THE WORLD ATLAS

Empire · 30–375 · Middle East & South Asia

Kushan Empire

Also known as Kushan Principalities

The Kushans descended from the Yuezhi, nomads driven from western China by the Xiongnu, who settled in Bactria (northern Afghanistan) in the 2nd century BCE. In the 1st century CE Kujula Kadphises united the five Yuezhi clans and crossed the Hindu Kush into northern India.

Under Kanishka, the most famous ruler, the empire reached from Central Asia across Gandhara to the Ganges valley. Sitting astride the Silk Road, the Kushans grew rich on trade between Rome, Parthia, India and China, and their gold coins show Greek, Persian, Indian and local gods side by side. Kanishka patronised Buddhism, and Gandhara art blended Greek and Indian styles. From the 3rd century the Sasanians conquered the western lands, and the remaining Kushan principalities faded by the late 4th century.

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Gold coin of the Kushan king Kanishka I, 2nd century CE
Gold coin of the Kushan king Kanishka I, 2nd century CE Classical Numismatic Group · CC BY 3.0
Years
30–375
Capital
Purushapura (Peshawar) and Mathura; summer capital at Kapisa (Bagram)
Greatest extent
200, about 2.00 million km²
Region
Middle East & South Asia

From Central Asia to the Ganges plain, built by Kanishka and held by his successors; c. 2.0M km² around 200 CE (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006), with some estimates up to 2.5M km² (Taagepera 1979)

Legacy

The Kushans helped carry Buddhism along the Silk Road to China, and Gandhara art produced some of the earliest images of the Buddha in human form.

Timeline of Kushan Empire

  1. Kujula Kadphises unites the Yuezhi tribes in Bactria

    In the 2nd century BCE the Yuezhi, nomads from north-western China, had settled in Bactria (northern Afghanistan), where they formed five tribes. In the 1st century CE the Kushan tribe rose above the others, and its leader Kujula Kadphises welded them into one confederation. According to the later Chinese Book of Later Han, he then attacked the Indo-Parthians, took the Kabul region and conquered Gandhara. His dates are uncertain (c. 30–80 CE by one reckoning, c. 40–90 by another), but he counts as the founder of the Kushan Empire, which now reached from Bactria to the Indus.

  2. Han general Ban Chao repels a Kushan army sent across the Pamirs

    Han China's general Ban Chao spent decades bringing the oasis kingdoms of the Tarim Basin under Chinese control, and in 84–85 CE the Kushans helped him against rebels around Kashgar and Turpan. In return the Kushan ruler asked for a Han princess as a bride. When the Han court refused, a Kushan army said to number 70,000 crossed the Pamirs to attack Ban Chao, in 90 CE according to most accounts (some say 86). Ban Chao's smaller force held out until the invaders ran short of supplies and withdrew. The Kushans then sent tribute to China, and the Tarim Basin stayed a Han sphere, limiting the empire's growth to the north-east.

  3. Vima Kadphises expands into north-west India and issues gold coins

    Vima Kadphises, grandson of the founder Kujula, ruled from about 113 to 127 CE, although other reckonings start his reign as early as c. 95. He pushed Kushan rule deeper into Afghanistan and north-western India, perhaps replacing the Indo-Scythian ruler of Mathura. He was the first Kushan king to strike gold coins, made to the weight standard of Roman coins from gold that came largely through trade with the Roman world. The coins show how rich the empire had grown as a middleman on the Silk Road, and his conquests carried Kushan territory onto the plains of northern India.

  4. Kanishka I begins his reign; the empire peaks, reaching Pataliputra

    Kanishka I, son of Vima Kadphises, came to the throne around 127 CE; older scholars put his accession in 78 CE, a date now abandoned. He ruled from two capitals, Purushapura (Peshawar) and Mathura, and his Rabatak inscription claims cities across the Ganges plain as far as Pataliputra. He replaced Greek with Bactrian as the language of government and became a great patron of Buddhism, which spread from Gandhara towards China along Kushan trade routes. Under him the empire reached its greatest extent, stretching from Central Asia north of the Oxus to the middle Ganges.

