Yuezhi – Kushan - Gujjar Relationship and Kushan Chronology
The Kushite-Kushan Connection
Alice C. Linsley
The Kushites and the Kushan were great pyramid builders, and both mummified their rulers.
Kushan Empire
Under the rule of the Kushans, present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and western India participated both in seagoing trade and in commerce along the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean.
The word Kushan derives from the Chinese term Guishang, used in historical writings to describe one branch of the Yuezhi—a loose confederation of Indo-European tribes that had been driven out of northwestern China in 176–160 BC, migrated south, and reached Bactria (Tajikistan and northwest Afghanistan) around 135 BC.
The first self-proclaimed Kushan king, Heraios (ruled: 1–30 AD), was one short step away from being a Yuezhi tribesman. Thus it fell to his successor Kujula Kadphises(ruled: 30-80 AD) to assume the role of a true monarch and unite the disparate and quarrelsome Yuezhi tribes under the Kushan banner during the 1st century AD.
After gradually wresting control of Bactria from the Scythians and the Indo-Parthians, Kujula Kadphises moved the Kushantribes into the region known as Gandhara (northeast Afghanistan and northern Pakistan) with the main capital located at Taxila (northwestern Pakistan) and the summer capital at Begram (known in ancient times as Kapisa, near the present-day Bagram Air Base), which also served as a major trading cneter.
From these two capitals, plus other settlements and trading posts farther north, the Kushansbecame master traders , adopted the Greek alphabet and struck their own gold coins featuring Kushan royal portraits, Greek mottos and symbols inspired by Roman coins that were widely used at that time to purchase goods from caravans along the Silk Road.
By positioning themselves at the center of the Silk Road, midway between China and India in the east and the Mediterranean world in the west, the Kushans became a world power second only to China and Rome and the first unified force in Afghanistan to dispense rather than receive authority.
In 48 AD Kujula Kadphises crossed the Hindu Kush and formed an alliance with the last Greek king in the region, Hermaeus, in the Kabul Valley, which allowed Kujula's son Vima Kadphises to attack and defeat the Scythians (known as Saka) in northern India and establish an empire that his successors continued to enlarge until it extended from the Ganges River in the east to the Gobi Desert in the north.
The rule of Kanishka, the third Kushan emperor, who flourished from the late first to the early/mid-2nd century AD, was administered from two capitals: Purushapura (present-day Peshawar) adn the summer capital complex at Begram (Kapisa), which rivalled the pleasure palaces created by the emperors in Rome or Han dynasty China.
Under Kanishka's rule, the Kushans controlled most of Central Asia and amassed great wealth through extensive mercantile activities, a flourishing of urban life and continued patronage of Buddhist sculpture and the building of monasteries.
Settled life brought great changes to the lives of these former nomads. Having no traditions on which to build, they adapted what they found in ways best suited to their own personality. The result was a vibrant indigenous culture born of the fusion of western oriented Graeco-Bactrian ideals with those of eastern oriented India and interpreted by the forceful character of Central Asia — vital and dynamic.
The Gandhara region at the core of the Kushan empire was home to a multiethnic society tolerant of religious differences. Desirable for its strategic location, with direct access to the overland silk routes and links to the ports on the Arabian Sea, Gandhara had suffered many conquests during its long history — by the Achaemenid Persians, by Alexander the Great (327/26–325/24 BC), by the Mauryans from India, the Seleucid Empire, Graeco-Bactrian kings and their Indo-Greek successors (3rd-2nd centuries BC), as well as Scythians and Parthians (2nd-1st centuries BC).
The melding of races, beliefs and skills developed in the West and the East produced an eclectic culture, vividly expressed in the visual arts produced during the Kushan period. Themes derived from Greek and Roman mythologies were blended with Buddhist symbols and sensibilities, resulting in the first representations of the Buddha in human form during the Kushan era, as well as the earliest depictions of key Buddhist figures such as the bodhisattva.
The Kushans were patrons, not mere collectors of art. In works of art they commissioned, the Kushan kings ordered their faces and garments be placed side-by-side with the Buddha and his retinue. This new self-confidence invigorated a uniquely Ghandharan style of art in which Graeco-Roman art subject matter and motifs enriched by Indian ideals were employed by literally thousands of craftsmen in the service of the rapidly growing Buddhist faith.
Buddhists texts are full of praise for the Kushan Kanishka, "King of Kings" (circa 100 AD), whose benevolent patronage supported Buddhism like no one else during his lifetime.
