Nationalism and Imperialism under the Guptas

The Maurya Empire faded away and gave place to the Sunga dynasty, which ruled over a much smaller area. In the south great states were rising, and in the north the Bactrians, or Indo-Greeks, were spreading out from Kabul to the Punjab. Under Menander they threatened Pataliputra itself but were defeated and repelled. Menander himself succumbed to the spirit and atmosphere of India and became a Buddhist, a famous one, known as King Milinda, popular in Buddhist legend and regarded almost as a saint. From the fusion of Indian and Greek cultures rose the Graeco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, the region covering Afghanistan and the frontier.

There is a granite pillar called the Heliodorus column, dating from the first century BC, at Besnagar, near Sanchi in Central India, bearing an inscription in Sanskrit. This gives us a glimpse of the process of Indianization of the Greeks who had come to the frontier, and their absorption of Indian culture. The inscription has been translated thus:

This Garuda column of Vasudeva (Vishnu), the God of gods, was erected by Heliodorus, a worshipper of Vishnu, the son of Dion, and an inhabitant of Taxila, who came as Greek ambassador from the great King Antialcidas to King Kashiputra Bhagabhadra, the saviour, then reigning in the fourteenth year of his kingship.

Three immortal precepts, when practised well, lead to heaven—self-restraint, self-sacrifice (charity), conscientiousness.

In Central Asia the Shakas or Scythians (Seistan=Shakasthan) had established themselves in the Oxus Valley. The Yueh Chih, coming from further east, drove them out and pushed them into North India. These Shakas became converts to Buddhism and Hinduism. Among the Yueh Chih, one of the clans, the Kushans, established their supremacy and then extended their sway over Northern India. They defeated the Shakas and pushed them still further south, the Shakas going to Kathiawad and the Deccan. The Kushans thereupon established an extensive and durable empire over the whole of North India and a great part of Central Asia. Some of them became converts to the Hindu faith, but most of them became Buddhists, and their most famous king, Kanishka, is also one of the heroes of Buddhist legend, which records his great deeds and public works. Buddhist though he was, it appears that the state religion was a mixed affair to which even Zoroastrianism had contributed. This borderland state, called the Kushan Empire, with its seat near modern Peshawar, and the old university of Taxila near by, became the meeting place of men from many nations. There the Indians met the Scythians, the Yueh Chih, the Iranians, the Bactrian Greeks, the Turks, and the Chinese, and the various cultures reacted on each other. A vigorous school of sculpture and painting arose as a result of their interactions. It was during this period that, historically, the first contacts took place between China and India, and a Chinese embassy came to India in 64 AC. Minor but very welcome gifts of China to India at that time