The Curious Case of Pushyamitra Sunga

Pushyamitra Sunga, the General who killed last Mauryan ruler Brihadrath Maurya to establish Sunga dynasty almost 2200 years ago, has always intrigued me for many reasons. His identity as a Brahmin, as a Hindu, his connection with Ramayan, his antithetical relationship with Buddhism, each facet holds enough magnetism for scholarly explorations. Everyone remembers him for reviving Vedic Hinduism in face of reigning Buddhism during Mauryans’ rule, but he is one of the spotlights of India’s history for another reason and that is that he brutally persecuted Buddhists. This is precisely what intrigues me the most. Why, because Pushyamitra is the only exception to my theory that no Hindu ruler ever first attacked people of other religious identities, just to promote Hinduism in at least last 3000-year history of Hinduism hence it is important to investigate properly Pushyamitra’s case that Why did he turn out to be an outlier, why was he so aggressive and is it even true that he was a religious bigot?

• One of the very first book to talk about brutality of Pushyamitra is 2nd Cen. Buddhist anthology book in Sanskrit language called, Divyavadaan (which also contains Ashoka’s biography, Ashokavadaan). Divyavadaan says, Pushyamitra was last Mauryan king who wanted to be considered a great ruler by his people. But it was Ashoka who was considered great by citizens because of his gift of Buddhism and Dhamma to everyone. Now, Pushyamitra’s ministers advised him that unless Ashoka’s legacy i.e., Buddhism is here, he won’t be considered great ruler so he needs to eliminate Buddhism. Hence in Shakala (now Sialkot, Pakistan), Pushyamitra announced to award 100 roman dinars for every head of a Buddhist monk brought to him. Now an enlightened Bauddh monk created artificial heads with Maya and this way many Buddhists were saved and many earned rewards too!! Now if one believes this earliest of Buddhist literature, Pushyamitra was not a Brahmin but descendent of Mauryans itself. One other thing Divyavadaan clearly puts upfront is that his killings were not a Hindu Brahmin uprising against Buddhism based on blindness for Hinduism but a conspiracy of an envious, self-centred king who wanted to become famous at all costs.
• We have written records about Pushyamitra mainly from Buddhist texts, Puranas and 7th cen. Banbhatta’s Harshcharit. Puranas mention him as a brahmin who killed last Mauryan king Brihadrath, but they don’t talk about persecution of Buddhists by Pushyamitra. Now the tall claims of persecution and brutality appears only in Buddhist texts. But the issue is that these books are from different time periods (2nd cen. AD Divyavadaan to 16 cen. AD historian Taranath), they refer Pushyamitra’s identity differently and they differ in their stories like for some, his persecution was in Sialkot, for some, it was in Kashmir and for others, his centre of persecution was east India. Also, as per Divyavadaan, Pushyamitra offered Roman dinar as reward but historians point out that Roman dinar was not in general circulation in India before 1st cen BC. Hence lack of consistency clearly hints towards embellishments and fabrication.
• Divyavadaan also tells a Pushyamitra like story about Ashoka that pacifist Bauddh Ashoka gave similar orders to bring decapitated Jain shramans’ (monks’) head and in return, would award killers with gold coins, because of an incident where a Jain civilian made a painting of Lord Buddha bowing to a Jain monk. Now this presence of two strikingly similar stories about two different rulers in the same book puts credibility of both stories at risk.
• Also, as per Divyavadaan, pacifist Bauddha Ashoka got 18000 Ajivikas (another budding philosophical faith in those days) killed in Bengal because they were involved in anti-religion activities. But then there is Barabar caves of Ajivika sect in Bihar, contains an inscription regarding “King Piyadasi”(interpreted as Ashoka) indicating Ashoka patronized Ajivikas. Now the credibility of an inscription is way above than a textbook. Hence these all facts indicate that reliability of Divyavadaan is not entirely full proof.
• Now the next question is Why Pushyamitra was so aggressive, why did he kill his king? So, to get a hint towards the answer, we need to look at the pattern in those days. It seems assassination of the king to succeed on throne was quite a normal practice in those days. Ajatshatru belonging to Haryanka dynasty was the 1st patron of Lord Buddha and his teachings but he himself murdered his father, Bimbisaar. Some Shri Lankan Buddhist texts even claim that every son in Haryanka dynasty from Ajatshatru to Nagadasaka killed their fathers to succeed on throne[here]. In those times when Ashoka killed his brothers and kept giving severe punishments to offenders even after being a Bauddha, Pushyamitra was a military chief who killed his king.
• Now there is also another viewpoint. Some historians theorize that non-violent attitude of later Mauryan rulers allowed easy invasions of Greek foreigners on Indian land which infuriated courageous Hindu Pushyamitra and prompted him to kill his king Brihadrath. Many scholars like EB Havell also claim that Buddhist monks were conspiring on North-western borders with Indo-Greeks against king Pushyamitra hence they faced political killing there by king Pushyamitra Sunga[here].
• Now if one looks at extended Shunga dynasty and their administration, there are inscriptions mentioning, that famous Bharahut stupa of Madhya Pradesh was broadened and beautified during Shunga rule. Some Hindu deities like Gajalakshmi and Kuber is also sculpted there. Through stylistic seriation methods, archaeologists have confirmed that Sanchi stupa portions and Bodhgaya stupa circumambulation were also built during Shunga period. An inscription on Bodhgaya stupa by Indragnimitra’s wife Kurangi confirms this[here]. This all shouts out loud to confirm the mellow religious harmony and coexistence during the rule of Shungas.

Now, the crux is that Pushyamitra himself might not have patronized Buddhists (which was definitely done by later Shunga rulers), but he surely revived Hinduism by doing grand Ashwamedh Yajnas and Buddhists monks might not have liked it. Also, Pushyamitra might have killed some Buddhist monks due to political reasons but it was later exaggerated in Buddhist texts and many historians today, prefer to paint it as Brahminical aggression towards Buddhism. We know that Jain texts don’t talk much about Pushyamitra means he didn’t harm them, so had Buddhist killings been based on religious blindness, why would he spare Jain monks and followers of other Shraman movements happening around that time. Now, we can only patiently wait for forthcoming archaeological excavations, if they can illuminate us more about this enigmatic figure of Pushyamitra Sunga, his personality and his real motivations.