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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 ).
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Kushans and were
Around 230 AD, the Kushans were defeated by the Sassanid Empire and replaced by Sassanid vassals known as the Indo-Sassanids.
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 alien hordes that did not follow priestly customs or traditions ( Shakas, Kushans, Indo-Greeks, Hunas and Parthians ) were stated as Vratya Kshatriyas in Manusmriti.
A number of modern historians, which include Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay and K. P. Jayaswal, think he and his son were possibly feudatories of the Kushans.
As a result, for a period ( until the Chinese regained control c. 127 CE ) the territory of the Kushans extended for a short period as far as Kashgar, Khotan and Yarkand, which were Chinese dependencies in the Tarim Basin, modern Xinjiang.
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.
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.
In recognition for their support to the Chinese, the Kushans requested a Han princess, but were denied, even after they had sent presents to the Chinese court.
Later, around 116, the Kushans under Kanishka established a kingdom centered on Kashgar, also taking control of Khotan and Yarkand, which were Chinese dependencies in the Tarim Basin, modern Xinjiang.
The Western Kushans ( in Afghanistan ) were soon subjugated by the Persian Sassanid Empire and lost Bactria and other territories.
Under the Kushans new Buddhists stupas were built and old ones were enlarged.
The Indo-Greeks ruled various parts of northwestern India until the end of the 1st century BCE, when they were conquered by the Scythians and Kushans.
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.
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 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 Kushans ultimately regained northwestern India circa 75 CE, where they were to prosper for several centuries.
There were few direct trade contacts between Romans and Han Chinese, as the rivalling Parthians and Kushans were each jealously protecting their lucrative role as trade intermediaries.
Kushans and nomadic
* 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.
This was perhaps in response to the harassing, nomadic combat style used by the Sassanids ' northern neighbours who frequently raided their borders, such as the Huns, Hephthalites, Xiongnu, Scythians and Kushans, all of which favoured hit and run tactics and relied almost solely upon horse archers for combat.
Kushans and people
Since the 2nd millennium BC, the region now inhabited by the native Pashtun people have been influenced by Ancient Iranian peoples, the Medes, Achaemenids, Greeks, Mauryas, Kushans, Hephthalites, Sassanids, Arab Muslims, Turks, and others.
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.
Jat historian Thakur Deshraj writes that Kushans were the people from Krishnavanshi who moved with Pandavas in the great migration after Mahabharata.
Kushans and who
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 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.
They are called " Western " in contrast to the " Northern " Indo-Scythian satraps who ruled in the area of Mathura, such as Rajuvula, and his successors under the Kushans, the " Great Satrap " Kharapallana and the " Satrap " Vanaspara.
The majority group is that of Rajputs and Jats who are the partial descendants of Sakas, Kushans and Huns.
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.
The Roman historian Florus also describes the visit of numerous envoys, including Seres and " Indians " ( who may have included Kushans ), to the first Roman Emperor Augustus, who reigned between 27 BC and 14 AD:
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.
The Xionites ( Chionitae ) are first mentioned with Kushans ( Cuseni ) by Ammianus Marcellinus who spent the winter of 356-57 CE in their Balkh territory.
Kushans and from
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.
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 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.
Several Roman sources describe the visit of ambassadors from the Kings of Bactria and India during the 2nd century, probably referring to the Kushans.
The Kushans, known as Yuezhi in China ( although ethnically Asii ) moved from Central Asia to Bactria, where they stayed for a century.
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.
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.
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, 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.
:" 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 ).
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 ).
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.
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.
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