310 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XVI, 
be believed the relations between J alauka, one of the sons and 
eee of Asoka and the Brahmanical Hindus, were entirely 
frie 
. panstision Pandit Sastri refers to the assassination of 
the last Maurya by Pushyamitra Sunga and says, ‘‘ We clearly 
supremacy of the Sungas’’ do not bear out the theory which 
represents Pushyamitra and his descendants as the leaders ofa 
militant Brahmanism. re inferences deduced from un- 
corroborated writings of late alice: like Taranath, to be 
preferred to the clear testimony of contemporary monuments ? 
Even admitting that Pushyamitra was a militant Brahmanist, 
we fail to see how the dismemberment of the Maurya empire 
can be attributed to him or his Brahmanist followers. The 
empire was a shrivelled and attenuated body long before the 
Sunga coup d’état of 185 B.C. Welearn from the Rajatarangini 
that immediately after the death of Asoka one of his own sons, 
Jalauka, made himself independent in Kasmir and conquered 
the plains as far as anaes. The loss of the northern provinces 
is confirmed by Greek evidence. We learn from ae date 
that about 206 B.C. there ruled over them a king named 
Subhagasena. Subhagasena was a king and not a petty “chief 
of the Kabul valley as Dr. Vincent Smith would have us believe. 
He is called ‘“‘ king of the Indians,” a title which was applied 
by the classical writers only to great kings, like Chandragupta 
and Demetrius. He enjoyed the friendship of Antiochus, the 
great king of Syria. There is nothing in the account o 
Polybius which shows that he was vanquished by the Syrian 
ing in war or was regarded by the latter as a subordinate 
ruler. Onthe contrary, the statement that Antiochus “ renewed 
his friendship with Sophagasenus, king of the Indians,” proves 
that the two monarchs met on equal terms and that the rela- 
tions between them were of a friendly kind. The renewal of 
friendship on the part of the Greek king and the surrender of 
elephants on the part of his Indian brother only remind us of | 
the relations vehtentees betweer Chandragupta and Seleucus. 
Further the expre *“ renewal of friendship ” seems to 
suggest that Sabhapadena had had previous prema with 
Antiochus. Consequently he must have come to the throne 
some time before 206 B.C. The existence of an  iadeoaiien 
kingdom in the North-West before 206 B.C. shows that the 
Maurya empire must have begun to break up nearly a quarter 
of a — before the usurpation of Pushyamitra. 
ve seen that the tneory which ascribes the dismem- 
berment of the Maurya empire to a Brahmanical revolution 
Maurya disruptio ndue primarily to the Greek invasions? The 
earliest Greek invasion after Asoka, that of Antiochus, took 
