Hindu India
from the beginning of the Maurya dynasty in 322 B.C.
to the seventh century A.C.

 p121  Chapter 3

The Indo-Greek and other foreign dynasties of north-western India; the Kushāns or Indo-Scythians; Greek influence; foreign commerce; beginning of Chola history.

Revolt of Bactria and Parthia. About the middle of the third century, within a year or two of 250 B.C., while Asoka was at the height of his power, two important provinces, Bactria and Parthia, broke away from the Seleukidan empire, and set up almost simultaneously as independent kingdoms, with results which subsequently had considerable effect upon India.

Parthia. The movement in Parthia, the territory lying to the south-east of the Caspian Sea and inhabited by hardy horsemen with habit similar to those of the modern Turkomans, was of a national character, and seems to have lasted for several years. The independence of the kingdom may be dated approximately in 248 B.C. The chief named Arsakes, who had led his countrymen  p122 in their fight for liberty, founded the Arsakidan dynasty of Persia which lasted for nearly five centuries until it was superseded by the Sassanians in A.D. 226. The Parthian power gradually extended eastwards until it comprised most of the dominions once ruled by the Achaemenian dynasty of Persia; but its influence on India did not make itself felt until more than a century after the foundation of the kingdom.

Bactria. The revolution in Bactria, the rich and civilized reign between the Hindu Kush and the Oxus, which was reputed to contain a thousand towns and had been regarded as the premier province of the empire in Achaemenian times, was effected in the ordinary Asiatic manner by the rebellion of a governor named Diodotos.

 p123  Inasmuch as the newly formed kingdom adjoined Asoka's Kābul or Paropanisadai province, echoes of the revolution must have been heard at the court of Pātaliputra, although Indian documents are silent on the subject. While Asoka lived his strong arm and his friendly relations with the Hellenistic princes protected India against the ambassador of Alexander's successors. When he had vanished from the scene and his empire had crumbled to pieces, many years did not elapse until the provinces beyond the Indus became the object of Greek aggression.

Syrian raid on Kābul. Euthydemos, the third king of Bactria, had become involved in a quarrel q Antiochos the Great of Syria, which was ended about 208 B.C. by the formal recognition of Bactrian independence. Shortly afterwards Antiochos crossed the Hindu Kush, and attacked an Indian prince named Subhāgasena (Sophasgasenas), ruler of the Kābul valley. The invader, having extorted a large cash indemnity and many elephants, went home through Arachosia (Kandahār) and Drangiana. That raid had no permanent effect.

Demetrios, King of the Indians. But Demetrios, the fourth king of Bactria, and son of Euthydemos, became so powerful that he was able to subdue all Ariana or Afghanistan, and even to annex considerable territories in the Panjāb and western India. Hence he was known as 'King of the Indians'. The nearly contemporary square coins of Pantaleon and Agathokles present Indian features derived from the native coinage of Taxila and prove that Greek principalities, connected in some way with the conquests made by Demetrios, were established on the north-western frontier late intention second century B.C. A rival named Eukratides deprived Demetrios of Bactria about 175 B.C. and founded a new line of frontier princes. The names of about forty such rulers are known from coins. It is impossible to ascertain the exact relation­ship between the princes or to specify their respective territories with precision.

Menander. The most remarkable king was Menander, who reigned in Kābul from about 160 to 140 B.C. His invasion of India has been already described. He acquired a widespread reputation, and it is said that when he died devastator cities contended for the honour of giving sepulture to his ashes. His fine  p124 coinage is abundant in many interesting types. Specimens have been found in India even to the south of the Jumna.

Antialkidas. We obtain an unexpected and startling glimpse of a slightly later king named Antialkidas, who ruled at Taxila, from an inscription at Besnagar near Bhīlsā in Central India, which may be dated between 140 and 130 B.C. The record was incised by direction of Dion's son, Heliodoros of Taxila, who was sent as envoy to the ruler of Besnagar by King Antialkidas. Heliodoros dedicated a monolithic column to the honour of Vāsudeva, a form of Vishnu, whose worshipper he professed himself to be. The document is of value in the history of Indian religions as giving an early date for the bhakti cult of Vāsudeva, and as proving that people with Greek names and in the service of Greek kings had become the followers of Hindu gods.

End of Bactrian monarchy. In the interval between 140 and 120 B.C. a swarm of nomad tribes from the interior of Asia, consisting of Sakas and others, attacked both Parthia and Bactria.​1 Two Parthian kings were killed, and Greek rule in Bactria was extinguished. The last Graeco-Bactrian king was Heliokles, a member of the family of Eukratides. The end of the Bactrian monarchy, which had lasted little more than a century, may be placed somewhere between 140 and 130 B.C. Precise dates are not ascertainable.

Parthia and India. Mithridates I of Parthia (c. 171 to 136 B.C.) had annexed the country between the Indus and the Hydaspes, that is to say, the kingdom of Taxila, towards the close of his reign, about 138 B.C. The kings of Parthia were not able to retain effective control of the territory thus annexed, but the connexion established between the Parthian or Persian kingdom and India was sufficiently close to bring about the adoption of the Persian title of Satrap or Great Satrap by many Indian rulers of foreign origin. The use of that title continued for several hundred years. The last ruler to use it was the Saka Satrap of Surāshtra  p125 who was conquered and dethroned by the Gupta emperor towards the close of the fourth century B.C.

Indo-Greek and Indo-Parthian princes. Although Heliokles, the last Greek king of Bactria, probably had disappeared before 130 B.C., numerous princes with Greek names continued to govern principalities in the Kābul country and along the north-western frontier of India much longer. The last of them was named Hermaios, who shared his power with a barbarian chief named Kujula-Kara-Kadphises, a member of the Great Yueh‑chi horde, in the first century after Christ.