Buddhist Patronage. Kanishka's reputation in Buddhist tradition began with convening the 4th Buddhist Council in Kashmir, circa 100 AD, which became essential to the development of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Kanishka provided encouragement to both the Gandhara school of Greco-Buddhist Art and the Mathura school of Hindu art. His greatest contribution to Buddhist architecture was the Kanishka stupa at Peshawar. Archaeologists who rediscovered the base of thes stupa in 1908-1909 ascertained that this stupa had a diameter of 286 feet. Reports of Chinese pilgrims such as Xuan Zang indicate that its height was roughly 600 to 681 feet high and was covered with jewels. This immense multi-storied building must have ranked among the wonders of the ancient world.
Buddhist monks from the region of Gandhara during Kanishika's lifetime played a key role in the development and the transmission of Buddhist ideas from India and Gandhara to China. For example, the Kushan monk, Lokaksema (c. 178 AD), became the first translator of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures into Chinese and established a translation bureau at the Chinese capital Loyang.
Kanishka's Casket. While the accounts of Kanishka's interest in Buddhism have been verified by numerous archaeological finds, he was also a devotee and patron of other local religions. Kushan coinage includes representations of the Buddha as well as a wide pantheon of gods and goddesses, deities of Greek, Persian and Hindu origin. Kanishka's reliquary casket, for example, features cast representations of Buddha as well as Hindu dieties Brahma and Indra, Persian sun and moon gods on the sides of the container and a garland, supported by cherubs in typical Hellenistic style.
Dated to the first year of Kanishka's reign in 127 CE, the casket was discovered in a deposit chamber under Kanishka's stupa, during the archeological excavations in 1908-1909 at Shah-ji-Dheri on the outskirts of Peshawar. The original is today at the Peshawar Museum; and old replica is in the British Museum. Rarities inside the casket are said to have included three bone fragments of the Buddha.
The inscription on the casket is signed by the maker, a Greek artist named Agesilas, who oversaw work at Kanishka's stupas (caitya), confirming the direct involvement of Greeks with Buddhist artworks [the inscription reads in part, "The servant Agisalaos, the superintendent of works at the vihara of Kanishka ..."].
The attribution of the casket to Kanishka has been recently disputed, on stylistic grounds [the casket may instead be attributable to Kanishka's successor Huvishka].
Surkh Kotal. The presence of Persian symbols in Kushan-era culture is most evident among the ruins of Surkh Kotal, a Zoroastrian temple complex with a vast processional stairway located north of the Hindu Kush near the city of Pul-i Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province.
Excavations at Surkh Kotal between 1952 and 1966 proved the co-existence of a purely indigenous Zoroastrian religion, unaffected by Buddhism, centered around the cult of fire. Kanishka personally seems to have embraced both Buddhism and the Persian cult of Mithra. Fragments of his statue found at Surkh Kotal ranks among the most precious objects in the Kabul Museum collection.
The Buddhist Shrine Complex at Hadda. A Greco-Buddhist archeological site located in the ancient area of Gandhara, six miles south of the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, Hadda was one of the largest Buddhist temple and pilgrimmage complexes in the world during the 1st through 3rd centuries AD.
A key location on the 2,000-mile path that pilgrims followed in the transmission of Buddhism from India to China, Hadda was an active center for manuscript translation and duplication as well as sculpture.
More than 23,000 Greco-Buddhist sculptures made of clay or plaster, architectural decorations plus heads and figures depicting men, women, children, assorted demons, as well as the elderly, with every conceivable mode of expression and dress, every rank and status, every facial type from all corners of the known world — more faces than one would need to re-create an entire Buddhist city — were excavated from Hadda in a series of archaeological excavations during the 1930s and the 1970s.
Sculptures from Hadda combine elements of Buddhism and Hellenism, in an almost perfect uniquely identifiable Hellenistic style. Although the style itself is suggested by experts to date from the late Hellenistic 2nd or 1st century BC, the sculptures from Hadda are usually dated, tentatively, to the 1st century AD or later.
Given the early date, superb quality, technical refinement, variety and stupendous quantity of sculptures, Hadda must have been a "factory town" where Greek or Greek-trained artists familiar with all the aspects of Hellenistic sculpture, lived and worked in, what scholar John Boardman described as "the cradle of incipient Buddhist sculpture in Indo-Greek style."
The transferance of Greek heros to Buddhism (e.g., Herakles being the inspiration and model for the Buddhist Bodhissatva) is fully on display at Hadda.
A sculptural group excavated at the Hadda temple known as Tapa-i-Shotor, for example, represents a Buddha flanked by a perfectly Hellenistic figure of Tyche holding her cornucopia and Herakles holding not his usual club, but the thunderbolt associated with the Boddhisatva fiture Vajrapani.
