Kushanas and Kanishka

At a Glance

• Origin Yuechi tribe
• Empire Oxus to Ganga basin
• Capitals Purushapura, Mathura
• Era Shaka era, AD 78
• Revenue Silk Route tolls
• Exam link UPSC Prelims, Ancient History: Post-Mauryan Period and Early South India

Where Does It Fit?

This is the third topic of the category on the post-Mauryan period. The previous topic covered the Shakas and Parthians, and this one covers the Kushanas. The next topic covers the cultural consequences of the contact. Previous topic: Shakas and Parthians.

Who Were the Kushanas?

In short: the Kushanas, nomads from the steppes near China, created an empire stretching across Central Asia and northern India.

The Parthians were followed by the Kushanas, also called Yuechi or Tocharians, who were one of the five clans of the Yuechi tribe. A nomadic people from the steppes of north Central Asia near China, they first occupied Bactria and displaced the Shakas, moved to the Kabul valley, crossed the Hindu Kush to seize Gandhara, and replaced the rule of the Greeks and Parthians. They eventually controlled the lower Indus basin and the greater part of the Gangetic basin. Their empire extended from the Oxus to the Ganges, and from Khorasan to Pataliputra, and included a substantial part of Central Asia, a portion of Iran and Afghanistan, nearly all of Pakistan and almost the whole of northern India. Because of this, the Kushan empire is sometimes called a Central Asian empire, and it created a unique opportunity for interaction of peoples and cultures across nine modern countries. The movement of the Yuechi is linked to the Great Wall of China pushing nomads west, as in Shakas and Parthians.

What Did Kanishka Achieve?

Kanishka was the most famous Kushan king. His rule is thought to have begun about AD 78, though historians are divided; another account says anywhere between AD 78 and 144, and gives 78 to about 101 or 102. He started an era in AD 78 known as the Shaka era, now used by the Government of India. He gave wholehearted patronage to Buddhism and held a Buddhist council in Kashmir where the Mahayana doctrines were finalised, and supported missions to China. Kushan inscriptions are found in north-western India, Sindh, Mathura, Shravasti, Kaushambi and Varanasi, which shows control of the Ganga-Yamuna doab and much of the middle Gangetic basin. Purushapura (Peshawar) was the first capital, where Kanishka built a monastery and a huge relic tower that astonished foreign travellers, and Mathura was the second capital. Although he seems to have suffered defeat at the hands of the Chinese outside India, the Hunza rock inscription on the Karakoram highway calls him Kushanadevaputra, son of god, and confirms an empire from Central Asia to eastern India. Buddhist sources say he conquered Magadha, Kashmir and Khotan. He patronised the philosophers Ashvaghosha, Parsva and Vasumitra and the teacher Nagarjuna.

How Did the Kushan Economy and Polity Work?

The Kushans controlled the Silk Route, which began in China and passed through their empire in Central Asia and Afghanistan to Iran and the Roman territories in the eastern Mediterranean. The tolls levied on traders were a substantial source of income, and the Kushans were the first rulers in India to issue gold coins on a wide scale. The early Kushan gold coins had a higher degree of purity than the Gupta gold coins. The earliest traces of large-scale irrigation in Pakistan, Afghanistan and western Central Asia date to the Kushan period. Indian merchants became intermediaries in the luxury trade between China and the Roman empire. The Kushans imposed their rule on numerous petty native princes, which developed a feudatory organisation, and adopted the title king of kings. They strengthened the idea of the divine origin of kingship by calling themselves sons of god, a title borrowed from the Chinese, and strengthened the satrap system. Odd practices such as hereditary dual rule, with father and son ruling jointly, began, so there was less centralisation than under the Mauryas.

Kanishka’s successors continued to rule in north-western India until about AD 230, and some had Indian names such as Vasudeva. The Kushan empire in Afghanistan and west of the Indus was supplanted in the mid-third century by the Sassanians of Iran, though Kushan principalities continued in India for about a century. As an analytical point, the empire’s strength lay in trade routes and cultural brokerage, and its weakness in loose control through satraps. The religious and artistic impact is in Mahayana Buddhism and the Gandhara and Mathura Schools of Art, and the wider consequences in Cultural Consequences of Central Asian Contact.

Why Is This Topic Important?

• High-yield topic Dates, capitals, era
• Trade Silk Route
• Religion and art Mahayana, Gandhara

What Came Next?

The next topic describes the cultural consequences of Central Asian contact. Next topic: Cultural Consequences of Central Asian Contact.

Key People and Terms

• Yuechi Central Asian tribe
• Kushanas Clan that formed the empire
• Purushapura Peshawar
• Shaka era Era of AD 78
• Silk Route China-Roman trade route
• Devaputra Son of god

Exam Corner

Mains Angle

Questions ask for Kushan achievements. These points add depth.

• Empire Central Asian
• Economy Silk Route, gold
• Culture Mahayana, art