The Early Kushans

Evidence for the early Kushans is numismatic, archaeological, and literary. Coin evidence illustrates the significant cultural influence exerted over the early Kushans by the previous Greek rulers of Bactria, a topic that is largely beyond the scope of this chapter.

In essence, the destruction of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander of Macedon following the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 bce had resulted in extensive Greek colonization in Bactria in particular, which became part of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire that was constructed by Seleucus Nicator following Alexander’s death. In ca. 250 bce a Greek satrap named Diodotus staged a revolt against the Seleucids and established an independent Greco-Bactrian kingdom that went on to control much of present-day Afghanistan. During the century that followed, Greek power extended southward across the Hindu Kush into northern India, and a series of kings ruled both the Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms, issuing a superb series of Greek-style coins. The arrival of the Yuezhi in ca. 130 bce sealed the fate of the Greco-Bactrians, but the extensive coinage in circulation in the region strongly influenced the early Kushan issues, which are essentially copies of the Attic tetradrachms of late Greco-Bactrian kings such as Eucratides, Euthydemus, and Heliocles, with their legends in Greek script. There is a particularly close numismatic link between the first coin issues of Kujula Kadphises and the late issues of the last Greco-Bactrian ruler Hermaeus (ca. 40-ca. 1 bce?).

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of increased architectural and irrigational development during this period, particularly in southern Uzbekistan and northern Afghanistan. As noted in the introduction to this chapter, urban sites such as Kampyr Tepe on the northern bank of the Amu Darya, Payonkurgan near the major Termez to Samarkand road, and particularly the palace at Khalchayan in the upper Surkhan Darya all provide evidence of early Kushan construction, and of their complete subjugation of the region.^[948] Eventually, by late in the first century ce, the former Yuezhi heartland in southern Uzbekistan had become just one part of a vast Kushan Empire built by the early Kushan kings.

The circumstances behind the reunification of the five xihou by Kujula Kadphises are difficult to discern, although the conquest of the Kabul Valley by an IndoParthian ruler named Gondophares (20-46 ce) seems to have played a significant role.^[949] Kujula Kadphises is actually named in a 45 ce inscription found at Takht- i Bahi as a prince at the court of Gondophares.^[950] That the Kushans were already wealthy and significant players in Bactria is confirmed by the 1979 discovery by Russian archaeologist Victor Sarianidi of burial mounds at Tilya-tepe, near Shibargan in Afghanistan. Tilya-tepe was part of the Xidun xihou of the Yuezhi, close to the “capital” of that princedom. Sarianidi dated the graves to the early first century ce (the same period that Kujula Kadphises of the Guishuang xihou was a prince in Gondophares court), and the deceased may have been a second- or third- generation family of Yuezhi princes. Each burial site contained up to five kilograms of gold jewelry displaying evidence of a syncretic range of cultural influences, including both Chinese and Greek. A terminus post quem for the mound is provided by the discovery of a denarius of the Roman Tiberius (14-37 ce). As important as the numismatic and archaeological evidence is, it is references in Chinese literature that are most crucial to our understanding of the career of Kujula Kadphises. The rise to power of the first king of the Kushans is briefly described in the Annals of the Later Han, the Hou Hanshu, which was compiled between 398 and 446 ce by Fan Ye, and which constitutes the most important literary evidence for his reign. As a government official and historian working in the Liu Song Dynasty (420-479 ce), Fan Ye had many Late Han documents and chronicles to draw upon, and his account is generally regarded as accurate. Perhaps in a response to the occupation of the Kabul Valley by Gondophares, Kujula united the five xihou under the name of the Guishuang and, after a period of consolidation, commenced a series of expansionary campaigns.

First Kujula led the now united Kushan forces over the Hindu Kush, conquered the Kabul Valley and drove out Gondophares, then moved further south into Kashmir and the Swat Valley. According to the Hou Hanshu, Kujula was “more than eighty years old when he died”^[951] and was succeeded by his son Vima, who continued his father's policy by conquering large regions of northwestern India, where he installed “generals” to administer the new Kushan territories.^[952] As noted earlier, Kujula's coins show that he simply copied the denominations and types of the currency that was already circulating in each of the areas he progressively brought under his control, hardly surprising given the semi-nomadic origins of his ancestors and their lack of experience at issuing coinage.^[953] The first Kushan monarch described himself on his coins (using the Indian Kharosthi script) as Maharaja Rajarajasa Devaputra Kujula Kara Kadphises, or “Great King of Kings. Son of Divine Being. King Kujula Kadphises.”

