What has been pieced together is that a leader of one of the regional rulers of the Yuezhi took overall power in the mid-first century AD, marking the start of the Kushan Empire. This ruler, Kujula Kadphises, expanded his territory south into the Kapisa region (Bagram), Taxila, and Kashmir, and his successors moved into northern India. At the end of his reign he sent an army into the Tarim basin. This is reported in the Hou Hanshu (History of the Later Han; 25–220):
More than a hundred years later, the xihou (“Allied Prince”) of Guishuang (Badakhshān and the adjoining territories north of the Amu Darya), named Qiujiu Que (Kujula Kadphises), attacked and exterminated the four other xihou (“Allied Princes”). He set himself up as king of a kingdom called Guishuang. He invaded Anxi and took the Gaofu [Kabul] region. He also defeated the whole of the kingdoms of Puta and Jibin. Qiujiu Que (Kujula Kadphises) was more than eighty years old when he died.18
His son, Yan Gaozhen (Wima Taktu), became king in his place. He returned and defeated Tianzhu (Northwestern India) and installed a General 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 [Great Yuezhi].19
The stability brought by the Yuezhi enabled a growth of trade north from Sogdiana, south into India, and from there to Barbarikon and the Indian Ocean routes, as well as east to the Tarim basin and thence to China, and west into Parthia and thence to Rome. As Millward notes in relation to the Tarim basin, this is “a phenomenon displayed over and over . . . a nomadic royal house and its followers forging a confederation and establishing imperial control over sedentary populations.”20 The rise of the Kushan confederation could be seen as the most important factor supporting the growth of sustained long-distance trade across Eurasia, the Silk Road: one striking example of how, again quoting Christian, “Inner Eurasia has played a pivotal role in Eurasian and world history.”21
The paucity of written and archaeological sources continues to impede our understanding of this Central Asian empire.22 The sources give little information, for example, about their religion. What there is points toward the Kushan kings practicing an eastern form of Zoroastrianism but patronizing other religions: in Raymond Lam’s words, demonstrating a “profound cultural-religious eclecticism.”23 Buddhism was included in their patronage. Buddhist missionary activities had originally been given impetus in India by the Mauryan king Aśoka (r. ca. 268–232 BC). He made Buddhism his state religion and vowed to disseminate the faith throughout the world. According to tradition he sent his son and daughter to Sri Lanka and prominent monks to Central Asia, West Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Inscriptions above cave temples in Sri Lanka support the arrival of Buddhism at this time.24 From the earliest period, therefore, Buddhism was a proselytizing faith with a penchant for long-distance travel.25 The Maurya Empire (322–180 BC) included the city of Taxila, lying at the junction of trade routes leading between India and the Tarim, and this was to become one of the Kushan capitals. The region became a major center of Buddhism by the end of the Mauryan period, with famous stupas at Dharmarajika in Taxila and Butkara near Mingora in the Swat valley (see chapter 4). By the start of the second century BC the Maurya Empire had shrunk, and Menander, the Greek king of Kapisa/Gandhāra, had expanded his kingdom to the Kabul and Swat valleys.26 The Pali text Milinda Pañha (The questions of Milinda) records that he became a Buddhist and recounts his debates with the Indian Buddhist sage Nāgasena.
By the start of the Kushan Empire under Kujula Kadphises in the first century AD there were Buddhist monasteries and stupas around the ancient city (near Jalalabad).27 Buddhism spread northwest into the Kabul region during Wima Kadphises’s reign and then moved further north into Bactria. The Kushan kings used imagery borrowed from Greek and Indian religions to represent their gods. For example, when Kujula Kadphises minted coins he chose the imagery of the Greek god Heracles to represent the Kushan god Wesho. Wesho was also shown in the imagery of the India god Śiva. Buddha appears on coins from the time of Kaniška, the only direct representation of an Indian “deity.” As well as providing information about their beliefs, it is largely thanks to the Kushan coinage that it has been possible to construct a chronology of the kings of Kushan.28
KUSHAN COINS
Money has been needed from the earliest human cultures, with many objects taking the role of an object of value used for exchange—from livestock to obsidian, grain, and silk. Early societies also used objects with little value—such as cowrie shells and beads—to exchange for higher-value goods. But coins, manufactured solely for the purpose of exchange, appear in cities around the Aegean Sea, in India and in China between 700 and 500 BC, seemingly representing separate developments. By the time of the rise of the Kushan Empire, coins were in use by neighbors in regions they conquered and there were also coins in circulation from more distant cultures, such as Rome.
Coins had a use beyond simple objects of value for exchange. They also acted as symbols of power and authority, and some argue they were a means of asserting legitimacy and hegemony.29 For the Yuezhi, who were invaders into the region, Daniel Michon argues that the minting of coins that were familiar to those they were seeking to rule presented an idea of continuity of power rather than change. He sees the Yuezhi making a conscious choice among the variety of coins that were in circulation, replicating ones that showed a horse rider on the obverse, for example, as they were themselves horsemen.30 However, Joe Cribb sees the primary purpose of continuity in coin design as enabling coins to circulate and argues that existing designs were reused for this purpose: “The horseman design was the standard design for coinage before the Kushan arrived, so they were just copying it, not necessarily with any intention of alluding to their own horsemanship.”31
We know the name of Kujula Kadphises only from the coins and one Bactrian inscription (he is assumed to be the Qiujiu Que mentioned in Chinese histories), yet as uniter of the Yuezhi clans under the Kushan he was of immense importance in Central Asian and indeed world history. During his reign both copper and silver coins were produced. They were diverse, both based on and reflecting the variety of existing coinage.32
His successor, Wima Taktu, reduced the variety of coins. But he still produced coins only in silver and copper. It was with the third ruler, Wima Kadphises (r. early second century AD), that the first gold coins were minted.33 These were not an innovation: gold staters had been produced by the Hellenistic kings of Bactria and of Kapisa/Gandhāra and by Rome, the last imported into India. On current understanding, it appears that techniques of the first two of these were used by the Kushan, alongside newly developed techniques, but not Roman ones. However, in appearance they probably borrowed from existing Roman coins. Harry Falk makes the case that Wima Kadphises made a deliberate choice to follow the standard of Roman coins under Augustus (r. 27 BC–AD 14), although they are not struck to this standard.34 In terms of the weight, Robert Bracey argues that they followed a Bactrian standard derived from the Greek stater.35
Under Wima Kadphises gold staters appear in a variety of forms showing production by the same mint but in five different chronological phases.36 The double staters, as found in the Axum hoard, date from phase 4, presumably well into his reign and the most productive of the phases.37 They weigh about sixteen grams—double that of the standard, hence the name. Bracey notes that it is unusual to find coins of Wima Kadphises among coin hoards of later kings and suggests that this might be a result of a low level of production or a short circulation of such coins. In this respect, the Axum hoard is unusual if not exceptional. They were probably minted in Balkh.38 New reverse and obverse dies were made for each phase, and Bracey suggests that each phase saw a period of days or weeks of intensive production with multiple workmen but that there might have been long periods when no coins were minted.39 The Kharoṣṭhī inscription and images were prepared freehand onto the dies by different craftsmen, probably using a prototype or drawing. The Greek legend