Around 230 AD, the Kushans were defeated by the Sassanid Empire and replaced by Sassanid vassals known as the Indo-Sassanids.

The weakness of the Greco-Bactrian empire was shown by its sudden and complete overthrow, first by the Sakas, and then by the Yuezhi ( who later became known as Kushans ), who had conquered Bactria by the time of the visit of the Chinese envoy Zhang Qian ( circa 127 BC ), who had been sent by the Han emperor to investigate lands to the west of China.

He used an Eastern Iranian, Indo-European language known as Bactrian ( called " αρια ," i. e. " Aryan " in the Rabatak inscription ), which appears in Greek script in his inscriptions, though it is not certain what language the Kushans originally spoke ; possibly some form of Tocharian-a " centum " Indo-European language.

Several direct depictions of Kushans are known from Gandhara, where they are represented with a tunic, belt and trousers and play the role of devotees to the Buddha, as well as the Bodhisattva and future Buddha Maitreya.

The weakness of the Greco-Bactrian empire was shown by its sudden and complete overthrow, first by the Sakas, and then by the Yuezhi ( who later became known as Kushans ), who had conquered Bactria by the time of the visit of the Chinese envoy Zhang Qian ( circa 127 BCE ), who had been sent by the Han emperor to investigate lands to the west of China.

As early as 645 BCE, the Yuezhi ( known later as the Kushans ) was mentioned as supplier of the famous nephrite jade from the region to China, and the excavations of Shang dynasty ( 1600 – 1046 BCE ) tomb of Fu Hao, showed that all the jade originated from the oases area of Khotan.

The southern or " Red " Kidarite vassals to the Kushans in the North-Western Indus valley became known as Kermikhiones, Hara Huna or " Red Huns " from 360 AD after Kidara II led a Bactrian portion of " Hunni " to overthrow the Kushans in India.

The rule of the Indo-Scythians crumbles as the Kushans, one of the five tribes of the Yuezhi who lives in Bactria expand into India to create a Kushan Empire.

The " Aryan " language of the inscription was a " satem " Middle Iranian language, possibly the one spoken in " Arya " or " Ariana " ( the region around modern Herat ) and was, therefore, quite possibly unrelated to the original language of the Kushans ( or the Yuezhi ), but adopted by them to facilitate communication with local people.

Chinese sources describe the Guishuang ( Ch: 貴霜 ), i. e. the Kushans, as one of the five aristocratic tribes of the Yuezhi ( Ch: 月氏 ), with some people claiming they were a loose confederation of Indo-European peoples.

Heraios ( often read as Heraus, Heraos, Miaos ) was a clan chief of the Kushans ( reign: 1-30 CE ), one of the five constituent tribes of the Yuezhi confederacy in Bactria in the early 1st century CE, roughly at the time when the Kushans were starting their invasion of India.

Since the Kushans and their predecessors the Yuezhi were conversant with the Greek language and Greek coinage, the adoption of Hermaeus cannot have been accidental: it either expressed a filiation of Kujula Kadphises to Hermaeus by alliance ( possibly through Sapadbizes or Heraios ), or simply a wish to show himself as heir to the Indo-Greek tradition and prestige, possibly to accommodate Greek populations.

:" Going west from the kingdom of Suoju ( Yarkand ), and passing through the countries of Puli ( Tashkurghan ) and Wulei ( centred on Sarhad in the Wakhan ), you arrive among the Da Yuezhi ( Kushans ).

In 90 CE the Yuezhi or Kushans invaded the region with an army of reportedly 70, 000 men, under their Viceroy, Xian, but they were forced to withdraw without a battle after Ban Chao instigated a " burnt earth " policy.

After the Yuanchu period ( 114-120 CE ), when the Yuezhi or Kushans placed a hostage prince on the throne of Kashgar:

After the death of Azes II, the rule of the Indo-Scythians in northwestern India and Pakistan finally crumbled with the conquest of the Kushans, one of the five tribes of the Yuezhi who had lived in Bactria for more than a century, and who were then expanding into India to create a Kushan Empire.

* The regions of present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and North India come under the control of the Kushans, a nomadic people forced out of northwest China by the Han Dynasty.

The Kushans conquered the central section of the main Silk Routes and, therefore, had control of the overland trade between India, Persia, China and the Roman Empire.

The security offered by the Kushans encouraged travel across the Khunjerab Pass and facilitated the spread of Mahayana Buddhism to China.

