ooēmo takt[.] Under Kaniska I (flourished 1st century ce) and his successors, the Kushan kingdom reached its height. David William MacDowall, “The Rabatak Inscription and the Nameless Kushan King,” in Warwick Ball and Leonard Harrow, eds., Cairo to Kabul: Afghan and Islamic Studies Presented to Ralph Pinder-Wilson, London, 2002, pp. This no doubt resulted from expanding trade on the Silk Road, on the one hand with China exporting that staple commodity together with lacquer and, no doubt, other typical manufactures; and on the other hand with Rome’s imports of those and other eastern luxuries being largely financed, as in South India, by volumes of silver, and also of gold, coins. Wilfred H. Schoff, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century, New York, 1912. Their history has, however, until recently received minimal attention from Classical historians. 191-209. 15.f., type 8)—or else that Vima Taktu was the throne name of Saḍaskaṇo. The Yuezhi reached Bactria (northwest Afghanistan and Tajikistan) around 135 B.C. He is facing directly above the figure of the Kushan prince, which accordingly should represent the front aspect of the casket (illus. In fact the imprints of Kushan Dynasty are still found in Jammu & Kashmir in the form of names. Whether Vasudeva’s death was the signal for the Persian invasion or its result is at present uncertain. » Babur, the founder of the largest dynasty India has ever seen, passed away on December 26 in 1530. Many inscriptions naming Huvishka have been recorded in and around Mathura. Several writers have, however, queried the identification of Vima Taktu (Fussman, 1998, pp. (see Sims-Williams and de Blois). Above this, the vertical rim of lid carries a further frieze of flying geese. His name on the coins is written in the nominative case, KANHÞKO, rather than in the oblique case KANHÞKI, as on coins of the first Kanishka, who followed Greek practice in naming the issuer of a coin in the genitive. In this earlier paper Cribb regards the immediate successor to these issues as being the bull-and-camel issues of Vima Kadphises, but in the later article (Cribb, 1995-96, p. 97) these issues are re-attributed to the newly established ruler Vima Taktu. (For evidence of esoteric elements in early Mithraism, see Bivar, 2005, esp. An important series of scholars, including Vincent A. Smith (1903, p. 31) and Sir John Marshall (I, p. 71), favored an approximation falling around 125 CE, for Kanishka’s installation. Walter Bruno Henning, “Argi and the ‘Tokharians’,” BSO(A)S 9/3, 1938, pp. Here, the third character of the last word, resembling two consecutive Greek letter ro s, is understood as representing the character san, which in later Kushan inscriptions renders the sound of š. Both authors agree that the text records a dedication by Kanishka and in the Vihara Kanishka, also in the monastery of Mahasena (who is presumably the abbot). 35-36). They then turned southwards, and past Herat to occupy Drangiana, which henceforth assumed the name of Sakastān, subsequently Sistān. They may well have found the surviving Greeks useful as clerks and administrators, and also countenanced their employment as sculptors and architects. Kanishka had fought against King Han Ho-ti who was the king of Han dynasty of China. 135-37). X, 1; Jenkins, p. 14 and Pl. Corrections? That the figures from Khalchayan are not only Tochari, but specifically Kushans is suggested by the strong similarity between their portraits and those on coin series bearing the legend Turanountos Hēraiou sanaβ koÞanou. Omissions? The Kushans were instrumental in spreading Buddhism in Central Asia and China and in developing Mahayana Buddhism and the Gandhara and Mathura schools of art. Anthony F. P. Hulsewé and Michael Loewe, China in Central Asia. The generally accepted date of 78 is also the basis for an era presumably started by the Shakas and used in addition to the…. “Documents épigraphiques kouchans (III): L’inscription de Senavarma, roi d’Od˘i: une nouvelle lecture,” Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 71, 1982, pp. Friezes illustrate battle scenes in which the Tochari are depicted as horse-archers, defeating Sakā cavalry armed with lances and scale-armor. During his time the famous grammarian Patanjali was flourished. 14-15; Smith, 1920). 14, 2000, pp. This crushing reversal convinced the Yuezhi, though still a very numerous tribe, that they could no longer maintain their hold over their grazing-grounds in Kansu province in the face of the encroaching Xiong-nu. Vers l’identification des Tokhares - Yueh-Chi?” in Paul Bernard and Frantz Grenet, eds., Histoire et cultes de l’Asie Centrale préislamique: sources écrites et documents archéologiques, Paris, 1991, pp. Idem, “Mithraism: a Religion for the Ancient Medes,” Iranica Antiqua 40, 2005, pp. That Vasudeva I was succeeded by a second Kanishka seems sufficiently clear. 