Maurya Dominion and Empire of Aşoka, 323-231 B.C.—Chandra Gupta is the Sandrakottos, to whose capital at Pataliputra (Patna) Seleukos sent Megasthenes in 303 B.C. The Greek ambassador was a diligent and truthful observer, and his notes give a picture of a civilized and complex system of administration. If Chandra Gupta was the David, his grandson, Aşoka, was the Solomon of the first Hindu Empire. His long reign, lasting from 273 to 231 B.C., was with one exception a period of profound peace deliberately maintained by an emperor who, after his conversion to the teaching of Gautama Buddha, thought war a sin. Aşoka strove to lead his people into the right path by means of pithy abstracts of the moral law of his master graven on rocks and pillars. It is curious to remember that this missionary king was peacefully ruling a great empire in India during the twenty-four years of the struggle between Rome and Carthage, which we call the first Punic War. Of the four Viceroys who governed the outlying provinces of the empire one had his headquarters at Táxila. One of the rock edicts is at Mansehra in Hazára and another at Sháhbázgarhí in Pesháwar. From this time and for many centuries the dominant religion in the Panjáb was Buddhism, but the religion of the villages may then have been as remote from the State creed as it is to-day from orthodox Brahmanism.
Graeco-Bactrian and Graeco-Parthian Rule.—The Panjáb slipped from the feeble grasp of Aşoka's successors, and for four centuries it looked not to the Ganges, but to the Kábul and the Oxus rivers.
Fig. 57. Coin—obverse and reverse of Menander.
Up to the middle of the first century of our era it was first under Graeco-Bactrian, and later under Graeco-Parthian, rule directly, or indirectly through local rulers with Greek names or Sáka Satraps. The Sákas, one of the central Asian shepherd hordes, were pushed out of their pastures on the upper Jaxartes by another horde, the Yuechí. Shadowy Hellenist Princes have left us only their names on coins; one Menander, who ruled about 150 B.C., is an exception. He anticipated the feats of later rulers of Kábul by a temporary conquest of North-Western India, westwards to the Jamna and southwards to the sea.
The Kushán Dynasty.—The Yuechí in turn were driven southward to the Oxus and the Kábul valley and under the Kushán dynasty established their authority in the Panjáb about the middle of the first century. The most famous name is that of Kanishka, who wrested from China Kashgár, Yarkand, and Khotan, and assembled a notable council of sages of the law in Kashmír. His reign may be dated from 120 to 150 A.D. His capital was at Purushapura (Pesháwar), near which he built the famous relic tower of Buddha, 400 feet high. Beside the tower was a large monastery still renowned in the ninth and tenth centuries as a home of sacred learning. The rule of Kushán kings in the Panjáb lasted till the end of the first quarter of the third century. To their time belong the Buddhist sculptures found in the tracts near their Pesháwar capital (see also page [204]).
The Gupta Empire.—Of the century preceding the establishment in 320 B.C. of the Gupta dynasty at Patna we know nothing. The Panjáb probably again fell under the sway of petty rájas and tribal confederacies, though the Kushán rule was maintained in Pesháwar till 465 A.D., when it was finally blotted out by the White Huns. These savage invaders soon after defeated Skanda Gupta, and from this blow the Gupta Empire never recovered. At the height of its power in 400 A.D. under Chandra Gupta II, known as Vikramaditya, who is probably the original of the Bikramajít of Indian legends, it may have reached as far west as the Chenáb.
The White Huns or Ephthalites.—In the beginning of the sixth century the White Hun, Mahirakula, ruled the Panjáb from Sakala, the modern Siálkot. He was a worshipper of Şiva, and a deadly foe of the Buddhist cult, and has been described as a monster of cruelty.
The short-lived dominion of the White Huns was destroyed by the Turks and Persians about the year 565 A.D.