In one of the famous kakababu-Santu
adventure stories written by Sunil Gangopadhyay in Bengali, ace detective
kakababu finally manages to nab the criminals in a thrilling chase but at the
last moment they throw the invaluable packet into a river. The packet contained
the severed head of the Kanishka statue and thus the head gets lost forever. It
is not difficult to understand why an entire adventure story has been built
around the severed head of Kanshka statue.
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| Headless Statue of Kanishka, Mathura |
For long, the history of the Kushans
in India was defined by two events in the beginning of the twentieth century.
In 1911, Pandit Radha Krishna found the famous headless statue of Kanishka in a
village called Mat near Mathura (we now know Mat was one of the devakulas of
the Kushans, where along with deities, images of Kushan Kings–in this case Vima
Kadphises, Kanishka and Huvishk–were also placed though we do not know for sure
that these images were worshiped).
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| Kanishka Casket |
The second discovery happened almost
around the same time in Peshawar. Following the descriptions of Chinese
pilgrims–Faxian and Xuanzhang, archaeologists excavated a mound known as Shah-ji-ki-dheri
and dug out the remnants of what was described by the Chinese pilgrims as the
largest stupa in India. They found the famous Kanishka Reliquary Casket, which
now is understood to have been donated by two royal officials during the rule
of Kanishka rather than the King himself (the casket is now kept at Peshawar
Museum, and the relics at Mandalay, the site itself was lost and re-identified
in 2011 in a slum on the outskirts of the city). Both Peshawar (Purushpura) and
Mathura were tentatively identified as twin capitals of what was understood
then as an essentially North-north-western Indian empire. Since then a series
of discoveries–mainly in Afghanistan has completely changed our understanding
of this empire.
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| Rabatak Inscription |
The most dramatic of these discoveries was
made when in 1993, when Sayyid Jafar, the Governor of Baghlan, called a British
Aid Worker Tim Porter and urged him to photograph the remains of a temple found
at a village called Rabatak (this was just on the opposite side of the hill,
where another Kushan devakula was discovered at Surkh Kotal). Among the
discoveries was a 23-line inscription of Kanishka, written in the Bactrian
language and Greek script–an inscription, so important that it has been
described as the ‘Great Kushana Testament’. This was perhaps another Kushan
devakula (the site before it could be adequately investigated was destroyed
during the Afghan Civil War), which was established by an official named
Saphara at the command of King Kanishka, who has been described as a Great King,
the King of Kings and the son of God. Here also, along with Nana and other
Zoroastrian deities, images of Kushan Kings were installed. But the two most
important pieces of information are–first, the Kushan bloodline is clearly
established as Kanishka describes Kujula Kadphises as his great-grandfather,
Vima Taktu as his grandfather and Vima Kadphises as his father. Second,
Kanishka claims that his empire included Kaundiya (Kaundinyapura on the banks
of Wardha in Maharashtra), Saket, Kaushambi, Pataliputra, and even Sri Champa
(Bhagalpur, Bihar). He also makes this exaggerated claim that the entire India
was under his command.
For around two and half centuries, ending
around 230 CE, the Kushans built an extraordinary and intriguing empire. It
spread from North of Bactria to eventually most of North India and provided
great stability to commerce and economy over a large landmass. It was a
multi-ethnic, multi-religious society and their success, indeed their
prosperity was possible because of their tolerance and cosmopolitan outlook.
For more such stories related to Indian
business history, see Laxminama: Monks, Merchants, Money and Mantra by Anshuman
Tiwari and Anindya Sengupta Bloomsbury 2018
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