Kushan religion and politics

To the memory of Stanley Insler 1937—2019 Kushan Religion and Politics H a R R y Fa l K berlin of his subjects by inducing the gods to provide his realm with all means necessary to prevent starvation. In case he misbehaved and acted contrary to the dharma, the consequence was drought as the standard result, a topic exemplified in the epics. Other calamities, like incursions from foreigners, resulted from the same reason (see below on p. 19 Śakas). Such a linkage between the fecundity of the land and the good behavior of the ruler is also known from other parts of Eurasia. In India, the fatal occurrence of too much or too little water, too much or too little sunshine was taken as proof of the dissatisfaction of the heavenly world with the ruler “on duty”. The Kushans were active at a time when in their west, particularly in Syria and western Turkey, a number of new religions had been and still were being designed, and at the same time the trend went towards monotheism. among the new deities Kybele was depicted in full glory at ai Khanum in the 2nd century b.c. (Bernard 2006), Mithra with his Phrygian cap appears in Gandhara in the first century b.c. on coinage and Sarapis and Mēn were known to the Kushans. alexander’s conquests had led to the amalgamations subsumed under Hellenism; the conquests of Rome initiated a spillover of new religions starting from the Roman East, particularly from asia Minor. Some of them put stress on mysteries, that is, secret knowledge, others on belief and all of them were export-oriented. The Kushans further east were not cut off from these fashionable new exports but part of the customers, often second-hand. It is common to assign different religions to the six “imperial” Kushan kings from Kujula Kadphises to Vāsudeva. We are, e.g., used to reading about Sōtēr megas’ “venerating” Mithra, Vima Kadphises being an adherent of Śaivism, Kaniṣka a polytheist or Vāsudeva either another “stern Śaivite” (Göbl 1984: 72a) or being a Vaiṣṇava, simply on account of his name. My contrasting model does not assign disparate religions to individual kings, but in a way proposes a royal cult that regards the royal lineage as part of the world of the gods. This world of the gods looks multifold, but the many gods underlie one supreme force of which the Kushan king is the representative “on earth”. This implies that the king is not an “adherent”, follower” or “devotee” of one particular god among many, but a representative of the heavenly sphere, a sort of ambassador, with liabilities, but also with a right to receive the honours due to those above him. In short, he “has” no religion, he “is” religion, for others to have. This “royal” attitude was new to India in Kushan times, but it had been standard in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, was adopted by achaemenid Iran and continued by the Parthians. after the conquest of Iran, alexander came to like it, with the known consequences among his generals. Rome provides the closest and contemporary parallel, where some emperors could be venerated in their own sanctuaries. The inherited Indian attitude to royalty was much different. Before he met with Hellenistic ideas, the king in India was the key to the welfare 1 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 1. Mithras with rayed Phrygian cap: a) on throne ed. by Indo-Greek king Hermaios (90–70 b.c.) (CNG 97, 448); b) bust type of Hermaios (courtesy P. Tandon) and c) bust with sceptre, issued by amyntas (80–65 b.c.; private coll.); d) on coin of Commodus (r. a.d. 177–192) from Trapezus, Black Sea (CNG 382, 233). Mithra East of Iran proper we encounter a plethora of names in the Indian cultural sphere of persons and localities from the 2nd century b.c. onwards which refer to Mitra, μιιρο, or Mihir. Scheftelowitz (1933) held “Scythians” responsible for the spread of Mithra/Mihira towards and into India, while Humbach (1978) showed that we have to reckon with two imports, the first at a time when avestan was still spoken, preferably in the time of alexander (1978: 238), and a second through the Sakas and Kuṣāṇas, when Middle Iranian was spoken and mithra had changed to mihir. Well in line with Humbach’s first wave of imports we see the characteristic Phrygian cap of the Iranian Mithra on the copper coins of Hermaios (fig. 1, b) and amyntas (fig. 1, c). The two were contemporaries from around 90 b.c. onwards (Bopearachchi 2008a: 260). Bivar (1979: 743, pl. IV, fig. 4b) has shown that the silver coinage of Hermaios also presents Mithra seated on a throne, with rays around his head, which is covered by something that should be a Phrygian cap with a central bun (fig. 1, a). Much later, the same god seated on a throne is given a legend reading βαγο μιορο, “god Mithra” on coins of the KushanoSasanians (Mac Dowall 1979: 562). Since a solar deity with a Phrygian cap can only be Mithra,1 and since both Indo-Greek kings lived around 90 to 60 b.c., we see the first adherents of Mithraism in Gandhara almost two centuries prior to Vema Takhtu and Vima Kadphises. The time in between is not without evidence. The Kushan family temple at Khalchayan in the Mithra in the Realm of the Kushans Understanding the Kushans’ attitude towards the extra-human spheres presupposes an acquaintance with the basic ideas of Mithraism. This movement is accessible through the many vestiges it left between asia Minor and Rome and further north, but its effects on religious ideas east of asia Minor are rather difficult to define. In Bactria or Gandhara, Mithra is expected to be unaffected by Rome, instead just continuing his Iranian career. Mithra is invoked in the 10th yašt of the avesta and disregarded in most other sections. leaving aside the standard prayers and condemnations the text says that Mithra appears after the sun has set (10.24,95), that he never sleeps (10.26.103) and has uncountable “eyes” (10.2.7; 21.82). He precedes the appearance of the sun (10.4.12) and reanimates all visible shapes (10.34,142). Mithra is as wide as the earth (10.10.44), and rises above the mountains which are the repository of waters (10.2.13f.). Mithra saves the cows about to be abducted by enemies (10.9.38; 22.86). His weapon is the club (10.24.96; 31.132) or spear (10.26.102). That means he is intimately connected with the night sky and its movements. His activity produces the lighted sky in the morning, soon followed by the reappearance of the sun. Mithra and his cult was included into Zoroastrianism but has its origins outside Zoroastrianism and may also have lived independently outside it. 2 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics pion, the tail of the bull is raised, often ending in an ear of corn. The meaning of this arrangement is disputed, but the astral connotations are obvious. The bull is the constellation Taurus with its head very near the Pleiades. The two lads are the equinoxes, torch up means more light, that is the spring equinox, and likewise the torch down means less light from autumn onwards. The three animals and the ear of corn follow their representatives in the sky, first the dog, that is, the “dog-star” Sirius; then the snake, Hydra; then the Scorpion and finally the ear is Spica (Skt citrā), “the ear/spike”, as in latin and already so in akkadian. This killing of the bull, the tauroctony, has received a number of contradictory explanations. Without reiterating the discussions I revert to S. Insler, who in 1978 presented a solution which included reasons for tracing such a mythology back to Iran. He says (1978: 524f.): Surkhandarya Valley north of the Oxus is dated to the middle of the first century b.c. One of the many stucco heads wears the Phrygian cap of Mithra. The same applies to a stucco figure at Haḍḍa in Nangarhar, created some decades later but in Hellenistic style (Rowland 1971/1972: 33, figs. 12, 13). No standard Mithraic ritual meeting point has come to light east of Iran. Thus, we can only say that some of the Near Eastern Mithraic iconography was known in Bactria and south of the Hindu Kush in the first century b.c. like other religions dwelling on nature mysticism, verbal knowledge is at the core of it, and this leaves no traces for archaeology unless written down. adherents of Mithraism, as we know, refrained from writing about their system. Mithraism in General and the Tauroctony The division of the year set around the point of the autumnal equinox is significant because it was exactly at that time in the centuries around the era of Christ that the constellation Taurus (the bull) first appeared on the eastern horizon in its evening” (acronical) risings in the night sky. Furthermore, all of the other figures which play a major role in the iconography of the bull-slaying scene—scorpion, snake, raven, krater, lion and dog— likewise correspond to the constellations Scorpio, Hydra, Corvus, Krater, leo major and Canis minor, which arose (and still arise) after the appearance of Taurus in a fixed pattern during the following months.2 Thus, if the tauroctony is to reveal its astral meaning ultimately, it is necessary to describe the progression of Taurus from its first rising to its final setting on the western horizon, and to illustrate the relationship of this constellation with regard to those others represented in the tauroctony at the point of its western heliacal setting, which can be considered to be the “cosmic” death of the bull. Briefly stated; once Taurus had arisen at the time of the autumnal equinox, this constellation was visible all through the winter months of October through March. To understand the differences and the common points of Near Eastern and later Roman Mithraism and its parallels or reflections in the Kushan world we have to look first at the West. Mithraic sanctuaries are our main source of information as most of the preserved literary material comes from non-Mithraic observers. The sanctuaries are found from northern Syria throughout Europe right up to Scotland. They appear as half-subterranean meeting places decorated with statues and reliefs of stone. The meeting places are so restricted in space that only limited groups of people can attend. Men, and males only, sat or lay on raised pedestals to the left and right of a central aisle; dining seems to have been an essential part of the service. The stone reliefs (fig. 2) were painted and attached to the wall above a fire altar at the further end of the aisle. The standardized relief shows a bull fixed to the ground by the deity with a Phrygian cap who looks towards the tail of the animal while killing the bull by means of a dagger stuck into its heart. In the most common model the deity does not look towards the bull’s front part but looks left, away from the dagger and towards the raised tail of the bull. Below the bull from right to left are a standard series of participants: a lad (not shown in fig. 2) holding a torch up, followed by a dog, a snake, a scorpion attacking the testicles of the bull, and another lad (likewise not shown in fig. 2) holding a torch downwards. Between this last lad and the scor- Thus the tauroctony would describe a yearly recurring event of alternating periods of hardship and resurrection, the latter linked to the forceful but necessary death of a being visible in the sky. Insler (1978: 534) is able to link this latter event to the Mithragān festival that fell “between 5 and 14 april (. . .), or almost precisely in the period covered by the two possible settings of Taurus”. 3 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics The floating cloak indisputably points to strong winds. It seems possible to interpret this wind as the “equinoctial storm”, streaming west to east in spring. The equinox storms frame if not coincide with the “death” of Taurus in spring and its reappearance in autumn. The reason is the changed inclination of the earth after each equinox when alternatively the southern or the northern part receives more light from the sun. Mithra appears as the ultimate propelling force behind some natural recurring phenomena and thus as the source of all life. Without his interference the sun would be there but would not move, nor would the stars, and there would be no rejuvenation, no summer or winter. The sun has to die each day, but the moving force is Mithra, sol invictus, demonstrating through the reappearance of the sun that every decay is only temporary. Positioned on the northern half of the globe as we are, we look south and see Taurus between Spica and the Pleiades, disappearing in the west, but the face of Mithra looks the other way, from west to east as flow the spring winds that make his cloak float. Fig. 2. Standard arrangement of tauroctony with Mithras astride on the bull, looking towards the left, floating coat, sun and moon look on, scorpion, snake and dog attack from below. Courtesy the louvre, Paris. He insists that the coincidence of autumnal equinox and the first appearance of the first stars of Taurus happened to occur in the first part of the first century b.c. This, in fact, is also the period of Hermaios and amyntas, who in their Gandharan homes seem to have been impressed by the new observations turned religious science in the West shortly after its propagation. Nothing much can be added to Insler’s explanation. One of the standard questions is whether the butchering deity with its dagger is “the sun” or not. The sun with its rays is often depicted in the background of the tauroctony panels, together with the moon and other celestial beings. The bull-slayer is never shown surrounded by rays and appears often as dining together with the rayed sun, showing that for the artists the sun and Mithra are two entities that are not absolutely identical. One aspect, as far as I can see, has not found adequate consideration: Mithra looks away from the dagger: on most panels he looks from right to left. The same direction is also found in the cloak floating away from his shoulders. In some cases it is shown horizontally in mid-air (fig. 2). Roman art provides a number of other bull-slaying episodes,3 but never would the butcher look away from the animal. Mithra petrogenitus after the tauroctony the second most frequent depiction of Mithra shows him halfway rising from a rock. Modern research describes this event as Mithra petrogenitus, Mithra being “born from the rocks”. In some cases this figure occurs in the small depictions that can surround the killing of the bull; more often Mithra petrogenitus, cut from stone in close to life-size, stands upright and alone, his naked upper body emanating from a pile of rocks; he holds a dagger in his right hand and occasionally a torch or globe in his left. Such a figure was also placed in Mithraic sanctuaries. These figures are usually interpreted as “birth of Mithra”, but strictly speaking there is only his cutting through the rock, and anything closely reminiscent of a birth is missing. We see the deity cutting from inside through the rocks, and this seems to refer to the liberation of waters which were held confined inside. Water liberators are commonplace in many ancient belief systems from anatolia to the Vedic Indians and thus the idea has nothing unlikely about it. a statue from the village Romula in Romania, now in the archaeological Museum of Bukarest, was made as 4 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 3. a) Vima Kadphises (Triton 11, 369); b) Kaniṣka I (CNG 100, 1657) and c) Huviṣka (CNG 91, 459) emenating from the rocks. Iranian Mithra. There are three such places mentioned in the concerned Purāṇas (Humbach 1978: 234), one in the east, one called Kālapriya, probably at Mathura, and the prime station Mitravana at Multan on the Chenab River. It is also called Sāmbapura and at least one sun-worshipper from there is known from a seal found at the Kashmir Smats in Gandhara (Falk 2003: 15f.). His name is Mihira. a sacred place for Mithra/Mihira in India need not have anything to do with the rites relating to Mithra in the Roman empire. However, there is one moment which links the Kushans with the Roman Mithra, skipping Iran in between: Mithra petrogenitus explains why Vima Kadphises, Kaniṣka and Huviṣka (fig. 3) show themselves as arising from rocks. In breaking through the rocks, the Kushan kings equate themselves with that force that pushes all worlds into motion and provides all beings with water. No Indo-Greek king, no Scythian or Parthian ruler ever appears as rising from rocks. Mithra is shown this way and the Kushan rulers as well. Coincidence is hardly a credible alternative: the three Kushan rulers assume the role of Mithra. an outlet for a public water supply (Vermaseren 1951: 2). an old element from diverse oriental myth systems is a dragon coiling around the withheld waters and a hero overcoming it by force. Heracles and the Hydra may be as old as Indra and the snake (ahi) Vṛtra. This fits in with snakes circling around a number of rock piles from which Mithra petrogenitus arises (Neri 2000: figs. 1, 3, 8). In principle it is possible to link this Mithra with the daily appearance of the sun or with the yearly liberation of the waters. Both would make sense; however, the liberation of water is also or already a topic on panels with Mithra shooting an arrow against a rock, thus opening a fountain (Vermaseren 1956: 66, 169). Mithra in the Pantheon of the Kushans What has all this to do with the Kushans? Is there any hint at a tauroctony or petrogenitur in Bactria? Is there at least one single mitraeum in their realm? Seemingly not.4 No mitraeum found in the realm of the Kushans does not mean that none ever existed. a possible site for a mitraeum in India is a place called mitrasthāna, spelled mitrathaṇa in Kharoṣṭhī. a merchant called Bu(d)dhamitra, son of a Kaṭhea, lives there after having left Nagara, that is, Jalalabad in Nangahar, eastern afghanistan.5 There are several places called -sthāna, and very often this is a place of veneration for a deity. We have bhīmā-sthāna for the female deity Bhīmā in Kashmir Smats, one kumāra-sthāna at abbottabad for SkandaKumāra-Kārttikeya and one nāgendrasya sthāna for a Nāga king at Mathura (Falk 2004: 149), so that a “holy place of Mitra” in the first century a.d. could well refer to a sanctuary of an imported Kujula Kadphises (ca. a.d. 30 to 90) Western Mithraism as it evolved would not have been possible without the Roman conquests in asia Minor and the Near East. Information, including such as refer to religions, could travel about as fast as a caravan from antiochia to Baktra or Qunduz, or as a ship from the Red Sea to the mouth of the Indus. Somewhere in the early decades of the first century a.d. the first Kushan, 5 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 4. (a, c) Copper coin of Kujula copying a silver coin of augustus; (b, d) showing the latter after the victory of actium. that Kujula was careful not to impose too many novelties at a time onto the markets. The situation is completely different regarding another issue (fig. 4, a, c) that copies a coin of augustus, released 30/29 b.c. in Rome, which shows the future emperor as Jupiter terminus (fig. 4, b, d), issued after the sea battle at actium.6 Did Kujula issue the replica celebrating a similar event of complete success in Gandhara? This would presuppose a detailed knowledge of Roman politics and their numismatic repercussion. That there was knowledge of augustan coinage is proven by two silver coins of augustus found in the Swat Valley (Swati et al. 2002: 250, pl. 30; RIC2 178a), minted in lyon between 11 and 9 b.c. Their time of production provides nothing but a terminus post quem for their deposition in Swat; however, they are minted from the same dies, which seems to imply possession by one party traveling from lyon to Gandhara. a date too distant from their emission seems unlikely. Copying coins to express a particular personal nearness was not unheard of in Gandhara. The first Scythian king, Maues (first half first century b.c.), carefully copied a copper coin of Demetrios I (ca. 200–185 b.c.) leaving everything intact, changing only the name. Kujula Kadphises, did away with some co-rulers guarding trade routes around Greater Bactria and reverted to what he calls “tyrannical”, meaning unshared, power. This crucial incident took place north of Gandhara, and it copied what had happened in China and Rome before, i.e., the creation of a strong state by the removal of coregents. With his newly won