Pushyamitra Shunga
ruler of the Shunga Empire from c.185 to c. 149 BCE
Pushyamitra Shunga (IAST: Puṣyamitra Śuṅga; reigned c. 185 – c. 149 BCE), also known as Pushpamitra Shunga (IAST: Puṣpamitra Śuṅga) was the founder and the first ruler of the Shunga Empire which he established to succeed the Maurya Empire.
Pushyamitra's association with the Brahmanical tradition is displayed by his performance of the Vedic Ashvamedha sacrifice as recorded in the Dhanadeva Ayodhya inscription.
Though Buddhist texts claim that Pushyamitra persecuted Buddhists, past and contemporary scholars have rejected these claims.
Name
According to John E Mitchiner, Pushyamitra original name was Puṣpaka or Puṣpamitra and the confusion between Puṣyamitra and Puṣpamitra arose because of the erroneous readings of 'p' and 'y' in the manuscripts. His interpretation is largely inspired by the Yuga Purāṇa.
H. C. Raychaudhuri theorized that the name "Shunga" is derived from the Sanskrit word for the fig tree.
Founding of the Shunga Empire
Pushyamitra Shunga founded the Shunga Empire after assassinating the last Mauryan emperor Brihadratha Maurya. According to Vicarasreni of Merutunga, Pushyamitra or Pushpamitra got his throne in 204 BC.
Subsequently, he drove out the Greeks with the Shunga–Greek War and ruled for 36 years.
The Buddhist text Ashokavadana names Pushyamitra as the last Mauryan emperor. Sampadin's son was Bṛhaspati who, in turn, had a son named Vṛṣasena, and Vṛṣasena had a son named Puṣyadharman, and Pusyadharman begot Pusyamitra......
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Pushyamitra Shunga” as ruler of the Shunga Empire from c.185 to c. 149 BCE. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as ruler of the Shunga Empire from c.185 to c. 149 BCE. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q119973. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pushyamitra Shunga” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.