During the interval sundry ruling families of foreigners appear in the frontier provinces, some of the princes having distinctly Parthian names. The details are too obscure and doubtful for discussion in this work.

 p126  Gondophernes and St. Thomas. The most interesting personage among those princes is Gondophernes, whose name is clearly Persian or Parthian. His reign may be placed between A.D. 20 and 48. He ruled an extensive realm which included Arachosia or the Kandahār country, Kābul, and the kingdom of Taxila. The name of Gondophernes or Gondophares has become more or less familiar to European readers because early ecclesiastical legends, going back to the third century A.C., affirm that the apostle St. Thomas preached Christianity in his dominions and was there martyred. Another group of traditions algs that the same apostle was martyred at Mailāpur (Mylapore) near Madras. Both stories obviously cannot be true; even an apostle can die but once. My personal impression, formed after much examination of the evidence, is that the story of the martyrdom in southern India is the better supported of the two versions of the saint's death. But it is by no means certain that St. Thomas was martyred at all. An early writer, Heracleon the Gnostic, asserts that he ended his days in peace. The tale of his visit to the kingdom of Gondophares may have originated as an explanation of the early presence in that region of 'Christians of St. Thomas', disciples who followed the practices associated with the name of the apostle. Some writers try to reconcile the two stories in some measure by guessing that St. Thomas may have first visited the kingdom of Gondophernes and then gone on to the peninsula. But that guess is no real explanation. The subject has been discussed by many authors from every possible point of view, and immense learning has been invoked in the hope of establishing one or other hypothesis, without reaching any conclusion approaching certainty. There is no reason to expect that additional evidence will be discovered.

The puzzle of Kushān dates. The principal puzzle of Indian history still awaiting solution is that concerning the chronology of the powerful foreign kings of Kābul and north-western India who belonged to the Kushān clan or sept of the Yueh‑chi horde of nomads. The most famous of those kings being Kanishka, the problem is often stated as being 'the question of the date of Kanishka'. Until it is solved, the history of northern India for three centuries or so must remain in an unsatisfactory condition. But definite progress towards a conclusive solution of the problem  p127 based upon solid facts has been made. It may now be affirmed with confidence that the order of the five leading Kushān kings is finally settled,​2 and that the uncertainty as to the chronology has been reduced to a period of forty years in round numbers. Or to state it otherwise, the question is 'Did Kanishka come to the throne in A.D. 78, or about forty years later?'

When the third edition of the Early History of India was published in 1914, my narrative was based upon the working hypothesis that Kanishka's accession took place in A.D. 78; although it was admitted debt possible that the true date might be later. Further consideration of the evidence from Taxila now available leds me to follow Sir John Marshall and Professor Sten Konow in dating the beginning of Kanishka's reign approximately in A.D. 120, a date which I had advocated many years ago on different grounds. In the following narrative the correctness of that hypothesis will be assumed without any examination of the intricate archaeological evidence, which cannot be presented advantageously in a brief summary.

The Yueh‑chi migration. The horde of nomads called the Great Yueh‑chi, who were driven out of Western China between 174 and 160 B.C., migrated westwards along the road to the north of the Taklamakān (Gobi) desert. In the course of their long wanderings they encountered another nomad nation, the Sakai or Sakas (Se or Sai of the Chinese), who dwelt to the north of the Jaxartes or Syr Daryā river. The Sakai, being defeated by the Yueh‑chi, were constrained to yield their pasture-grounds to the victors, and themselves to seek new quarters in the borderlands of India.

The victorious Yueh‑chi, in their turn, were vanquished by a third horde named Wu‑sun and driven from the lands which had been wrested from the Sakas. The Yueh‑chi then settled in the valley of the Oxus, with their head-quarters to the north of the river,  p128 but probably exercising more or less authority over Bactria to the south.

Kadphises I. In the course of time, which cannot be defined precisely, the Great Yueh‑chi horde lost their nomad habits and occupied the Bactrian lands, becoming divided into five principalities, at a date which cannot be determined with any approach to exactness. More than a century later, the Kushān section or sept of the Yueh‑chi attained a predominate position over the other sections of the horde, under the leader­ship of a chieftain named Kujula-Kara-Kadphises, who is conveniently designated by modern historians as Kadphises I. He may be regarded as having become king of the Kushāns or Yueh‑chi from somewhere about A.D. 40.3

Kadphises I was soon impelled to attack the rich territories to the south of the Hindu Kush, presumably finding the limits of Bactria too narrow for the growing population of his dominions.

He enjoyed a long life and prosperous reign, in the course of which he consolidated his strength in Bactria, and conquered the Kābul region south of the mountains. He annexed Ki‑pin, which may be interpreted with good reason as meaning Gandhāra, including the kingdom of Taxila to the east of the Indus, where he seems to have succeeded Gondophernes in A.D. 48. He also attacked the Parthians.

The operations indicated must have occupied many years, during which the Kushān or Indo-Scythian rule gradually replaced that of the Indo-Greek, Saka, and Indo-Parthian princes in the Indian borderlands. Kadphises attained the age of eighty, and may be assumed to have died about A.D. 77 or 78.

Kadphises II. He was succeeded by his son Wima Kadphises, whose personal name is transliterated as Wēmo (Ooēmo) in his Greek coin legends, and is given as Yen‑kao-ching by Chinese historians. It is convenient to designate him as Kadphises II. He set himself to accomplish the conquest of northern India, and effected his purpose. It is reasonable to believe, although strict proof is lacking, that the Saka era of A.D. 78 dates from the beginning of his reign, either from his actual accession or from his formal enthronement a little later. That hypothesis seems now to present less difficulties than any other. The evidence for the extent of the Indian conquests of Kadphises II is meagre and rests largely on the distribution of his extremely numerous coins.  p129 The abundance of his coinage certainly implies a long reign. He seems to have secured the supremacy in the Gangetic valley at least as far down as Benares, and also of the Indus basin. It may be that his power extended southwards as far as the Narbadā. The Saka satraps in Mālwā and western India appear to have owned him as their over­lord.