strength Kujula pushed south, seemingly following at least two routes. The first one went along the Kunar River to the Swat Valley. On the second route Kujula proceeded to Kāpiśī (Begram), the laghman Valley and Nangahar. Here, the traditional silver coinage of Hermaios, already in a “posthumous” state, gradually changed from pure Hermaios legends into an alliance edition, with Kujula mentioned only on the reverse side and finally his name appearing on the obverse side as well, still under the distorted portrait of Hermaios (Bopearachchi 1997). This process reflects the gradual disempowerment of the Scythian parties that had held Nangahar so far. an identical process is reflected in the copper coins. Of Hermaios there is a type around 9 g. showing his head’s upper part full of dots meant to depict hair coils and on the reverse Zeus seated on a throne. Greek and Prakrit legends speak of the saviour (sōtēros; tratarasa). In one of the following stages Hermaios is left in Greek on the obverse, but the reverse is changed to a standing Heracles with lion skin and club ascribed to Kujula in Prakrit (kujulakasasa kuṣaṇayavugasa dhamaṭhitasa). The final edition also changes the Greek to an enigmatic basileos steros sv ermaiov. The original head was left unaltered. The sequence of changes is important in that it shows The Self-Description of Kujula The diverse orthographies for the names of Kujula and his clan show that there was no tradition about their written forms. The titles Kujula uses are maharaja, rajatiraja, his disposition is “steadfast in truth and dharma”, his local derivation is 6 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Vema Takhtu alias Sōtēr megas kuṣāna; for Chinese recipients he adds ZaOOy, for the locals the same: yavuga, yabgu. Very rare is svami, Skt svāmin. although the “saviour” is common on the Hermaios side in Greek, there is never a corresponding tratara in Kujula’s lengthy Kharoṣṭhī legends. Being “steadfast in truth and dharma” (satyadharmasthita) allows of no deductions because it occurs in Buddhist and Hindu texts alike, and is recommended particularly for kings by some Dharmaśāstras. The development of his coinage shows that he was careful not to irritate the market by introducing too many changes. The gods and symbols made use of provide no clues as to his personal religious disposition. an inclination towards augustus and Rome are not to be overlooked, but apart from the title “son of the god(s)” no other term allows us to guess at his religious preferences. This devaputra “son of god(s)” has parallels in China, Iran, Egypt and Rome, all of which could have contributed to its adaptation by Kujula. For our concerns it is more important to find out when he began to use the title. It occurs only on two issues. One is the bull-and-camel issue adopted from Jihonika, the dethroned ruler of Kashmir. The mint marks (Khar. iṃ + da) are continued from Jihonika to Kujula. The Kharoṣṭhī legend reads maharayasa rayatirayasa at 5h from the outside, and devaputrasa kayalakatakatapasa starting at 5h from the inside. There are some variants; one of them starts with the single devaputrasa at 5h from the outside and has all the rest start at 5h read from the inside: maharaja . . . The first-named partition is also found on the two surviving tyrannountos “Heraios” coppers7 (Falk ed. 2015: 86), where we read with Cribb (1996: 124) maharayasa rayatirayasa from the outside, start at 5h and devaputrasa kuyula katakapasa from the inside. The identity of text and arrangement suggest that the devaputra was introduced only after the conquest of Kashmir, and that then only the tyrannountos coppers came into circulation, seemingly later in Kujula’s reign. Unfortunately, the tyrannountos (“Heraios”) silver coins don’t carry a Kharoṣṭhi legend. although Kujula was hesitant in using the title, already one of his sons called Sadaṣkaṇa was regarded as a devaputra in a dedicatory text of Senavarma (von Hinüber 2003: 29) in the Swat Valley, although his father the maharaya rayatiraya was still living. after Kujula had done away with most adversaries, his son Vema Takhtu8 came to power, after first actively supporting China’s policies in its west and then waging war against the Han general Ban Chao when he returned to western Xinjiang (Falk ed. 2015: 97f.). Some of Vema’s coinage carries his personal name, spelled vema takho in Kharoṣṭhī script on the clearest examples from Kashmir. These coins have been known in principle for a long time, but they were first collectively presented and interpreted by J. Cribb (Sims-Williams and Cribb 1995/1996: 111–18). Vema Takhtu’s name is mentioned in the pedigree of the Kushan kings contained in the Rabatak inscription and thus ended the search for the identity of a “nameless” king, who used the not so rare epithet of a “Great Saviour” (sōtēr megas) on coppers.9 The standard type (fig. 5) is found in huge numbers from Bactria to the Panjab. These pieces were long ago placed chronologically between Kujula and Vima Kadphises on numismatic grounds, attributed to the one or the other, alternatively to a separate but unknown personality. This “saviour” was the first king, whether regarded as Kushan or not, to be linked by research to Mithra cults. The reason was the arrangements of rays around the head on the obverse thus linking him to the sun. For all explanations an Iranian Mithra was envisaged and a Near Eastern or Roman Mithra was regarded as irrelevant, although knowledge about Roman coin design was taken for granted (Cribb 2015: 98a). This standard edition, with all its many variations, shows a horseman wearing a Phrygian cap on the reverse, which is inscribed in Greek. He raises his right arm with a gesture of greeting or holds a pick-axe in his hand. This horseman could be the sovereign or the god Mithra. Iconographically this type continues the horseman so common on the earlier and contemporaneous Śaka and Parthian editions. The uninscribed other side shows a head surrounded by a fillet. On the standard pieces an earring cannot be missed. Occasionally this ring looks like an earlobe, but in the majority it is unmistakably at a clear distance below the ear, although it is ignored in descriptions. Such an earring is never present on an earlier type of 12 g., described below. In Iranian and Scythian contexts the sun god often shows ear ornaments, also in ring-form (Shenkar 2014: figs. 69, 71). Our 7 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 5. Sōtēr megas standard “Mithras” type of ca. 8 grams: a) 11 rays; a) and b) tamgha with four prongs, rounded Greek letters; c) seven rays; c) and d) tamgha with three prongs. Both types with earrings. Courtesy W. Pieper 2013, nos. 1182, 1183. Fig. 6. Helmeted bust type, Khar. letter vi, base type 12.5 g.: a) helmeted bust with chlamys and three-pronged tamgha; b) horseman with tamgha. One-eighth at 1.4 g., 10 mm ø U-2205 “diameter”; c) standing helmeted deity with chlamys over arm, tamgha (in left field, here invisible) and Khar. vi; d) reverse ardoxsho with cornucopia, namo symbol and pot-of-plenty. No other helmet in Rome shows an identical curl, and so we hold the 12.5 g. Sōtēr megas coin as well as the 1/8th vi-type as depicting a deity resembling Mars with spear and speak henceforth for brevity’s sake of the “Mars type”. There is nothing Indian about it and also nothing Bactrian or Parthian. We see the Roman god of war, and this certainly indicates that the times of this coin type were bellicose and that a deity like Mars signalled a warning for adversaries. The 12.5 g. weight of this Mars type follows the weight standard of Bactria but is not restricted to Bactria. The younger type with rays and head to right spreads the final 8 g. copper standard all over Bactria and down to India. There is so far one single coin found in Bactria that shows that the change from the Mars type with head left (12.5 g) to the rayed type with head right (8 g.) occurred in Bactria and produced the one surviving rayed type weighing 12.66 g. (Vainberg and Krouglikova 1984: 130, no. 172). rayed deity holds an arrow or the upper part of a spear, to which often a royal fillet is tied to indicate its sacred nature. Before this standard type was established, there was an earlier one that resembled the standard type in that the bust of a figure holds an arrow or spear as well, but in contrast it faces left and wears a helmet. We cannot decide between arrow or spear solely on the image (figs. 6 c, 7 d). But fortunately there is a one-eighth value edition showing a figure, naked apart from the chlamys hanging over his left forearm, who sports a helmet in many cases and holds on to a spear in all.10 In Indian, Iranian, Greek and Roman iconography there is only one candidate for such an outfit, the Roman Mars. On the basic type the helmet is devoid of decoration on most pieces, but there is a rather frequent design of a whirl on it which is so close to the one on a Roman coin depicting Mars (fig. 7, b) that it is difficult to think of chance. 8 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 7. Helmeted Sōtēr megas “Mars” edition of 12.5 g.: a) head to left, helmet, holding spear or arrow; b) Roman coin of augustus ed. 29–27 b.c., showing Mars with chlamys and comparably decorated helmet. c) artemis holding spear, ed. Trajan (r. a.d. 98–117), issued a.d. 112–114 at Caesarea (Kaiseri); d) one-eighth of 1.5 g. showing naked Mars with helmet, chlamys over arm and holding spear. Fig. 8. Sasan horseman-Zeus type, not to size, base type 9.8 g.: a) horseman with Gondophares tamgha; b) Zeus with Khar. letter va (St. album 30, 2232). Sōtēr megas adaptation 9.83 g.: c) horseman with tamgha; d) Zeus with pot-of-plenty and Khar. vi (St. album 30, 2232). Victories in Gandhara allowed Vema Takhtu to replace Sasan, the last of the Gondophares line. Sasan had designed his coinage on a standard of 9.5 grams, originally of silver, showing the usual horseman to right and a standing Zeus on the reverse. Exactly this type was continued in Gandhara after Vema Takhtu had taken over. But there is one formal change: the Gondopharan tamgha was replaced by the three-pronged tamgha of Vema Takhtu, added to by a Kharoṣṭhī letter vi, already known from the “Mars” editions. The legend changed, but for us the most important element comes in the form of a pot-of-plenty, Sanskrit pūrṇaghaṭa, which now finds its place on the ground in front of Zeus (fig. 8, d). a pot-of-plenty already was a symbol for the builders of Sanchi in most of its phases, from the Mauryas to the Kushans. With its three leaves it has no exact counterpart in Iran or the West. It is a genuine Indian symbol, and once on the coin of a Kushan it must be addressing the Gandharan population. Following the inherent meaning of the pūrṇaghaṭa the new coins seem to suggest that political changes will be slight and to the advantage of all. The main deity is Zeus, and this is being part of Indo-Greek symbol language. But the addition of the pūrṇaghaṭa shows that Vema wants to be accepted as a conqueror with a recognized concern for the local population. The Mathura Type with the Face of Vema Takhtu or Sol There is one more Sōtēr megas edition with a bearing on religious ideas, produced in Mathura and found there only, in very small numbers. Mathura was probably the last place conquered by Vema Takhtu. His larger than life-size statue was found 9 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 9. a) Sōtēr megas, Mathura type, 4.2 g.; b) reverse of the same with deity holding thunderbolt ending below in tilted E; c) Kushan copy from Bactria of Heliokles I reverse showing Helios-Zeus with sceptre and thunderbolt ending below in tilted E; d) reverse of Heliokles I (r. ca. 145–130 b.c.) silver issue showing Zeus with thunderbolt over mint mark with three prongs. Mac Dowall (1975: 146). The topic of Zeus with sceptre and thunderbolt surrounded by a rectangularly arranged legend goes back to Heliokles I, the last Indo-Greek to rule ai Khanum, before the “nomads” made an end to their rule north of the Hindu Kush. This silver coin was then copied in silver by non-Indo-Greek successors, either Scythians or yuezhi. In this process the mint mark consisting of a circle with three prongs was changed into a flat oval with three hanging prongs. a further stage then led to coppers showing the bulky head of Heliokles on the obverse and a Zeus turned into Zeus-Helios by adding rays around his head on the reverse. The mint mark was now further flattened into a tilted E. The flames are twofold (fig. 9, c), the first five of them encircling the head, and then two of them shooting out of the shoulders, as seen first on the coins of Hyrkodes,12 a ruler of the early first century of Bukhara, and often regarded as a yuechi precursor to the “classical” Kushans. These Heliocles coppers are found all over northern Bactria, often preceding or in company with standard “Mithra” Sōtēr megas issues (Mac Dowall 1975: 146). For us it is important to see that a Heliocles type was again used for a last “local” Sōtēr megas issue, important in that it includes a rectangular legend, to which we will return under Vima Kadphises, the son. at Maṭ, a family sanctuary just over the yamunā on the eastern shore. Since there is a stronghold on the low hill of Māṭ I have proposed (Falk 2011: 133) that the site of the sanctuary be regarded as the field where the last battle was fought before the city of Mathura on the other side of the river could be taken. This last coin issued in the name of Sōtēr megas is remarkable in that it shows a head in profile modelled in a seemingly realistic way. as a new feature this head wears a crown in Roman style that displays short rays that lay flat along the skull, which was used for divus augustus posthumously in the early first century a.d. (e.g., Caligula, RIC I 2), and then for living emperors from Trajan (a.d. 98–117) onwards. The weight of this Mathura edition oscillates around 4.2 g. and thus fits well into the scale of the 2.1 and 8.2 g. of the standard Sōtēr megas “Mithra” type (cf. Mac Dowall 1975: 147). That means that the recent idea of Cribb (2015: 107)11 that Vema Takhtu introduced a new standard against his own, so not to overburden his new subjects at Mathura, is mistaken. The rare coins of this Mathura subtype comply with his common standard by halving it. later, it is continued by Vima Kadphises when he introduces his 16 and 4 g. coppers. With regard to the solar crown on the Mathura issue the parallel with Rome is obvious, but despite all the realism, the features would need pictorial parallels to decide whether the Vema Takhtu Mathura edition shows the king himself as Sol or someone else. The unappealing reverse side of the Mathura edition of Sōtēr megas may also be significant, with most of its relevant changes observed already by A Sasanian Seal and the Mithra Connection In 1990 P. Callieri dealt extensively with a seal from the British Museum (fig. 10). It shows the bust of a deity inside a solar halo. This deity holds 10 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Own Words of Vema Takhtu on His Status There is only one text formulated by Vema himself, found on the altar stone of Dasht-e Nāwur. Here, Vema calls himself “The king of kings, the great salvation, Vima Taktu the Kushan, the righteous, the just, the god worthy of worship, who has gained(?) the kingship by his own will . . .” (Sims-Williams 2012: 76). Much of the further lines cannot be read, but the terms “the god worthy of worship” makes it abundantly clear that Vema regarded himself as a sort of god on earth. What Panaino (2009: 334) said about Kaniṣka, who used the same phrase, also holds true for the time of his grandfather, that it is likely that “in the Kušān court, the dynastic cult (. . .) assumed the form of a worship to be offered to the living king”. Summing up Vema Takhtu Fig. 10. Squeeze of a Sasanian seal from the late fourth cent. after Callieri (1990: 81, fig. 3) showing Mithra with arrow and earring inside solar halo breaking through the mountains. Courtesy the trustees of the British Museum, acc.no. 1932,0517.1. looking at all13 the deities discernible on the Sōtēr megas coinage we get no clearly fixed model. The Bactrian issues do not continue the “Heraios” silver type of his father, which is discontinued. The Heliocles imitations in copper link to Heliocles I, the last “legal” Bactrian king. The reverses show a riderless horse, symbol of Mithra as the sun (Mac Dowall 1975: 146). alternatively we see Heliocles I’s original Zeus with the thunderbolt having turned into a fiery Sol, with flames issuing from his shoulders. The fiery side may also be hinted at by the head and weapon of Mars on the issues with Khar. vi, be it the helmeted bust with arrow or the one-eighth weight with fullsize Mars and ardoxšo. The only Indian notion, itself implying water, is found in the pot-of-plenty introduced both on the horseman and Zeus types taken from Sasan, where it stands in front of Zeus, and on the helmeted bust type, in front of ardoxšo. On the political level a link to Indo-Greek predecessors is new, while the use of Roman image language from coins continues the custom of his father Kujula Kadphises. an arrow upward and wears at least one earring. The solar disk is placed on top of a heap of rocks symbolising mountains. a devotee raises his arms in veneration. This seal is from eastern Iran and dated to the late fourth century by Callieri (1990: 82), thus postdating Vema Takhtu by almost three hundred years. Still it is amazing how much of so far missing evidence it provides: apart from the imperial Kushan coinage this is the only eastern evidence for the petrogenitur of Mithra breaking through the mountains. The deity seems to put his left hand on the hilt of the sword that in the West was used to cut through the mountains. Instead, the deity holds up an arrow, which in western Mithraism refers to his opening the mountains to release the waters. There can be little doubt that the arrow on the seal has the same function as the sword in the West. This seal also shows that the Iranian custom of depicting Mithra with earrings on imperial rock reliefs also applies to the image of a bust. Our Sōtēr megas with his earrings is therefore a forerunner to a customary Iranian Sasanian Mithra, a forerunner which found no pictorial representation in arsacid times, but Sasanian habits fill the gap. Vima Kadphises King Vima Kadphises’ activities are not mirrored in Buddhist dedicatory legends. He shows 11 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics the Prajāpati-Rudra-agni complex, leading to Skanda, Viśākha and others, to be exemplified below. The best link to the preceding ruler Vema Takhtu comes when looking at a group of four gold coins which were the oldest ones inside a treasure find of 2004, according to all witnesses excavated in the Pipal Mandi area of central old Peshawar (fig. 11). The number of gold coins found (“plus de 4500”) may be open to doubt; also it is standard practice to add stray pieces from other sources once a treasure becomes famous. about forty coins were first published by O. Bopearachchi. His claim (2006: 1434) that the treasure included pieces of Kaniṣka is not supported by those published or by those soon later flooding the auctions, but can likewise not be disproved. all of this is irrelevant for our concern focussed on religious concepts of Vima Kadphises. The four exceptional coins were dealt with by R. Bracey (2009: 72f.) and last by Cribb (2015: 90–94), both calling one coin genuine and the other three fakes. Not a single piece covered by these four coins was known before this treasure was published. There are a number of Kushan coins that have come down to us as single survivors only, so their singularity in itself should not arouse suspicion, but this Pipal Mandi hoard yielded three unknown types in four exemplars. all eight dies were different. all four reverse sides show a three-headed deity en face, holding a sort of triśūla ornamented with a number of symbols, all left arms hold a lion skin in the fashion of Heracles, all left hands hold a flask. all four reverse side legends name the father of Vima Kadphises, Vema Takhtu. No other Kushan coin ever found contained a legend of a similar content. In fact, the four legends share a similar phrase, but the orthography varies with each die: himself in images on his coins and on one singular rock at Khalatse