Kujula's reign can be dated from ca. 25 to 85 ce, although as noted earlier, a precise chronology of the Kushans remains problematic. If these dates are correct, Kujula was a contemporary of several Roman emperors—Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian—some of whom are described in Latin sources as having received ambassadors from the “Indians,” although whether these were independent merchants from the Indian subcontinent or Kushan officials is impossible to know.^[954] Certainly numismatic evidence indicates Roman influence on the early Kushan kings. One series of copper tetradrachms issued by Kujula display an obverse bust closely modeled on that of Augustus, with a curule chair on the reverse.

All this reminds us that, just as the Han were engaging commercially with merchants in Central Asia by the mid-first century ce, so the Romans were also becoming heavily involved in the silk and luxuries trade with India, Central Asia, and China, along both the sea routes from Alexandria in Egypt, or from ports at the head of the Persian Gulf, to the Indian ports of Barygaza or Arikamedu (as described in the mariner's handbook the Periplus of the Erythrian Sea, compiled ca.

40-50 ce), and the overland “Silk Roads” through Parthia and Central Asia. The Kushans, with a now substantial empire straddling most of the major east-west and north-south trade routes (including access to the sea ports of northwestern India described in the Periplus) were ideally positioned to benefit from the trade. In 77 ce the Roman senator Pliny the Elder, in a comment included in his Naturalis Historia, provided no doubt exaggerated but nonetheless striking evidence of the extraordinary volume (and astonishing cost) of that trade: “And by the lowest reckoning,” he thundered, “India, China and Arabia take from our Empire 100 million sesterces every year. That is the sum which our women and our luxuries cost us!”^[955]

Kujula and his successors were in turn exerting Kushan influence on the Western Regions of the now greatly expanded Han Empire. In his 1984 analysis of the Sino- Kharosthi coins of Khotan, Joe Cribb provided evidence of direct Kushan political and economic control of Khotan and Kashgar at various times during the first century ce.^[956] But this involvement brought the Kushans into a closer relationship, sometimes cordial, sometimes conflicted, with the Han, particularly after General Ban Chao was sent to the Western Regions to protect Chinese interests from increasingly dangerous raids by the Xiongnu. As the Xiongnu were an old nemesis of both the Yuezhi and the Han, there is some evidence in the “Biography of Ban Chao” (within the Hou Hanshu) to suggest that a loose alliance was sometimes in place between the Han forces and the Kushans.^[957] Ban Chao seems to have sought Kushan assistance during the latter part of Kujula's reign, and may even have permitted the Kushans to exercise economic control over Kashgar as well as other Tarim Basin states, in return for their support against both the Xiongnu and certain Tarim Basin city-states demanding independence from the Han.

The Kushans seem to have overstepped the mark in the year 88 ce, however, when they informed Ban Chao of their intention to seek a marriage alliance with the Han court.

This decision might have reflected a new policy initiative launched by Kujula Kadphises' successor Vima Takh(tu), who had succeeded his father a couple of years earlier. Ban Chao, perhaps affronted by the Kushan's impudence, or fearing a further strengthening in Kushan power that might result from such a marriage alliance, refused to allow the Kushan envoy passage through the Tarim Basin to Chang'an. In response, in the year 90 ce, the Kushans sent a force of allegedly 70,000 archer warriors under a viceroy named Xie across the Pamirs to attack Ban Chao. Ban Chao was convinced that a force this large could not remain in the region for long, so he killed Kushan envoys who had been sent to a nearby city-state for aid, thus effectively denying the Kushan forces any possibility of supplies. The Kushan forces, exhausted by the crossing and by this “scorched earth” policy of Ban Chao, were eventually forced to apologize to the general, who magnanimously allowed them to withdraw without offering battle!^[958] The following year, Ban Chao's success in pacifying the Tarim Basin states was rewarded when he was named Protector General of the Western Regions.

As noted earlier, Kujula was probably succeeded by his son Vima Takh(tu) (ca. 85-100 ce) and grandson Vima Kadphises (ca. 100-125). The Hou Hanshu names only Vima Kadphises as Kujula's successor, but the existence of a third member of the dynasty had long been suspected because of inscriptional and numismatic references to a king known only by his title “Soter Megas,” or Great King. The identification of Vima Takh(tu) as the second king of the Kushans (and perhaps also as the mysterious Soter Megas) is the result of a fortunate discovery made in Afghanistan in 1995. At a site known as the Kafir's Castle in Rabatak, near Pul-i Kumri, local farmers stumbled upon a stone inscription in Bactrian script, in the name of Kanishka. As will be shown in the following, Kanishka was the successor of Vima Kadphises, thus the fourth king of the dynasty, and the first of the so-called Great Kushans.

