Around 200 BC, after the decline of the Mauryan dynasty, India became politically decentralised. Due to the fragmentary nature of surviving evidence, the sequence of rulers, their dates and precise territorial holdings have long been a subject of modern academic controversy.

In eastern India, the Śungas seem to have emerged as the dominant power, ruling from Pātaliputra, the old Mauryan capital. Their name appears on one of the gateways at the Buddhist stūpa at Bhārhut, indicating they held influence over parts of central India in the mid-2nd century BC. Large tracts of northern India were ruled by the Mitra kings, their main centre perhaps being Mathurā. Inscriptions at Bodhgayā, the place where the Buddha gained enlightenment and a religious centre of pan-Indian significance, mention donations from the Mitra dynasty.

In the Avanti region, a branch of the Śungas ruled from Vidiśā, but were superceded in the 1st century BC by the Sātavāhanas from the Deccan. This dynasty had Nāsik and Paithan as its main centres. Under King Sātakarni the Sātavāhanas clashed with the Ksatrapas, who controlled the west coast, and with King Khāravela, the ruler of Orissa.