Mathura history

Mathura has an ancient history. As per the ASI plaque at Mathura museum, the city is mentioned in the oldest epic Ramayana. In the epic, the Ikshwaku prince Shatrughna belongs to Raghav (Raghuvanshi) Rajput clan , slays a demon called Lavanasura and claims the land. Afterwards the place came to be known as Madhuvan as it was thickly wooded, Madhupura and later Mathura. The demon that Shatrughan killed in Ramayana, Lavanasura was the progeny of a devout king Madhu who gets Lord Shiva's Trident in a boon in the Puranas. The Puranas ascribe the founding of the city to Ayu, the son of Pururavas and the celestial nymph Urvashi. The city might also have got its name from a famous Yadav king Madhu who reigned around 1600 BC.

In the 6th century BCE Mathura became the capital of the Surasena mahajanapada. The city was later ruled by the Maurya empire (4th to 2nd centuries BC) and the Sunga dynasty (2nd century BC). It may have come under the control of Indo-Greeks some time between 180 BC and 100 BC. It then reverted to local rule before being conquered by the Indo-Scythians during the 1st century BC. Archaeological evidence seems to indicate that, by 100 BC, there was a group of Jains living in Mathura [Bowker]. Mathuran art and culture reached its zenith under the Kushan dynasty which had Mathura as one of their capitals, the other being Purushapura (Peshawar). The dynasty had kings with the name of Kadphises, Kanishka, Huvishka and Vasudeva. All the Kushans were patrons of Buddhism except Vasudeo, mentioned on coins as Bazodeo. Kanishka even hosted the third Buddhist council, the first two being hosted by Ajatshatru and Ashoka the Great. The headless statue of Kanishka is in the Mathura museum.

Megasthenes, writing in the early 3rd century BC, mentions Mathura as a great city under the name (Mthora).

The Indo-Scythians (aka Sakas or Shakas) conquered the area of Mathura over Indian kings around 60 BCE. Some of his satrap was Hagamasha, who were in turn followed by the Saka Great Satrap Rajuvula.

The findings of ancient stone inscriptions in Maghera, a town 17 km from Mathura, provide historical artifacts that provide more details into this era of Mathura. The 3 line text in these inscriptions are in Brahmi script and were translated as "In the 116th year of the Greek kings..."
The region including Kher area was ruled by Jayas Thakurs.

The Mathura lion capital, an Indo-Scythian sandstone capital in crude style, dated to the 1st century CE, describes in kharoshthi the gift of a stupa with a relic of the Buddha, by Queen Nadasi Kasa, the wife of the Indo-Scythian ruler of Mathura, Rajuvula. The capital also mentions the genealogy of several Indo-Scythian satraps of Mathura.

Rajuvula apparently eliminated the last of the Indo-Greek kings, Strato II, around 10 CE, and took his capital city, Sagala.

The Mathura Lion Capital inscriptions attest that Mathura fell under the control of the Sakas. The inscriptions contain references to Kharaosta Kamuio and Aiyasi Kamuia. Yuvaraja Kharostes (Kshatrapa) was the son of Arta as is attested by his own coins. Arta is stated to be brother of King Moga or Maues. Princess Aiyasi Kambojaka, also called Kambojika, was the chief queen of Shaka Mahakshatrapa Rajuvula. Kamboja presence in Mathura is also verified from some verses of epic Mahabharata which are believed to have been composed around this period. This may suggest that Sakas and Kambojas may have jointly ruled over Mathura and Uttar Pradesh. It is revealing that Mahabharata verses only attest the Kambojas and Yavanas as the inhabitants of Mathura, but do not make any reference to the Sakas. Probably, the epic has reckoned the Sakas of Mathura among the Kambojas (Dr J. L. Kamboj) or else have addressed them as Yavanas, unless the Mahabharata verses refer to the previous period of invasion occupation by the Yavanas around 150 BCE.

The Indo-Scythian satraps of Mathura are sometimes called the "Northern Satraps", as opposed to the "Western Satraps" ruling in Gujarat and Malwa. After Rajuvula, several successors are known to have ruled as vassals to the Kushans, such as the "Great Satrap" Kharapallana and the "Satrap" Vanaspara, who are known from an inscription discovered in Sarnath, and dated to the 3rd year of Kanishka (c 130 CE), in which they were paying allegiance to the Kushans.

Mathura served as one of the Kushan Empire's two capitals from the first to the third centuries. The Mathura Museum has the largest collection of redstone sculptures in Asia, depicting many famous Buddha figurines. Fa Hien mentions the city, as a centre of Buddhism about A.D. 400; while his successor Hsuan Tsang, who visited the city in 634 AD, which he mentions as Mot'ulo, and writes that it contained twenty Buddhist monasteries and five Brahmanical temples. Later, he went east to Thanesar, Jalandhar in the eastern Punjab, before climbing up to visit predominantly Theravada monasteries in the Kulu valley and turning southward again to Bairat and then Mathura, on the Yamuna river.

The city was sacked and many of its temples destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1018 and again by Sikandar Lodhi, who earned the epithet of But Shikan, the destroyer of idols. The Keshav Dev temple was partially destroyed by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, who built the city's Jami Masjid (Friday mosque) on the Kishnajanmabhoomi, re-using many of the temple's stones.[citation needed] It was won over from the Mughals by the Jat kings of Bharatpur but subsequently the area was passed on to the Marathas who constructed a garbh-griha shrine sharing the wall of mosque. The garbh-griha mandir is a small underground temple which houses black moorti of Laddu-Gopal. The ambience of this Krishnajanmbhoomi mandir has been made to resemble that of Prison cell. A noteworthy fact about this garbh-griha is that the wall just behind Laddu-Gopal belongs to Mosque which was constructed by Aurangzeb after destroying the ancient Keshav Dev temple. The bigger Krishna shrine, better known as Dwarkadeesh temple is few metres away from the actual birthplace of Krishna, was built in 1815 by Seth Gokuldas Parikh, Treasurer of Gwalior.

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