Collision with China. The course of his conquests brought him into collision with the Chinese, who had first entered into relations with western Asia in the reign of the Emperor Wu‑ti (140 to 96 B.C.), when an embassy under Chang-kien was dispatched from the Middle Kingdom to the powers on the Oxus. Chang-kien returned home about 120 B.C., the exact date being stated variously by different authorities. For some reason or other Chinese intercourse with the western region ceased in A.D. 8; and when the first Han dynasty came to an end in A.D. 23, Chinese influence in those countries had been reduced to nothing.

Fifty years later Chinese ambition reasserted itself, and General Pan‑chao, in the time from A.D. 73 to 102, advanced victoriously through Khotan and the other districts now called Chinese Turkestan and across Persia, until he carried his country's flag right into Parthia and to the shores of the Caspian Sea.

The advance through Khotan opened up the road to the south of the Taklamakān (Gobi) desert. The route to the north of that desert was cleared in A.D. 94 by the reduction of Kucha and Karāhshahr.

Chinese victory. The progress of Chinese arms alarmed the Kushān monarch, namely Kadphises II, according to the chronology adopted in this chapter. In A.D. 87 he boldly asserted his equality with the Son of Heaven by demanding in marriage the hand of a Chinese princess. The proposal being resented as an insult, General Pan‑chao arrested the Kushān envoy and sent him home. Kadphises II then prepared a formidable force of 70,000 cavalry under the command of his viceroy Si, which was dispatched across the Tsung-ling range or Tāghdumbāsh Pāmīr. The appalling difficulties of the temple, involving the creoles of the Tāshkurghān Pass, •14,000 feet high, so shattered the Kushān host that when it emerged in the plain of either Kashgar or Yarkand it was easily defeated. Kadphises II was compelled to pay tribute to China, and the Chinese annals note that in the reign of the Emperor Ho‑ti (A.D. 89‑105) the Indians often sent missions to China bearing presents which were regarded as tribute.

Interval between Kadphises II and Kanishka. The extensive issues of coin by Kadphises II prove, as already observed, that he enjoyed a reign of considerable length. But, inasmuch as his father, according to Chinese authority, had died at the age of eighty, it is unlikely that Kadphises II can have reigned for much more than thirty years. The close of his life and rule may be placed somewhere about A.D. 110. It is recorded that he appointed military governors to rule the Indian provinces, and it is possible that those officers controlled India for some years after his decease.  p130 They may have issued the anonymous coins of the so‑called Nameless King, who used the title of So̅ter Megas or Great Saviour, and certainly he was closely associated with Kadphises II. Kanishka, the next king, was not a son of Kadphises II, his father's name being Vajheshka; and there is some reason for believing that he was a member of the Little Yueh‑chi section of the horde, who seem to have settled in the Khotan region, whereas his predecessor was a Great Yueh‑chi from Bactria. On the whole, it seems to be probable that an appreciable space of time intervened between the death of Kadphises II, which may be dated in or about A.D. 110, and the accession of Kanishka, which may be assigned to A.D. 120 approximately. Nothing is on record to show how the sceptre was transferred from the hands of Kadphises II to those of Kanishka.

Era of Kanishka. A new era running from the accession of Kanishka, or perhaps from his formal enthronement a little later, came into use in northern India, including Kābul. The regnal reckoning thus started either by Kanishka himself, or by his subjects, continued to be used by people in the reigns of his successors. Private inscriptions certainly so dated extend from the year 3 to the year 99. Consequently, if the date of Kanishka's accession was known, the chronology of the period would exhibit few difficulties.

Kanishka's dominions. Kanishka is described as having been king of Gandhāra. The capital of his Indian dominions, and apparently the seat of his central government, was Purushapura or Peshāwar, where he erected remarkable Buddhist buildings. Portions of these edifices have been disclosed by the researches of the Archaeological Department. Kanishka in his earlier years annexed the valley of Kashmīr, consolidated his government in the basins of the Indus and Ganges, and warred with the Parthians. At a later date he avenged his predecessor's defeat in Chinese Turkestan. There seems to be no doubt that he succeeded in accomplishing the supremely difficult feat of conveying an effective army across the Pāmīrs and subduing the chiefs or petty kings in the Khotan, Yarkand, and Kashgar regions who had been tributary to China. He exacted from one of those princes hostages who were assigned residences in the Panjāb and the Kābul province. Tradition affirms that Kanishka, who must have been then an old man, was smothered while on his last northern campaign by officers who had grown weary of exile beyond the passes. Kanishka spent most of his life in waging successful wars. While absent on his distant expeditions he left the government of the Indian province in the hands, first of Vāsishka, apparently his elder, and then of Huvishka, apparently his younger son. Those  p131 princes, while acting as their father's colleagues, were allowed to assume full regal titles. Vāsishka evidently predeceased Kanishka, but Huvishka lived to ascend the imperial throne, which he occupied for at least twelve, and perhaps for twenty, years. No coins bearing the name of Vāsishka are known. The extensive and varied coinage of Huvishka may have been issued only after Kanishka's death, but it is possible that part of it was minted while Huvishka occupied the position of his father's colleague.4

The Chinese admissions that their information concerning the Western Countries was interrupted by the death in A.D. 124 of Pan‑yang, the historian, who had succeeded his father Pan‑chao as governor of Turkistan, and that Khotan was lost to the empire in A.D. 152 as the result of a local revolution in the course of which Governor Wang-king was killed, are in agreement with the belief that Kanishka established his sovereignty over the chiefs or petty kings of Chinese Turkistan between the years 125 and 160. The silence of Chinese annalists, as distinguished from Buddhist story-tellers, concerning Kanishka is explained by the well-known unwillingness of the historians of the Middle Kingdom to dwell on events discreditable to the imperial court.