105-09. Helmut Humbach, “Vayu, ›iva und der Spiritus Vivans im ostiranischen Synkretismus,” in Monumentum H. S. Nyberg I, Acta Iranica 4, 1975, pp. The Kushana Dynasty. (On the inscription, see further, Fussman, 1987, p. 79; Falk, 2002.). 38-59. This theme would be appropriate for a cremation casket. Kushana empire was at its zenith during Kanishka's and Huvishka's reign. ©2021 Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The time gap between these two periods of evidence is bridged by historical indications from Chinese and Greek sources for the second century BCE, relating to the Yuezhi, or, as they are later called by the Greeks, the Tochari, a powerful horde who had long dominated the Kansu area, and who are plausibly identified as the ancestral speakers of the “Tocharian” dialects. Notoriously, the pandemic of smallpox usually known as the Plague of Marcus Aurelius struck the Roman empire in 166 CE, having been acquired in the previous year by soldiers taking part in the expedition to Ctesiphon. 101–20. It was known that the dates of inscriptions ascribable to the era founded by Kanishka extended over a period of nearly 100 years. Founder and Greatest ruler of the Sunga dynasty was Pushyamitra Sunga. According to the Chinese chronicle, the Hou han-shu, the territory gained by the Yuezhi in Bactria was divided between five tribal or regional chiefs (hi-hou), those of Hiu-mi, Shuang-mi, Kuei-shang, Hi-tun, and Tu-mi. This is a Video Tutorial for Ancient History explaining about Kushans Dynasty. A hundred years later the Kushan chief Kujula Kadphises (Qiu Jiuque) secured the political unification of the Yuezhi kingdom under himself. Furthermore, who is the founder of Kushan dynasty? The blow from the Yuezhi probably fell first on the former, whose ruling elite, not long before 100 BCE, migrated southwards by arduous mountain routes to cross the Karakorum range into present-day Pakistan under the leadership of their chieftain Maues, whose name appears in the Indo-Greek (see INDO-GREEKS) coinage at Taxila after the demise of Archebius (ca. Harold Walter Bailey, “A Kharoṣṭhi Inscription of Senavarma, King of Oḍi,” JRAS, 1980, pp. Since the Śaka Era began in 78 CE, this Kushan Era would begin in 227 CE (78 + 149 = 227). The Bactrian inscriptions are, moreover, frequently blundered. It was acknowledged as one of the four great Eurasian powers of its time (the others being China, Rome, and Parthia). Kujula Kadphises (30-80 AD) established the Kushan dynasty in 78 AD by taking advantage of disunion in existing dynasty of Pahalava (Parthian) and Scytho-Parthians, and gradually wrested control of southern prosperous region, which is the northwest part of ancient India, traditionally known as Gandhara (the region between Kabul and Indus rivers, now in Pakistan). Before long the Persians were embarked on their conquest of the Kushan Empire, a task which must have taken several years, and which established their control up to the River Indus. Chronology of the Kushans, KUSHAN DYNASTY vi. On the coinage of Vima Kadphises, however, only one deity is represented. The patronage of Buddhism by the Kushan rulers is attested by the appearance of Buddha among the divinities portrayed upon the coinage of Kanishka. During Kanishka’s and Huvishka’s reign the Kushana Empire was at its zenith. K’iu-tsiu-k’io died more than eighty years old” (Konow, 1929, p. lxii). The body of the casket has a figural frieze, showing a garland supported by putti, and, at what is evidently the front, the frontal figure of a Kushan prince in the characteristic costume of kaftan and trousers. An expert on the ancient cultural exchange between India and China, Prof Liu has studied the Kushana Dynasty for the last 40 years. Periplus of the Erythraean Sea : Karl Müller, ed., Geographi Graeci Minores I, Paris, 1855, repr., Hildesheim, 1990, pp. Delhi, 1979. Inscriptions of the Kushans, KUSHAN DYNASTY iii. On epigraphic grounds, the editors date him after 50 BCE. On our chronology the list of inscriptions for Vasudeva at Mathura ceases in 225 CE, and in the following year Ardašir’s control of Persia was decisively established. Some of these inscriptions, from the northwest, mostly in what is today Pakistan, were written in the Kharoṣhṭī alphabet and the Gandhari dialect of Prakrit; others, centering especially around the area of Mathura, were in the Brāhmī script, and in a dialect increasingly merging with Sanskrit. He had a vast Khushan Dynasty to take care of Gujarat in the westto Jammu in the north, Malwa in south to U.P. 185) and Heracles. A century later the Kushan section or sect of Yuehi-Chi attained predominance over the otheres. In the east, probably centered around the north shore of Lake Issyk Kul, were the group who, in Achaemenid times, had been known as the Sakā Haumavargā (Haoma-consuming Scythians; inscription DSe 24-25). 