between Shrinagar in Kashmir and leh. The way-out place is important only when the road by the side of it is used for travelling from Kashmir to Kashgar, across the Karakoram Pass. The rock inscription calls him devaputra (misspelled devaprata) and maharaja, and is dated to the “western foreign” (yavana) year 287, that is, a.d. 112. Because of the scarcity of evidence Vima Kadphises hardly plays a role in standard histories, apart from allegedly being a Śaiva, which has been refuted already by Tanabe (1997: 269). But Vima’s activity is complex and his impact was long lasting. He appears as a most important king and implicitly modifies the cherished glory of his son Kaniṣka. There will be more to say about Vima than about most others. The aspects checked here are his reflections on the contents and the reception of his coins as a political means. Then we will look at the socalled Śaiva deity, at its goat’s head, at the bovine in the background, at the weapon regarded as a triśūla, at the so-called vajra in one of the hands of the naked deity and at the twig in the hand of the king. Pipal Mandi and the Genuine Fakes The coins of Vima Kadphises are rather uniform, showing the king standing in a nomad caftan, trousers and boots, holding his hand above an altar, which never has the classical four horns or shows any trace of fire so that we better compare it to a classical thymiaterion, a hollow incense burner.14 The reverse shows a naked figure, and this deity is shown with a triśūla, ithyphallic and as leaning on a bovine animal. Because of the animal and the triśūla the figure is called Śiva and the king a Śaivite. But things are not that simple. The figure has raised hair like the fire-god agni and he has three heads, one of them obviously a goat’s head, while Śiva has nothing to do with goats. Vima Kadphises’ son Kaniṣka takes up this motif, slightly modified, and labels it Wēš in Bactrian (OHÞΟ), Skt vāyuḥ. How do Vāyu and Śiva relate? Both have some roots in or connection to the Vedic Rudra. We will return to this when dealing with Kaniṣka. Śivaism, when it took its modern form, included a number of older constructions, some of them interrelated. One of them is what I call a) . . . CΙΛΕΩC ΟΟΕΜΟ / ΤΑΚΤΟ/ΟΥ ΚΟΡΡΑΝΟΥ ΥΙΟ . . . b) ΒΑCΙΛΕΩC ΟΟΕΝΟ ΤΑΚΤΟΟΥ ΚΟΟΡÞΑΝΟΥ ΥΙΟC c) BaCIΛEΩC OOKNO TaKΔΟΟΥ ΚΟΟÞ□ΑΟΥ ΥΙΟC [□ = Þ erased] d) . aCIΛEΩC OOKNO TaKTOOy KOOÞÞ ... There are a number of spelling variations and a number of clerical mistakes showing that at least two scribes were involved. If there was a faker he 12  f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 11. Not to size: Four singular coins from the Pipal Mandi hoard: a) 8.62 g. with rectangular legend; b) 16.23 g.; c) 7.86 g., 7.71 g.; d) 7.71 g. “genuine”. name turned into pseudo-Greek “Zeionisēs” on coinage. Jihonika ruled Kashmir before Kujula took over. His coins read MaNNIOΛΟΥ ΥΙΟΥ CΑΤΡΑΠΟΥ / ΖΕΙωΝΙCΟΥ “(coin of) the son of Manigula, of the Kṣatrapa Jihonika”. The second parallel comes from Kharahostes, relative to those Kṣatrapas at Mathura, which shortly later succumbed to the onslaught of Vema Takhtu: XaPaHωCTEI CΑΤΡΑΠΕΙ ΑΡΤΑΥΙΟΥ, “For the Kṣatrapa Kharahostes, (coin) of arta’s son”. Here we have a genitive and a dative, and “the son of arta” was responsible for the coin, but he issued it “for Kharahostes”, as if Kharahostes would not have been present.16 Who “arta’s son” is we are not told. In any case, both coins speak “of the son” of someone. also on our Vima Kadphises coin the term υιος is used, but in the nominative. Could this mean: “(this is a coin) of the king Vema Takhtu, (who is) a son of the Kushan”? Then we had two persons, as in the two parallels, with the title “king” given to the issuer of the coin and not to his father. We know that Vema Takhtu is the son of “the Kushan”, a term used for Kujula without even mentioning his name. The nominative found here could have been used to avoid a confusion between a genitive objectivus (ΚΟΟΡΡΑΝΟΥ) and many genitives subjectivus (or she) must have studied Greek palaeography and epigraphy intensively. In Falk (forthcoming) I will deal with the origin and development of the thorn-like letter Þ used for the Greek and Bactrian scripts in Gandhara to represent the non-dental sibilants /ś/ and /ṣ/ found in Bactrian and Indian terms. Our four Pipal Mandi gold coins provide additional material for a development of over almost 200 years from PP over PC to ÞÞ to Þ, reconstructed on the basis of material external to the Pipal Mandi legends. Most telling is the deliberate errasion of the second Þ in legend d). Behind all the graphical variants stands one single intended legend, and it is the only Kushan coin legend where a ruler mentions his father. The obverse says: “I am king Vima Kadphises” in two arrangements.15 The reverse seems to say “(coin) of the son of the king Vema Takto the Kushan”. This certainly is unique in many ways, and in addition its letter style is markedly different from the one used on the obverse. To my mind, the disputed legend should not be discussed without comparing two parallels, both minted in about the same time at the Kushan periphery, and both using the term υιος, “son”. The first one comes from Jihonika, a Scythian 13 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics 123b) for the so far singular silver coin of Vima Kadphises, found near Begram. He expects that the “coin cannot have been intended to circulate and was clearly struck with a fresh die”. “Not intended to circulate” is exactly what explains all the features of the four startling Pipal Mandi pieces. They as well were struck with a “fresh” die, no, with four unused dies, each reverse from a different one, as the legends make clear. a faker would have reused at least one die for more than one side, but here we have all four crucial reverse sides with a die of their own. Cribb expects one obverse to have been recut, but none of the four obverse sides can have been recut from any of the other three. Cribb also sees the same man at work behind the “faked” letters on both sides. again, a cursory glance is enough to see that from a graphological point of view both sides are very much different. One example is enough: The obverse legend uses omicron circles decidedly smaller than the type height, while the reverse uses omicrons that in most cases fill the height. So there must have been two teams working on the two sides. There is a clear sequence emerging when we regard the issues as experiments: The first case a) went wrong on all sides: The torso of the king emerges from undefined ground, the reverse shows a legend in a rectangular arrangement. Why rectangular? The last to use a legend from an originally rectangular exemplar was Vema Takhtu at Mathura. That means the reconsideration of such an arrangement could be based on a rather recent production. The next two coins b) and c) are similar in that they show crudely outlined obverses and likewise unfinished reverses. Coin b) is of double weight. The obverse answers to the enlarged size, the reverse does not, as if it was already ready at hand, but intended for a smaller and lighter flan. From a religious point of view all four pieces add up to one interpretation. The figure of the deity was worked with a clear conception in mind. It has three heads; long hair falls on both sides and touches the shoulders. lines pointing upwards show “rising” hair. To the sides of the central head a goat’s head looks right and another head, undefinable, looks left. The figure holds a triśūla with attached axe. The left arm holds a lion’s fur, and the hand a flask. The triśūla has received a number of additions. There is a small object in its upper part, contracted in its centre, and a wheel near the lower end. Cribb takes the (all others), as found on the Kharoṣṭhī side. In this case all three υιος-sentences would name two persons. The syntax and content on the Pipal Mandi coins would then be normal and explicable, but we would also have to suppose that this legend has a prehistory: It would appear most meaningful when it was adapted from a pre-existing source like a sketchbook at the mint dating from the days of Vema Takhtu, who referred to himself by his own name and that of his father, the Kushan. The four Pipal Mandi coins were completely new, but still British numismatists univocally condemned three of them while assuming that the fourth one was genuine, because a die study by Bracey (2009) had shown that the obverse die of d) had been used also on other and certainly genuine pieces of Vima Kadphises. The assumption was that since d) and c) are very similar the latter must have been copied from the “genuine” piece d), of which the final letters are not discernible but must have been correctly supplied by an unknown faker, imagine: in Pakistan!17 This alleged copy looks absolutely mint-fresh, although its design is only cursorily worked out. The same applies to the two remaining pieces. They look unfinished: particularly a) is only a sketch. This is in stark contrast to the “genuine” coin, which looks worked beyond ordinary measure. Hardly any other coin of the early Kushans has suffered so much from wear and tear. So we have an alleged “genuine” coin being absolutely run down, and three others in (unfinished) mint condition, where the die-cutter had been rather reluctant to work out details. Instead of calling one “genuine” and three “fakes” I propose that all four share the same fate: they were, in my view, trial editions used for finalising the design, and one was tested for the resilience of the gold. We have to keep in mind that in this area gold coinage was last issued on a regular basis by Eucratides (ca. 170–145 b.c.), that is at least 260 years earlier. The abraded parts of the “genuine” coin appear around the rim, but also in empty fields, which shows to my mind that the loss of gold did not happen on pay tables or in purses but in a technical device of unknown construction. at least the result showed how much wear such a gold coin of this purity could endure before it would need to be replaced. all other unfinished coins were not mangled for abrasion but served as test editions for their design. Similar considerations are admitted by Bracey (2012: 14 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 12. a selection of agni types, a) Pipal Mandi (fig. 11, b) with weapon pole fully covered with symbols; b) chariot type with reduced symbols; c) standard with further reduced pole; d) agni with cow and plain triśūla. meant to show an erect male member; the standard type certainly does. In the western traditions naked gods are not rare, Heracles being the most prominent, Mars follows suit. Erections are often depicted, mostly with the satyrs and often in connection with Dionysian festivities, but also the Hermes stelae depicted that organ. One herm cast in bronze of local production was found in northern afghanistan (Boardman 1992: 103f.) and dated to the first century a.d., “a time of brisk production of small bronze herms in the Roman world”. That our naked god has something to do with agni is obvious from his hair, which stands on end. a parallel image is found on the coins of agnimitra of the Mitra dynasty in the Doab from the 1st century b.c. The name-giving cult figure agni is shown on a pedestal with his hair flowing upwards (fig. 13, b, below). Of the same age could be a monumental free-standing statue with its hair built up as a cone of flames (fig. 13, a), in addition to a number of agni figures in plastic art from Mathura with flames coming out from the whole of the upper body.19 Our naked god likewise has such hair, but in addition he recalls by his member his mythological relatives Prajāpati and Rudra, both connected to cosmogonic legends where spilled semen stands at the beginning of the creation of our world. a small number of legends and cosmogonic ideas are already found in the Vedic saṃhitās and centre about some basic elements, such as Non-being (asat), Being (sat), space (ākāśa), water and fire. Once water is there, fire comes out of it in one form or other. One of the basic elements can also be called semen, which at the same time is tejas, “heat” and “lustre”. wheel to be an addition due to the imagination of the faker, unaware that there are paintings published since 1997 (Carter 1997a, b), which shortly later made it to the Metropolitan Museum’s show cases. They were found somewhere in the western part of the Kushan realm and show a similar deity with similarly extended triśūla showing exactly this very wheel as well, although somewhat faintly lined out so that M. Carter would not notice it. Total inspection of these paintings is only possible since the museum published high resolution takes.18 Thus, the wheel seen on the Pipal Mandi coin documents artistic continuity rather than modern spontaneous imagination. Summing up: The Pipal Mandi coins appear to be genuine and all of them, not only the “genuine” no. d) can be used for further interpretations. They derive from a formative period; that a 16 g. gold coin was envisaged and provisionally given up; that a legend that refers to the father of Vima Kadphises was first thought as suitable and was then given up, for good reasons; and that an antiquarian sense was there to keep these trial pieces as part of the family history. The Naked Deity on Vima Kadphises’ Coins The difference between the deity on the Pipal Mandi coins and those of the standard editions is not great (fig. 12). In both groups a seemingly naked god stands upright in the centre and holds on to a weapon and a flask. He may have one, two or three heads. Because of the unfinished states it is not clear whether the Pipal Mandi coins were 15 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 13. Depictions of flames: a) statue of agni in Mathura Museum, backside (acc.no. 71.276; asthana 1999: 47, no. 45); b) oneheaded deity on Vima Kadphises’ gold coin, below copper coin of Mitras dynasty of agnimitra; c) three-headed deity on Pipal Mandi coin with flame bundle, below stucco head from Gandhara with bearded agni. after Tanabe 2007: 200, V-42. an old version is found in the aitareyabrāhmaṇa (3.34) of the Ṛgvedic tradition: In the beginning there was nothing but Prajāpati, who after a while had sexual contact with his own daughter. The gods, enraged about the uncouth behaviour, made Rudra fight the culprit, shooting Prajāpati with a three-pointed arrow (iṣu). Prajāpati was removed into the sky, where he became Orion and his daughter became Rohiṇī (aldebaran), and the three points can be seen as the “girdle” of Orion. The spilled semen fell on earth and became a lake. The gods blew on it and thus created the sun. This version may be the oldest we have, but its younger derivatives are more dramatic. Some features are common to both: Our cosmos came to be when the oldest and best god20 was asked by agni to spill seed. So he did and the seed was then swallowed by agni (NāradaP 28,50). However, the god Fire could not keep it as it was too heavy. agni forwarded the seed to the water of a river goddess, who after a long time delivered a baby named Skanda in a wood of reeds (śaravana) on a mountain. The Pleiades (kṛttikā) came to nurture the baby, kumāra, and thus the baby acquired the name of “Kārttikeya”, who is the sun in a certain function, as we will see. This kumāra deity at times is split into more personalities, as a verse in a number of Purāṇas says: agniputraḥ kumāras tu śarastambe vyajāyata, tasya śākho viśākhaś ca naigameyaś ca pṛṣṭhajaḥ. “Kumāra is a son of agni, he was born in an arrow-reed. His (sons as well) are Śākha and Viśākha, and Naigameya, who was born from his back”. In a further and slightly different version agni is fond of Svāhā, one of the wives of the seven seers. He spills his semen six times into a golden bowl (prākṣipat kāñcane kuṇḍe, Mbh 3.214,12) and from there Kumāra is born. Because his father’s semen was spilled (skanna) his name be16 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 14. The naked god with one, two or three heads, the second one always a goat’s head. The heads turning right are very rare. e) and f) Singular copper coin with two-faced bust holding paṭṭiśa right, after Cunningham 1892, pl. named “XVI” at page bottom, no. 16. identify the cosmogonic myth of the epics and Purāṇas with the figure on Vima Kadphises’ reverses. On these premises we proceed checking first Naigameya, then the bovine companion of the deity and finally the weapon in question. came Skanda (Mbh 3.214,16). Because of the six spillings the god may have six faces (ṣaḍanana). In addition he is regarded as present in gold (suvarṇa, jāmbūnada, jātarūpa Mbh 13.84,78f.), and because of his genesis he is also called god Fire (agni), lord (īśa) and Creator (prajāpati). another epic version has it that Mahādeva without a reason given spills his semen into fire (Mbh 9.43,6: tejo māheśvaraṃ skannam agnau prapatitaṃ purā). agni hands the overly heavy load into the river Gaṅgā, who drops it on a certain part of the Himalaya. There Skanda was born, and the six stars of the Kṛttikās perceived him lying there. The son of agni develops six mouths and sucks the breasts of all six mothers at once. later on the “son of fire” multiplies himself into four and each form approaches one of four divine bodies, being Rudra, Umā, agni and Gaṅgā. The four forms he took are Skanda, going to Rudra; Viśākha, going to Umā (girivarātmajā); Śākha, going to agni and Naigameya, going to the river Gaṅgā (Mbh 9.43,38–39). This selection of versions makes it clear that there are a number of differences, but on the whole the sequence “Highest God (semen) → Fire → Water → Skanda” is the backbone. With Orion and the Pleiades it is also clear that astral elements are crucial and that the resulting Skanda symbolizes the sun, gold and fire at the same time. as an alter ego of agni, Skanda alias Kārttikeya has the right to be carved in Gandharan stone with flames from his shoulders (agrawala 1968). The role of the Pleiades (kṛttikā) will be analysed below. Thus mythology provides a deity ready to emit semen. On the coins we find a person ready to act similarly, recognizable as agni, who plays a role in a group of three, one of which has to have the head of a goat. These three constituents (agni, ūrdhvaliṅga, goat’s head) I take as sufficient to The Naigameya Head of the Naked God When our Prajāpati-agni-Skanda has three heads on the gold coins of Vima Kadphises, the one on his left side shows a goat’s head. When turning his main head left or right, then there can be a second head at the backside that is a goat’s head again. The latter position recalls Naigameya being pṛṣṭhaja, “born from the back”, in the cited Purāṇa verse. In the epic agni in his Naigameyaform is described as having a goat’s head (Mbh 3.215,23 agnir bhūtvā naigameyaś chāgavaktro), and the same is said of Naigameṣa born from Pārvatī in the medical Suśrutasaṃhitā (Uttaratantra 6.37,6 meṣānanaḥ). a number of texts call Naigameya—with its older variants naigameṣa or naigameśa—a graha, a “catcher”, that is a spirit who is capable of granting male offspring and also of threatening children with sickness.21 The medical text called Suśrutasaṃhita is not the oldest source to mention this dangerous deity.22 It devotes a chapter on Naigameṣa (Uttaratantra 27, 20–21) and also on Skanda. To counteract the influence of the naigameṣa-graha a sacrifice is prescribed for agni with the Kṛttikās, for Skanda and the chief of all “catchers” (grahādhipati). There is a depiction of lord Naigameya from Mathura (Quintanilla 2007) showing a number of females, including a bird-tailed vṛkṣadevī and a child who touches the knee of the deity, who is 17 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics dressed in a dhoti and turns his goat-head away from the visiting child. a second depiction shows this god grabbing a child by his head (Quintanilla 2007, fig. 172). The first case has an inscription (Bühler 1894: 314), today only in part preserved, which calls the deity bhagava nemeso, i.e., lord Naigameṣa. as agni and his offspring basically are one and the same, even a Naigameya can appear ūrdhvaliṅga and carry a spear like Kārttikeya. Such a statue in stone was found at Mandhal near Nagpur in Gupta levels (Deglurkar 1988–1989). Sources of earlier times are used by the Mahāmayūrī when this Buddhist text points at the yakṣa Naigameśa as being typical for a place it calls pāñcālī, which should