5]
Strength
100,000	40,000
Casualties and losses
Unknown	Unknown

The Greek king Demetrius is regarded to have tried to invade the subcontinent after his win over the Kabul Valley. The Shungas were able to successfully resist the invasion and expel the Greeks out of Mathura.

The Greek invasion

The first phase of the invasion starts with the Greek ruler Demetrius I's conquest of the Kabul Valley. He invaded the Indian subcontinent during the rule of the Mauryan Empire. He first invaded the province of Arachosia and was successful in taking control of the region. He then decided to raid the eastern territories of the subcontinent. He entered the Punjab region and again gained success. He may have had control over the Indian territories of Mathura and Patliputra for a short period of time.^[6]

"Those who came after Alexander went to the Ganges and Pataliputra" (Strabo, XV.698)

Hindu texts also suggest that the Greeks gained control on the territories of Saketa, Panchala, Mathura and Pataliputra (Yuga Purana).^[7]

However, Demetrius is said to have invaded only the northern territories of India. Later conquests had been done by Menander. The Buddhist text Milinda Panha describes Menander as:

King of the city of Euthymedia in India, Milinda by name, learned, eloquent, wise, and able; and a faithful observer, and that at the right time, of all the various acts of devotion and ceremony enjoined by his own sacred hymns concerning things past, present, and to come. Many were the arts and sciences he knew--holy tradition and secular law; the Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, and Vaisheshika systems of philosophy; arithmetic; music; medicine; the four Vedas, the Puranas, and the Itihasas; astronomy, magic, causation, and magic spells; the art of war; poetry; conveyancing in a word, the whole nineteen. As a disputant he was hard to equal, harder still to overcome; the acknowledged superior of all the founders of the various schools of thought. And as in wisdom so in strength of body, swiftness, and valour there was found none equal to Milinda in all India. He was rich too, mighty in wealth and prosperity, and the number of his armed hosts knew no end.

The first phase of the invasion ended here, followed by a civil war in Bactria. The Gargi-samhita states that the Yavanas who laid siege to Pushpapura did not remain in Madhyadesa for long due to "interregnum struggles, which escalated into "a cruel and dreadful war in their own kingdom." As a result, the Greeks seem to have lost control of Madhyadesa, as well as parts of the Punjab and the lower Sindhu valley, to Pushyamitra, at least temporarily. The King Demetrius returned back to Bactria leaving his governors to rule.^[2]

Aftermath

The Indo-Greeks and the Shungas seem to have reconciled and exchanged diplomatic missions around 110 BCE, as indicated by the Heliodorus pillar, which records the dispatch of a Greek ambassador named Heliodorus, from the court of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas, to the court of the Shunga emperor Bhagabhadra at the site of Vidisha in central India.^[8]

See also

• Demetrius I's invasion of India