linguistic:translation
Rise of the Shungas (185 BC)

In India, the Maurya dynasty was overthrown around 185 BC when Pushyamitra Shunga, the commander-in-chief of Mauryan Imperial forces and a Brahmin, assassinated the last of the Mauryan emperors Brihadratha. Pushyamitra Shunga then ascended the throne and established the Shunga Empire, which extended its control as far west as the Punjab.

Buddhist sources, such as the Ashokavadana, mention that Pushyamitra was hostile towards Buddhists and allegedly persecuted the Buddhist faith. A large number of Buddhist monasteries (viharas) were allegedly converted to Hindu temples, in such places as Nalanda, Bodhgaya, Sarnath or Mathura. While it is established by secular sources that Hinduism and Buddhism were in competition during this time, with the Shungas preferring the former to the latter, historians such as Etienne Lamotte and Romila Thapar argue that Buddhist accounts of persecution of Buddhists by Shungas are largely exaggerated. Some Puranic sources however also describe the resurgence of Brahmanism following the Maurya dynasty, and the killing of millions of Buddhists, such as the Pratisarga Parva of the Bhavishya Purana:

"At this time the best of the brahmanas, Kanyakubja, performed sacrifice on the top of a mountain named Arbuda. By the influence of Vedic mantras, four Kshatriyas appeared from the yajna (sacrifice). (...) They kept Ashoka under their control and annihilated all the Buddhists. It is said there were 4 million Buddhists and all of them were killed by uncommon weapons".