be the capital of the Pañcālas, known otherwise as ahicchattrā, west of Bareilly. In Gandhara the goat-headed deity is found in plastic art as well.23 a copper coin (fig. 14, f) of Vima Kadphises is preserved in just one exemplar that weighs 3.11 g.24 and shows two heads in Janus fashion back to back. Cunningham’s view (1892: 56) that Vima Kadphises and the nameless king are shown together with their respective tamghas was improved by Cribb (1997: 46, a2) by interpreting the assumed Sōtēr megas tamgha as a trident-axe. Cunningham had expected the bearded head to the left to be the one of Vima Kadphises and the shaven head to right as the one of Sōtēr megas; Cribb (1997: 14) sees two faces “old (bearded) and young”, but I think the Janus head shows the head of the naked god with the bearded goat’s head with horns attached. This coin represents the only attempt at presenting the multi-headed naked god in a bust type. This attempt copied the layout of the Sōtēr megas “Mithra” standard coin in that the god holds his trident-axe with one hand in front of his face. This attempt was abandoned too and the standard standing god in front of a bovine uniformly maintained through all 16, 8 and 4 g. editions. To my mind this single coin is just another case of a trial cut that never made it into circulation. So far we can recognize the naked god on the uniform reverse side as agni and the goat’s head as the one of his alter ego, Naigameya, “born from the back” as the Mbh says, as if this characteristic position was inspired by way of the coin. This goat’s head was not continued on the coins of Kaniṣka or Huviṣka, but it resurfaced in rare issues of Vāsudeva, to which we will return. The Bovine Animal behind the Naked God On most of the coins of Vima Kadphises a bovine animal or bull is located at the back of the naked deity, and on many issues the deity rests his left arm comfortably on it. What does this animal denote? a simple solution would be to regard it as an allegory of India, just as it does when the camel stands for Bactria on Indo-Greek and IndoScythian coins. However, we must note that also in the case of Vima Kadphises there is rarely a way to decide whether this bovine element is a cow or a bull. Its seemingly docile nature and the absence of visible private parts makes a bull less likely than a cow. as there is no bovine found in company of a definite god prior to this coinage from the 90s in the first century a.d. the stereotypical appellation in modern literature as nandin, nandī or nandi, the vāhana of Śiva, is without any reliable base. although this identification is in principle not impossible we should also consider the possibility that the relatively modern Nandi, attested by name only from the 5th century onwards (Bhattacharya 1977), is an artificial construction effected only to explain the bovine behind our deity, which so far we have interpreted as agni alias Skanda. as early Indian art is silent, we have to look at early texts. a “cow” must not necessarily be nothing but a cow; the term could also be used metaphorically. We know that the term “cow”, Skt go, is used for the land of a realm.25 In the early 4th century a.d., e.g., the Gupta king Kāca has a line in the āryā meter written on his gold coinage: kāco gam avajitya divaṃ karmabhir uttamair jayati, “after Kāca had conquered the land (go) he wins heaven through excellent deeds”. The cow as an allegory for the land is basic in the epic story about the battle between the so-called Kṣatriyas, wicked and cunning, and the noble Jāmadagnya Rāma. The quarrel began with the forceful abduction of a wish-fulfilling cow, kāmadhenu, from the forest home of the king-turned-ascetic Jamadagni by a neighbouring king called Kārttavīrya arjuna. Kārttavīrya refused to return the cow and so Rāma rescued her by force after chopping off Kārttavīrya’s head with an axe (paraśu, agnipurāṇa 4,17). In turn, Kārtavīrya’s sons killed Rāma’s father Jamadagni while he was alone in his hermitage. Out of rage Rāma then put an end to the Kṣatriya clans 18 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics in twenty-one battles. This story is told in the Mahābhārata Mbh, e.g., 3.117 and in the Purāṇas (cf. BhāgavataP 9.16,16ff;). There is a second story about a kāmadhenu, this time in the possession of the seer Vasiṣṭha, whom King Viśvāmitra tried to abduct. The story is told in the Mahābhārata (Mbh 1.165,2–40). again the king appropriates the cow against the beast’s declared will, while Vasiṣṭha displays brahminical forbearance and abstention from anger or force. However, the kāmadhenu is of a different nature; she returns to the ascetic on her own and emits from her body a number of foreign tribes, mostly of northwestern origin, like the Pahlavas, Śakas, Daradas and yavanas (1.165,35f.), who dispel the troops of King Viśvāmitra. The king is so impressed by this magic that he abandons his kṣatriya way of life and becomes a brahminical seer too. The name of the wish-fulfilling cow is not unimportant: she is called Nandī and, synonymously, Nandinī. The stories have a number of traits in common: first, a king turned ascetic or brahmin, Jamadagni and Viśvāmitra; second, a wish-fulfilling cow provides all necessities of life to the ascetic and is forcibly abducted; thirdly, the offenders are repelled either in many battles, or for a long time, or with the help of gruesome foreigners located mainly in the North-West; fourth, the sages Viśvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha occur either as actors or as priests. It so seems that one general topic has found different but related narratives: The cow stands for the fruitful land that provides for all necessities. This land is in danger when the old ruler retires. This is a standard situation with a standard reaction repeating itself over millennia all over Eurasia. New, or rather rare, are foreigners coming in support of the legal but seemingly weak successor. The names of the foreign tribes allow us to define a time frame. The influx of Śakas and Parthians (pahlava) is a matter of the first century b.c. The localities are less clear. Kārttavīrya arjuna may belong to the Ārjunāyanas, who issued coins in the said time east of agra, between Jaipur and Delhi (Handa 2005: 23). Tribes, where kṣatriyas turn brahmins, or brahmins rule their own territory, are known from history. There is a further story relating to these troubled times. The Purāṇas (Kirfel 1927: 323ff.) relate that a King Bāhu lived a vicious life. In retaliation the gods sent foreigners as a menace, listed as Haihayas, Tālajhaṅgas, Śakas, yavanas, Kāmbojas, Pāradas and Pāhlavas. at least the last five are western nations. Sagara, the son of Bāhu, true to the Vedic dharma, received a weapon from agni and killed the intruders “like Rudra in anger (kills) an animal”. The surviving westerners turned to the seer Vasiṣṭha for help and he arranged their stay; however, they had to adopt different hairstyles to be recognizable to everyone. Instead of imposing their ideas of a state on the local population they became subjects of a traditional Indian king with his Vedic ideals. This episode skips the cow, but Vasiṣṭha is present and the old king retires again into the woods. The Pāradas are known through their coins which they issued from ca. a.d. 125 to 300 (Tandon 2009: 155) and thus provide a rough idea about the chronological setting. The naked god leaning on this cow seems to express his intention to safeguard it against illicit demands. On the one hand, such action is not known from the classical Hinduistic Śiva, and there is no Śiva or related deity with bull anywhere in early Indian art or literature26 prior to these coins of Vima Kadphises. There is also no bull called Nandi in Indian mythology before long after the Kushans. Once we test the relevance of the kāmadhenu myths we would be able to explain why the relatively recent “bull of Śiva” is called nandi: The wish-fulfilling cow of Vasiṣṭha was called Nandī or Nandinī. In a frequent case of reshuffling mythology, the female cow, allegory of the land, could have turned into a means of transport (vāhana), replacing the so far traditional lion of Śiva—a reinterpretation based on Kushan symbolism. Discarding the rather modern means of transport “bull” we see on the coins of Vima Kadphises the god agni, creator as well as punisher, as the militant protector of the land which is symbolized by a “wish-fulfilling” cow. The Weapon of the Naked God—Its Nature So far we have a supreme god creating the world, with all its features that can be expressed by the characteristics of fire and we have a “cow” alias “country under threat”. Would this explanation be supported or contradicted by the nature of the weapon seen on both sides of the same coins of Vima Kadphises? Shown behind an altar, or rather 19 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics paṭṭiśa.31 This otherwise unknown Durga could be just another name for Skanda, as the same MMK (38,23) prescribes for drawings of Maheśvara a bull (vṛṣa) and a śūla, but for Skanda a triśūla, paṭṭiśa and spear.32 Without the number three, the old dictionary Vaijayantī says paṭṭiśo lohadaṇḍo yas tīkṣṇadhāraḥ kṣuropamaḥ, “paṭṭiśa is a stick made from metal having (a) sharp blade(s) comparable to a razor”.33 “Durga” may be compared to Suduścara, both meaning “difficult of access”, the latter a synonym of agni, Kārttikeya, alias Skanda (Mbh 3.221,80, addition 22,13). There are a number of instances in the epics where weapons are listed. Often warriors hold a compound śula-paṭṭiśa in their hands, either “pikes and/or paṭṭiśas” or “pike-paṭṭiśas”.34 In other instances the two terms are separated and show that a śūla and a paṭṭiśa are not identical. In the Matsyapurāṇa (138,15) victims of war are described in a single line, some simply “killed” (sūdita) by paṭṭiśas, others “pierced” (vidārita) by śūlas. The standard verb for the effects of a paṭṭiśa is root chid,35 “to cut, split”, no wonder when a razor-type weapon is meant, as the arthaśāstra (2.18,14 paṭṭasa belonging to kṣurakalpāḥ) maintains. Since śūlapaṭṭiśa occurs so often as a compound some authors must have understood it as a karmadhāraya, “a pike which can be used as a paṭṭiśa”. To clarify the shape of the pike a compound triśulapaṭṭiśa occurs as well, apparently in slightly younger texts.36 This weapon is in the hands of a deity variously called Rudra, Īśāna or Skanda, but also in those of Hari, i.e., Viṣṇu when clad in a tiger skin.37 The Vaikhānasamantraprāśna (1.59,6), affiliated to a south Indian Vedic branch of the Taittirīyakas, knows twelve names of Viṣṇu which are linked to the twelve months of the year. The month Śrāvaṇa, starting at the end of June with the monsoon, is represented by Śrīdhara, with “lotus-eyes (Kumāra), holding a paṭṭasa”. The same is said in BrahmāṇḍaP 3.34,80 (paṭṭiśāyudha) with the addition that this month is governed by Īśāna, that is, Rudra. The various spellings show that this term has no traditional Sanskrit background, and the variations in the sibilant could result from a non-Sanskritic, possibly Dravidian38 or Iranian language. at least the object itself is found early on south Indian coins. Krishnamurthy (1997) documents the object on coinage from the Pandyas and Ceras.39 That means: For Vima Kadphises, agni-RudraSkanda was equipped with a paṭṭiśa in line with incense burner, and fixed vertically to the ground on the obverse, this weapon, which resembles a triśūla, is said to be the emblem of the Hinduistic god Śiva. On the reverse of the coin, the object is held vertically by the deity (cf. fig. 12, a–d). But is this an ordinary triśūla? Härtel (1992/2018: 83/351) has described the dilemma: “The Mathura Siva of the Kusana period never caries a trident (trisula); while the Siva of the Kusana coins of the north-west (. . .) carries the long-shafted trident as an indispensable attribute”. The simplest solution was that this “Śiva of the Kuṣāna coins” is no Śiva at all. let us have a look. On the coins of Vima Kadphises an axe blade, in the shape of a half moon, is fixed to the shaft at middle height. a few years later Vima’s son Kaniṣka will show himself in the same posture on the obverse of his coins, but the triśūla with axe will then be completely gone. Vima’s grandson Vāsudeva will again depict a similar object on his obverse sides, but almost always without attached axe. a look at the literature shows that as long as this weapon was in common use this axe-blade is not a deliberate addition but part of a particular composite weapon. Hardly noticed as far as I can see,27 the attached axe changes the triśūla into a weapon called paṭṭiśa, which is in multifarious use in the epics and Purāṇas. The dictionary of Monier Williams translates the Petersburg Wörterbuch (PW) of R. von Roth and O. von Böhtlingk as “a spear with a sharp edge or some other weapon with three points Mbh Rām. &c. (written also ·paṭṭisa, ·paṭisa and ·paṭṭīsa)”. according to the larger PW, the “three points” derive from the Mahāvyutpatti 197,(133), which apart from referring to “three points” is unclear.28 Similar limitations are found with the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa 35, 129, speaking of mudrās for actors: triśūcyākārasaṃyuktau paṭṭiśaṃ vidur budhāḥ, “in combination with something that looks like three spikes the learned speak of a paṭṭiśa”. Most elucidating is the Nāṭyaśāstra, which in 4,253ff. lists gestures (piṇḍī)29 that allow the spectator of a drama to identify the deity represented. Īśvara, when appearing as nandin, is recognizable through a gesture outlining a paṭṭasa, most likely through the mudrā described in the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa (MMK).30 a similar list of defining objects is found in the MMK in a prose passage between 36,85 and 86, and here Rudra is identified by a simple śūla and a male Durga by a 20 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 15. a) silver coin of Zoilos II from the eastern Panjab; b) obverse of Pañcāla king Rudragupta; c) obverse of Pañcāla king agnimitra (after Pieper 2013, no. 1023); d) obverse of audumbara silver coin from Kangra of rājarāja. what the epics and Purāṇas attribute to Rudra and Skanda. When looking at pieces of art we can learn something from a panel now in the Freer Gallery, Washington. It shows the army of Māra trying to frighten the Buddha, who sits on his meditation seat. In the upper left corner we see one soldier with a paṭṭiśa and at the lower right corner another one with a triśūla. The latter is a body-long pike with three points, while the paṭṭiśa is only half that long. Its upper part does not end in parallel points, as a Poseidonian trident made for spearing tuna fish, but tends to have the sharp blades on its curved insides. The same instrument is also nicely depicted on a painting (see below fig. 22, b) where the pole ends in a sort of small ball.40 This shows that the front part of a paṭṭiśa is conceived for defense, in that it can be held against a sword-wielding arm in its downward strike, catch it through its outward pointing side blades and sever the muscles of the arm caught in one of the two spaces left and right of the central spike. When pulling the paṭṭiśa away from the enemy’s arm the ball at the end of the pike would support a tight grip on the pole. a sword hit towards the bearer of a paṭṭiśa will only be attempted at close range, which explains why some poles of paṭṭiśas are not of full body length. For purposes of attack the attached paraśu blade can be used. a triśūla, as seen on the same panel, can end in three parallel points with the middle one clearly longer than the two at the sides. Obviously features of either paṭṭiśa and triśūla can influence the construction of one another crosswise. The best piece preserved is in the left hand of the life-size deity with fang teeth from Sahri-Bahlol in the Peshawar Museum.41 a mahua leaf cum flower cluster in her hair shows that she is responsible for alcoholic drinks. Her attributes are a man (not a child!), a cup, a triśūla and the kamaṇḍalu of a brahmin beggar. The sharp blades of the weapon are visibly directed towards the inside. In sum: a so-called triśūla is only then a triśūla when three parallel pikes allow one to pierce a victim with three parallel points. In many cases we see instead of pikes, blades that are bent outside and sharp at the inside. an arm caught in the interstices would be severely damaged. For pulling away the weapon from the victim a ball at the lower of the pole end is useful. In case that an attack is better than defense, the axe blade welded to the pole comes in handy. The tricky instrument is named paṭṭiśa in Sanskrit. The Weapon of the Naked Deity—Its Local Distribution Wherever the paṭṭiśa was developed, it spread from about 50 b.c. onwards and seemingly only from the eastern Panjab into Uttarakhand and northern UP. an early and datable example comes from one of the last Indo-Greek kings, Zoilos II, who ruled around 55–35 b.c. His realm was the easternmost of the Indo-Greek kingdoms, bordering some Indian kingdoms in the Panjab-Ganges divide. Only one of his die-engravers uses a paṭṭiśa, alias “triśūla-axe”, on his earliest issues (fig. 15, a; cf. Bopearachchi 1991: 364; pl. 67, 8). another example comes from ahicchatra, west of Bareilly. Some early Pañcāla rulers show several weapons vertically implanted one by one on a common pedestal. These kings usually choose symbols alluding to their own personal names, and there are only two rulers who show what I take for a paṭṭiśa among these symbols, one being Rudragupta (fig. 15, b), the other agnimitra 21 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 17. Copper coinage mentioning cetreśvara who holds a paṭṭiśa in his right hand and a flask in his left. Fig. 16. a) copper of the audumbaras with paṭṭiśa in front of a pillared building (cf. Handa 2007: 33); b) udumbara tree in railing with a paṭṭiśa in front (Handa 2007: pl. 7, 3+4). ine Vema Takhtu alias sōtēr megas as issuer or bailsman behind these coins. While in Gandhara silver was gradually debased down to potin, these people outside the Gandharan wars were still able to produce silver money, continuing at the same time the silver standard of ca. 2.3 g. used for the drachm by the Indo-Greek kings south of the Hindu Kush. Most important is a group of coins showing a sort of Kārttikeya on the obverse who is *caitreśvara in the circular legend (fig. 17).43 It has often been ascribed to the Kuṇinda coinage of amoghabhūti, as in fact the reverse side shows a deer surrounded by the same symbols such as devadāru tree, swastika, triangle-on-stand, hill and water-line. Why Handa (2005: 245ff.) sees three hundred years between the silver of amoghabhūti and the coppers of the caitreśvara-type escapes me. It can only be said that none of the copper coins mentions King amoghabhūti, who is so often mentioned on the silver issues. Numismatic research reads citreśvara on these coins, although some legends clearly read cetreśvara,44 with a horizontal line on top of the ca going left, while a few larger flans allow us to read caitreśvara with the same horizontal line topped by a second line slanting left in a bend. However, cetreśvara as a Prakritic form is reason enough to look for a *caitreśvara, “lord of month Caitra”. In any case, neither a deity citreśvara (would be “colourful lord” or “lord of pictures”) nor caitreśvara are known from Indian literature.45 In any case, our numismatically attested cetreśvara is depicted as holding a paṭṭiśa in his right hand, while his left hand rests akimbo, holding a small roundish object, possibly a flask. The full legend reads cetreśvaramahatmana, “Of the god, the high-souled lord of the (month) Cai- (fig. 15, c). a date in the first century b.c. is certain; the often-found “100 b.c.” could be too early. In a number of other dynasties the same weapon is found on their coins, most of them to be dated in the first centuries b.c. and a.d. The coins of the audumbaras are found at Pathankot, Jvalamukhi and Kangra. On their coppers they place the paṭṭiśa upright close to a pillared building that is correctly taken to be an early temple (fig. 16, a). On their rare silver coins (fig. 16, b) the same paṭṭiśa stands near a fenced-in tree, while the other side shows a male figure in a dhotī, framed by an inscription in Kharoṣṭhi reading viśpamitra or viśpamitri,42 that is, the seer Viśvāmitra whom we have met with