  5. Huvishka consolidates rule, tightening control of Mathura

    Kanishka's son Huvishka succeeded around 150 CE and ruled for about thirty years. Rather than launching new conquests, he spent his reign consolidating what his father had won, and early on he worked to tighten his grip on Mathura, the empire's great city in northern India. His coins were minted from Balkh in Bactria to Mathura, and his gold coins and amulets have been found as far east as Pataliputra and Bodh Gaya. His largely peaceful reign, sometimes called the golden age of Kushan rule, kept the empire close to its widest extent.

  6. Vasudeva I, the last great Kushan emperor, comes to the throne

    Vasudeva I followed Huvishka around 190 CE and is remembered as the last of the 'Great Kushans'. Dated inscriptions show him ruling from at least 191, minting coins at Balkh in Bactria while governing northern India. His name is that of the Hindu god Vasudeva-Krishna, and he was the first Kushan king named after an Indian god, which suggests his centre of power lay in Mathura. During his long reign a new dynasty, the Sasanians, seized power in Persia (224) and began pressing on his north-western lands, the first step towards losing the empire's Bactrian heartland.

  7. Vasudeva I dies; the empire splits

    Vasudeva I died around 225 CE by the usual reckoning, although Chinese records of an embassy he sent in 229 suggest he may have lived a few years longer. After him the empire split into a western half in Afghanistan and Bactria and an eastern half based in the Punjab. Neither had the strength of the old empire, and both faced the new Sasanian kings of Persia, who had just overthrown the Parthians. Later Kushan rulers such as Kanishka II held on, but the single empire stretching from the Oxus to the Ganges was gone.

  8. Sasanians take the western lands and set up the Kushano-Sasanian kingdom

    The Sasanians, who had replaced the Parthians in Iran in 224, soon turned east. Under Ardashir I (from about 230) and his son Shapur I (240–270) they took Bactria, Sogdiana and Gandhara from the western Kushans, and Shapur's inscription at Naqsh-e Rostam claims the 'domain of the Kushans' as far as Peshawar. The conquered lands were ruled by Sasanian governors who called themselves Kushanshah, 'King of the Kushans', and kept issuing Kushan-style coins. The Kushans had lost their homeland north of the Hindu Kush, and what remained of their power was confined to the Punjab.

  9. Samudragupta brings the Little Kushans under Gupta suzerainty

    By the 4th century the 'Little Kushans' ruled only a local kingdom in the Punjab, with its capital at Taxila, having lost Mathura and the Ganges lands. In the mid-4th century the Gupta emperor Samudragupta, expanding from the east, claimed them as subordinates. His Allahabad pillar inscription lists the 'Daivaputra-Shahi-Shahanushahi', which many historians read as a garbled form of the Kushan royal titles, among rulers who offered him daughters in marriage and asked to keep governing their own districts. The Kushans still held the Punjab, but now under Gupta overlordship, and the Guptas became the leading power of northern India.

  10. Kidarites overthrow the remaining Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian rulers

    In the mid-4th century new nomads, the Kidarites, a Hun people named after their king Kidara, moved south from Central Asia. Around 360–370 CE Kidara overthrew the Kushano-Sasanian governors of Bactria and the remnants of the old Kushan dynasty. The Kidarites presented themselves as heirs of the Kushans, even striking Kushan-style coins, and by about 390–410 they had also moved into north-western India. The Sasanians were pushed back towards Merv, and Kushan rule survived only in small pockets under Gupta and Kidarite overlords.

  11. Kushan rule fades out as Kidarites and Guptas hold its former lands

    Historians usually date the end of the Kushan Empire to around 375 CE, though no single event marks it. The last known Little Kushan ruler, Kipunada, issued gold coins in the Punjab around 335–350 and was probably a subject of Samudragupta. After him, coins struck in the Punjab bear the name 'Samudra', and then those of Kidarite kings such as Kidara, who took over the old Kushan territory. The lands the Kushans had once ruled from the Oxus to the Ganges were now divided between the Kidarites in the north-west and the Gupta Empire in the east.

Periods and reigns

Rulers

Realms on the map

Chapters

Sources