In addition to sculpture, Hadda contained some of the the oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts in the world, which are perhaps the oldest surviving Indian manuscripts of any kind,the long-lost canon of the Sarvastivadin Sect that dominated Gandhara and was instrumental in Buddhism's spread from India to China.
Probably dating from around the 1st century AD, looted from Hadda during the 1990s and smuggled to Pakistan, these Buddhist manuscripts were written on birch bark in the Gandhari language. Discovered in a clay pot bearing an inscription in the same language eventually passed to the British Library in London and the University of Washington in Seattle. The legal ownership of these priceless manuscripts remains in dispute.
More than 1000 of the vast assemblage of sculptures found at Hadda during the 1930s and 1970s were secured at the Kabul Museum and the Musée Guimet in Paris.
The temples and row upon row of burial stupas at Hadda became an open air museum — accessible to yet extremely vulnerable.
During the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, however, large numbers of Hadda sculpture were looted from the site and quickly appeared on the international antiquiites market.
A tank battle between Soviet troops and Afghan guerillas that passed through the Hadda complex destroyed many of the temples.
What remained after the Soviet withdrawal was looted to near-extinction during the 1991-2001 Afghan civil war.
This fabled site, a crown jewel of the Kushan era, is now all but destroyed.The Begram Treasure. Sixty kilometers northwest of Kabul, near today's city of Charikar, at the junction of the Ghorband and the Panjshir valley, the summer capital of the Kushan empire was built, known as Kapisa [later known as Begram, not to be confused with Bagram, site of the modern air base].
Located at a key passage point along the Silk Road between Kabul and Bamiyan, Begram was destroyed by Achaemenid emperor Cyrus, restored by his successor Darius, and then fortified and rebuilt by Alexander the Great as fortress Alexandria of the Caucasus, which made it a key city in the defense of the Graeco-Bactrian Kingdom.
Surrounded by a high brick wall and reinforced with towers at the angles, Begram's main street along the Kushan summer palace was bordered with workshops and shops. Precious carved ivories from India, lacquer boxes from China, glass and bronze from Eqypt and Rome, plaster decorative reliefs and other Silk Road trade goods were displayed and sold and perhaps kept in inventory for the purpose of making duplicates on site.
Despite the capture of Kapiza (Begram) by the Sassanians circa 241 AD, two storerooms of Silk Road trade goods, sealed up to escape detection, sat in place for nearly seventeen centuries until they were discovered by French archaeologists who excavated Begram in the 1930s.
Each piece of the world famous "Begram Treasure" testifies to the rich trade that took place during the Kushan era and the likely existence of similar workshop emporiums at various points along the Silk Road and throughout the civilized world. Such discoveries renew our facination with the skilled workmanship and highly refined and culture citizenry under the Kushans.
Offerings found in Bodh Gaya under the "Enlightenment Throne of the Buddha", with an impression of an imitation of a coin of the Kushan emperor Huvishka, 2nd century CE.British Museum.
Kujula Kadphises (ca. 30 – ca. 80)
"...the prince [elavoor] of Guishuang, named thilac [Kujula Kadphises], attacked and exterminated the four other xihou. He established himself as king, and his dynasty was called that of the Guishuang [Kushan] King. He invaded Anxi [Indo-Parthia], and took the Gaofu [Kabul] region. He also defeated the whole of the kingdoms of Puda [Paktiya] and Jibin [Kapisha and Gandhara]. Qiujiuque [Kujula Kadphises] was more than eighty years old when he died."
—Hou Hanshu
These conquests probably took place sometime between 45 and 60, and laid the basis for the Kushan Empire which was rapidly expanded by his descendants.
Kujula issued an extensive series of coins and fathered at least two sons, Sadaṣkaṇa (who is known from only two inscriptions, especially the Rabatak inscription, and apparently never ruled), and seemingly Vima Takto.
Kujula Kadphises was the great grandfather of Kanishka.
Vima Takto (Ancient Chinese: 閻膏珍 Yangaozhen) is mentioned in the Rabatak inscription (another son, Sadashkana, is mentioned in an inscription of Senavarman, the King of Odi). He was the predecessor of Vima Kadphises, and Kanishka I. He expanded the Kushan Empire into the northwest of the South Asia. The Hou Hanshu says:
"His son, Yangaozhen [probably Vema Tahk(tu) or, possibly, his brother Sadaṣkaṇa], became king in his place. He defeated Tianzhu [North-western India] and installed Generals to supervise and lead it. The Yuezhi then became extremely rich. All the kingdoms call [their king] the Guishuang [Kushan] king, but the Han call them by their original name, Da Yuezhi."