Kanishka's religion. Modern research has disclosed the existence of a large number of inscriptions incised in the reigns of Kanishka and his successors, which give some indications of the extent of his dominions and other particulars concerning him. But his fame rests mainly on the fact that in the latter part of his career he became an active and liberal patron of the Buddhist church. Buddhist authors, writing for purposes of edification, consequently treaty him as having been a second Asoka. We do not know what reasons induced Kanishka to show favour to the Buddhist church. The explanations given in the books look like an adaptation of the stories about the conversion of Asoka. Kanishka, as his coins prove, honoured a curiously mixed assortment of Zoroastrian, Greek, and Mithraic gods, to which Indian deities were added. We find the Sun and Moon with their Greek names, Hēlios and Selēnē (spelt 'Salēnē'), as well as Herakles. The moon again appears as an Iranian deity under the name of Māo. Other strangely named gods, obviously Iranian or Persian, are Athro, or Fire, Miiro, or the Sun, Nāna, Oaninda, Lrooaspo, &c. The Indian Siva, who had already appeared in a two‑armed form on the coins of the Parthian Gondophernes and the Great Yueh‑chi,  p132 Kadphises II, is seen on Kanishka's coins in both the two‑armed and four-armed forms. Buddha (Boddo) is figured standing and clad in Greek costume; and also seated in the Indian manner. The queer assembly of deities offers an unlimited field for speculation. Perhaps it may be safely said that Kanishka followed the practice of his Parthian predecessors in the adopting a loose form of Zoroastrianism which freely admitted the deities of other creeds. We know that Indian monarchs, as for example, Harsha of Kanauj in the seventh century, often felt themselves at liberty to mix Buddhism with other cults; and it is probable that Kanishka, even after his alleged 'conversion', continued to honour his old gods. His successor, Huvishka, certainly did so. It is obvious that the character of Buddhism in north-western India and the neighbouring countries must have been profoundly modified by the lax practices to which the coinage of Kanishka and Huvishka bears witness.

Kanishka's Council. Kanishka followed the example set by Asoka in convening a Council of theologians to settle disputed questions of Buddhist faith and practice. The decrees of the Council took the form of authorized commentaries on the canon, which were engraved on sheets of copper, enclosed in a stone coffer, and placed for safety in a stu̅pa erected for the purpose at the capital of Kashmīr where the Council met. It is just possible that the documents may be still in existence and may be disclosed by some lucky excavation. The Buddhist sect which alone sent delegates to Kanishka's Council was formally classed as belonging to the Hīna-yāna, or Lesser Vehicle, the more primitive form of Buddhism. But the cult actually practised more extensively in Kanishka's time was that usually associated with the Mahā-yāna, or Great Vehicle, as is clearly proved by the numerous sculptures of the age.

Images of Buddha. The early Buddhists, whose doctrines are expressed in the stone pictures of Sānchī and Barhut (Bharhut), did not dare to form an image of their dead teacher. When they wished to indicate his presence in a scene, they merely suggested it by a symbol, an empty seat, a pair of footprints, and so forth.

The Buddhists of the Kushān age had no such scruples. They loved to picture Gautama, as the Sage of the Sākyas, the Bodhisattva, and the Buddha, in every incident of his last life as well as of his previous births. His image in endless forms and replicas became the principal element in Buddhist sculpture. The change obviously was the result of foreign influence, chiefly Greek (or more accurately, Hellenistic), and Persian or Iranian.

 p133  Transformation of Buddhism. The transformation of Buddhism which was effected for the most part during the first two or three centuries of the Christian era is an event of such significance in the history of India and of the world that it deserves exposition at some length. The observations following, which were printed many years ago, still express my opinion and are, I think, in accordance with the facts. Although they are rather long, it seems worth while to reprint them without material modification.

Buddhism had been introduced into the countries on the north-western frontier of India as early as the reign of Asoka in the third century B.C.; and in 2 B.C. an unnamed Yueh‑chi chieftain was interested in the religion of Gautama so far as to communicate Buddhist scriptures to a Chinese envoy. Buddhist sculpture of some sort must have been known in those regions for centuries before the time of Kanishka, but it was not the product of an organized school under liberal and powerful royal patronage, so that remains of such early Buddhist art are rare. Probably the ancient works were executed chiefly in wood.

When the great monarch Kanishka actively espoused the cause of Buddhism and essayed to play the part of a second Asoka, the devotion of the adherents of the favoured creed received an impulse which speedily resulted in the copious production of artistic creations of no small merit.

The religious system which found its best artistic exponents in the sculptors of Kanishka's court must have been of foreign origin to a large extent. Primitive Buddhism, as expounded in the Dialogues, so well translated by Professor Rhys Davids, was an Indian product based on the Indian ideas of rebirth, of the survival and transmission of karma, or the net result of human action, and of the blessedness of escape from the pains of being.

Primitive Buddhism added to those theories, which were the common possession of nearly all schools of Indian thought, an excellent practical system of ethics including a Stoic devotion to duty for its own sake, combined with a tender regard for the feelings of all living creatures, human or animal; and so brought about a combination of intellect with emotion, deserving the name of a religion, even though it had no god.

But when the conversion of Asoka made the fortune of Buddhism it sowed at the same time the seeds of decay. The missionaries of the imperial preacher and their successors carried the doctrines of Gautama from the banks of the Ganges to the snows of the Himalaya, the deserts of Central Asia, and the bazaars of Alexandria.

The teaching which was exactly attuned to the inmost feelings of a congregation in Benares needed fundamental change before it could move the heart of the sturdy mountaineer, the nomad horseman, or the Hellenized Alexandrian. The moment Indian Buddhism began its foreign travels it was bound to change. We can see the transformation which was effected, although most of the steps of the evolution are hidden from us.

 p134  Influence of the Roman empire. Undoubtedly one of the principal agencies engaged in effecting the momentous change was the unification of the civilized world, excepting India and China, under the sway of the Caesars.​5 The general peace of the Roman empire was not seriously impaired by frontier wars, palace revolutions, or the freaks of half‑mad emperors. During that long-continued peace nascent Christianity met full-grown Buddhism in the academies and markets of Asia and Egypt, while both religions were exposed to the influences of surrounding paganism in many forms and of the countless works of art which gave expression to the ideas of polytheism. The ancient religion of Persia contributed to the ferment of human thought, excited by improved facilities for international communication and by the incessant clash of rival civilizations.