already in connection with the kāmadhenu called Nandī. Pliny (6.75) had heard of the audumbaras and misplaces them as Odonbaeoroæs at the mouth of the Indus. later, they occur in the Bṛhatsaṃhitā (14,4) in connection with the Vedic group of the Kāpiṣṭhalas, known as a tribe to arrian (Indike 4.1.8), who locates them at the upper course of the Hydraotes, roughly around Pathankot. another and large group shows a bull in front of a sort of flower and an elephant facing a paṭṭiśa (fig. 15, d). Handa (2005: 232) has shown after a most detailed examination that these coins do not go back to a King māhādeva of the audumbaras, but rather to a king of the Vemakas who called himself rājarājan and rājarāja, and who “was a great king who ruled for a long time and had flourishing trade with the West”. The anonymity regarding the personal name and the fact that rājarāja(n) could translate basileōs basileōn (Handa 2005: 233 fn. 46) make it possible to imag22 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 18. a) reverse of silver coin of augustus (RIC 507; Roma XVI, 471) showing the temple of Mars Ultor in Rome with signum inside; b) 2 g. gold coin of Vima Kadphises with paṭṭiśa enlarged by phallus and vedi (zeno.ru 22468); c) a darśapūrṇamāsa vedi in Taittirīya style. This consists of a pole to which memorial plates are fixed; on its own it signifies the war god Mars (fig. 18, a). Every manipel (of less than 100 soldiers) had such a field sign that was carried by a specialist into the battles. The manipel collected around the sign when its lines were confused in combat. apart from the signa on the Pipal Mandi coins, no other such device has been found or depicted on Indian coinage held by any deity. Without a person, a signum is also seen on the reverse side of the lighter gold issue showing Vima Kadphises’ head through a window. Besides numismatics, there is a set of parallels in paintings to which we will return. In all cases the basic pole is the one of a paṭṭiśa. The 2 g. “window” gold coin shows it on the reverse side (fig. 18, b). Here, the paṭṭiśa is enlarged by two elements: one is a rectangle with concave sides and the other could be a club or a male member, erected. No real object looks like that spacial object with concave sides, but it vaguely recalls the so-called vajra of Gandharan Buddhist art, which is solitary too in that no such object was ever found in excavations. This is why I take this geometrical object on the gold coin not for some sort of “real” hammering device called “vajra”, but for a two-dimensional depiction of a Vedic sacrificial ground, called vedi, which is a trapezoid with concave sides of about 2 m length, through which runs a center line called prācī, invisible on the sacrificial ground but fundamental for its construction and symbolism. The depiction tra”. Here, as in a number or similar issues in the area, it is a deity who guarantees the validity of the coin, most likely because we are here in a region with a number of republics, kṣatriya and brahmin, without the classical monarch to act as an issuer. Whatever the tribal affiliation of this type finally may be, for us it is important to see which tribe displays a paṭṭiśa in northern India.46 apart from Zoilos II (50–35 b.c.) we have the Pañcālas, the audumbaras, the Caitreśvara coins from a tribe somehow related to the Kunindas, we have the rājarāja coinage and the Vemakas (Handa 2005: 130). Whether all issues cover just one or two centuries must remain open, but they include the first centuries b.c. and a.d. and seem to disappear during the Kushan phase. When the yaudheyas reappear as indigenous issuers, after the Kushans, the paṭṭiśa as a graphic symbol on coins is matter of the past, at least on coins.47 Their local distribution is important: they are found at the eastern fringe of the last IndoGreeks, followed by native states in the Panjabyamuna divide and the hill regions up to almora and Kangra. The Signum If our interpretation of the Pipal Mandi coins as experimental held true, the first gold issues of Vima Kadphises would introduce something resembling a Roman military element, the signum. 23 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 19. a) and b) coin of agathokles (r. ca. a.d. 185–170) showing Balarāma-Saṃkarṣaṇa with plough and club and Vāsudeva with conch and wheel, both under an umbrella (courtesy O. Bopearachchi); c) hand copy of a painting in a rock shelter at Tikla near Gwalior, ca. 2nd cent. b.c., showing Balarāma and Vāsudeva under an umbrella (after Neumayer 1992–1993: 58, fig. 2); d) ivory seal from aktha, Varanasi, 1st cent. a.d. showing walled-in compound for Balarāma and Vāsudeva with legend udhaṭakanaṃ, Skt. uddḥaṛtrkānāṃ (after Jayaswal 2009: 162, with different reading). shell and a chariot wheel, symbolising cyclical time. The same two deities with their symbols are found painted at the wall of a cave at Tikla near Gwalior, showing the two gods under a common umbrella and an inscription in early Brāhmī (telling from the angular shape of the -i), possibly of the 2nd century b.c. (fig. 19, c).48 a further example is found on an ivory seal from aktha, near Varanasi (fig. 19, d) of rather the first century a.d., showing a sacred compound dedicated to the two related deities. The wheel is simplified to a circle with a cross inside. The last example with plough and wheel unmistakably refers to Balarāma and Vāsudeva, and these two cannot in any way be identified with Rudra-agni-Skanda. That means that Vima Kadphises addresses at least two different religious movements active in post-Hellenistic times. and once we are at it, we can include the Vedic brahmins, which still today are a group of their own, with Rudra quite well known to them, although they would never offer an oblation for him into their fire altars bordering a vedi. It so seems that Vima Kadphises had more than just cursory knowledge of the local religions at his eastern border and, in contrast to his father and grandfather, he takes pains to let people know that he cares. on the gold coin would even show the prācī and thus provides no obstacle to this interpretation. The other object of note is the phallus, which we know as a standard part of the ordinary reverse design showing the naked god agni. attached to the paṭṭiśa this member represents pars pro toto the same Rudra-agni-Skanda type of deity who is shown in full on the larger coins. Why would Vima Kadphises have a vedi shown on his coin? If the geometrical object is in fact a vedi then the king had a certain knowledge of the rites of Vedic priests, in line with the knowledge he displays by alluding to the common brahminical cosmogonic myth about the initial stages of the universe starting with Prajāpati-Rudra-agni and Skanda. His intention must have been to show the local Vedic priests that he knew their world and their ambitions. The Pipal Mandi coins were interpreted as trial editions. On them the naked god retains the prototype of the signum, which shows a paṭṭiśa to which the vedi-shaped object was added plus a circle with a cross inside (fig. 12, a). In principle, there could be several ways to explain this circle. In the context of Indian graphical symbols it should most likely refer to Vāsudeva, the companion of Balarāma-Saṃkarṣaṇa. The two deities are of non-Vedic origin but were soon built into what became the vaiṣṇava side of Hinduism. They were the only Indic deities put on coins (fig. 19, a, b) by the Indo-Greek king agathokles (r. ca. 185–170 b.c.) at ai Khanum on the Oxus, each god honoured by an umbrella. Saṃkarṣana holds a club and a plough, Vāsudeva holds a conch Vajrapāṇi and His Pseudo-vajra The object with concave sides at the lower end of the signum-like paṭṭiśa can shed light on 24 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics royal families. Since the Buddha had arisen from a royal family he had the right to have a man with the object following him. The real Buddha could easily do without such a bodyguard, but in Gandhara such a status marker was thought adequate to hint at the Buddha’s noble birth, in the general vein of stressing the idea that such noblemen were absolutely necessary to produce another Bodhisattva who will emerge as a future Buddha, either from a royal or from a brahmin family. How to mark the Gandharan Buddha as royal? a man with a vajramaṇi could ideally symbolize that status. a classical vajramaṇi was held in the right hand and carried at breast height. What does a vajra look like? Here comes the signum into the game. The vedi-like object had soon become misunderstood, not as the seat of Vedic Indra at a sacrifice but as his weapon, in analogy to the paṭṭiśa being a weapon. and so the rock crystal vajramaṇi with at least one pointed end turned into the blunt hammering device unknown before. Once installed in the hands of a frequently non-Indian barbarian hireling who was bearded, loosely dressed and bare-footed, the alleged vajra also went into the hands of other bruisers, like Heracles, or into the hands of Indra, who was correctly known to wield a weapon called a vajra. as some coins of Huviṣka show, the close connection between a thunderbolt of Zeus and the vajra of Indra was not everywhere forgotten (fig. 25, c) and its shape preserved by some, while the majority of consumers were happy with an artificial creation. This theory presupposes that the Mathura bodyguards and the first gold coins of Vima Kadphises appeared in Gandhara at about the same time, at or after around a.d. 113; most uṣṇīṣin Bodhisattvas with bodyguards at their back are slightly younger, though. The theory would also imply that no Gandharan panel with pseudo-vajra in any hand can be older than a.d. 113. the nature of the male figure uniformly called “vajrapāṇi” by modern research and in postKushan texts. This vajrapāṇi accompanies the Buddha in a number of famous episodes, usually placed at his back and clad in a loose garment with the right shoulder bare, often almost naked, often bearded, always barefoot, often of “western barbarian” extraction. Nonetheless, this type of vajrapāṇi has been taken to be a yakṣa, a semidivine spirit. In some cases the figure resembles Heracles by wearing a feline skin knotted around his collar, in others it is clearly Indra in costly attire who holds the object. How the yakṣa, Heracles and Indra relate in their function of the carrier of a vajra has been the object of heated debate. I think that the signum provides a rather simple solution starting with the undisputed observation that the vajra-carrier is always a companion of the Buddha. He49 hardly ever does anything50 but stand at the Buddha’s back. at the funeral he lifts an arm in desperation as he obviously has failed in preventing the Buddha from dying. He has been called a “guardian angel”, which is a poetical expression of what we call a bodyguard. His career in fact starts as a bodyguard in Mathura. There are a number of uṣṇīṣin Bodhisattvas51 depicted with two figures at the back. The one figure on the left wears a feline skin around his collar and carries a short object, often pointed at both ends, which I take for one of the five royal insignia (kakuda) mentioned as khaḍgamaṇi or Pali khaggaratana in the literature, the “dagger jewel”, or rock crystal, also called vajramaṇi (Falk 2012: 495 with fn. 7, 14). The second figure waves a fly whisk (vālavyañjana), another of the five kakudas. Both figures together mark the man in front of them as of royal birth. While those uṣṇīṣin Bodhisattvas were still fabricated at Mathura the two kakudas separated and led a life of their own. The fly whisk carriers could be doubled for Jinas,52 the two bodyguards could simply be united into one figure wielding vajra and fly whisk at the same time;53 and could occur alone simply to indicate status. Everyone was entitled to have a servant carrying it to follow him, but his fly whisk man could not prevent the noble from getting old and sick, as is shown in some Gandharan panels (fig. 20, c) dealing with the realisation of human finiteness by Prince Siddhārtha, the Buddha to be. also, a simple nobleman was not entitled to have a bodyguard carrying a vajramaṇi, which was restricted to The Naked Deity with Extended paṭṭiśa on Paintings Two similar-looking deities with three heads, each holding a comparable signum-like paṭṭiśa, are also found painted on two of a group of four terracotta panels now in The Metropolian Museum of art.54 Their origin is unclear; “Bactria” may be a possibility or a way to hide their true 25 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 20. a) Uṣṇīṣin Bodhisattva from ahicchattra, to left attendant with vajramaṇi (National Museum, New Delhi, acc.no 55.25, detail); b) Western foreigner as vajrapāṇi in the back of the Buddha (Sotheby 2019, 1669; detail); c) sick old man with fly whisk attendant (Tanabe 2007: 26, I–16; detail). Note the classical uṣṇīṣā head-cloth. findplace. First presented by M. Carter (1997a, 1997b), they could have belonged to a sanctuary. On one (acc.no. 2000.42.1) of these four plates a Kushan king is shown with large flames arising from his shoulders and a halo around his head, both features certainly pointing to royal rank. This king is beardless, and his headgear is topped by a small crescent.55 He holds his right hand up, while the left rests on his waist. a person without headgear is turned towards him, raising his folded hands in veneration. Veneration is the general topic of all four panels. The same bare-headed venerator is again shown in the same position on a second tablet (2000.42.2), but this time the object is a blackhaired, bearded male wearing a red cap topped by a funnel-shaped object, which Carter took for the kalathos of Serapis, a very likely proposition.56 The hand of the assumed Serapis is raised and holds a conical white object between his thumb and forefinger. The remaining two panels (acc. nos. 2000.42.3 + 4) are relevant for the paṭṭiśa and show more India-oriented deities. One (fig. 21, b) is broken in its right part, with one-third missing, but the añjalimudrā of a venerator in front of his face and his gray moustache are preserved. He venerates a three-headed, bare-footed deity whose head is surrounded by a halo; the central head has a third eye on its front, and dark whiskers. His upper right hand holds a short paṭṭiśa, to which are attached a svastika and a four-spoked wheel. The shaft ends in a small ball, exactly as seen on the Cetreśvara coins (above, fig. 17, a, b). His lower right hand holds a flask by its neck, comparable to Cetreśvara, who holds it in his left hand, as he has only two arms. On the panel the upper right hand holds something of which all traces have disappeared; the lower right hand is placed near his navel, as if to hold something. The final panel (fig. 21, b) depicts a very similar or the same deity, venerated by a bare-headed devotee who seems to hold a conical bowl, wide side up. as in the other depicted panel a) the deity may have three heads, but the one to our left inside the halo has flaked off. He seems to wear a fur covering parts of his upper body and some undergarment covered by a transparent dhotī. His upper right hand holds up something, while the lower right hand is effaced as is most of his upper 26 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 21. a) and b): Terracotta panels from Gandhara in The Metropolitan Museum showing three-headed, three-eyed venerated deities wielding extended paṭṭiśas. Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum, with outlines by the author. left hand. But the upper left hand holds tight to a man-size paṭṭiśa. Its pole is more or less gone, since it was added last on top of the painting and the binder with the white pigments would not stick to the ochre ground, but fortunately it stuck to the black ground of an animal skin that hangs over his lower left forearm. and so we see that below the triśūla top came first an object which is abraded beyond recognition, then the axe, part of the paṭṭiśa, then an erect phallus with testicles, then a svastika and finally a cakra. The lower left hand holds a small bag or a flask. Perhaps both deities, but certainly this last one has his member protrude up and out of the dhotī. Thus this figure resembles Cetreśvara in many points, but his paṭṭiśa is more elaborate in that it received a further object, a male organ that is, in addition to the svastika and cakra. How to interpret the two three-headed deities with paṭṭiśa? In accordance with the Rudra-agni-Skanda mythology both are ūrdhvaliṅga, but both are clothed in undergarments. Both have three heads enclosed in a halo. Both hold a flask in one of their lower hands. They differ from the figure on the Pipal Mandi coins in that both have a third eye on their front, and none of the heads is a goat’s head. There are no flames emanating from their heads. The two paṭṭiśas are similar in that both display a wheel and a svastika. Only the paṭṭiśa of fig. 21, a has an attached male organ including the testicles. This parallel removes the possibility of taking the member on the 2 g. chariot coins of Vima Kadphises for a Herculean club (above p. 23b). applying the same criteria to their paṭṭiśas to those on the coins of Vima Kadphises, we can expect the svastika to express the idea of a certain religious orientation which I take for the sun cults recently immigrated with the Saurya brahmins from Iran. The symbol as such has a long tradition in India, where it was used already by aśoka with another one standing for the moon that expresses the idea of “as long as sun and moon endure” (caṃdamasuliyike hotu). The wheel we 27 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Kharoṣṭhī, and for both Kharoṣṭhī is the script bridging borders, although hardly in use in the areas concerned. Thus the Panjab-Doab divide including the hills develops into the meeting zone of two cultures, and the intention seems to be to contact the neighbour via a medium which before was alien to both. One of the earliest types of his gold coins shows the king on a chariot drawn by two horses. The legend in Kharoṣṭhī script reads on the reverse: have seen to refer to Balarāma-Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva, while the singular male member looks like a first reference to Rudra-agni-Skanda, who came then more to the fore on the Vima Kadphises coinage. The idea common to all signum-like paṭṭiśas therefore seems to be to point to different belief systems covered under a single roof. In fact, all of these belief systems will finally merge into classical Hinduism. all this happens while a cleanshaven Kushan prince or king with flames issuing from his shoulders assumes power or was vividly remembered. The signum-like paṭṭiśas are so unusual that they should date back to a very short span of time. This produces a difficulty: first, we have Vima Kadphises, who is bearded already on his early small chariot coins, but on the painting we have a Kushan prince who is clean-shaven. Thus, the two images do not seem to be representations of the same person. maharajasa rajatirajasa logaïśaraja-mahaïśarasa kalpiśasa,58 “of the Mahārāja, the king over kings, the great lord (mahā-īśvara), son (-ja) of the lord of the world(s)” (loka-īśvara-), That means that the king regards himself initially as a descendant of the lord of the (traditionally three) worlds, and that is the highest god imaginable, or his father, or both in one. He himself occupies the relatively modest position of a “Great lord” (mahaïśara). In the soon following improved edition of the chariot type and in all other series the Kharoṣṭhī script loses its deficiencies and the text is reworked and enlarged to its classical row of epithets, The Verbal Statements of Vima Kadphises on His Status On a general level, Vima Kadphises continued and doubled the weight standard of his father Vema Takhtu on his own coppers (Cribb 1998: 87, 88) and likewise he continued to use the epithet sōtēr megas. He described himself as basileus basileōn sōtēr megas ooēmo kadphisēs on all of his coppers throughout his career, of all weights (16, 8 and 4 g.), and on a few types of his early gold coins (16 and 8 g.). On the gold coins, the sōtēr megas soon disappears, probably to gain space for the pictorial element of the Mithraic rock formation which fills exactly that part of the circular legend where the epithet used to be. Rock formations never occur on coppers,57 and therefore on coppers the