THE EARLY KUSHAN KINGS: NEW EVIDENCE FOR CHRONOLOGY
Evidence from the Rabatak Inscription of Kanishka I
Joe Cribb
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Historical Connections
[33] The context for early Kushan history created by the Rabatak inscription and correlated with inscriptional and numismatic evidence can now be reviewed in relation to other chronological evidence relevant to dating the Kushans.
Chinese Connections
[34] The identification of Kujula Kadphises as first significant ruler of the Kushan dynasty gives support to the suggestion that he is the same person as the Kushan chieftain Qiu-jiu-que named in the Chinese Later Han Chronicle (Hou Han Shu). According to the Chinese source, Qiu-jiu-que, leader of the Kushan clan, conquered and unified the Great Yuezhi tribes and invaded the territory of the Indo-Parthians, the Kabul Valley, Gandhara and Kashmir before dying at the age of eighty. The Rabatak inscription suggests that Kujula's son Vima I Tak[to] ought to be identified as the king called Yan-gao-zhen who, according to the Chinese source, succeeded his father Qiu-jiu-que as Kushan king and went on to add India to the Kushan realm (Zurcher 1968).
[35] The identification of the first two Kushan rulers in the Chinese sources with Kujula Kadphises and Vima I Tak[to] agrees with the distribution of their coins. Kujula Kadphises' coins are found across the territories conquered by Qiu-jiu-que as the first Kushan coins issued in the area. They are followed by coins in the name of Vima I Tak[to] in Kashmir (bull and camel coins) and by his Soter Megas type coins elsewhere. The role of Vima I Tak[tol as Yan-gao-zhen the Kushan king who added India to the Kushan realm is supported by his apparent role at Mathura, deep within Indian territory. The inscription of the Mat portrait sculpture names him as the ruler under whom the shrine was first established and the earliest Kushan coins found in the vicinity are a local series of his Soter Megas coins.
[36] The Chinese account of the beginnings of the Kushan realm also provides some evidence for the absolute chronology of the Kushans. The story of Qiu-jiu-que and his son was included in the Later Han Chronicle on the basis of the report of the activities in Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang) AD 73-107 of the Chinese general Ban Chao, as recorded by his son Ban Yong before he also became a general in Central Asia in AD 126 (Zurcher 1968). According to this record, Ban Chao's last direct contacts with the Kushans were in AD 86, when they sent tribute, and in AD 90, when he defeated their army of invasion. If, however, the information was gained indirectly, then it could have been gathered as late as AD 107 when Ban Chao went back to China. From AD 107-126 there was no Chinese military or political presence in Central Asia (Cribb 1984-5). On the basis of the suggested linkage between the first two Kushan kings in the Rabatak inscription and the first two Kushans in the Chinese source, it can be proposed that Vima I Tak[tol had been occupying the Kushan throne long enough before AD 107 and perhaps even before AD 90 to "conquer India". This is clearly an important consideration for any understanding of Kushan chronology and its implications for Kushan history.
Khotanese Connections
[37] The above references to Ban Chao's campaigns suggest there was a close link between Chinese Turkestan and the early Kushans. This is given a concrete dimension by the discovery of coins of the first four Kushan kings at the ancient site of Khotan, Ban Chao's military base AD 73-107. Hermaeus imitations attributed to Kujula Kadphises were used as blanks for overstriking by a Khotanese king. Kujula Kadphises' bull and camel coin design was copied by another Khotanese king on his coins. A bull and camel coin of Vima I Tak[tol and a few regular copper coins of Vima II Kadphises have been found at Khotan. More than twenty small copper coins of Kanishka I have been found in the vicinity of the site, some together with coins of the Khotanese kings. One Khotanese king copies the denomination system of these small Kanishka I coins. The Khotanese kings associated through their coins with Kujula Kadphises should be dated before Ban Chao's occupation of Khotan AD 73-107, and the coins associated with Kanishka I after it (Cribb 1984-5).
Indo-Parthian Connections
[38] The relationship between Kujula Kadphises and the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares is of vital importance in identifying the absolute chronological context of Kujula Kadphises (Cribb 1993). A Gondophares copper coin copied an Iranian coin design dated AD 26. This places Gondophares' reign in the context suggested by three other pieces of evidence:
[39] These general indications correspond closely with the evidence of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, datable to the period AD 40-70. The Periplus mentions that the lower Indus region is ruled by Parthian princes. The Parthian coins of this region are datable to the same context by being overstruck on and by coins of Nahapana, identified in the Periplus as king of Barygaza (Broach). The last coins issued by the lower Indus Parthians are in the name of Sasan, the second successor of Gondophares as Parthian king in Gandhara and Taxila. The lower Indus Parthian coins are followed by copies in the name of KujuIa Kadphises (Cribb 1992, 1995).