240-61. 571-651. On these coins, Maues already claims the title “Great King of Kings,” implying a prominent status (see, e.g., Whitehead, I, p. 98, no.1; pl. 38-39; Debevoise, pp. When, with the rise of the Sasanian Empire in Persia, an external threat appeared, the Kushan state was no longer able to mount effective resistance. Kujula Kadphises was the founder and the first ruler of the Kushan Empire. Paris, 1986. André Maricq, “Classica et Orientalia: Res Gestae divi Saporis,” Syria 35, 1958, pp. A recent article by Harry Falk (p. 126) reinterprets a passage of the early Sanskrit astronomical text Yavanajātaka, by Sphujiddhvaja, to signify that a Kushan Era commences 149 years after the start of the Śaka Era. Since Śiva “the Destroyer” had clearly some aspects of an underworld god, one may understand this aspect of the identification. Peshawar seems to have remained in Kushan hands, at least intermittently (see the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt inscription of Šāpūr I: “bis vor Pešāwar,” Huyse, I, p. 24). Pers. Huvishka ascended the throne of Kanishka I. There was issued in the name of Kujula an extremely varied coinage, in several districts and almost entirely in copper (COINAGE). Kujula Kadphises united the disparate tribes in the first century B.C. In the phrase of Trogus (Prologue 42.2.2) Reges Tocharorum Asiani interitusque Saraucarum “The Asiani (becoming) kings of the Tochari, and the destruction of the Saraucae,” the second clause relates to the collapse of the Indo-Scythian (Sakā) empire, with the demise of Azes II, which may have occurred towards 9 CE. By 19 CE, however, Gondophares, progressing through Drangiana and Arachosia, had asserted his control at Taxila and obliged Kujula to acknowledge his suzerainty, if only nominally. It is now generally agreed, as we have seen, that at or about the year 100 of the era of Kanishka, a new count was begun by the succeeding Kushan rulers. Kushan dynasty, Kushan also spelled Kusana, ruling line descended from the Yuezhi, a people that ruled over most of the northern Indian subcontinent, Afghanistan, and parts of Central Asia during the first three centuries of the Common Era. This is likely to have taken place not long after, though the event was not necessarily connected with the Indo-Scythian defeat. I, Texts I, 2 vols., London, 1999. Updates? Jamsheed Choksy, “The Enigmatic Origins of the Tokharians,” in Carlo C. Cereti and F. Vajifdar, eds., Ātaš-e Dorun: The Fire Within: Jamshid Soroush Soroushian Commemorative Volume, San Diego, 2003, pp. 64-76, with some reservations; pls. The sponsors of this flowering of architecture and sculpture would have been principally the Indian merchant communities, who were benefiting hugely from this expansion of trade. About 135 bce a loose confederation of five Central Asian nomadic tribes known as the Yuezhi wrested Bactria from the Bactrian... …the most powerful among the Kushan kings, as the dynasty came to be called. Kanishka was the most reputed Kushana ruler. At the same time, representations of “pagan Iranian” or possibly Mithraic deities, such as Mithra, Nana, Vərəƒraγna (Orlagno, Wahrām “Mars”), and Tīr “Mercury” (not Tistriya “Sirius,” as later conceived) are prominent. (Optional) Enter email address if you would like feedback about your tag. The Hou han-shu reports “More than a hundred years after this [i.e., the Yuezhi migration], the hi-hou of Kuei-shang, called K’iu-tsiu-k’io, attacked the four other hi-hou; he styled himself king; the name of his kingdom was Kuei-shang. KUSHAN DYNASTY ii. Archeology of the Kushans: in India, KUSHAN DYNASTY iv. These items could be dated before around 50 CE, together, no doubt, with the stupa of which they formed a central feature. i. Dynastic History. He ruled the part of Parthia, Kabul, Kandahar, and a part of Afghanistan, and occupied the Hindu Kush. Hello Everyone. Idem, Early History of India, 4th ed., Oxford, 1924. There he appears as subordinate to the Indo-Parthian ruler Gondophares. The mightiest Kushana monarch was Kanishka, whose prosperous era probably began in a.d. 78. Iranian Studies in memoriam David Neil MacKenzie, ed. 116, 119, 120). 