Novel ideals. In such environment Buddhism was transmuted from its old Indian self into a practically new religion. The specially Indian ideas upon which it had been founded sank into comparative obscurity, while novel ideals came to the front. The quietist teacher of an order of begging friars, who had counted as a glorious victory the recognition of the truth, as he deemed it, that 'after this present life there would be no beyond'; and that 'on the dissolution of the body, beyond the end of his life, neither gods nor men shall see him', was gradually replaced by a divinity ever present to the hearts of the faithful, with his ears open to their prayers, acting as mediators between him and sinful men.

In a word, the veneration for a dead Teacher passed into the worship of a living Saviour. That, so far as I understand the matter, is the essential difference between the old Indian Buddhism, the so‑called Hīna-yāna, and the newer Buddhism or Mahāyāna. Although the delegates to Kanishka's Council were classed officially as Hīnayānists, the popular cult of the time unquestionably was the expression of Mahāyānist ideas, which were formulated and propagated by Nāgārjuna, who was to some extent the contemporary of Kanishka.

The age from A.D. 105 to 273, during which palmyra flourished as the chief emporium for the commerce between East and West, and the Kushān kings ruled in north-western India, may be taken as marking the time when the Mahāyāna system was developed and the art forming its outward expression attained its highest achievement. It is hardly necessary to add that the movements of the human mind never fit themselves into accurately demarcated chronological compartments, and that all evolutions, such as that of the newer Buddhism, have had their beginnings long before  p135 the process of change becomes clearly visible. The rigorous doctrine of the earliest form of Buddhism was too chilly to retain a hold of the hearts of men unless when warmed and quickened by human emotion. The Buddhism of the people in every country always has been different from that of the Canon, although the authority of the scriptures is nowhere formally disputed. When it is said that the development of the Mahāyāna was mainly the result of foreign influence, I must not be understood as denying that the germs of the transformed religion may have existed in India from a very early stage in the history of the Buddhist church.

Literature and art. In literature the memory of Kanishka is associated with the names of the eminent Buddhist writers Nāgārjuna, Asvaghosha, and Vasumitra. Asvaghosha is described as having been a poet, musician, scholar, religious controversialist, and zealous Buddhist monk, orthodox in creed, and a strict observer of discipline. Charaka, the most celebrated of the early Indian authors treating of medical science, is reputed to have been the court physician of Kanishka.

Architecture, with its subsidiary art of sculpture, enjoyed the liberal patronage of Kanishka, who was, like Asoka, a great builder. The tower at Peshāwar, built over the relics of Buddha, and chiefly constructed of timber, stood •four hundred feet high. The Sir Sukh section of Taxila hides the ruins of the city built by Kanishka, as yet almost unexplored. A town in Kashmīr, still represented by a village, bore the king's name; and Mathurā (Muttra) on the Jumna was adorned by numerous fine buildings and artistic sculptures during the reigns of Kanishka and his successors. A remarkable portrait statue of Kanishka, unluckily lacking the head, has been found near Mathurā, with similar statues of other princes of his line. Those works do not betray any marks of Greek influence.

The Gandhāra school. Much of the Buddhist sculpture of  p136 the time of Kanishka and his successors is executed in the style of Gandhāra, the province on the frontier which included both Peshāwar and Taxila. That style is often and properly called Graeco-Buddhist because the forms of Greek art were applied to Buddhist subjects, with considerable artistic success in many cases. Images of Buddha appear in the likeness of Apollo, the Yaksha Kuvera is posed in the fashion of the Phidian Zeus, and so on. The drapery follows Hellenistic models. The style was transmitted to the Far East through Chinese Turkistan, and the figures of Buddha now made in China and Japan exhibit distinct traces of the Hellenistic modes in vogue at the court of Kanishka. The explorations of Sir M. A. Stein and other archaeologists have proved that the Khotan region in Chinese Turkistan was the meeting place of four civilizations — Greek, Indian, Iranian, and Chinese — during the early centuries of the Christian era, including the reign of Kanishka. The eastward advance of the Roman frontier in the days of Trajan and Hadrian (A.D. 98‑138) was favourable to the spread of Hellenistic ideas and artistic forms in India and other Asiatic countries. The Indo-Greek artists found their inspiration in the schools of Pergamon, Ephesus, and other places in Asia Minor rather than in the works of the earlier artists of Greece. In other words, the Gandhāra style is Graeco-Roman, based on the cosmopolitan art of Asia Minor and the Roman empire as practised in the first three centuries of the Christian era. Much of the best work in that style was executed during the second century A.C. in the reigns of Kanishka and Huvishka.

Other sculpture. Although the Gandhāra school of sculpture was the most prolific, the art of other centres in the age of Kanishka and Huvishka was not negligible in either quantity or quality. Sārnāth near Benares, Mathurā on the Jumna, and Amarāvatī on the Krishnā (Kistna) river in the Guntu̅r District, Madras, offer many examples of excellent sculpture. Each of the three localities named had a distinctive style. The best known works are the elaborate bas‑reliefs from Amarāvatī, more or less familiar to all visitors to the British Museum from the exhibition of a series of specimens on the grand staircase of that institution. Tradition connects the buildings at Amarāvatī with Nāgārjuna. The work was there extended over many years, but most of it probably was executed in Huvishka's reign.

