1. The Kushanas
2. Kushana Rulers
2.1. Kujula Kadphises or Kadphises I (AD 30-AD 80)
2.2. Vima Kadphises (AD 95-AD 127)
2.3. Kanishka (127 AD-150 AD)
3. Kushanas and Buddhism
4. Art of Kushanas
5. Kushan Coinage
6. The Decline of the Kushan Empire
7. The Kanishka (127 CE-150 CE)
7.1. Features
7.2. Kanishka’s Conquests
7.3. Conquests in South and Central Asia
7.4. Kanishka’s Coins
7.5. Kanishka and Buddhism
7.6. Kanishka’s Buddhist Statues
8. Emergence of Mahayana Buddhism
8.1. Mahayana
8.2. Beliefs
8.3. Mahayana Scriptures
8.4. Fourth Buddhist Council
8.5. Vajrayana Buddhism
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Topic – Kushanas: Kanishka; Art and Literature of Kushana Period; Mahayana Buddhism (Notes)
Subject – History
(Ancient Indian History)
Table of Contents
The Kushan Empire was a syncretic empire founded in the early 1st century by the Yuezhi in the Bactrian lands. Kujula Kadphises (Kadphises I) united these five states to become the Kushan Empire in the first century CE. The Kushans movement in India dates back to the first century CE, under the reign of Kadphises I.
The Kushanas
- The word Kushan is derived from the Chinese term Guishang, which was used to denote one branch of the Yuezhi in ancient literature.
- Kushanas are one of the five lineages of the Yuezhi tribe that resided near the Chinese border or in central Asia.
- In Chinese, they are referred to as Guishuang.
- They finally surpassed the other Yuezhi tribes in power.
- In the first century AD, they pushed eastward towards India, defeating the Parthians and the Sakas.
- The Kushans’ dominion linked the Indian Ocean’s seagoing trade with the Silk Road’s commerce through the long-civilised Indus Valley.
- The Kushans governed a realm that stretched from the Aral Sea through present-day Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan into northern India at its peak.
- The loose unity and relative stability of such a broad area stimulated long-distance trade, bringing Chinese silks to Rome and establishing a string of wealthy urban centres.
Kushan Empire
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