The Rabatak inscription refers to the first year of a new “Kanishkan Era” (perhaps to commemorate his conquest of the Ganges Valley^[959]), and conveniently names the genealogy of his royal line as Kujula Kadphises (great grandfather); Vima Takh(tu) (grandfather); and Vima Kadphises (father). The existence of this inscription was revealed by Joe Cribb and Nicholas Simms-Williams at a public lecture in July 1996, and was published the same year.^[960]

As early as 1893, however, British numismatist Sir Alexander Cunningham had described a unique double-busted coin that depicted two different Kadphisean rulers, the left face bearded with the tamgah (personal symbol) of Vima in the rear, the right face smooth with the tamgah of Soter Megas in front.^[961] The busts might now be identified as those of Vima Takh(tu) and his son Vima Kadphises. If Kujula was aged over 80 when he died, his son Vima Takh(tu) must also have been an elderly man upon his succession, and a short period of joint rule with his son Vima Kadphises would make sense. Where Kujula's coins had reflected an eclectic approach, varying in weight, design, and denomination throughout the disparate territories of the early Kushan Empire, Vima Takh(tu) appears to have standardized the Kushan copper issues. His coins have been discovered from Benares, Mathura, the Punjab, and Kabul, to Balkh and even Samarkand. But with the accession of Vima Kadphises (ca. 100-ca. 125 ce), Kushan coins began to take on their own distinctive character. Vima Kadphises not only minted the first gold issues, but also started the practice of engraving an image of the king on the obverse, and a deity on the reverse.

As noted in the introduction to the chapter, a number of inscriptions, some fragmentary, others well preserved, have been discovered throughout Kushan territory, many of them using the so-called Bactrian Script. Bactrian is an extinct Eastern Iranian language that must have been spoken in Bactria, and which became the official language of both the Kushans and later the Hephthalites or “White Huns” (see later discussion in this chapter). We know that the ancestors of the Kushans, the Yuezhi, spoke the Indo-European centum branch language of Tocharian, so their adoption of Bactrian (which they themselves called the “Aryan Language”) must represent an intentional policy decision by the Kushan leadership. Bactrian was closely related to other Middle Iranian languages spoken in the region, including Parthian, Khwarezmian, and Sogdian, so the adoption of Bactrian might simply represent a sensible decision to improve communication with the population over which the Kushans now ruled. But it was also an important commercial decision that facilitated mercantile communication between the key intermediaries in Silk Roads trade, and in addition it allowed the Kushan royalty to use coins and inscriptions to proclaim their power throughout the region in a language that was widely understood. After Kanishka promulgated the Rabatak Inscription, Bactrian became the exclusive official language of the Kushans. The adoption of Bactrian is a quintessential example of the linguistic syncretism and cultural exchange that so characterizes the Kushan Era. The Kushans, whose ancestors spoke Tocharian, adopted an Iranian dialect but inscribed this in Greek characters!^[962]

Bactrian literacy can apparently be dated to the reign of either Vima Takh(tu) or Vima Kadphises. An important group of rock inscriptions, five in all, was discovered in 1967 at a height of 4,000 meters at Dasht-i Nawar, near Ghazni in southern Afghanistan. The five inscriptions are in different languages—Bactrian using Greek characters, Middle Indian using Kharosthi script, an unknown (perhaps Saka?) script, and Greek and Kharosthi (both illegible). The script refers to Vima, but whether Vima Kadphises or his father Vima Takh(tu) is impossible to know. An even more important Bactrian inscription had been discovered a decade earlier by the French at the dynastic sanctuary at Surkh Kotal. This 25-line inscription commemorates the construction of a well inside the sanctuary, undertaken by a high Kushan dignitary named Nokonzoko. The inscription is dated to the Year 31 of (presumably) the Kanishkan Era, and names Kanishka as “The Lord, the King of Kings, the Mighty Kanishka.”^[963]

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Source: Bang Peter F., Bayly C.A., Scheidel Walter (eds.). The Oxford World History of Empire. Volume Two: The History of Empires. Oxford University Press,2020. — 1352 p.. 2020

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