—Hou Hanshu[27]
Vima Kadphises (Kushan language: Οοημο Καδφισης) was a Kushan emperor from around 90–100 CE, the son of Sadashkana and the grandson of Kujula Kadphises, and the father of Kanishka I, as detailed by the Rabatak inscription.
Vima Kadphises added to the Kushan territory by his conquests in Afghanistan and north-west Pakistan. He issued an extensive series of coins and inscriptions. He was the first to introduce gold coinage in India, in addition to the existing copper and silver coinage.
Kanishka I (ca. 127 – ca. 140)
Kanishka, Mathura Museum.
The rule of Kanishka, fifth Kushan king, who flourished for about 13 years from c. 127. Upon his accession, Kanishka ruled a huge territory (virtually all of northern India), south to Ujjain and Kundina and east beyond Pataliputra, according to the Rabatak inscription:
The Qila Mubarak fort at Bathinda, India was built by Kanishka.
"In the year one, it has been proclaimed unto India, unto the whole realm of the governing class, including Koonadeano (Kaundiny, Kundina) and the city of Ozeno (Ozene, Ujjain) and the city of Zageda (Saketa) and the city of Kozambo (Kausambi) and the city of Palabotro (Pataliputra) and so long unto (i.e. as far as) the city of Ziri-tambo (Sri-Champa)."
—Rabatak inscription, Lines 4–6
His territory was administered from two capitals: Purushapura (now Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan) and Mathura, in northern India. He is also credited (along with Raja Dab) for building the massive, ancient Fort at Bathinda (Qila Mubarak), in the modern city of Bathinda, Indian Punjab.
The Kushans also had a summer capital in Bagram (then known as Kapisa), where the "Begram Treasure", comprising works of art from Greece to China, has been found. According to the Rabatak inscription, Kanishka was the son of Vima Kadphises, the grandson of Sadashkana, and the great-grandson of Kujula Kadphises. Kanishka’s era is now generally accepted to have begun in 127 on the basis of Harry Falk’s ground-breaking research. Kanishka’s era was used as a calendar reference by the Kushans for about a century, until the decline of the Kushan realm.
Vāsishka was a Kushan emperor who seems to have a 20 year reign following Kanishka. His rule is recorded as far south as Sanchi (nearVidisa), where several inscriptions in his name have been found, dated to the year 22 (The Sanchi inscription of "Vaksushana" – i. e. Vasishka Kushana) and year 28 (The Sanchi inscription of Vasaska – i. e. Vasishka) of the Kanishka era.
Huvishka (Kushan: Οοηϸκι, "Ooishki") was a Kushan emperor from about 20 years after the death of Kanishka (assumed on the best evidence available to be in 140 AD) until the succession of Vasudeva I about thirty years later. His rule was a period of retrenchment and consolidation for the Empire. In particular he devoted time and effort early in his reign to the exertion of greater control over the city of Mathura.
Vasudeva I (Kushan: Βαζοδηο "Bazodeo", Chinese: 波調 "Bodiao") was the last of the "Great Kushans." Named inscriptions dating from year 64 to 98 of Kanishka’s era suggest his reign extended from at least 191 to 225 CE. He was the last great Kushan emperor, and the end of his rule coincides with the invasion of the Sassanids as far as northwestern India, and the establishment of the Indo-Sassanids or Kushanshahs from around 240 CE.
The word Kushan derives from the Chinese term Guishang, used in historical writings to describe one branch of the Yuezhi—a loose confederation of Indo-European tribes that had been driven out of northwestern China in 176–160 BC, migrated south, and reached Bactria (Tajikistan and northwest Afghanistan) around 135 BC.
The first self-proclaimed Kushan king, Heraios (ruled: 1–30 AD), was one short step away from being a Yuezhi tribesman. Thus it fell to his successor Kujula Kadphises(ruled: 30-80 AD) to assume the role of a true monarch and unite the disparate and quarrelsome Yuezhi tribes under the Kushan banner during the 1st century AD.
After gradually wresting control of Bactria from the Scythians and the Indo-Parthians, Kujula Kadphises moved the Kushantribes into the region known as Gandhara (northeast Afghanistan and northern Pakistan) with the main capital located at Taxila (northwestern Pakistan) and the summer capital at Begram (known in ancient times as Kapisa, near the present-day Bagram Air Base), which also served as a major trading cneter.
