Indo-Scythian Kingdom

The Indo-Scythians, or Indo-Sakas, were Scythian nomads from Central Asia who moved south into Afghanistan, eastern Iran and the north-west of the Indian subcontinent from the middle of the second century BC. Driven in part by the expansion of the Yuezhi, they displaced the Indo-Greek kingdoms of Gandhara and the Punjab, and their first king in India, Maues, established Saka power in the Indus valley around the beginning of the first century BC. The Indo-Scythians never formed a single lasting empire. Their kings and satraps ruled a patchwork of territories, and in the first century AD they were overshadowed by the Kushan Empire of Kujula Kadphises and Kanishka, under whom Saka governors continued to serve. Further south and west, the Western Satraps held Gujarat, Malwa and the lower Indus for three centuries and struck some of the most informative coin and inscription series of ancient India. Saka power declined after defeats by the Satavahana emperor Gautamiputra Satakarni in the second century, and it ended in 395, when the last Western Satrap, Rudrasimha III, was defeated by the Gupta emperor Chandragupta II.