Huvishka. Huvishka or Hushka, presumably Kanishka's son,  p137 who had governed the Indian provinces for many years on behalf of his father, while he was engaged in distant wars, succeeded to the imperial throne about A.D. 162. Little is known about the events of his reign. His coinage, which exhibits considerable artistic merit, is even more varied than that of Kanishka, and presents recognizable portraits of the king as a burly, middle-aged or elderly man with a large nose. The Yueh‑chi princes had no resemblance to the 'narrow-eyed' Mongolians. They were big pink-faced men, built on a large scale, and may possibly have been related to the Turks. They dressed in long-skirted coats, wore soft leather boots, and sat on chairs in European fashion. Their language was an Iranian form of speech; and their religion, as we have seen, was a modified Zoroastrianism. The name of Huvishka was associated with a Buddhist monastery at Mathurā. His coin types exhibit the strange medley of Greek, Indian, and Iranian deities even on the coinage of Kanishka, but no descriptively Buddhist coins have been found. So far as appears, he retained possession of the extensive territories ruled by Kanishka. His death may be dated somewhere about A.D. 180 or 185. He must have been an old or elderly man, because his inscriptions, which overlap those of his predecessor, range from the year 33 to the year 60 of Kanishka's regnal era.

End occident Kushān empire. Huvishka's successor was Vāsudeva I, in whose time the empire began to break up. The manner in which the Kushān power in India came to an end has not been clearly ascertained, but there is no doubt that Huvishka was the last monarch to maintain an extensive empire until his death. Such indications as exist concerning the decay of the empire are chiefly  p138 derived from the study of coins, and the inferences drawn from material so scanty are necessarily dubious. But it is certain that the coinage of the successors of Vāsudeva, some of whom bore the same name, became gradually Persianized, and the suggestion seems to be reasonable that the dissolution of the Kushān empire in India was connected in some way with the rise of the Sassanian power in A.D. 226, and the subsequent conquests of Ardashīr Pāpakān, the first Sassanian king, and his successors, which are alleged to have extended to the Indus, but without sufficient evidence. Strong Kushān dynasties continued to exist in Kābul and the neighbouring countries until the Hun invasions of the fifth century; and some principalities survived even until the Arab conquest of Persia in the seventh century.

The name of Vāsudeva proves the rapidity with which the Kushāns had been changed into Hindus. Its form suggests the worship of Vishnu as Vāsudeva, but the coins bear the images of Siva and his bull, which had already appeared on the coins of Kadphises II. The history of the third century, whether religious or political, is too obscure and uncertain for further discussion in these pages.

Greek influence. The question as to the extent of Greek, or more accurately, Hellenistic influence upon Indian civilization is of interest, and always has been warmly debated by European scholars, who naturally desire to find links connecting the unfamiliar doings of isolated India with the familiar Greek ideas and institutions to which Europe owes so much. It will be well, therefore, to devote a few pages to the consideration of the facts bearing on the question. The trade relations between the Hellenistic world and India which existed for centuries, and will be noticed presently, are not relevant in this connexion. Such relations had little effect on the ideas or institutions of either India or Europe. The business people, then, as they usually do in all ages, confined themselves to their trade affairs without  p139 troubling about anything else. They left no records, and, so far as appears, did not communicate much information to scholar­ly persons like Pliny and Strabo. If modern Europe had to depend upon Bombay and Calcutta merchants for its knowledge of India it would not know much.

Effects of Alexander's campaign. Alexander's fierce campaign produced no direct effects upon either the ideas or the institutions of India. During his brief stay in the basin of the Indus he was occupied almost solely with fighting. Presumably he was remembered by the ordinary natives of the regions which he harried merely as a demon-like outer barbarian who hanged Brahmans without scruple and won battles by impious methods in defiance of the scriptures. The Indians felt no desire to learn from such a person. They declined to learn from him even the art of war, in which he was a master; preferring to go on in their own traditional way, trusting to a 'four-fold' army and hosts of elephants. When Chandragupta Maurya swept the Macedonian garrisons out of the Panjāb, that was the end of Hellenism on Indian soil for the time. The failure of the invasion by Seleukos Nikator a few years later secured India from all further Greek aggression.

Maurya civilization. Then followed seventy or eighty years of peaceful, friendly intercourse between the Maurya court and the Hellenistic princes of Asia and Africa, to which we are indebted for the valuable account of the Maurya empire compiled by Megasthenes. His book does not indicate any trace of Hellenic influence upon the political or social institutions of India. On  p140 the contrary, the close agreement of the testimony recorded by the Greek ambassador with the statements of the Sanskrit books proves clearly that the Maurya government managed its affairs after its own fashion in general accordance with Hindu tradition, borrowing something from Persia but nothing from Greece. Even the Maurya coinage continued to be purely Indian, or at any rate Asiatic, in character. Asoka did not care to imitate the beautiful Bactrian issues, or to follow Greek example by putting his image and superscription on his coins. He was content to use the primitive punch-marked, cast, or rudely struck coins which had formed the currency of India before his time.

In the domain of the fine arts some indications of the operation of Greek example and good taste may be discerned. The high quality of Maurya sculpture clearly was due to the happy blending of Indian, Iranian, and Hellenic factors.

It is reasonable also to connect Asoka's preference for the use of stone in building and sculpture with the opportunities which he enjoyed for studying the Hellenistic practice of working in permanent material.

The design of Indian buildings, so far as is known, rarely owed anything to Greek principles, but the excavations at Taxila suggest, or perhaps prove, that in some cases Greek models may have been imitated in that region. Columns of the Ionic order undoubtedly were inserted in Taxilan buildings. Taxila, however, was half-foreign and only half-Indian, so that practices considered legitimate there would not have been approved in the interior provinces.