From these two capitals, plus other settlements and trading posts farther north, the Kushansbecame master traders , adopted the Greek alphabet and struck their own gold coins featuring Kushan royal portraits, Greek mottos and symbols inspired by Roman coins that were widely used at that time to purchase goods from caravans along the Silk Road.
By positioning themselves at the center of the Silk Road, midway between China and India in the east and the Mediterranean world in the west, the Kushans became a world power second only to China and Rome and the first unified force in Afghanistan to dispense rather than receive authority.
In 48 AD Kujula Kadphises crossed the Hindu Kush and formed an alliance with the last Greek king in the region, Hermaeus, in the Kabul Valley, which allowed Kujula's son Vima Kadphises to attack and defeat the Scythians (known as Saka) in northern India and establish an empire that his successors continued to enlarge until it extended from the Ganges River in the east to the Gobi Desert in the north.
The rule of Kanishka, the third Kushan emperor, who flourished from the late first to the early/mid-2nd century AD, was administered from two capitals: Purushapura (present-day Peshawar) adn the summer capital complex at Begram (Kapisa), which rivalled the pleasure palaces created by the emperors in Rome or Han dynasty China.
Under Kanishka's rule, the Kushans controlled most of Central Asia and amassed great wealth through extensive mercantile activities, a flourishing of urban life and continued patronage of Buddhist sculpture and the building of monasteries.
Settled life brought great changes to the lives of these former nomads. Having no traditions on which to build, they adapted what they found in ways best suited to their own personality. The result was a vibrant indigenous culture born of the fusion of western oriented Graeco-Bactrian ideals with those of eastern oriented India and interpreted by the forceful character of Central Asia — vital and dynamic.
The Gandhara region at the core of the Kushan empire was home to a multiethnic society tolerant of religious differences. Desirable for its strategic location, with direct access to the overland silk routes and links to the ports on the Arabian Sea, Gandhara had suffered many conquests during its long history — by the Achaemenid Persians, by Alexander the Great (327/26–325/24 BC), by the Mauryans from India, the Seleucid Empire, Graeco-Bactrian kings and their Indo-Greek successors (3rd-2nd centuries BC), as well as Scythians and Parthians (2nd-1st centuries BC).
The melding of races, beliefs and skills developed in the West and the East produced an eclectic culture, vividly expressed in the visual arts produced during the Kushan period. Themes derived from Greek and Roman mythologies were blended with Buddhist symbols and sensibilities, resulting in the first representations of the Buddha in human form during the Kushan era, as well as the earliest depictions of key Buddhist figures such as the bodhisattva.
The Kushans were patrons, not mere collectors of art. In works of art they commissioned, the Kushan kings ordered their faces and garments be placed side-by-side with the Buddha and his retinue. This new self-confidence invigorated a uniquely Ghandharan style of art in which Graeco-Roman art subject matter and motifs enriched by Indian ideals were employed by literally thousands of craftsmen in the service of the rapidly growing Buddhist faith.
Buddhists texts are full of praise for the Kushan Kanishka, "King of Kings" (circa 100 AD), whose benevolent patronage supported Buddhism like no one else during his lifetime.
Buddhist Patronage. Kanishka's reputation in Buddhist tradition began with convening the 4th Buddhist Council in Kashmir, circa 100 AD, which became essential to the development of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Kanishka provided encouragement to both the Gandhara school of Greco-Buddhist Art and the Mathura school of Hindu art. His greatest contribution to Buddhist architecture was the Kanishka stupa at Peshawar. Archaeologists who rediscovered the base of thes stupa in 1908-1909 ascertained that this stupa had a diameter of 286 feet. Reports of Chinese pilgrims such as Xuan Zang indicate that its height was roughly 600 to 681 feet high and was covered with jewels. This immense multi-storied building must have ranked among the wonders of the ancient world.
Buddhist monks from the region of Gandhara during Kanishika's lifetime played a key role in the development and the transmission of Buddhist ideas from India and Gandhara to China. For example, the Kushan monk, Lokaksema (c. 178 AD), became the first translator of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures into Chinese and established a translation bureau at the Chinese capital Loyang.
Kanishka's Casket. While the accounts of Kanishka's interest in Buddhism have been verified by numerous archaeological finds, he was also a devotee and patron of other local religions. Kushan coinage includes representations of the Buddha as well as a wide pantheon of gods and goddesses, deities of Greek, Persian and Hindu origin. Kanishka's reliquary casket, for example, features cast representations of Buddha as well as Hindu dieties Brahma and Indra, Persian sun and moon gods on the sides of the container and a garland, supported by cherubs in typical Hellenistic style.
