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VI. The Question of Kanishka

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

J. F. Fleet
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Extract

In the last October number of this Journal Mr. Kennedy gave us the concluding parts of his paper entitled “The Secret of Kanishka”. We may differ from him on some details. We may hesitate, for instance, to accept the suggestion that the origin of the era of B.C. 58 was the convocation of the Fourth Buddhist Council by the Kushan king Kanishka, rather than the actual beginning of his reign; which involves the view that, while he was king de facto for some time before that year, he became recognized as king de jure, and his regnal reckoning was fairly started, and was accepted as the official state reckoning, only when, in that year, having become converted to Buddhism, he caused the Council to be held. But there can be no doubt as to the general great value of what he has laid before us.

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Articles
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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , January 1913 , pp. 95 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1913

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References

page 95 note 1 There would be, indeed, nothing impossible in that, and nothing strange about the reckoning being then accepted by also the Brāhmaṇs and the Jains in spite of its origin: the other sects could not avoid adopting that which would become forthwith the general official reckoning quite as much as a Buddhist reckoning. Still, I prefer to retain the belief that the era had its origin in the regnal years of Kanishka pure and simple, apart from any sectarian question.

page 95 note 2 This is the closely approximate date of the Kushan prince Kozoulo-Kadphises, who, according to opponents of B.C. 58 as the initial date of Kanishka, was the founder of the Kushan supremacy.

page 96 note 1 See this Journal, 1906. 979.

page 96 note 2 See this Journal, 1907. 1029, 1041, 1047

page 97 note 1 Proceedings of the Royal Prussian Academy of Science, 1912, pp. 824–31.

page 97 note 2 The original stone is in the Lahore Museum. Mr. Banerji told us that it was discovered “in an ancient well in a nala known as Ara, two miles from Bāgnilāb”, but did not tell us where to find the place. From inquiries made for me by Dr. Spooner, it would seem that the place is the ‘Chah Bagh Nilab’ of maps, about ten miles south-south-west from Attock, and apparently on the south bank of the Indus at a part where the river, having made a sharp bend about eight miles below Attock, runs to the west for some ten miles: the latitude and longitude appear to be 33° 46′ and 72° 12′.

page 97 note 3 Professor Lüders' translation runs: ‘(During the reign) of the Mahārāja…Kanishka, in the 41st year, the year 41.’ This is in accordance with one of the alternative meanings (see below). But it is not a literal translation of the text: and what we want in dealing with such records is the literal translation before we go on to placing any particular meaning on it.

page 98 note 1 But, as Professor Lüders has indicated, we may not take it as not mentioning the reigning king but as meaning the 41st year of an era founded by a dead and gone Kanishka.

page 101 note 1 Professor Lüders agrees that the first syllable may be either ka or pa, damaged in either case. What comes next seems to stand rather too low to be an i: it might be the lower part of a conjunct consonant (perhaps sta) of which the top is damaged. The next mark certainly looks like part of a sa. The next one after that might be, I think, a ta or da as much as a ra.

page 102 note 1 This is clear in the facsimile; and still more so in some of the impressions received from Dr. Spooner, though they do not suffice to show what the two syllables are.

page 102 note 2 Altogether there are seven syllables (not five): we might find in them the genitive of a title of six syllables (not four as we have in kaïisara); or, but less probably, two genitives, of a title of two syllables followed by one of three syllables. In the Zeda inscription, before Kanishkasa rajami there are two words, now read as veraḍasa marḍakasa, which seem to be Indian or Asian royal titles but have not been explained yet: we may have here another puzzle of the same kind. There is also a title which remains to be deciphered on one of the coins of Wema-Kadphises, No. 26 in Gardner's catalogue.

page 103 note 1 I take that to be his meaning when he says:—‘It is naturally incredible that a ruler of Central Asia or India could assume the name Caesar as a title in the year 16 B.C.’ My present opinion is certainly not in favour of dating any adoption of the title by a Kushan king from that time. Still, we must remember that there had then already been two famous Caesars,—Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus; and that the second of them received an Indian embassy in the winter of B.C. 20–19.

page 104 note 1 I base the following remarks chiefly on statements under the word Caesar in Smith's Classical Dictionary and Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, and in Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary. But I have tried, as usual, to follow the matter up for myself: and as far as I can do that, the facts are exactly in accordance with those statements.

page 105 note 1 See accounts of his coinage in the Rivista Italiana di Numismatica, 1906, pp. 328–74Google Scholar, and the Numismatic Chronicle, 1912, pp. 296–302Google Scholar. I am indebted to Mr. Allan for referring me to these two instructive papers.

page 105 note 2 This Journal, 1909. 645.

page 106 note 1 So, at least, according to the published account, JASB, 3 (1834). 564Google Scholar: but only seven are shown in plate 33; and one of these is unassignable.