[40] The Takht-I-Bahi inscription therefore appears to date Gondophares' reign to c. AD 20-45, and places Kujula Kadphises' rule in Gandhara, Taxila and the surrounding region, into the slot created by the king "Kushan" inscriptions, i.e. c. AD 64-78, coinciding with the period of Gondophares' successors Abdagases and Sasan.
[41] It has been suggested that the Takht-I-Bahi inscription does not refer to Gondophares, but to one of his successors who used the name Gondophares as a dynastic fore-name. This suggestion does not accord with the attribution of the date year 103 in the Takht-I-Bahi inscription to the Azes Era. The era of the inscription's 103 date is not named, but the only relevant era to which it can be related is the Azes Era, because it was previously used by the Indo-Scythian princelings who Gondophares conquered in Gandhara and was then adopted by the Kushans as soon as they took the same region. The arrival of the first Kushans as successors of the Indo-Parthians is signaled by two dated inscriptions: the Taxila silver scroll inscription (Konow 1929: 70-77), the earliest datable Kushan document from the city, dated 136th year of the Azes Era (specifically named in the inscription), and the Panjtar inscription (Konow 1929: 67-70), the earliest datable Kushan document from Gandhara, dated 122nd year of an unnamed era. Coin finds in Gandhara and the Punjab show that the Kushans penetrated these regions in the reign of Kujula Kadphises, who, as numismatic evidence shows, had already succeeded the second Indo-Parthian king, Abdagases, in the Kabul region. Kujula's coin designs show that he copied the Taxilan issues of Abdagases or of his successor Sasan. On the basis of this evidence from the inscriptions and coins, it seems most sensible to conclude that the 103rd year of the Azes Era occurred in the reign of Gondophares, the first Indo-Parthian king, who was ruling Gandhara 19 years before the Kushans had defeated the second or third Indo-Parthian kings, Abdagases or Sasan. The only Indo-Parthian king in the region around Takht-i-Bahi (apart from the first Indo-Parthian king Gondophares) known to use the name Gondophares as a dynastic forename was Sasan. It seems implausible that the year 103 inscription could refer to him 19 years before the earliest evidence of the arrival in the region of Gandhara of Kujula Kadphises, if this Sasan was also the immediate predecessor of Kujula's son, as the numismatic evidence shows (Sims-Williams and Cribb 1996). The Gondophares of the Takht-i-Bahi inscription began his reign in Azes Era year 78 and Sasan was still ruling in parts of the Indo-Parthian kingdom until Azes Era year 136. To suggest that the Gondophares in the Takht-i-Bahi inscription should be identified as Sasan, is therefore also to suggest that his reign should be at least 60 years in length, if he was still reigning until Kujula's successor came to power.
Sasanian Connections
[42] The chronological context of the kings named in the Rabatak inscription separates them from the Sasanian rulers of Iran (from AD 224), but later Kushan rulers with a determinable chronological relationship with the last of the Kushan kings in the Rabatak inscription can be associated with the Sasanian princes who ruled in former Kushan territory as Kushanshahs. Overstrikes and hoards place the Kushan kings Vasishka and Kanishka III, ruling about 120-141 years after the first year of Kanishka I (according to the Ara inscription), as a contemporary of the Sasanian conquest of the western parts of Kushan territory. On the basis of this and related evidence, the reign of Kanishka III falls in the period c. AD 230-270. This provides a useful bracket for the first year of Kanishka I c. AD 100-120 (Cribb 1990).
[43] The inscriptions found in the Tochi Valley (Dani, Humbach, Gobl 1964; GobI 1993: 58-60) reveals the use in Afghanistan of an era which appears to begin in AD 233. Humbach (1971) has suggested that this might be an era of the Sasanians in Bactria. There is certainly a close match between the beginning of this era and the date when the Sasanian princes known as Kushanshahs first appear in former Kushan territory (Cribb 1990). The extensive use of this era during the Sasanian, Hunnish and Turkish occupations of Bactria has now been demonstrated by the work of Nicholas Sims-Williams presented in this volume. Humbach's explanation still appears to be the most appropriate.
Gupta Connections
[44] The relationship between the Kushans and the Gupta kings of northern India can be ascertained from both inscriptional and numismatic evidence. The earliest Gupta coins are gold issues in the name of the Gupta king Samudragupta. His coins are of two types, a main Gupta-style series copying features from the gold coins of the Kushan kings from Kanishka II to Vasudeva II and a Kushan-style issue of base-gold coins copying the design of the late Kushan issues of Shaka and Kipunadha. Both these coinages show Samudragupta to be a contemporary of the late Kushans. This is confirmed by a statement in his Allahabad pillar inscription that a Kushan king Shaka ruled under his authority. Samudragupta's reign can be dated approximately between the reign of his father Chandragupta I beginning c. AD 319, year 1 of the Gupta era, and of his son Chandragupta II, whose recorded dates in the Gupta era show him still ruling from AD 401- c. AD 415.