Dated to the first year of Kanishka's reign in 127 CE, the casket was discovered in a deposit chamber under Kanishka's stupa, during the archeological excavations in 1908-1909 at Shah-ji-Dheri on the outskirts of Peshawar. The original is today at the Peshawar Museum; and old replica is in the British Museum. Rarities inside the casket are said to have included three bone fragments of the Buddha.
The inscription on the casket is signed by the maker, a Greek artist named Agesilas, who oversaw work at Kanishka's stupas (caitya), confirming the direct involvement of Greeks with Buddhist artworks [the inscription reads in part, "The servant Agisalaos, the superintendent of works at the vihara of Kanishka ..."].
The attribution of the casket to Kanishka has been recently disputed, on stylistic grounds [the casket may instead be attributable to Kanishka's successor Huvishka].
Surkh Kotal. The presence of Persian symbols in Kushan-era culture is most evident among the ruins of Surkh Kotal, a Zoroastrian temple complex with a vast processional stairway located north of the Hindu Kush near the city of Pul-i Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province.
Excavations at Surkh Kotal between 1952 and 1966 proved the co-existence of a purely indigenous Zoroastrian religion, unaffected by Buddhism, centered around the cult of fire. Kanishka personally seems to have embraced both Buddhism and the Persian cult of Mithra. Fragments of his statue found at Surkh Kotal ranks among the most precious objects in the Kabul Museum collection.
The Buddhist Shrine Complex at Hadda. A Greco-Buddhist archeological site located in the ancient area of Gandhara, six miles south of the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, Hadda was one of the largest Buddhist temple and pilgrimmage complexes in the world during the 1st through 3rd centuries AD.A key location on the 2,000-mile path that pilgrims followed in the transmission of Buddhism from India to China, Hadda was an active center for manuscript translation and duplication as well as sculpture.
More than 23,000 Greco-Buddhist sculptures made of clay or plaster, architectural decorations plus heads and figures depicting men, women, children, assorted demons, as well as the elderly, with every conceivable mode of expression and dress, every rank and status, every facial type from all corners of the known world — more faces than one would need to re-create an entire Buddhist city — were excavated from Hadda in a series of archaeological excavations during the 1930s and the 1970s.
Sculptures from Hadda combine elements of Buddhism and Hellenism, in an almost perfect uniquely identifiable Hellenistic style. Although the style itself is suggested by experts to date from the late Hellenistic 2nd or 1st century BC, the sculptures from Hadda are usually dated, tentatively, to the 1st century AD or later.
Given the early date, superb quality, technical refinement, variety and stupendous quantity of sculptures, Hadda must have been a "factory town" where Greek or Greek-trained artists familiar with all the aspects of Hellenistic sculpture, lived and worked in, what scholar John Boardman described as "the cradle of incipient Buddhist sculpture in Indo-Greek style."
The transferance of Greek heros to Buddhism (e.g., Herakles being the inspiration and model for the Buddhist Bodhissatva) is fully on display at Hadda.
A sculptural group excavated at the Hadda temple known as Tapa-i-Shotor, for example, represents a Buddha flanked by a perfectly Hellenistic figure of Tyche holding her cornucopia and Herakles holding not his usual club, but the thunderbolt associated with the Boddhisatva fiture Vajrapani.
In addition to sculpture, Hadda contained some of the the oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts in the world, which are perhaps the oldest surviving Indian manuscripts of any kind,the long-lost canon of the Sarvastivadin Sect that dominated Gandhara and was instrumental in Buddhism's spread from India to China.
Probably dating from around the 1st century AD, looted from Hadda during the 1990s and smuggled to Pakistan, these Buddhist manuscripts were written on birch bark in the Gandhari language. Discovered in a clay pot bearing an inscription in the same language eventually passed to the British Library in London and the University of Washington in Seattle. The legal ownership of these priceless manuscripts remains in dispute.
More than 1000 of the vast assemblage of sculptures found at Hadda during the 1930s and 1970s were secured at the Kabul Museum and the Musée Guimet in Paris.
The temples and row upon row of burial stupas at Hadda became an open air museum — accessible to yet extremely vulnerable.
A tank battle between Soviet troops and Afghan guerillas that passed through the Hadda complex destroyed many of the temples.
What remained after the Soviet withdrawal was looted to near-extinction during the 1991-2001 Afghan civil war.
This fabled site, a crown jewel of the Kushan era, is now all but destroyed.The Begram Treasure. Sixty kilometers northwest of Kabul, near today's city of Charikar, at the junction of the Ghorband and the Panjshir valley, the summer capital of the Kushan empire was built, known as Kapisa [later known as Begram, not to be confused with Bagram, site of the modern air base].
