The word Kushan derives from the Chinese term Guishang, used in historical writings to describe one branch of the Yuezhi—a loose confederation of tribes that had been driven out of northwestern China in 176–160 BCE, migrated south, and reached Bactria (Tajikistan and northwest Afghanistan) around 135 BCE.
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| The first known Kushan king Heraios |
The first self-proclaimed Kushan king, Heraios (ruled: 1–30 CE), was more of a tribe leader than a monarch. His successor, Kujula Kadphises (ruled: 30-80 CE) took on the role and duties of a true king, in order to unite all the rivalling Yuezhi tribes in the 1st century CE.
After gradually taking control of Bactria from the Scythians and the Indo-Parthians, Kujula Kadphises moved the Kushan tribes 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 center.
These two capitals, along with other settlements and trading posts up north, helped the Kushans advance as master traders; they 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 for bying goods from the caravans of the Silk Road.
By establishing 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;they were also the first unified force in Afghanistan who commanded authority.
In 48 CE, Kujula Kadphises crossed the Hindu Kush and formed an alliance with Hermaeus, the Greek king in the region, in the Kabul Valley. This allowed Kujula's son,Vima Kadphises, to attack and defeat the Scythians (known as Saka) in northern India and establish an empire which his successors continued to develop, 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 CE, was administered from two capitals: Purushapura (present-day Peshawar) and the summer capital complex at Begram (Kapisa); a palace which easily rivalled the summer palaces created by the emperors in Rome or Han dynasty China.
Under Kanishka's rule, the Kushans controlled most of Central Asia and gathered huge wealth through their extensive trade activities, a flourishing of urban life and continued patronage of Buddhist sculpture and the building of monasteries.
The switch from a a nomadic life to a settled, luxurious one, meant significant changes for the Kushans.As they had no fixed traditions of their own, they adapted what they found, in a way that best suited their character. The result was a vibrant indigenous culture born of the fusion of western oriented Graeco-Bactrian ideals with those of eastern oriented India; these elements, re-interpreted by the the aggressive temperament of Central Asia, created a vivid,assertive culture.
The Gandhara region, at the core of the Kushan empire, was home to a multiethnic society, tolerant towards religious differences. Gandhara was a strategic location, which had access to the silk routes as well as to the rich ports of the Arabian Sea. For these reasons, it had undergone numerous invasions in its history. The Achaemenids, Alexander the Great,the Mauryans from India, the Seleucid Empire, Graeco-Bactrian kings and their Indo-Greek successors, as well as Scythians and Parthians took advantage of this ancient land and its assets.
The blending of various races, beliefs and skills developed in the West and the East produced an eclectic culture, which is expressed artistically during the Kushan era. Themes derived from the Greek Religion were blended with Buddhist symbols, 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 of the arts.When the Kushan Kings commissioned works of art they commissioned, they ordered that their faces and garments be placed side-by-side with the Buddha and his entourage. This assertiveness invigorated a uniquely andharan style of art, in which Greek art and motifs enriched by Indian ideals were used by thousands of craftsmen in the service of the rapidly growing Buddhist faith.
Buddhist texts are full of praise for the Kushan Kanishka, "King of Kings" (circa 100 CE), whose benevolent patronage supported Buddhism in an unprecedented manner.
Kanishka's reputation in Buddhist tradition began with the convening the 4th Buddhist Council in Kashmir, circa 100 CE, which became essential for 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 this stupa in 1908-1909 ascertained that it 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.
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 CE), became the first translator of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures into Chinese and established a translation office at the Chinese capital Loyang.
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 deities Brahma and Indra, Persian sun and moon gods on the sides of the container and a garland, supported by cherubs in a 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 at the Peshawar Museum, whereas a copy can be found at the British Museum. It is said that the items discovered included three bone fragments of the Buddha.
The inscription on the casket is signed by the maker, a Greek artist named Agesilas, who was superintendent at Kanishka's stupas (caitya); thus 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 ..."].
However, the attribution of the casket to Kanishka has been recently disputed,based on stylistic elements. Huvishka, Kanishka's successor is being considered as the real owner of the casket.
The Buddhist Shrine Complex at Hadda
Hadda is a Greco-Buddhist archeological site located in the ancient area of Gandhara, 6 miles south of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.It was one of the largest Buddhist temples and pilgrimage complexes in the world during the 1st-3rd c. CE.
Built on a key location on the 2,000-mile path which 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, 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 a unique Hellenistic style. Although the style itself is suggested by experts to date from the late Hellenistic 2nd or 1st century BCE, the sculptures from Hadda are usually dated, tentatively, to the 1st century CE or later.
Given the early date, high quality, technical refinement, and massive quantity of its 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.
The process of the incorporation of Greek heroes into Buddhism (e.g., Heracles 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, represented a Buddha flanked by a perfectly Hellenistic figure of Tyche holding her cornucopia and Heracles holding the thunderbolt associated with Vajrapani, instead of his usual club.
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,including the long-lost canon of the Sarvastivadin Sect, which dominated Gandhara and was instrumental in Buddhism's spread from India to China.
These Buddhist manuscripts were written on birch bark in the Gandhari language and date from about the 1st c. CE. were looted from Hadda during the 1990s and got smuggled to Pakistan.They were discovered in a clay pot, which an inscription in the same language. Finally, these manuscripts ended up in the British Library in London and the University of Washington in Seattle.
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.
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.
Being a vital passage along the Silk Road between Kabul and Bamiyan, Begram was destroyed by Achaemenid emperor Cyrus,and later on it was restored by his successor Darius.Alexander the Great fortified and rebuilt it, and renamed it Alexandria of the Caucasus. This fortified city was vital for the defense of the Graeco-Bactrian Kingdom.
Despite the capture of Kapiza (Begram) by the Sassanians circa 241 CE, two storerooms of Silk Road trade goods, sealed up to escape detection, remained safe 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 fascination with the skilled workmanship and highly refined and cultured citizenry under the Kushans.
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