old and full legend could remain where it always was. Unlike his father, Vima Kadphises inscribed his coinage on both sides and in two scripts and languages. after an initial edition of coppers with obverse legend in Greek and uninscribed reverse the next series adds text in the Indian Kharoṣṭhī script in Prakrit language. This diversion from the customs of his father and grandfather is in line with the apparent political cooperation Vima Kadphises exercises with local rulers. a number of them (audumbara, Kuninda, Vemaki, Vṛṣṇi) do just the same: their coins are biscript, Brāhmī and maharajasa rajadirajasa sarvalogaïśvarasa mahiśvarasa59 . . . tratara. apart from spelling variants, the “son of the lord of the world(s)” has become “the lord of all worlds” himself and into “the lord of the earth” (mahīśvara) (cf. Falk 2010a: 76).60 The difference has so far not received the attention it deserves: Vima Kadphises promoted his position from the son of a god to a veritable god himself. The term sarvaloka-īśvara is used in the epics and Purāṇas for almost all major deities of the time and does not allow one to see how far Vima Kadphises prefers one over the other. Rudra and Skanda are as present as are Prajāpati and the Vaiṣṇava and Śaiva groups.61 From Naked to Pseudo-dressed: The Case of Seneca and Pliny There are more changes in succeeding issues. looking back at the Pipal Mandi experimental coins we see a full signum showing the Rudra28 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 22. a) Vima Kadphises on pile of rocks, club on shoulder, left hand covered (lanz 145, 38); b) Vima Kadphises on throne, twig in right hand, left hand covered (Triton 10, 469); c) Scyphus from Hoby, Denmark: Priam kisses right hand of achilles, resembling augustus, left hand covered (Copenhagen, Carlsberg Glyptotek); d) panel showing Bactrian chief approaching on chariot, right hand covered (after Tanabe 2007: 24). agni-Skanda holding a lion’s fur over his left arm (fig. 12, a). all parts of the fur are present, forelegs and head. The next type (fig. 12, b) came into circulation and showed on 8 g. gold the chariot with the short inscription. The circle for Vāsudeva has disappeared from the signum but the lion fur is still complete. With the 16 g. chariot type (fig. 12, c) the pseudo-vajra disappears as well from that signum and the lion fur dissolves into three threads, still vaguely recalling the fur with the front legs of the lion, but now the three threads continue into a diaphanous cloth around the lower part of the deity, crossing his back, and return wrapped around his upper arm. The lion has turned into a cloth and the deity can be regarded as no longer naked. all succeeding types (fig. 12, d) introduce the bovine and, for reasons of space, preserve only the cloth that goes around the body, leaving uncovered the lower arm that once held the fur. The cloth serves the double purpose of making the ūrdhvaliṅga visible and at the same time maintaining that the deity is decently dressed. The scheme was also used for pseudo-naked ladies in Mathura and elsewhere, often found in Buddhist sanctuaries, and it found human counterparts in Rome, as we are told by Seneca (died a.d. 65, De beneficiis 7.9.5–9, trans. by John W. Basore [loeb]): “I see there raiments of silk (. . .), so that, when a woman wears it, she can scarcely, with a clear conscience, swear that she is not naked. These are imported at vast expense from nations unknown even to trade (. . .)”. Something similar is said by Pliny the Elder (a.d. 23–79, Nat.Hist. 11.26, trans. by J. Bostock & H. T. Riley [loeb]): “These insects weave webs similar to those of the spider (. . .). Pamphile (. . .) discovered the art of making vest- ments which, while they cover a woman, at the same moment reveal her naked charms”. Non-verbal Illustration of the Success of Vima Kadphises On two types of gold coins Vima Kadphises sits either on a pile of rocks (fig. 22, a) or on a throne (fig. 22, b). In both cases his left hand is covered by a long sleeve. While seated on the pile of rocks, his sword is for the most part hidden under his large coat, and he still places the club in his right hand on his shoulder. While on the throne, the sword has disappeared and the club is replaced by the branch of a tree or bush. The club is still there, but it stands upside-down to the left of the throne. From a Buddhist text it becomes apparent that among all body-part symbols the left hand stands for power exerted by violence (Falk 2012: 493). When Vima Kadphises covers his left hand while seated on the pile of rocks or on the throne he demonstrates that at the moment he does not need to care about physical repression. The edition with him seated on the throne must have been of particular meaning. The sword is completely gone and the club is here replaced by a branch with its several leaves, usually described as being laurel. The two symbols of the covered left hand and of holding a twig may both be explained by Roman parallels. On the famous Hoby scyphus (Copenhagen; fig. 22, c) a subdued alien tribal kneels in front of augustus and kisses his right hand, while the emperor holds his left hand wrapped with a 29 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 23. a) Vima Kadphises on throne, twig in right hand, left hand covered (Triton 10, 469); b) Vima Kadphises, 16 g. window gold coin, holding twig (aNS 1953.147.1); c) reverse of coin of Trajan, subdued Dakian chief kneeling in front of Pax who holds an olive twig; d) 2 g. gold coin of Huviṣka with legends oημο and oηþο, showing Vima Kadphises with twig and Wēš (Triton 8, 685). cloth.62 The scene may indicate that augustus accepts the submission and will not answer it with forceful repression. The twig raises a number of questions. There are certainly dozens of other plants whose shape answered the one in the hand of the king, so that the plant need not be a laurel at all. There are many comparable cases where we find the plant in the hand of Pax, the deity promoting peace, and here by definition it must be an olive twig, although the die-cutters use all sorts of forms for the branches. Pax with twig occurs on coins of Tiberius (r. a.d. 14–37) onwards; a piece from Trajan (r. a.d. 98–117) is given in fig. 23, c. Quite a number of south Indian copies of Roman gold coins use Pax coins of Trajan as an exemplar. The symbolism is clear: the king has removed himself from all harsh ruling, and, with fire flaring from his shoulders, he presents himself as agni on a throne holding the twig of peace and covers his left hand for completion of the picture. There are very few of the large size, 16 g., “window” gold coins of Vima Kadphises. They look like the enlarged edition of the small 2 g. type with the signum on the reverse. The larger 8 g. edition shows the standard three-headed Rudra-agni-Skanda on the reverse; the legend is fully developed, but in one single case and only here the deity looks to the right (Gul Rahim 2008: 56, fig. 2). This is not by accident, because also the king on the obverse looks the other way. When he came into power the king was carried from left to right, while on the larger edition he moves from the right to the left, and now, on his way out of office or life, he holds up that same twig to be seen through the window. The story of the Pax twig may continue on a coin of his grandson Huviṣka (fig. 23, d), where a person holds a multi-branched twig to the centre of the scene, while Wēš stands to the right. The person in question may be male or female. He or she is clad in a full-length non-male dress and displays a mighty non-female nose. The person with the twig is labelled OHHO, which could be OHMO or OMMO—both readings are possible on the earliest known specimen from the British Museum. When read OHMO with Göbl (1960b), we had a spelling variant of OOHMO, Vima Kadphises, but when read OMMO then the Indian deity Umā was proposed as the most likely. a second piece came into the coin market recently (Triton 8, 685, fig. 26, d). It writes the η not as H, which could be μ or η, but with the form resembling Һ, which makes the reading OHMO much more likely and which could do away with many oddities63 that arise when the figure represented Umā, that is Pārvatī, the female companion of the classical Śiva. First, a written OMMO would be pronounced /omm/, devoid of the indispensable long -ā of a feminine Skt stem umā; then, OMMO would presuppose not only a double /mm/, but a closing /mm/ at that, unheard-of in Bactrian and ill befitting umā; and finally, worst of all, an absolutely peripherical female Indian deity would all of a sudden be listed first in a royal text at Rabatak preceding the male ahura Mazda. So, for linguistic, philological and cultural reasons I prefer to return to the first reading of Göbl and take the οημο as referring to Vima Kadphises, with his big nose. The former king would then be in some sort of yonder world, in an unusual gown, but still 30 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics thing—irrespective of the names applied. a comparable idea can be seen behind the 1,008 names of Śarva rolled out in Mbh 13.13,17ff. and other sources, combining terms relating to what is later called Śivaism (e.g., paśupati), Viṣṇuism (e.g., viṣṇu, hari), even Buddhism (gautama, siddhārtha, siṃhanāda). In the wake of Hellenism the idea of monotheism appeared as the ultimate solution and forced the standard systems to merge, with different regions ending up with different amalgamations from similar base materials. There is no way of ascertaining how Vima’s Indian subjects interpreted his images that are new in all respects. Never before was a prime deity on coins shown displaying sexual excitement, never before did a Kushan king care for Indian forms of cosmogony. Since agathocles (r. 185–175 b.c.) had depicted Balarāma and Vāsudeva on Indian-style coins at ai Khanum, no other foreigner cared about Indian symbols.66 But now Vima Kadphises is different, using the paṭṭiśa to create a link with his Indian neighbours east of the Panjab in which the vedi expresses his concern for Vedic forms of service, the Vaiṣṇava cakra and the Iranian svastika to demonstrate his unbiased tolerance in all directions. These are symbols explicable to Indians, to whom his Kharoṣṭhī legends are directed, and so it seems that at least in his own eyes there must have been a feeling of being a beneficiary actor to his own kin and to the Indian subjects he had added to those his father had conquered. This view is in contrast to how he has been perceived so far, in that he was seen as the last fierce fighter before his son Kaniṣka appeared and promoted Buddhism in peace. The reality could have been the opposite. recognizable by his big nose and the twig of Pax he carried already in the palanquin. This solution from the coin requires an explanation of the undisputed reading OMMa, which occurs twice in the Rabatak inscription in lists of deities. In my view64 oμμα mentions no individual deity but a community, which makes a derivation from semitic/Hebrew umma “tribe, genus”, almost irrefutable, a term which was also adopted in early Islamic terminology, denoting the community of believers. For Semitic loan words we can look at Semitic month names used in Kushan times inscriptions (cf. Falk 2010b: 30). Syncretism or Inclusivism? Vima Kadphises presented himself as open towards a number of religions with their own myth collections. But was any of these religions also his own? Was he a devotee of Mithra, of Rudraagni-Skanda or of the Pañcavīras? His coins are evidence to the contrary and rather show that all parts of the “highest” gods on the reverse are also contained in him. For those acquainted with Mithraism he rises from the rocks until he rests upon the rocks, his sleeve covering the left hand signalling nonviolence. For those sticking to the old Greek pantheon he holds the club of Heracles, which for both developed into a sort of trademark.65 at least in the Pipal Mandi trial editions Heracles was also present on the reverse, where Rudra-agni-Skanda carried his lion skin, which in the final editions turned into a diaphanous dress. Rudra-agni-Skanda, who is plain to see on the reverse, is also present on the obverse with the flames emanating from the shoulders of the king. The Iranian sun cults are only seen on the paṭṭiśas on the terracotta paintings in form of the svastika but could be linked to the flames from the body as well. The Pañcavīras, present in the paintings through the wheel of Vāsudeva, were ignored after the Pipal Mandi types. We could call the mixture of symbols on both sides “syncretistic” because of the collection being composed from different sources, putting stress on the differences. The alternative is to call the mixture “inclusivistic”, seeing from Vima Kadphises’ image-world that all the myth systems alluded to with their own set of names and notions want to represent one single idea, namely that there is a highest power that regulates every- Kaniṣka’s Religion Compared to the depictions of his father Vima Kadphises, Kaniṣka produced a completely different set of coin images. Instead of a single reverse with just one composite god he presents a multitude of gods, and he has their names written by their sides, as most people would have been at a loss when guessing their identities. according to Cribb (1998: 88) the habit of explaining a deity through an accompanying legend was introduced on Roman coinage by Nero (r. a.d. 54–68), and 31 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics this supportive idea was certainly early enough to be adopted by Kaniṣka. Comparing the different coin types of Kaniṣka with the single type of his father Vima Kadphises led scholars to the view that Kaniṣka’s religion was something special, a particular “religion of Kanīṣka I”, to be regarded as “polytheism” (Tanabe 1995: 207a). How far was this “polytheism” real? Did Kaniṣka “venerate” and “believe” in each of those deities he depicted on his reverse sides? We see two things, one of them negative in that he turns away from almost everything that is truly Indian: Kaniṣka did not continue the agni reverse of his father, neither its exclusivity nor its type. He even discontinued Kharoṣṭhī legends as such, including the one about the boastful “lord of all worlds”. Instead, he retained the “king of kings” on the relatively modest Greek, then Bactrian obverse legend. Kaniṣka seems to have been averse to the Indophily of his father. He dropped the namo-sign, which either did not mean anything to him or contradicted his self-esteem. The other thing is positive: On the obverse he shows himself consistently as Mithra breaking through the rocks and as a sort of Wēš, as we will see below. We are in the second century, and all over the old world, outside China, a war raged between followers of monotheism and those who wanted to preserve the many old gods. Vima Kadphises knew and respected a number of religious constructions, possibly with his own henotheistic inclination, as he made one composite deity look discernible to many. His son Kaniṣka on the surface returned to the side of the traditionalists with many deities; he thought highly of classical ideas and introduced coinage with classical Greek names of deities. But on one point father and son were d’accord: no matter how many gods there were, one or many, their nature was also part of the nature of the Kushan king. Western Mithraism at least was a perfect successor to polytheism in that it had one propelling element (Mithra) behind a number of heavenly bodies put in motion by it, including Helios-Sol, changed before or by Kaniṣka to Wēš as the propelling element while Mihir fills the role of the sun among those put in motion. These many propelled deities could live on as before, while monotheism always creates its own foes by its rigorous claims to universality. When Kaniṣka took over, everyone could inspect his coinage and see to their surprise that the naked god was gone, the bovine was gone, the fiery hair was gone and the paṭṭiśa had lost its attached axe.67 There was just one god at least similar to the naked one, comparable because he held a triśūla in one of his now four hands. For all able to read Bactrian there was no doubt about who he was, as his name was now written too, OHÞΟ. The Bactrian savants when around could tell all illiterates and Indian pandits that this is pronounced /weš/. Never heard of, never seen before, must have been the common reaction of the time. This same reaction resurfaced when modern research found out how to pronounce the Bactrian letter Þ. Very recently the question came up (Jongeward and Cribb 2015: 35) as to where to look for the people who venerated a deity which apart from these coins never is mentioned again? Was Wēš part of a royal cult? yes, there was even a temple for Wēš in Bactria (see below), but we can imagine Kaniṣka to have chosen a term which was un-Indian on purpose. The term as such has been explained by Humbach (1975, cf. 2014) as relating to the Iranian Wind-god, akin to the Indian vāyu, through a comparison with a label on a painting showing a three-headed god at Pendžikent and in the Sogdian translation of the Vessantarajātaka, where Wēš occurs instead of Mahādeva, written wšprkr or wyšprkr in Sogdian. Humbach explained this term by tracing it back to avestan vaiiuš uparō. kairiiō, “the wind active in the upper region”. This linguistic explanation sounds reasonable and was followed by Tanabe (1991–1992: 55) and Grenet (2015: 215) in writing. However, nonIranists and art historians less trained in philology thought there must be a Sanskrit term behind “Oesho” and that Kaniṣka must have misunderstood something Indian, as such a Wēš is not found anywhere else. This impression was mistaken as Wēš is often found in Bactrian personal names from times before and after Kaniṣka. Examples are simple Wēš (οηþο), or “Given by Wēš” (οηþολαδο), “Man of Wēš” (οηþομαρδο), “Best of Wēš(’s men?)” (οηþοφαρδαρο), “Boar of Wēš” (οιηþοοαραζο), suitably accessible through the work of N. Sims-Williams (2010: nos. 330–36). Now, when Wēš is related to Skt vāyu then this should be an air-related deity. What then is the difference between this Vāyu and the likewise Indian Vāta, who is also present on the coinage of Kaniṣka labelled OaΔΟ, /vād/ but is depicted very differently, as running and holding up a large blown-up 32 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Implying only the skies, not the movement, the same primeval moving force is also found in Buddhism. On a rock slab from Mathura an elephant is incised with an explanation in Kharoṣṭhī script that the animal represents the “Teacher (i.e., Buddha) as a being in the sky” (śasta khasatva; Skt śāstā khasattvaḥ; Konow 1929: 49, no. 16, with obsolete reading). as a white elephant this being enters mother Māyā to be born as the future Buddha. Without reference to this incarnation the oldest testimony is found at Girnar, where possibly aśoka added a sentence to Rock Edict 13 with a reference to the “white elephant who is called the bringer of happiness to all people” (sveto hasti sarvalokasukhāharo nāma).71 The same elephant appears in a drawing on aśoka’s edict rock at Khalsi, with a label calling it “the highest elephant” (gajatame; Hultzsch 1925: 50). In a Hindu cosmogony (Mbh 12.176, 12f. ≈ NārP 1.42,52f.) it is Vāyu who arises from the ocean and exists restless in the ākāśa. From the friction (saṃgharṣa) produced by vāyu above and the waters below agni arises out of the waters with raised hair (ūrdhvaśikha). When agni and wind (pavana) come into contact rain begins to fall. The preference given to the Bactrian Wēš over the Indian Rudra-agni-Skanda implies a number of changes. The agni part has completely disappeared, including the ithyphallos. Where Vima Kadphises’ figure had the hair raised like flames, the Wēš of his son shows an object on his head similar to the kalathos of Serapis or an indistinct hair bun. The emanations of Rudraagni-Skanda, that was Skanda, Viśākha and Naigameṣa, have disappeared as well leaving just one head. Naigameṣa’s goat-head has a vague successor in the sacrificial goat for the deity. Wēš never has a goat’s head and thus cannot be meant on Vima’s pieces. When one motif is represented in copper and in gold issues then the depictions are in general very similar. In the case of Wēš there is a telling difference: In gold (fig. 24, c) we see four or five items in the four hands: flask (and aṅkuśa), vajra, triśūla, a goat as sacrificial victim. On copper (fig. 24, d) we see the royal fillet, the vajra, triśūla and flask. Thus, the flask is found in both arrangements, but on the gold issues it has moved from the standard lower left hand (agni, etc.) to the lower right hand. It marks the god as dispenser of water. The aṅkuśa says just the same with a further accent on the monsoon waters. This same aṅkuśa is sheet of cloth? The function of Wēš becomes clear through a donation to a temple of his own in Tocharistan,68 northern afghanistan, effected by an officer of Kaniṣka I, in celebration of Kaniṣka’s victory over India. The text is incised into a silver dish published by Sims-Williams (2015). “The readings and the vocabulary are not everywhere wholly clear, but the translation of the final sentences cannot be far from what was intended: “Then when the ⟨king⟩ of kings, the son of the gods, [returned] from India to Tokhwarstan in the tenth year with the spoils(?) of victory(?), [he] presented(?) [this plate] (?) at the court(?) of Wēš, (as) an offering(?) to the god; when king Kanishka brought it to Wēš (it was) in the year ten, the month Nisan, the tenth day. We⟨ight:⟩ 270 ⟨staters⟩(?)”