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SECTION III. IMPORTANCE OF THE BAIMBIKA-SUNGA
PERIOD OF INDIAN HISTORY.
The rule of the emperors of the house of Pushyamitra marks an important epoch in the history of India in general and of Central India in particular. The renewed incursions of the Yavanas, which once threatened to submerge the whole of the Madhyadeśa, received a check, and the Greek dynasts of the borderland reverted to the prudent policy of their Seleukidan precursors. There was an outburst of activity in the domains of religion, literature and art, comparable to that of the glorious epoch of the Guptas. In the history of these activities the names of three Central Indian localities stand pre-eminent : Vidisā (Besnagar), Gonarda and Bhārhut. As Foucher points out "it was the ivory-workers of Vidiśa who carved, in the immediate vicinity of their town, one of the monumental gates of Sanchi." Inscriptions at Vidiśā (and Ghosundi) testify to the growing importance and wide prevalence of the Bhagavata religion. Though no Aśoka arose to champion this faith, the missionary propaganda of its votaries must have been effective even in the realms of Yavana princes, and a Yavana duta or ambassador was one of its most notable converts. Gonarda was the traditional birth-place of the celebrated Patanjali, the greatest literary genius of the period. Bharhut saw the construction of the famous railing which has made the sovereignty of the Sungas (Suganam raja) immortal.
1 See IHQ. 1926, 267. According to the Sutta Nipata Gonarda stood midway between Ujjain and Besnagar (Vidiśā)-Carm. Lec. 1918, 4; Journal of the Andhra Historical Research Society, Jan., 1935, pp. 1 ff. (Sircar's trans, of S, Lévi's note on Gonarda).