Demetrios and others. Direct contact between the Hellenistic states and the Panjāb was brought about early in the second century B.C., forty or fifty years after Asoka's death, by the conquests of the Bactrian sovereign Demetrios, 'King of the Indians'. The elephant's head on his coins is a record of his Indian connexions. A little later we find a king with the Greek name of Pantaleon striking coins in the square Indian shape, copied from the indigenous coinage of Taxila. About the same time Agathokles also adopted bilingual legends, first employed by Demetrios, giving his regal style in both Greek and a kind of Prākrit. The Indian tongue is inscribed in Brāhmī, an old form of the script now called Nāgarī or Devanāgarī. Bilingual legends continued to be used by many kings.

 p141  Coin types. Antialkidas (c. 140‑130 B.C.), the king of Taxila who sent Heliodoros as envoy to the Rājā of Besnagar, adopted the Indian standard of weight for his coins. The idea of striking coins with two dies, obverse and reverse, one side bearing the effigy and titles of the king, was foreign to India, and was gradually adopted by Indian princes in imitation of the issues minted by dynasties of foreign origin — Sakas, Parthians, Yueh‑chi, and the rest. Indian artists, who attained brilliant success in other fields, never cared greatly about die‑cutting, and consequently never produced a really fine coin. The best Indian coins, being a few gold pieces struck by the Gupta kings before and after A.D. 400 under the influence of western models, although good, are not first-rate, and do not bear comparison with the magnificent dies of the earlier Bactrian kings, not to speak of Syracusan masterpieces.

Indo-Roman gold coinage. The Yueh‑chi, Indo-Scythian, or Kushān kings of the first and second centuries A.C. evidently maintained active trade communications with the Roman empire, then far extended eastwards. Hence we find an unmistakable copy of the head of either Augustus or Tiberius on certain coins of Kadphises I, who seems to have made an alliance with Hermaios, the last Greek king of Kābul. Kadphises II carried much farther his imitation of Roman usage by striking an abundant and excellent issue of gold coins agreeing closely with the Caesarian aurei in weight and not much inferior in fineness. Imported Roman coins have been often found in the Panjāb, Kābul, and neighbouring territories, but the bulk of the considerable inflow into India of Roman gold, as testified to by Pliny in A.D. 77, seems, so far as the northern kingdom was concerned, to have been melted down and reissued as orientalized aurei, first by Kadphises II, and afterward by Kanishka, Huvishka, and Vāsudeva. In peninsular India the Roman aureus circulated as currency, just as the British sovereigns now passes current in  p142 many lands. The gold indigenous currency of the south, introduced apparently at a later date, has never had any connexion with European models.

Greek script and gods. Kanishka, Huvishka, and Vāsudeva used for their coin legends the Khotanese language, a near relative of the Saka tongue, but engraved it in a form of Greek characters only. For some reason or other they did not use any Asiatic script. The strange mixture of deities found in the coin types of Kanishka and Huvishka and the peculiarities of the Graeco-Buddhist school of sculpture have been sufficiently discussed above. The presumed influence of Hellenistic polytheism on the development of the later Buddhism has also been examined. The evidence of all kinds shows that, while foreigners like Heliodoros were ready to adopt Indian gods, the Indians were slow to worship Greek deities. The few Greek deities named on the Kanishka and Huvishka coins belonged also to the Persian pantheon and were taken over from the Parthians. The tendency certainly was for Indo-Greek princes and people to become Hinduized, rather than for the Indian Rājās and their subjects to become Hellenized. The Brahmans were well able to take care of themselves and to keep at arm's length any foreign notions which they did not wish to assimilate.

Scanty traces of Greek rule. The visible traces of the long-continued Greek rule on the north-western frontier of India are surprisingly scanty, if the coin legends be excluded from consideration. no inscription in the Greek language or script has yet (1917) Babylonian found, and the Greek names occurring in inscriptions are few, perhaps half a dozen. Two records, one of which comes from Taxila, mention the District Officer serving under some Indo-Greek king by the designation of 'meridarch' (μεριδάρχης), a detail which indicates the use of Greek for official purposes to a certain extent. Greek must have been spoken at the courts of the Indo-Greek kings, but the language does not seem to have spread among any Indian nation. The exclusive use of a Greek script to express Khotanese legends on the coins of Kanishka and his successors may be due, as has been suggested, to Khotanese having been first reduced to writing in the Greek character. The Greek lettering on the coins does not imply a popular knowledge of the Greek alphabet. Only a small proportion of the Indian population has ever been able to read coin legends, whatever the language or script might be. The coins of the ruling power for the time being are accepted as currency without the slightest regard to the inscriptions on them.

Summary. To sum up, it may be said that Greek or Hellenistic influence upon India was slight and superficial, much less in amount than I believed it to be when the subject first attracted me thirty years ago. If any considerable modification of the Indian religions was effected by contact with Hellenism, Buddhism alone was concerned, Jainism and Brahmanical Hinduism remaining untouched. The remarkable local school of Graeco-Buddhist  p143 sculpture in the Gandhāra frontier province, which was imitated to some extent in the interior, permanently determined the type of Chinese and Japanese Buddhist images. Some details of Hellenistic ornament became widely diffused throughout India. An undefinable but, I think, real element of Greek feeling may be discerned in the excellent sculpture of Asoka's age. If any buildings on a Greek plan were erected they were apparently confined to Gandhāra. Indian artists never produced fine coin-dies. Any at all good were copied from or suggested by Graeco-Roman models. The Greek language never obtained wide currency in India, but must have been used to some extent at the courts of the border princes with Greek names. Many of those princes must have been of mixed blood. 'The Indo-Bactrian Greeks', it has been said, 'were the Goanese of antiquity.' The early medical knowledge as expounded by Charaka, Kanishka's physician, has been supposed to betray some acquaintance with the works of Hippocrates, but the proof does not seem to be convincing.

Long after the period treated in this chapter, western influence again made itself felt in Indian art, literature, and science during the rule of the Gupta emperors. That subject will be noted in due course.

Commerce by land. Some reference has been made to the commerce between India and the Roman empire during the rule of the Kushān kings. The overland commerce of India with western Asia dated from remote times and was conducted by several routes across Persia, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. Between A.D. 105 and 273 the principal dépôt of the trade was palmyra or tadmor in Syria. The Chinese silk trade afforded the same roads.