. This text makes it abundantly clear that for Kaniṣka, Wēš was responsible for a military campaign in India to become successful, that Wēš was revered in special places and that he accepted donations in silver, similar to Greek deities. Strange enough, but such a view of Vāyu is not alien to Indian throught. In the Kena-Upaniṣad (4.7) the question of the manifestations of the highest god arises. One Bālaki reveres him as the puruṣa inside Vāyu. But ajātraśatru knowns better: “Don’t argue that way! I revere him as Indra Vaikuṇṭha, as the undefeated army”.69 This coincides with a saying in the Garuḍapurāṇa, “lord Vaikuṇṭha, you are known as the good Vāyu”.70 There remain some general remarks: like his forefathers, Kaniṣka had his coin designers look at specimens imported from the West for inspiration. The lunar crescent arising from the shoulders of Māh (MaO) was copied from depictions of Mēn, an influential deity in asia Minor (Callieri 1990: 91), who returns again under Huviṣka as Manāh Bag (see below p. 35). The Cosmogonical Role of Wēš One difference between Vāta and Vāyu may be that the first just blows while the second, as a generally propelling agency, resides in heaven. In the Skt Epics and Purāṇas we meet with the term ākāśastha, “residing in heaven”. In Mbh 6.31,6 we hear of Vāyu residing constantly in the heavens, able to move everywhere, being “great” (yathā ākāśasthito nityam vāyuḥ sarvatrago mahān). This is rather close to the avestan vaiiuš uparō. kairiiō, “the wind active in the upper region”. 33 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 24. a) 8 g. gold coin of Kaniṣka I with altar, aṅkuśa, floating cloth, flames, sceptre, lakṣaṇa on cheek (CNG 73, 544); b) 2 g. gold coin with Kaniṣka rising from rocks (Triton 13, 270); c) 8 g. gold coin with Weš (CNG 73, 545); d) 17 g. copper coin with Weš (CNG 304, 203). as is also seen with athš, Ātar, on his coins; on the other hand Kaniṣka is also a sort of god Wind, as can be told from a piece of cloth floating in the wind at his back (fig. 24, a). Of all the Kushan kings, only images of Kaniṣka show this cloth. So the idea of “wind” is in a way central and particular for Kaniṣka. How this relates to the Mithraic heap of rocks (fig. 24, b) is open to speculation. Most likely Mithra was regarded as exercising just the same primeval propelling action as does Wēš in Bactrian terminology. When trying to define the nature of Wēš we have to wade through the morass of henotheism: everything is linked to almost everything else. On the coppers it is Wēš who hands over the royal fillet, but on the gold series it is athš (ΑΘÞΟ), the god of fire. How far are athš and Wēš identical? Has the Wēš of Kaniṣka inherited or preserved traits of the Rudra-agni-Skanda of his father? There is some literary evidence in such a direction where Skanda-Kumāra is linked to Vāyu. Mbh 13.151,5 lists Skanda’s names, being “husband of Umā, Viśālākṣa, Skanda, General, Viśākha, Eater of the sacrificial oblation, Vāyu, the light-makers sun and moon”.73 another list speaks of Skanda as “Skandadhara, Dhurya, fulfiller of wishes, he with Vāyu as vehicle.”74 In Mbh 9.43,39, where Śākha appears as one-fourth of Mahādeva and as the embodiment of Vāyu, we read that “the lord Śākha proceeded in the form of Vāyu towards agni”.75 Outside the epic the agnipurāṇa prescribes for a certain ritual: “The sun has to be placed in the east, as Skanda, agni, in the field of Vāyu”.76 That means that Skanda in fact has some vague connection to Vāyu alias Wēš. Skanda takes Vāyu’s shape and he is transported by the wind. also found in the hand of the king on the obverse. This says: the king provides the perennial and the annual water; he does so along with or as a substitute for the deity. The king as guarantor for water is an idea vital to the Indian idea of kingship. On copper, the aṅkuśa is missing, and missing on both sides. This could mean: for those using small money, i.e., the working and consumer side of the populace, this heavenly action is regarded as of less relevance. Instead of the aṅkuśa as on gold we see the royal fillet on the coppers (fig. 24, d). This, as in so many other cases, means: the god Vāyu provides and legitimatizes the right to exercise power. On Vima Kadphises’ and Kaniṣka’s coppers the left lower hand holds the flask. What does it connote? The flask is no bottle of profane drinking water since on statues at Mathura and Gandhara it is often carefully decorated. It could contain potent liquids, oil or sacred waters to indicate the power (and will) of a number of deities72 to heal people or land and copies in shape the flask containing massage oil still often applied in presentday local medicine. In any case, this flask was shifted to the right side, and on the gold coins this left hand now holds a sacrificial victim, the goat. This, on the royal obverse, has as corresponding element the king as sacrificer, although he is shown only as dropping incense into the incense burner. In contrast to his ancestors, Kaniṣka on the obverse holds on to a sort of spear that copies the long sceptre of Zeus as shown on the Indo-Greek coins. a further element is telling: because of the legend it is indisputable that the deity on the reverse is Wēš, Vāyu. On the one hand the king is a sort of god Fire, shown by the flames from his shoulders 34 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics to copper, clearly a matter of more and less esteem. The Buddha stands with his right hand raised that displays a circular lakṣaṇa on his open palm. He sports a moustache, and a dot or circle is where we expect the ūrṇa. Over-large ears and the usual protuberance on his cranium characterize his head. The moustache shows that the designer followed the iconographic concepts of Gandhara rather than those of Mathura. The coppers showing Maitreya, allegedly a Buddha (MHTΡΑΓΟ BOyΔ and similar) with crossed legs on a pedestal are of very poor workmanship, as if the die-cutter were neither talented nor interested. Calling a Bodhisattva with a brahminical family background a Buddha shows again that in certain cases the die-cutters followed rough orders that they fulfilled with home-brew guesswork. Despite all legends about Kaniṣka and Buddhism, these coins show only that the adherents of Maitreya were regarded as inferior in status or economic power than those of Buddha Śākyamuni. Evidence is there, but it is scarce and difficult to evaluate. Kaniṣka did not completely break with the notions of his father, but the ties to the Indic Rudra-agni-Skanda are feeble and possibly influenced by Iranian ideas. Something similar can be said about the Balarāma-Vāsudeva set of ideas that we found symbolized on the signum paṭṭiśa of the Pipal Mandi coins and the terracotta paintings, possibly going back to the times of Vema Takhtu. These Pañcavīra deities are only found on the gold coins showing “god Manah”, ΜΑΝΑΟΒΑΓΟ, /manābag/. He sits on a throne with footstool, wears a helmet, shows two halves of a moon’s crescent in his back. Two of his four hands hold the plough of Balarāma-Saṃkarṣaṇa and the wheel-of-time of Vāsudeva. The other two hold a Greek-style royal fillet and an Iranian-style diadem. Does this refer to a totality including Indian; Indo-Greek, that is, Bactrian; and Iranian royal rights? Rosenfield (1967: 79f.) links the name to the avestan Vohu Manāh, a heavenly entity (amesha Spenta) vaguely responsible for sovereignty (khšathra). This sounds possible but does not explain the lunar crescent and the four arms.77 The throne and the deity’s faculty for providing kingship (fillet) ranks him very high. The crescent is often said to show him as a lunar deity, but the Moon is already covered by Māh, written MaO. God Manāh is not an invention of the mint office as there is the recipient of a votive donation of a silver plate to μαναο ιβαγο in the year a.d. 265 (Sims-Williams 2013: 194). The donation includes a reference to a vineyard and thus could deal with harvest results. a cyclical and binary idea around the year is quite likely, alternating agriculture and warfare, the year divided in two halves according to their heavenly protagonists, and regulated according to a lunar calender symbolized by the wheel-of-time.78 In this way another aspect found on the signum-like paṭṭiśa would have made it into the times of Kaniṣka, although in disguise. Huviṣka Huviṣka (ca. a.d. 157 until before 195),79 the son of Kaṇiṣka, continued most of the reverse types introduced by his father. The crucial bovinefree Wēš-type is continued, including the legend OHÞΟ, all minted only in gold while the corresponding copper is completely absent. Some stray unorthodox depictions of Wēš have come to light that reanimate features from the Rudra-agni-Skanda type of his grandfather. One type shows Wēš’s head surrounded by flames, wielding cakra, club (gada), triśūla and pseudovajra, as if combining a) agni, b) Balarāma and Saṃkarṣaṇa, and c) śaivite elements (fig. 25, b). a second variant (fig. 25, c) has three large heads, wheel, sacrificial goat, triśūla and pseudo-vajra. The Rudra-agni-Skanda devotees will have been happy spotting the prominent male member. a third variant (fig. 25, d) is found slightly more often. Its legend reads OHÞΑ throughout, with a final a. It shows a three-headed deity—no goat involved— topped by the kalathos of Sarapis, which wields a flask, a real thunderbolt made from three streaks of lightning, triśūla and club. If agni is involved he must hide in the true thunderbolt (fig. 25, d). all three variants are rare but display an obviously unrestricted liberty of syncretism, which Kaniṣka and Buddhism Indian, but not in the Hinduistic sense “traditional”, are the two types on coins showing that Kaniṣka had more understanding of Buddhism than of Vedic ritual. The Buddha occurs on gold and copper coinage, while Maitreya is restricted 35 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 25. a) 8 g. gold coin, showing Manāh bag holding plough of Balarāma and wheel-of-time of Vāsudeva, with royal fillet and Parthian diadem (GM 240, 296); b) Weš as agni surrounded by flames with attributes of Balarāma-Saṃkarṣaṇa and pseudo-vajra (courtesy P. Tandon); c) similar arrangement, but flames are replaced by three heads inside halo and club turned into sacrificial victim; ithyphallic (British Museum acc.no. 1879,0501.25); d) three-headed Weš (OHÞΑ) with attributes of Indra/Zeus (thunderbolt), Sarapis (kalathos), Balarāma (club) (Hirayama coll. C886). festivals of Prajāpati. The end of September into October is the time when the monsoon has ended and merchants prepare to travel with their caravans because now the earth becomes dry while the animals find sufficient fodder. For the same reason this time is ideal for making war. So, the god of war, Skanda alias Kārttikeya, is linked by his name to the solar time of his activities. When half a year is over, the end of March and parts of april constitute the first month of the biological spring. as the Rudra-agni-Skanda ancestry of Wēš has close links to Vedic notions, so do the two turning points of the year with their festivals. They are vital to the whole concept of the year being Prajāpati, the master of all creation. This way neither Skanda nor Viśākha are peripheral deities; however, they lost their importance when the older concepts merged into the modern systems of Vaiṣṇavism and Śaivism. Viśākha is normally not depicted in art as a sole figure; he needs his counterpart to make sense. However, as the deity of botanical spring he is important, and thus he occurs on his own in a very idiosyncratic series of copper coins, issued in the time of Huviṣka either at the Kashmir Smats north-east of Peshawar, or not very far from there. This series carries an inscription on the reverse in Kharoṣṭhī letters, saying yodhavade, alternatively yodhavate of doubtful meaning. That the deity is Viśākha can be understood from a tree in front of him (fig. 26, c) with two branches stretched out to two opposing sides, being “with outstreched branches”, Skt viśākha, like the cobra being vyaṃsaka, “with spread shoulders”. The corresponding Kārttikeya may likewise be present on allowed the culling of symbols from all actually active religious systems. Of all these systems Huviṣka seems to favour the Rudra-agni-Skanda party for which his mintmasters created a special issue that presents Skanda Kumāra, skando komaro, “Skanda the boy”,80 shown in person and with his companion Viśākha, bizago. The figures of the gods stand on a common ground that includes a wavy line. They face each other and both hold a sceptre pole and carry a sword (fig. 26, a). They wear a dhotī, headcloth with a bun and a necklace, holding the inner hand at navel level. all this characterizes them as noble warriors. None of these gods looks in any way similar to the standard Skanda of Gandharan or Mathura art schools who carries armour, bow and spear, some of which some show three heads. On Huviṣka’s standard coins these two gods are single-headed, dressed in dhotīs, bare-chested and barefoot, as if their iconography was still a matter of personal imagination. Unnoticed so far, the two gods are personifications of two places of the sun in front of two nakṣatras. The nakṣatra viśākhā corresponds to the first part of our libra and gives its name to the month Vaiśākha with the full moon standing in it. alpha librae and the Pleiades (kṛttikāḥ) are roughly 180 degrees apart. This fact is mentioned in some Purāṇas that say that the sun close to the Pleiades coincides with the full moon in Viśākha and vice versa.81 No other opposition is mentioned in these contexts. So Kārttikeya alias Skanda has his place in October while Viśākha is linked to april. This bisection is well known from ancient India, in that these dates are those of the two great 36 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 26. Gold coinage of Huviṣka: a) Skanda Kumāra and Viśākha on an equal footing (CNG 100, 1673); b) Skanda Kumara and Viśākha frame Mahāsena, who is depicted with solar halo (cf. British Museum, 1865,0803.16). Copper coinage from the Kashmir Smats from the time of Huviṣka: c) six-armed Viśākha in front of a tree with spread branches (courtesy O. Bopearachchi); d) sixarmed Kārttikeya with spear (British Museum acc.no.1990.8.20.2). and is called Viśākha”. The letters for this insertion start above the sigma of narasao and end over the delta of oudoano. That means neither is srošardo touched in any way and narasao is involved only with its last syllable. The only name which is fully covered is miiro, Mihir. This is why I cannot follow the editor when he inserts the explanation in his translation after “Sroshard”, turning Sroshard into the Indian Mahāsena and Viśākha. Instead, following the spacial arrangement, we must understand the insertion as “The Indians call Mihir ‘Mahāsena’ and they call him ‘Viśākha’ ”. With Mahāsena we have no difficulties, as he is even shown rayed as the sun (fig. 26, b) and Mihir is the sun, in a number of functions. Mihir and Viśākha are deities who both are celebrated at the beginning of the biological spring. For the western Mithra cult the date was fixed by Insler (1978: 536) into the span of april 6 to 19. In India the full moon stood in the nakṣatra viśākhā (α librae) e.g., in a.d. 150 exactly on March 31, marking the following month Vaiśākha, the beginning of the year.83 That means that the author of the interlinear gloss was of the opinion that the Indian subjects regard Mithra as Mahāsena and also as Viśākha. Since all three are the sun in different functions this equation can be regarded as well founded.84 Thus the coinage of Huviṣka stresses the importance of the year, its beginning in Vaiśākha and its counterpoint in Kārttika. Both dates are “natural” dates, marking first the biological spring, not an astronomical spring at the vernal equinox, and marking then the beginning of the warring and travelling season, likewise not the his own in this yodhavade series, showing the three heads of Vima Kadphises’ prototype, with a spear in addition (fig. 26, d).82 Far rarer than this couple of Skanda and Viśākha are gold coins of Huviṣka where mahāsena (ΜΑΑCΗΝΟ) is placed in their middle. Mahāsena wears a long dress and carries a lance and a crown. In one case (fig. 26, b) his halo is rayed like the one of the sun (MIIPO); in two other cases the lance is a half-length stick, possibly a gnomon (kāṣṭha, kīla, śaṅkhu, puruṣa). When we link Skanda and Viśākha with the two nakṣatras of the kṛttikās and of viśākhā, then Mahāsena as the sun is the actor visiting the two points on the ecliptic. This leads us back to Kaniṣka and his Rabatak inscription. There the author in the service of Kaniṣka lists a number of deities which conferred kingship on his master. The deities have Iranian names, and there is a series ending with Mithra, with a superscript saying “and this means Mahāsena, and this means Viśākha”. The series of deities end with (Sims-Williams 2008: 56a): srošardo nara‖sao miiro otēia oud‖oa The last two words otēia oudoa(no) begin the following sentence, and oudoa reaches up to the right end of the stone. The first three words reproduced here are the end of the previous sentence and refer to the Iranian deities called Srošard, Narasa and Mihir, the latter being Mithra, the sun. above these words there is an interlinear gloss in small letters, reading kidi undooao maasēno pizdi odo bizago pizdi, rendered by the editor as “who in Indian [language HF] is called Mahāsena 37 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 27. a) Huviṣka riding the elephant with sceptre and aṅkuśa (MDC Monaco 4, 53); b) the same with raised aspergillum (CNG 322, 416); c) Bust of Huviṣka with banded aspergillum (CNG 91, 460); d) the same with protruding fibres (CNG 93, 713). sceptre and an aṅkuśa. This motif is found on gold coins (fig. 27, a) and is the most common obverse on well-made issues, as well as on a sort of war emissions of crude workmanship and diminished weight, evidence of a great calamity and lack of funds. Regarding calamities, a famous inscription from Surkh Kotal is dated to year 31 (ca. a.d. 158), right at the beginning of Huviṣka’s reign. It reports that a well had fallen dry and that enemies had forced the temple guards to withdraw from the site. The well was repaired (Gershevitch 1979). Surkh Kotal near Baghlan belongs to a climate zone we would regard as fundamentally different from that of India. Somewhat closer to India is Wardak, 50 km west of Kabul, placed on the southern side of the Hindu Kush. a Buddhist dedication from the year 51, that is ca. a.d. 177, speaks of King Huviṣka and that “there shall be freedom from sickness for all people”.85 This is also the time when Roman troops contracted the “great pestilence” at Ctesiphon in northern Iraq, which raged for years in most of the provinces of the empire and also affected Gandhara (Bivar 1970: 20) prior to or following the outbreak at Ctesiphon. Water contamination or scarcity of water may explain why the king himself mounts the elephant, the allegory of monsoon clouds. The aṅkuśa found with almost all of the elephant riders can in rare cases be replaced by a strange object (fig. 