Located at a key passage point along the Silk Road between Kabul and Bamiyan, Begram was destroyed by Achaemenid emperor Cyrus, restored by his successor Darius, and then fortified and rebuilt by Alexander the Great as fortress Alexandria of the Caucasus, which made it a key city in the defense of the Graeco-Bactrian Kingdom.
Surrounded by a high brick wall and reinforced with towers at the angles, Begram's main street along the Kushan summer palace was bordered with workshops and shops. Precious carved ivories from India, lacquer boxes from China, glass and bronze from Eqypt and Rome, plaster decorative reliefs and other Silk Road trade goods were displayed and sold and perhaps kept in inventory for the purpose of making duplicates on site.
Despite the capture of Kapiza (Begram) by the Sassanians circa 241 AD, two storerooms of Silk Road trade goods, sealed up to escape detection, sat in place for nearly seventeen centuries until they were discovered by French archaeologists who excavated Begram in the 1930s.
Each piece of the world famous "Begram Treasure" testifies to the rich trade that took place during the Kushan era and the likely existence of similar workshop emporiums at various points along the Silk Road and throughout the civilized world. Such discoveries renew our facination with the skilled workmanship and highly refined and culture citizenry under the Kushans.
Main Kushan rulers
Offerings found in Bodh Gaya under the "Enlightenment Throne of the Buddha", with an impression of an imitation of a coin of the Kushan emperor Huvishka, 2nd century CE.British Museum.
Kujula Kadphises (ca. 30 – ca. 80)
"...the prince [elavoor] of Guishuang, named thilac [Kujula Kadphises], attacked and exterminated the four other xihou. He established himself as king, and his dynasty was called that of the Guishuang [Kushan] King. He invaded Anxi [Indo-Parthia], and took the Gaofu [Kabul] region. He also defeated the whole of the kingdoms of Puda [Paktiya] and Jibin [Kapisha and Gandhara]. Qiujiuque [Kujula Kadphises] was more than eighty years old when he died."
—Hou Hanshu
These conquests probably took place sometime between 45 and 60, and laid the basis for the Kushan Empire which was rapidly expanded by his descendants.
Kujula issued an extensive series of coins and fathered at least two sons, Sadaṣkaṇa (who is known from only two inscriptions, especially the Rabatak inscription, and apparently never ruled), and seemingly Vima Takto.
Kujula Kadphises was the great grandfather of Kanishka.
Vima Taktu or Sadashkana (ca. 80 – ca. 95)
Vima Takto (Ancient Chinese: 閻膏珍 Yangaozhen) is mentioned in the Rabatak inscription (another son, Sadashkana, is mentioned in an inscription of Senavarman, the King of Odi). He was the predecessor of Vima Kadphises, and Kanishka I. He expanded the Kushan Empire into the northwest of the South Asia. The Hou Hanshu says:
"His son, Yangaozhen [probably Vema Tahk(tu) or, possibly, his brother Sadaṣkaṇa], became king in his place. He defeated Tianzhu [North-western India] and installed Generals to supervise and lead it. The Yuezhi then became extremely rich. All the kingdoms call [their king] the Guishuang [Kushan] king, but the Han call them by their original name, Da Yuezhi."
—Hou Hanshu[27]
Vima Kadphises (ca. 95 – ca. 127)
Vima Kadphises (Kushan language: Οοημο Καδφισης) was a Kushan emperor from around 90–100 CE, the son of Sadashkana and the grandson of Kujula Kadphises, and the father of Kanishka I, as detailed by the Rabatak inscription.
Vima Kadphises added to the Kushan territory by his conquests in Afghanistan and north-west Pakistan. He issued an extensive series of coins and inscriptions. He was the first to introduce gold coinage in India, in addition to the existing copper and silver coinage.
Kanishka I (ca. 127 – ca. 140)
Kanishka, Mathura Museum.
The rule of Kanishka, fifth Kushan king, who flourished for about 13 years from c. 127. Upon his accession, Kanishka ruled a huge territory (virtually all of northern India), south to Ujjain and Kundina and east beyond Pataliputra, according to the Rabatak inscription:
The Qila Mubarak fort at Bathinda, India was built by Kanishka.
"In the year one, it has been proclaimed unto India, unto the whole realm of the governing class, including Koonadeano (Kaundiny, Kundina) and the city of Ozeno (Ozene, Ujjain) and the city of Zageda (Saketa) and the city of Kozambo (Kausambi) and the city of Palabotro (Pataliputra) and so long unto (i.e. as far as) the city of Ziri-tambo (Sri-Champa)."