The Indo-Greeks ultimately disappeared as a political entity around 10 AD following the invasions of the Indo-Scythians, although pockets of Greek populations probably remained for several centuries longer under the subsequent rule of the Indo-Parthians and Kushans.

The Indo-Greeks ultimately disappeared as a political entity around 10 AD following the invasions of the Indo-Scythians, although pockets of Greek populations probably remained for several centuries longer under the subsequent rule of the Indo-Parthians and Kushans.

Jat historian Thakur Deshraj writes that Kushans were the people from Krishnavanshi who moved with Pandavas in the great migration after Mahabharata.

In addition to tributary relations with the Kushans, the Han Empire received gifts from the Parthian Empire, from a king in modern Burma, from a ruler in Japan, and initiated an unsuccessful mission to Daqin ( Rome ) in 97 CE with Gan Ying as emissary.

They were successors to the Indo-Scythians, and were contemporaneous with the Kushans who ruled the northern part of the subcontinent from the area of Mathura and were possibly their overlords, and with the Satavahana ( Andhra ) who ruled in central India.

The rise of a new Persian dynasty, the Sassanids saw them re-exert their influence into the Indus region and conquer lands from the Kushans setting up the Kushanshahs around 240 AD.

The Kushans ruled the area as part of their larger empire until the 3rd century CE, when the Zoroastrian Persian Sassanid Empire invaded Kushan territory from the southwest.

Several Roman sources describe the visit of ambassadors from the Kings of Bactria and India during the 2nd century, probably referring to the Kushans.

It was a cultural consequence of a long chain of interactions begun by Greek forays into India from the time of Alexander the Great, carried further by the establishment of Indo-Greek rule in the area for some centuries, and extended during flourishing of the Hellenized empire of the Kushans.

There is some debate regarding the exact date for the development of the anthropomorphic representation of the Buddha, and this has a bearing on whether the innovation came directly from the Indo-Greeks, or was a later development by the Indo-Scythians, the Indo-Parthians or the Kushans under Hellenistic artistic influence.

The Kushans were nomadic people who started migrating from the Tarim Basin in Central Asia from around 170 BCE and ended up founding an empire in northwestern India from the 2nd century BCE, after having been rather Hellenized through their contacts with the Greco-Bactrians, and later the Indo-Greeks ( they adopted the Greek script for writing ).

The Kushans, at the center of the Silk Road enthusiastically gathered works of art from all the quarters of the ancient world, as suggested by the hoards found in their northern capital in the archeological site of Begram, Afghanistan.

But the Indo-Parthians never regained the position of Gondophares I, and from the middle of the 1st century AD the Kushans under Kujula Kadphises began absorbing the northern Indian part of the kingdom.

The term Shahi is the title of the rulers, likely related to the Kushan form Shao or Persian form Shah and refers to a series of 60 rulers probably descended from the Kushans or Turks ( Turshkas ).

With the help of these frontier martial tribes from Central Asia, Chandragupta was able to defeat the Greek successors of Alexander the Great and the Nanda / Nandin rulers of Magadha so as to found the powerful Maurya empire in northern India, at least for a short time till the Kushans and other ruler conquered north-west India.

Kushans invaded again in the 1st century, but the Indo-Scythian rule persisted in some areas of Central India until the 5th century.

They were successors to the Indo-Scythians, and were contemporaneous with the Kushans who ruled the northern part of the Indian subcontinent and were possibly their overlords, and the Satavahana ( Andhra ) who ruled in Central India.

Around the time of Menander's death in 140 BC, the Central Asian Kushans overran Bactria and ended Greek rule there.

Sagaris is the ancient Greek name for a shafted weapon used by the horse-riding ancient North-Iranian Saka and Scythian peoples of the great Eurasian steppe, also by the Western and Central Asian peoples: the Medes, Persians, Parthayans, Indo-Saka, Kushans, Tocharians.

The Kushans, who were a Central Asian Tribe ( Other view, they were Turks, or Mongolian Tribe or a Chinese Tribe ), overran the entire north of India in the first century.

Under the Indo-Greeks and then the Kushans, the interaction of Greek and Buddhist culture flourished in the area of Gandhara, in today ’ s northern Pakistan, before spreading further into India, influencing the art of Mathura, and then the Hindu art of the Gupta empire, which was to extend to the rest of South-East Asia.

It was successively ruled by Bactria, Parthia and Kushans after demise of Seleucids.

The Western Kushans ( in Afghanistan ) were soon subjugated by the Persian Sassanid Empire and lost Bactria and other territories.