Simuka
Simuka was an early ruler of the Shunga dynasty that followed the Mauryan Empire in ancient India. He is generally regarded as the second or third king of the Shunga line, succeeding the founder Pushyamitra Shunga. Contemporary sources are scarce, but the most reliable evidence for Simuka’s reign comes from inscriptions unearthed in the western Deccan and the Konkan region, especially a copperplate found at Bharuch that records grants to Brahmin scholars and temples. These inscriptions reveal that Simuka was intent on restoring Buddhist and Brahmanical institutions that had been weakened during the reign of the Mauryans and their immediate successors.
Historians have debated the exact dates of Simuka’s rule, placing him sometime in the mid‑second century BCE