[45] These connections place the late Kushans after Vasudeva II, in the opening years of the fourth century, the same position for them as suggested by the other connections presented above.
Chronological Summary
[46] The evidence of the Rabatak inscription and the above external connections of the early Kushans produces a chronology for the Kushan kings with a new lower level of uncertainty. The nature of the evidence mean that it remains approximate, but the limits of possibility are considerably reduced in comparison with the range of possibilities available in the literature.
[47] By identifying Vima Tak[tol and fixing his position in the Kushan Dynasty, the Rabatak inscription has cast a fresh light on the problem of Kushan chronology by confirming the chronological importance of the Chinese sources. Further refinement of this chronology has been achieved in the review of the use of eras, see Appendix B.
Appendix A: Sequence and Context of the Coinage of Vima I Tak[to]
[48] The context of the coins of Vima I Tak[to], both his named and his anonymous Soter Megas issues are important evidence of the process of expansion of the Kushan kingdom (Sims-Williams and Cribb 1996; MacDowall 1968, 1974; Mitchiner 1975-6, 1978).
[49] The extent of Vima I Tak[to]'s coins shows him to be the ruler of a Kushan realm stretching from north of the Oxus to Mathura in India. The coins which precede his reign give some indication of how that area came under Kushan rule. In Bactria the use of coinage after the Greek period was rare and it only seems to re-emerge in the area in a significant way with the rise to power of the Kushan king Kujula Kadphises, uniting the Yuezhi tribes who ruled north of the Hindu Kush and in the Kabul valley.
[50] Finds of imitation Hermaeus coins in the Kabul valley are probably also Yuezhi issues before and during the rise to power of Kujula Kadphises. The rise to power of Kujula Kadphises as hegemon (yabgu) of the Yuezhi seems to have been in response to the invasion of Yuezhi territory in the Kabul valley by the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares. The Chinese sources suggest this control of the Kabul region by the Yuezhi, then its loss to the Indo-Parthians. The same sources speak of Kujula Kadphises conquering the Indo-Parthians and capturing Gandhara and Kashmir. The coins issued in the Kabul region show that the Indo-Parthian conqueror of the region, Gondophares, was succeeded by his nephew Abdagases before Kujula Kadphises drove the Indo-Parthians out.
[51] Extensive finds of his coins at Taxila (Marshall 1951) show that Kujula Kadphises also succeeded in taking Gandhara and the western Punjab from the Indo-Parthians. At Taxila, as well as those of Gondophares and Abdagases, the coins of another Indo-Parthian king Sasan are also found. It seems likely that Kujula Kadphises took the city during his reign. After Kujula's conquest of Taxila his son Vima I Tak[to] must have followed him soon after, as his coins copy and overstrike those of Sasan, the city's last Indo-Parthian king. Some confusion about the date of Kujula's conquest of Taxila has arisen from the continued presence of Azes II coins in the city during the Indo-Parthian period. These coins continued in use down to the Kushan period, because several mints continued to issue them long after the conquest of Azes II's kingdom by Gondophares. These mints were operating by local subkings and satraps, who came to power under Azes II, but continued to thrive under Indo-Parthian rule. Example of Indo-Parthian period issues are the Azes II type coins issued by the local king Indravarma (Mitchiner 1975-6: no. 867) and by the son of satrap Kharahostes (Mitchiner 1975-6: no. 873).
[52] Further south down the Indus coin evidence also shows Kujula Kadphises as Sasan's successor (Cribb 1992).
[53] In Kashmir Kujula Kadphises took over from Zeionises/Jihonika an Indo-Scythian satrap whose copper coinage copied that of Azes II, the Indo-Scythian king who was conquered by the first Indo-Parthian Gondophares. Zeionises copper coins are also recorded overstruck on coins of Gondophares confirming them as contemporaries (Mitchiner 1975-6: 735). Kujula Kadphises' bull and camel coinage, issued in imitation of Zeionises' copper coins, survives in many varieties and was perhaps produced over a longer period than his issues in the Taxila region. This suggests that he might have taken Kashmir through the upper Indus passes to outflank the Indo-Parthians before taking Taxila and the cities of Gandhara. The use of the upper Indus as a route for military action is also suggested by the presence in Khotan in Chinese Turkestan of Kashmir coins of Vima I Tak[to] and Kanishka I (Cribb 1984-5).