Commerce by sea. The sea‑borne trade of the peninsula with Europe through Egypt does not seem to have been considerable before the time of Claudius, when the course of the monsoons is said to have become known to the Roman merchants. But a certain amount of commerce with Egypt must have existed from much earlier days. In 20 B.C. we hear of a mission to Augustus from 'King Pandion', the Pāndya king of Madura in the far south. During the first and second centuries of the Christian era the trade between southern India and the Roman empire was extensive. Merchants could sail from an Arabian port to Muziris or Cranganore on the Malabar coast in forty days during July and August and return in December or January after transacting their business. There is reason to believe that Roman subjects lived at Muziris and other towns. The trade was checked, and perhaps temporarily stopped, by Caracalla's massacre of the people of Alexandria in A.D. 215. Payment for the Indian goods was made in aurei, of which large hoards have been found.

Goods and ports. The goods most sought by the foreign visitors were pearls from the fisheries of the Tāmraparni river in Tinnevelly; beryls from several mines in Mysore and Coimbatore; corundum from the same region; gems of various kinds from  p144 Ceylon; and pepper with other spices from the Malabar coast. The list is not exhaustive. The two principal ports on the Malabar coast were Muziris or Cranganore, and Bakarai or Vaikkarai, the haven of Kottayam, now in the Travancore State. Korkai on the Tāmraparni river was the principal seat of the pearl trade. Puhār, also called Cauvery or Kāvērīpaddinam, then at the mouth of the Kāvērī (Cauvery) river, was for some time a rich and prosperous port. It, with the other ancient ports in that region, is now desolate, a gradual elevation of the land having changed the coast-line.

The Tamil states. The Tamil states of the far south became wealthy and prosperous in virtue of their valuable foreign trade, and attained a high degree of material civilization at an early period. Megasthenes heard of the power of the Pāndya kingdom, and the names of the states are mentioned in Asoka's edicts. Boundaries varied much from age to age, but three principal powers, the Pāndya, Chera or Kerala, and Chola, were always recognized. Asoka named a fourth minor kingdom, the Keralaputra, absorbed subsequently in the Pāndya realm, which was reputed the most ancient of the states, and may be described roughly as embracing the Madura and Tinnevelly Districts. The Kerala or Chera kingdom included the Malabar District with the modern Cochin and Travancore States, and sometimes extended eastwards. The Chola kingdom occupied the Coromandel or Madras coast. Cotton cloth formed an important item in the commerce of the Cholas, who maintained an active fleet, which was not afraid to sail as far as the mouths of the Irawaddy and Ganges, or even to the islands of the Malay Archipelago.

Tamil literature. During the early centuries of the Christian era Tamil was the language of all the kingdoms named, Malayālam not having then come into being. A rich literature grew up, of which the golden age may be assigned to the first three centuries A.C. Madura may be called the literary capital. The period indicated produced three works of special merit, the 'Kural' (Cural), the 'Epic of the Anklet', and the 'Jewel-belt'. The 'Kural' is described as being 'the most venerated and popular book south of the Godāvarī . . . the literary treasure, the poetic mouthpiece, the highest type of verbal and moral excellence among the Tamil people'. The author taught ethical doctrine of singular purity and beauty, which cannot, so far as I know, be equalled in the Sanskrit literature of the north. A few stanzas from Gover's excellent versions may be quoted:

Dynastic history. No continuous narrative of political events in the Tamil kingdoms can be constructed for the period dealt with in this chapter, or, indeed, until centuries later. But the literature gives a few glimpses of dynastic history. Karikkāl or Karikāla, the earliest known Chola king, whose mean date may be taken as A.D. 100, contemporary with Kadphises II, is credited with the foundation of Puhār or Pukār, and with the construction of •a hundred miles of embankment along the Kāvērī river (Cauvery), built by the labour of captives from Ceylon. Almost continual war with the island princes is a leading feature in the story of the Tamil kingdoms for many centuries. It need hardly be added that the kings fought among themselves still more continuously. The first historical Pāndya king was contemporary more or less exactly with Karikāla Chola's grandson, with a certain powerful Chera monarch, and with Gajabāhu, king of Ceylon, who reigned in the last quarter of the second century, and gives the clue to the chronology. After that time no more dynastic history is possible until the Pallavas make their appearance in the fourth century.

Synchronistic Table of the Foreign Dynasties and their Contemporaries

(All Indian dates of events are merely approximate)

---

The Author's Notes:

1 Indians used the term Saka (Śaka, Shaka) vaguely to denote foreigners from beyond the passes. In later times the name was often applied to Muhammadans, as in the Eklinga Mahātmya.

2 The five referred to are Kadphises I, Kadphises II, Kanishka, Huvishka, and Vāsudeva I. The word Englished as Kushān appears in various forms in diverse scripts and languages. The long vowel in the second syllable is correct. The name of the sept in Khotanese may have been really Kuṣi or Kushi (nom. from stem Kuṣa); the word represented by 'Kushān' being a genitive plural. It would, perhaps, be more correct to speak of the Kushi (Kuṣi) sept, but I retain Kushān as being familiar and in accordance with the views of some scholars.

3 Between A.D. 25 and 81, but nearer to the earlier year, according to Franke, pp72, 73.

4 The theory stated in the text, first suggested by R. D. Banerji, is the only one adequate to explain the facts. The known dates include:

Kanishka — year 3 (Sārnāth); 18 (Mānikyāla); and 41 (Āra):

Vāsishka — with full titles, year 24 in words and figures (Īsāpur, Mathurā); year ? 28 (Sānchī, probable); year 29 (Mathurā, possible):

Huvishka — year 33 (Mathurā); 51 (Wardak, W. of Kābul); and 60 (Mathurā):

Vāsudeva — 74 (Mathurā); 80, 83, 87, 98 (same place).

All the dated inscriptions were recorded by private persons; none are official.

5 I agree with Lüders that in the Āra inscription Kanishka took the title of 'Caesar' (Kaïsarasa); but, as it is possible to dispute the reading, it is better not to lay stress upon it. Kanishka's accumulated titles imply a claim to the sovereignty of the four quarters of the world (Sitzungsber. d. königl. Preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften, 1912, p829).

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