—Rabatak inscription, Lines 4–6
His territory was administered from two capitals: Purushapura (now Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan) and Mathura, in northern India. He is also credited (along with Raja Dab) for building the massive, ancient Fort at Bathinda (Qila Mubarak), in the modern city of Bathinda, Indian Punjab.
The Kushans also had a summer capital in Bagram (then known as Kapisa), where the "Begram Treasure", comprising works of art from Greece to China, has been found. According to the Rabatak inscription, Kanishka was the son of Vima Kadphises, the grandson of Sadashkana, and the great-grandson of Kujula Kadphises. Kanishka’s era is now generally accepted to have begun in 127 on the basis of Harry Falk’s ground-breaking research. Kanishka’s era was used as a calendar reference by the Kushans for about a century, until the decline of the Kushan realm.
Vāsishka (ca. 140 – ca. 160)
Vāsishka was a Kushan emperor who seems to have a 20 year reign following Kanishka. His rule is recorded as far south as Sanchi (nearVidisa), where several inscriptions in his name have been found, dated to the year 22 (The Sanchi inscription of "Vaksushana" – i. e. Vasishka Kushana) and year 28 (The Sanchi inscription of Vasaska – i. e. Vasishka) of the Kanishka era.
Huvishka (ca. 160 – ca. 190)
Huvishka (Kushan: Οοηϸκι, "Ooishki") was a Kushan emperor from about 20 years after the death of Kanishka (assumed on the best evidence available to be in 140 AD) until the succession of Vasudeva I about thirty years later. His rule was a period of retrenchment and consolidation for the Empire. In particular he devoted time and effort early in his reign to the exertion of greater control over the city of Mathura.
Vasudeva I (ca. 190 – ca. 230)
Vasudeva I (Kushan: Βαζοδηο "Bazodeo", Chinese: 波調 "Bodiao") was the last of the "Great Kushans." Named inscriptions dating from year 64 to 98 of Kanishka’s era suggest his reign extended from at least 191 to 225 CE. He was the last great Kushan emperor, and the end of his rule coincides with the invasion of the Sassanids as far as northwestern India, and the establishment of the Indo-Sassanids or Kushanshahs from around 240 CE.
Images of Kushan worshippers
Kushan worshipper with Zeus/Serapis/Ohrmazd, Bactria, 3rd century CE.
Kushan worshipper withPharro, Bactria, 3rd century CE.
Kushan worshipper with Shiva/Oesho, Bactria, 3rd century CE.
Deities on Kushan coinage Mahasena on a coin of Huvishka  Four-faced Oesho  Rishti  Manaobago  Pharro  Ardochsho  Oesho or Shiva  Oesho or Shiva with bull  Skanda and Visakha  Gold coin of Kanishka I, with a depiction of the Buddha, with the legend "Boddo" in Greek script;Ahin Posh  Kushan Carnelian seal representing the "ΑΔϷΟ" (adsho Atar), withtriratana symbol left, and Kanishka's dynastic mark right  Buddha  Kushan coins showing half-length bust of Vima Kadphises in various poses, holding mace-scepter or laurel branch in right hand; flames at shoulder, tamgha to right or left. On the other side of coin is a deity with a bull. Some consider the deity as Shiva because he is in ithyphallic state, holds a trident, and the Nandi bull is his mount, as in Hindu mythology.[40][41][45] Others suggest him as Oesho, Zoroastrian Vayu. Kushan art
Standing Female, 1st century C.E. Terracotta. This lively female figure comes from an area of Pakistan where merchants from around the Mediterranean had long maintained trading posts. The area, known in antiquity as Gandhara, developed an unusual hybrid style of art and culture that was at once Hellenic and Indic.Brooklyn Museum
The art and culture of Gandhara, at the crossroads of the Kushan hegemony, continued the traditions of Greco-Buddhist art and are the best known expressions of Kushan influences to Westerners. Several direct depictions of Kushans are known from Gandhara, where they are represented with a tunic, belt and trousers and play the role of devotees to the Buddha, as well as the Bodhisattva and future Buddha Maitreya.
During the Kushan Empire, many images of Gandhara share a strong resemblance to the features of Greek, Syrian, Persian and Indian figures. These Western-looking stylistic signatures often include heavy drapery and curly hair,[49] representing a composite (the Greeks, for example, often possessed curly hair).
In the iconography, they are never associated however with the very Hellenistic "Standing Buddha" statues, which might therefore correspond to an earlier historical period.
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