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The Kaniṣka Dating From Surkh Kotal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

A. D. H. Bivar
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Extract

It is one of the most tantalizing features of the ancient history of southern Asia that there is no generally accepted solution to the dating problems of the Kushan dynasty. The wide divergences of opinion still current with regard to this question were well evidenced by the lively discussions which took place at the Conference on the Date of Kanishka, held at the School of Oriental and African Studies from 20 to 22 April I960. It was rightly appreciated that numerous questions of Oriental history and archaeology depend on the correct solution of this problem.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , October 1963 , pp. 498 - 502
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1963

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References

page 498 note 1 The publication of the Proceedings is expected in the near future.

page 498 note 2 Pirenne, Jacqueline, ‘La date du “ Pêriple de la Mer Érythrêe”’, JA, CCXLIX, 4, 1961, 441–59Google Scholar.

page 498 note 3 Sten Konow, Kharoshthī inscriptions (Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, II, 1), 1929, p. LXXVII.

page 498 note 4 cf. Leeuw, J. E. van Lohuizen-de, The Scythian period in Indian history, Leyden, 1949, 237 Google Scholar ff.It may, however, give a more correct explanation of the data there assembled to assume that after the fall of the Great Kushans, their successors at Mathura to whom I have applied the name of Murundas, the first of whom seems to have been called Kaniska, commenceda new dating series by regnal years. The new starting-point will have fallen close to the year 100 of Kaniska, but not perhaps exactly in that year.

page 498 note 5 Here, and below with reference to Ardashir, I quote the datings of Theödor Noldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Araber, 435, which fall between the divergent figures preferred by Henning and by Taqizadeh, cf. Taqizadeh, S. H. and Henning, W. B., ‘The dates of Mani's life’, Asia Major, 1STS, VI, 1, 1957, 106–21Google Scholar.

page 499 note 1 Parth. KwšnḥKwšt(r) [Ḥ](N prḥ)Kwš 'L PKwškbur; Gk. Ḳṭvọṿ[v Ěθ]v[ƞ] Ěωs ̵πρoσθЄv πaσ.kiβovpωv. The prepositional phrase is so interpreted by Maricq, Andrée ‘Classica et Orientalia: 5. Res gestae divi Saporis’, Syria, xxxv, 3–4, 1958, 336 Google Scholar; Chaumont, Marie-Louise, ‘L'nscription de Kartir a la “Ka‘bah de Zoroastre‐’, JA, CCXIVIII, 3, 1960, 360 Google Scholar. Yet there is room for discussion whether the meaning should be ‘up to, but excluding’ or ‘up to, and including’, as I learn from my colleague Dr. D. N. MacKenzie.

page 499 note 2 Ed. de Goeje, II, 819; Nöldeke, op. cit., 17.

page 499 note 3 Results of the excavation to 1961 are summarized in Schlumberger, D., ‘The excavationsat Surkh Kotal and the problem of Hellenism in Bactria and India’, Proceedings of the British Academy, XLVII, 1961, 77–95 Google Scholar.The present writer owes his introduction to these inscriptions to the kindhospitality of the Delegation and of Professor Schlumberger in 1953.

page 499 note 4 Henning, W. B., ‘The Bactrian inscription’, BSOAS, XXIII, 1, 1960, 48 Google Scholar.

page 499 note 5 Curiel, Raoul, ‘Inscriptions de Surkh Kotal’, JA, CCXLII, 2, 1954, 193 Google Scholar.

page 499 note 6 Maricq, Andre, ‘La grande inscription de Kaniska’, JA, CCXLVI, 4, 1958, 416 Google Scholar.

page 500 note 1 The analysis of letter-forms by Göbi, R., ‘Grundriss einer historischen Palaographie der Kusanmunzen’, Iranica Antiqua, I, 1961, 114 Google Scholar, tends to bear out this contention. However, his attempt to distinguish 68 different forms of the letter nu, including numerous blundered forms of little real significance, seems decidedly far-fetched.

page 500 note 2 Of the several suggested interpretations of this word, that given appears the most satisfactory, though far from certain. I am obliged to Professor A. L. Basham for his kind help on this point.

page 500 note 3 Konow, Sten, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, II, 1, 1929, p. 23 Google Scholar.

page 501 note 1 The practice of dating by an era, rather than by regnal years, was a Seleucid invention. In the case of the ‘Old Saka’ Era, the use with it of the Macedonian calendar suggests that it may derive from the administration of the Indo-Bactrians. Indeed, two recent writers ( Narain, A. K., The Indo-Qreeks, 1957, 144Google Scholar; Morton, R., ‘On the ancient chronology of India(iii)’, JAOS, LXXVIII, 3, 1958, 178 Google Scholar) have gone so far as to suggest that itmay be the Era of Menander. The view, argued also by the writer in an unpublished thesis., is not without plausibility.

page 501 note 2 Tarn, W. W., The Greeks in Bactria and India, 1951, 494–502.Google Scholar

page 501 note 3 e.g. the Kankāli-tilā Jaina image of the year 299 ( Banerji, , I A, XXXVII, 2, 1908, 33 Google Scholar); the Gharsadda casket of 303 ( Majumdar, N. G., ‘Inscriptions on two relic caskets from Charsadda’, El, XXIV, 1, 1937, 8–10 Google Scholar); perhaps also the Loriyān Tangai image of 318 (Sten Konow, op.cit., p. 106).

page 502 note 1 van Wijk, W. E., ‘On dates in the Kaniska Era’, Ada Orientalia, v, 1927, 168–70Google Scholar.

page 502 note 2 In Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, II, 1, 1929. Subsequently, however, Konow seems to have abandoned this view, and lent his support to other, perhaps less well-founded hypotheses: e.g. Konow, Sten, ‘Kalawān copper-plate inscription of the year 134’, JRAS, 1932, 4, 964 Google Scholar, ‘It cannot be earlier than about A.D. 139’; idem, ‘Note on the Eras in Indian inscriptions’, India antiqua, 195, ‘The beginning of the Kanishka Era mayhave been about A.D. 200’.

page 502 note 3 Taxila, I, 71.