Kushāna Dynasty

Kushāna Dynasty (1st century bc-230? ad), rulers of an ancient empire stretching from Central Asia to northern India. The dynasty emerged from the Yue-chi, a seminomadic people of northwestern China. The Yue-chi overran the area from modern Kyrgyzstan to Pakistan by about 125 bc, but they were not united under a single ruler. Between 27 and 2 bc, one of the Yue-chi kings, Kadphises, brought them together into a single confederation and established a ruling dynasty. In the 1st century ad, the Kushānas (named for the Hindu Kush mountains) took over Kashmīr and most of northwestern India. They reached their greatest strength under Kanishka, who ruled in the late 1st century. Kanishka commanded the Central Asian territories as well as northern India. There, the Kushānas extended as far south as Gujarāt in the west, the Narmada River in central India, and Bihār in the east. Kanishka’s armies also campaigned in Bengal to the east and Parthia to the west.

The Kushānas pacified the Central Asia trade routes, enabling many commercial and cultural contacts. Cities flourished, and the Silk Road linking Rome to China thrived. Buddhism migrated from India to China along the trade routes, and the Kushāna kings exchanged ambassadors with the emperors of Rome. An influential school of art blossomed at Mathura, a Kushāna capital, while the art of Gandhara blended Indian and Greco-Roman styles. Kanishka was a great patron of Buddhism, and some of his monuments remain. After his death the Indian part of the empire lasted for about 70 years before disintegrating into several principalities, some of which survived for another century or more. The surviving Central Asian empire lasted until about 230, when the Sassanids overwhelmed it.