Ashoka
In 273 BCE, Ashoka, the Philosopher King, mounted the throne of India. Similar to Akhenaten in Egypt (a thousand years earlier) , Ashoka tried to remove polytheism by installing Buddhism instead of Brahmanism, and although his reign was reasonably prosperous and benevolent, his religious goals faded in India after his death. Nonetheless, it is thanks to Ashoka that Buddhism eventually made it to the rest of Asia, where it prospered. After Ashoka's death, there was an almost 600-year-long "dark age" in India
Source: Durant, Will, The Story of Civilization, Vol. 1: Our Oriental Heritage, A history of civilization in Egypt and the Near East to the Death of Alexander, and in India, China, and Japan from the beginning. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954.
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!