49: ... húelos argē´... dēnárion chrusoûn kai arguroûn... parthénoi eueideîs pròs pallakeían). Kuzul Kadphisis is the founder of this empire and Kanishka is the most famous ruler of this empire. The next Kushan ruler of the lineage was the celebrated Kanishka I, the Great, whose accession date has long been a contentious problem for scholarship. Ashvaghosha was a renowned poet in his court. R. Curiel, “Inscriptions de Surkh Kotal,” JA 242/2, 1954, pp. Mukherjee does not, however, find the date of year 1, and further reads the name of the city as Kanishkapura. Ahura Mazdā, the supreme deity of Zoroastrianism, is in fact a rare type, if reported specimens are genuine at all (Göbl, p. 65). A plausible reconstruction of events at the start of the Christian Era would be along the following lines: The last member of the Indo-Scythian dynasty was Azes II, whom we believe to have still been ruling Arachosia and the Punjab in 6 CE. The Śiva image appears in every succeeding Kushan reign, and we know that his name in Bactrian, for the Kushans, was OHÞO Vēš, corresponding to the Iranian wind-god Vayu. The Yuezhi/Tochari continued to establish their domination north of the Oxus (Āmu Daryā) River, and the second Sakā confederacy were driven southwards, towards the frontier of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. One may guess that the empire had been weakened by the epidemic, no less than was that of Rome. Idem, “L’inscription de Rabatak et l’origine de l’ère saka,” JA 288/2, 1998, pp. The reign of the subsequent emperor, Vasudeva lasted twenty-six years. At the same time, Joe Cribb contends that Kujula was identical with Heraus, whose silver coinages are well known north of the Hindu Kush (Cribb, 1993, p. 131). 163-69. Pers. Here remarkable sculptures depict the Tochari princes, with bobbed hair, and slanting eyes of East Asian type, possible evidence of dynastic intermarriage with Chinese princesses sent to their rulers to seal alliances of their nations against the Xiong-nu. Part III, Vol. There also exist Brāhmī inscriptions of the Kushan ruler Vasudeva dated in the era of Kanishka up to the year 98. An exhaustive discussion of these coins is provided by Cribb (1993), but his conclusion that the name of the ruler in question is not Heraus but Kushan, and that he is identical with Kujula Kadphises, seems rather paradoxical. It is clear that the Kuei-shang represent the Kushans, but the others are difficult to identify. Thus the Azes date of the inscription is 103 – 58 = 45 CE, and the first year of Gondophares (presumably at Taxila) is 45 - 26 = 19 CE. N. Sims-Williams and Fr. At the same time the inscription of the Sasanian Šāpur I at Kaʿba-ye Zardošt near Persepolis claims that Kušān-šahr “The Kushan Empire” was largely in Sasanian hands during his reign (241-72 CE; Maricq, p. 306). 131-51. These, again, could be epigraphs of the “Nameless King” (Konow, 1929, p. 67; 1932, p. 949; 1929, p. 70). The figuring of Vēš “Vayu” in the form of the Brahmanical Śiva was already mentioned. Idem, “The Name of the ‘Tocharian’ Language,” Asia Major, N.S. Yet at the same time the extensive coin issues for the “Nameless King,” Sōtēr Megas, suggest Kushan expansion in several directions, and the capture of Mathura by the Kushans was apparently an event of the Sōtēr Megas period (Cribb, 1995-96, pp. Idem, “Surkh-Kotal und Kaniṣka,” ZDMG 115/1, 1965, pp. by  Facts related to Uttar Pradesh Under the rule of Kanishka, the Kushana empire reached its maximum territorial limits. One might then suspect a period of dynastic disputes, with mints reluctant to declare openly for any individual candidate, a situation familiar from other coin series. 949-65. Craig Benjamin, “The Origin of the Yüeh-chih,” in Craig Benjamin and S. N. Lieu, eds., Walls and Frontiers, Silk Road Studies 6, Turnhout, 2003, pp. Paul Bernard, M. Burda, and Franz Grenet. Nicholas Sims-Williams (1999), following a lead of Helmut Humbach, has deduced from the later Bactrian documents that the era they attest should begin in 233 CE and could record the consolidation of Sasanian rule over Kushan territory. VII), where the hunters are horse-archers with bobbed hair and long moustaches. 299-307. The Early Stage: 125 BC – AD 23, Sinica Leidensia XIV, Leiden, 1979. They were the first Indian empire which issued gold coins. During the 1990s, sensational reports of the discovery of mummies in graves of the 2nd-1st millennia BCE along the northern side of the Tarim basin, noted that these bodies exhibited Indo-European rather than Chinese features: Tall stature, hirsute features, blond hair, and flowing moustaches all contrasted strikingly with the East Asian physical type.
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