[54] To the south of Kashmir, the Indo-Parthian kingdom extended thus taking the Jammu region from the Indo-Scythian satrap Rajavula. Gondophares issued coins imitating Rajavula's coins with Indo-Greek designs, which in turn had been copied from the last Indo-Greek issues of the Jammu region. Gondophares' issue was followed by issues of several Indo-Parthian rulers, the last of which was in the name of Sasan (Cribb 1985). The Soter Megas issue of Mathura suggests that after Sasan's reign the Jammu region became part of Kushan territory. In Mathura itself the local Soter Megas issue was the first Kushan issue and therefore is evidence that Vima I Tak[to] took the city and its region from Sodasa, the son and successor of Rajavula.
[55] To the south-west of Gandhara and the Taxila region an enclave of Indo-Parthian rule, probably based in Qandahar, survived the Kushan conquest of Sasan's territory. Pakores, a successor of Sasan in that enclave was a contemporary of Vima I Tak[to] and overstruck his general issue Soter Megas coins.
[56] The coin evidence of Vima I Tak[to] and his contemporaries therefore creates a clear picture of the progress of the Kushan penetration of former Indo-Parthian territory. As such, it matches the Chinese description of his father as the uniter of the Yuezhi and conqueror of the Kabul region, the Indo-Parthian kingdom and Kashmir, and himself as the conqueror of India.
[57] The chronological context of this coin evidence can be structured around the dated inscriptions of the Azes Era relating to Gondophares and the Kushan conqueror of the Indo-Parthian kingdom. The Takht-i-Bahi inscription (Konow 1929: 57-63) places Gondophares reign from Azes Era 78-103. The Panjtar inscription (Konow 1929: 67-70) dates Kushan rule in Gandhara to Azes Era 122 and the Taxila inscription (Konow 1929: 70-77) suggests that the city was under Kushan rule by Azes Era 136. I have argued elsewhere that these two Kushan inscriptions are from the reign of Kujula Kadphises (Cribb 1993) and it would follow that Vima I Tak[to]'s reign in that city followed after Azes Era 136. Unfortunately Vima I Tak[to] and his son Vima II Kadphises adopt a different era in their inscriptions, so that chronological correlation of their reigns with the Azes Era is difficult (see Appendix B). If the Azes Era is in fact the Vikrama Era, as many suggest, then the beginning of Vima I Tak[to]'s reign must fall in or after AD 78.
Appendix B: Problems with Eras and Some Solutions
[58] The evidence of the Rabatak inscription calls for a reassessment of the role of inscriptional dates in our understanding of the chronology of the Kushans and their contemporaries. I have created the following table as a suggested synchronism for the rulers named in the Rabatak inscription and their successors, in order to clarify the framework of a chronology for the Kushans and their neighbours which best fits the dated inscriptions so far known. The table is primarily derived from numismatic evidence, but also draws on the analysis of inscriptions including dates outlined in the following review of the eras commonly associated with the problems of the chronology of the Kushans and their neighbours. I have not attempted to refute every suggestion made about the use of eras in the region, but only those which are well argued on the basis of evidence, but now need reappraisal in the light of the new evidence of the Rabatak inscription and the identification of Vima I Tak[to] as the issuer of the Soter Megas coinage.
[59] The table is intended to place this evidence for Kushan chronology in association with their known connections with their contemporaries in Iran, India and Chinese Central Asia. Some of these pieces of evidence, particularly documentary sources, overstrikes and inscriptions sharing dates in the same era create fixed connections, while others when viewed in isolation can only be seen as conjectural. When assembled, however, these connections seem to me to make the chronological implications of the Rabatak inscription outlined above inescapable. The widely accepted alternatives for the date of the first year of the Kanishka Era, e.g. AD 78, AD 128, AD 132, AD 144, AD 232 and AD 278 cannot be accommodated in the same way to all these external connections of the Kushans without contradicting to many of the fixed connections.
A firmer date for the first year of the Kanishka Era
[60] The Common Era dates are not intended to be absolute, but to indicate the framework within which the Kushans and their contemporaries can be placed in the light of the available evidence. The discussion of the Unknown Era, concluding the appendix, seems to suggest a slightly smaller bracket c. AD 107-120 for the date of the first year of the Kanishka Era than that given in the paper as delivered in Vienna (Conference Weihrauch und Seide: Munzen, Kunst und Chronologie, April 1996).
Suggestion for Chronology of Kushans and their neighbors: Table 3, page 1
Suggestion for Chronology of Kushans and their neighbors: Table 3, page 2
Suggestion for Chronology of Kushans and their neighbors: Table 3, page 3
g o t o p a g e 3