north india dynasty and their rules
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1. Maurya (321-181 BCE). Capital Pataliputra (modern Patna). First great Indian empire, stretching from Afghanistan to Bengal, to all of India except the deep south. Greatest figure is Ashoka (r. 269-32 BCE) whose inscriptions are the first written documents from India. Ashoka himself was a Buddhist, but since the Mauryan empire was multiethnic and multireligious, Ashoka supported Jains and Hindus as well.
2. N. Shaka (c. 100 BCE-70 CE). Capital in Mathura. The Shaka kingdom stretched over the Punjab region and the upper Ganges basin. The Shakas were a central Asian people who carved out this kingdom in upper India.
3. Kushana (c. 70-220 CE). Capital in Mathura. Like the Shakas, the Kushanas were also central Asians, whose road to conquest took them through the Punjab. The Kushana empire included not only the Punjab, but the entire Ganges basin. The greatest Kushana emperor, Kanishka, seems to have given his primary support to the Buddhists.
4. Gupta (c. 320-550 CE). Capitals in Pataliputra, Ayodhya, and Prayag. The Guptas were the first of the north Indian dynasties to give their primary support to the Hindus, and most of the Gupta kings themselves were devotees of Shiva. The Gupta dynasty is a time of important developments in Hindu religion, particularly the composition of many of the Puranas and some of the oldest extant Hindu temple architecture, at Deogarh in northern Madhya Pradesh. The Gupta empire was spread through India north of the Deccan plateau, including the entire Ganges basin, as well as the eastern coast of down to present-day Madras (Chennai). The empire was peacably expanded by the absorption of the Vakataka Empire, through a marriage which united these two dynasties. For Hindu historians, the Gupta dynasty is considered the beginning of the "Golden Age" of Hinduism, when it first begins to take shape.