27, b), which certainly does not serve to rule the animal, and by its presence shows its relation to water. although rare on coppers it is found on almost every coin with the king’s bust. Huviṣka holds a sceptre wand in his left hand while his right hand lifts an object often called a “club” or “mace” (fig. 27, c, d). autumnal equinox. The tribes following the habits of the audumbaras or early yaudheyas seemed to begin their year one month earlier, in Caitra, under the deity called caitreśvara, possibly due to the more southern position compared to Bactria and Gandhara. The Roman Mithra cult centered around the binary nature of the year, from the rising of Taurus to its disappearance and vice versa. The many group pictures typical of Huviṣka’s gold coinage can be shown to be based on the very same concept; the dates reconstructed are surprisingly similar. No wonder that Huviṣka still rises from the rocks just like Mithra, in continuation of how his father and grandfather wanted to be seen. The Aspergillum Following his forefathers, Huviṣka also shows himself as emitting fiery flames from his shoulders. These can be missing, but then there is a new form of solar rays encircling his shoulders, often appearing as ribbed band that leaves his helmet at the back where also the standard fillet is omitted. This band can but need not be accompanied by flames. Huviṣka is the first Kushan who uses the halo around his own head in a large number of cases. On his coppers, where he can recline on a sofa, his head as well as his whole body are surrounded by a double halo with sun rays. all of this seems to express his nearness to solar lustre, making him related to Mihir, the sun. This is in stark contrast to some symbols pointing towards water. The most obvious is the king shown riding an elephant, holding a Greek-style 38 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 28. a) reverse of a silver coin of Julius Caesar (Triton 16, 883), aspergillum in the shape of an Indian fly whisk; b) modern aspergillum from Orthodox Poland; c) sacrificer with thymiaterion left and holding aspergillum right (after Rey-Coquais 1992: 260, fig. 2). admittedly, a club would look very much different, larger and tapering from top down to where it is held. Our object, however, consists of a handle stick and a larger intersected roll on its upper end; both parts are clearly different from each other. The object has defied a credible identification so far, but once we look for something alluding to water we will soon see an aspergillum, a sacerdotal water dispenser. Basic aspergilla are just bundles of stalks of thyme or oregano, used today in rural areas of the alps to spray livestock at Easter and assure its health for the coming year. This evil-removing faculty is also seen behind similar uses of ysop stalks in Psalm 51,9. larger aspergilla made from horse hair appear on coins from Caesar onwards among a series of implements the highest priest of the country would use to appease the gods (fig. 28, a). Roman-period temples in lebanon depict aspergilla made from branches, larger but in their construction similar to those of Huviṣka (fig. 28, c). When inspecting the object held by Huviṣka we see a construction of parallel fibres tied to a central handle. These are then fastened by rings of thread or wire; occasionally, some of the fibres stick out at the upper end, more or less identical in shape with aspergilla still in use in Orthodox churches (fig. 28, b). This proposed identification certainly is much more in line with the shape of the object as it shows itself on the coins of Huviṣka, and the idea of a wooden club can be given up. accepting this interpretation implies an admission of the sacerdotal role of the Kushan king similar to the contemporary emperors of Rome. Caesar was elected to function as pontifex maximus, and his coinage promulgated nationwide that he was a state leader of Rome and the highest priest at the same time. This double role was continued by augustus from 16 b.c. onwards and held current by many to follow. Huviṣka expressed on his coins that he was exercising similar roles: beyond the simple fire oblations of his forefathers, he bestowed blessings on his subjects. On the yodhavade copper series from the region around Kashmir Smats the king can also sit on the elephant. But while he holds a sort of threepronged stick on the gold elephant obverses, he holds up the aspergillum on the yodhavade coppers (fig. 27, b). Besides ardoxsho and Vāta this rare copper series shows truely Indian deities— Viśākha, Rāma, Kārttikeya—a late attempt at approaching his Indian subjects? In style and artistic quality these pieces are very different from the older standard coppers of Huviṣka. Huviṣka and Buddhism In contrast to his father Kaniṣka, Huviṣka never issued gold or copper coins depicting any of the Buddhist main proponents, Śākyamuni or Maitreya. But unlike his father, he seems to be depicted about three times in media other than coins, in every single case clean-shaven, sporting a mustachio and wearing a crown peculiar only to him: we know of an incense box (Errington 2002: 119, fig. 5) where he is flanked by the sun 39 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics “stern śaivite” (e.g., Göbl 1984: 72a). In contrast, the personal name Vāsudeva itself suggests that whoever is responsible for it thought that the king Vāsudeva (r. a.d. 195–225; cf. n. 79 below) should be protected by one of the Pañcavīras, the one with the wheel as trademark. This name is also reflected on a so far single coin showing one Vāsudeva on either side, the king of that name on the plain obverse and the deity on the reverse (fig. 30, b). The deity is marked with a legend BaZODEO and has four arms, two of which hold the wheel of Vāsudeva and the club of BalarāmaSaṃkarṣaṇa. The other two implements are a large lotus with stalk and a conch shell. The same obverse die (fig. 30, a) was also used to show Nana on the reverse (fig. 30, c). Both reverse deities disappear and give way to a standard Wēš, with one or three heads, and almost always with a bovine companion. These two early issues of Bazdeo and Nana show that Vāsudeva first tried to introduce a design illustrating his name. Why the design was discontinued can only be guessed at; it may have been regarded as too narrow in scope, addressing only those who are on the side of the Pañcavīras and Viṣṇu. The reason for the disappearance of Nana (cf. n. 55) can be conjectured: We know from the Rabatak inscription that Nana is needed for the inauguration, and when that is done she is dispensable. With very few exceptions, Vāsudeva then continues the type of his great-grandfather, first with three heads and then with one head. In the younger issues Wēš is always two-armed and the design becomes clumsy, while the locks of the deity are often surrounded by a further circle of flames, reminiscent of the hair of agni as seen last with Huviṣka (fig. 31, b). The reign of Vāsudeva was long and the variants in his coin designs are multifarious. On the reverse the deity is named OHÞΟ throughout. From its shoulders flames may flare up, recalling the agni-nature of the prototype as presented by Vima Kadphises. The deity can have two or four arms. When two they hold fillet and triśūla,86 when four then the lower hands hold lotus and flask. The bovine animal is present on the 8 g. issues and missing on the much smaller quarters. When present it can carry a bell around its neck or not. Wēš has one or three heads. an early type (fig. 30, d)87 includes the goat’s head of Naigameya. The main head carries a kalathos. This rare issue feels like a personal tribute to Vima Kadphises. Fig. 29. a) Huviṣka with lotus stalks, left hand covered, two wreaths on his head (photo author); b) gold coin of Huviṣka with two wreaths on bare head, aspergillum in left hand, scepter wand in right, ÞΑΟΡΗΟ on reverse (cf. Triton 17, 469). and moon, then on a stone panel (Kurita 2003, I: 277, no. 592) showing him strewing flowers and finally on a painting on cotton (Grenet 2015: 227). The so-called Kaniṣka casket, explained by E. Errington in 2002 as depicting Huviṣka, is well known. The king is placed at the central position of the incense box, shown standing and flanked by figures of the sun and moon, and his right hand holding two lotus stalks with seed heads (fig. 29, a), his left hand covered by his sleeve. Unexplained so far is the double wreath on his head. This can be explained on the basis of a rare obverse design (fig. 29, b) used on gold coins depicting Pharro or Šaorēo on the reverse, showing two thick fillets one above the other. Such thick fillets are found only on Huviṣka’s coins and here only in the hands of MIIPO and OaNIΝΔΑ, that is the sun and Nike, while old-style thin fillets are held by MIIPO, ΛΡΟΟΑCΠΟ and MaO. This double fillet seen on the incense box and on one obverse die is exclusive to Huviṣka. The incense box combines the Buddha on the lid and the king on the body as an adherent, a combination certainly not the product of fantasy. at least the incense burner can be adduced as sound evidence for a close relationship between Huviṣka and Buddhism. The absence of any coinage dedicated to the Buddha can only advise us not to argue ex silentio when it comes to linking a Kushan with a certain religion. The Religion of Vāsudeva Because of the almost exclusive “Śiva” on his reverse sides, Vāsudeva was liable to be called 40 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 30. a) King Vāsudeva with hand on flaming altar; and b) deity Vāsudeva with four arms (after Göbl 1993: Tfl. 13, no. 515); c) Nana on reverse with type a) obverse (CNG 78, 1056); d) reverse in Vima Kadphises style with four-armed deity; one of three heads is a goat’s head (courtesy aman ur Rahman, cf. CNG 108, 424). Fig. 31. a) King Vāsudeva with long hanging hair and b) Weš on reverse with circle of hair inside a circle of flames (Nomos 15, 195); c) Vāsudeva with Nike and ornate altar (courtesy aman ur Rahman); d) gold coin of Peroz I (r. a.d. 245–270) with flaming hair, bull and inscription “the exalted god” (CNG 61, 1001). Either the king or Wēš can have a halo. The deity can have a circle of flames around its circle of locks, or the rayed halo of the sun. It is certainly of some meaning that whenever the king is shown with hair hanging down (fig. 31, a), the deity has such a halo of flames. The obverse presenting the king himself is relatively stable: He holds a sceptre upright in his left hand. It ends in a single pike or a three-part half-circle with a central protrusion, that is the sceptre which Huviṣka held when riding the elephant, and in no early case can it be mistaken for a triśūla. Vāsudeva’s right hand is held above an altar, which now is a real altar, not any longer a thymiaterion: it has horns in the four corners and occasional lines indicate flames or fumes. Often flames rise from the king’s shoulders, but they are not dependent on flames on the shoulders of Wēš. In about half of all cases a real triśūla is fixed up- right into the ground behind the altar, adorned with a fillet. The triśūla is almost never88 a paṭṭiśa. When we compare the four last kings from Vima Kadphises to Vāsudeva we see a sort of back and forth: Vima Kadphises was not a Śaiva, as his Rudra-agni-Skanda reverse showed the ultimate heavenly authority together with its emanations. The personnel was Vedic, but it met related concepts from Bactria to Gandhara: one highest being of a fiery nature divided itself or emanated parts of himself to install the visible world. The king was one of these emanations, proven by the flames from his shoulders.89 His son Kaniṣka was not happy with this Indophily and returned to pictorial representations in a more classical, that is, western style. The Indian agni was replaced by the Iranian Wēš, but the religious concept remained basically the same: whatever deity was 41 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics preferred, it was nothing but an emanation of the highest promoter of the cosmos, the “wind” that kept the stars and the sun moving, that created the revolutions of the year, and this fiery “wind” was also active in the king, visible in the flames from his shoulders and the floating cloth in his back. Kaniṣka’s son Huviṣka accepted the graphical principle, but only the flames on his shoulders were adopted, not the floating cloth. More importance was given to water, to be seen in the aspergillum and the elephant, possibly forced by a natural catastrophe, like a protracted period of drought, accompanied by the habitual plagues. at the end of his reign the worst was overcome, but the family sanctuary at Maṭ was smashed, by local people possibly making the king responsible for the weather, as they always did and still do. as the last of the imperial Kushans in possession of Bactria, Vāsudeva gives up the potpourri and returns to the unifying cosmogony or his greatgrandfather. He still shows the flames of the primeval fire that divides into three, and he returns to the bovine animal that can have a bell tied to its neck to show, often with other marks in support, that it is a bull and not a milk cow. Still, the flames connect deity and king. Despite the widening of scope with the inclusion of deities from the West as effected by Kaniṣka and Huviṣka, the central agni aspect must have been present in the mind of the populace, or at least the coin designers, be it in Bactria or in India. according to the consistent obverse design, Vāsudeva never got out of his coat of mail. He will have won some of the battles in Bactria— there is even a gold coin showing a flying Nike on the obverse (fig. 31, c)—but in the end he lost the lands north of the Hindu Kush and soon after lost even more west of the Salt Range. The idea of the god Fire was maintained by those who won over Vāsudeva. The Kushanshahs kept the unifying motif including bovine and triśūla, but now the flaming hair was drawn very clear and pronounced, under Peroz I (fig. 31, d; r. a.d. 245–270) or Wahran II (r. a.d. 370–395). Strange enough, the legend speaks of him “who reigns in the heights” (borzavand, βορζαοανδο), which falls in line with the avestan vaiiuš uparō. kairiiō, the “wind who is active in the upper region”, which Humbach had found as the idea behind the name Wēš, who in addition is described as having “three faces” (Humbach 1975: 403). Vāsudeva and Buddhism Vāsudeva, as all others before him, could afford to be open to all religious movements, as he did not need to be a devotee but was an object of veneration himself. He must have stood on friendly terms with the Buddhists, as we can gather from two epigraphical pieces of evidence. at the Buddhist monastery on the rocky hill of Ranigat, not far from Swabi, where his last editions with hair hanging down were often found, a stone slab was inscribed saying “May (this donation) be for the principal share of the Mahārāja devaputra Vāsudeva” (vasudevamaharaja-devaputrasa agrabhaga-parihaṃśadae bhava(tu); Odani 1997: 832). The second piece is a silver box with a lid that once contained incense in a Buddhist household or temple. Four persons of different status are presented as adherents, from commoner to Vāsudeva, surrounding two depictions of the Buddha (Falk and Sims-Williams 2017). The king is shown holding an incense burner emitting fumes towards the Buddha. How do Buddha and the fiery deity on the reverse sides of Vāsudeva’s coins correlate? First, no Indian subject would be forced to “believe” in just one deity. Particular deities are responsible for pregnancies, and others for success in war or riches. as the king is dressed in a coat of mail his main concern must have been a deity influencing the outcome of wars. Buddha is not known for that. agni certainly has destructive properties, but the main point will be that the deities on coinages are not primarily meant to present the supportive forces behind the king, but to convince his subjects that they are all included in his care. agni, god Fire, has his place in Iranian and in Indian religions; the cow and the bull are most respected in Indian religions and in Zoroastrianism. But in addition the Indian agni is instrumental in the creation of his alter ego Kārttikeya alias Skanda, war gods par excellence. a deity called ākāśastha in Sanskrit can be regarded as βορζαοανδο ιαζαδο (BOPZaOaNΔO IaZaΔO with many variants), the “exalted god”—the concepts are very similar. That means the Kushanshahs needed not to adopt an Indian Śiva; the image language chosen from Vima Kadphises onwards was aiming at both culture spheres at the same time and everything could remain as it was after the Iranian Kushanshahs replaced the Kushans in Bactria. 42 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Scope for Further Research water from the Buddha’s feet looks as if it was earlier than a.d. 157, but new evidence falsifying this conclusion may be awaited. another case of adaptation took place on the Hindu side. It concerns Mithra and his tauroctony, his killing of the bull. as Insler has shown first, the real background is the binary division of the year along the visibility of the first or final star of Taurus in the night sky, bisecting the year commencing at the biological spring, at the beginning of april, to the colder part, the beginning of October. a certain coincidence with the Zoroastrian calender shows that this age-old bisection received a new mythological background in the first part of the first century b.c. although the petrogenitur of Mithra must have been known to the Kushans, the in our view much more important tauroctony was not. So it seems. There was a similar suppression of a bovine under the foot of Mēn (Μην), who hailed from asia Minor, in Rome (fig. 32, a), and Mēn lent his lunar crescent and his name to Manāh Bag on coins of Kaniṣka I and Huviṣka (fig. 25, a). Mēn is a boy, similar to Skanda the kumāra, and Mēn occasionally holds a cockerel at girdle height (lane 1971, §§ 6, 10, 64, 175), just like Kārttikeya. Mēn can be recognized when he holds a spear, again like Kārttikeya. There are definitely points of agreement and influence and most likely the direction of lending was towards the East. Why then was the tauroctony not considered for the newly created set of Hinduistic myths? It was, but it could not be adopted without one major change: To build the welfare of people on the slaughter of a cow is a ghastly attack on Indian feelings. It seems that an adaptation started with replacing the cow with a neutral buffalo (with a history of its own as a victim traceable back to the Indus Valley Culture); the man to kill the animal was already there, the lord of Spring, named *caitreśvara, known from the coins of the audumbaras, alias Skanda, alias Kārttikeya. This is what the Mahābhārata tells us, that Kārttikeya kills the “demon” (asura) when winter is over. In different terms the Nāradapurāṇa (32,87–97) says the same and has Mahiṣa hide in a cave while Kārttikeya is told by Indra to kill the demon with the spear “given by agni” (śaktyā pāvakadattayā). The event is depicted once in Gandharan stone, discovered on one single preserved exemplar in the Museum of Peshawar by There were temples where statues of emperors were placed, but we do not know who was allowed to venerate them. I see one piece of evidence that the emperors’ “heavenly” status had become part of public thinking, as there is a reaction in Buddhism: the flames which flare up from the shoulders of all imperial Kushan kings from Vima Kadphises onwards precede in time the panels in Gandhara where flames emanate from the shoulders of the Buddha. We know that Buddhism is not free from inclusivistic tendencies. In Gandhara, e.g., an Iranian cult of the sun was gaining ground and Buddhist artists introduced the sun placed on a throne as an object of worship on stūpa panels along with other, more genuinely Buddhist topics. This happened as an act of inclusivism, presenting sun worship as an insignificant variant of and within Buddhism. likewise ritual fire-places are known to have existed at the Buddhist monasteries at Tepe Shodor (Haḍḍa) and Tepe Sardār (Ghazni) (Verardi 1994: 40ff.), which seem to be derived from Iranian or even Kushan ritual activities. Of only iconographical importance is the cart wheel with knobs all around, a sign for the Pañcavīra Vāsudeva, as depicted first by agathokles (185–175 b.c.) at ai Khanum (see fig. 19, b). This wheel of Vāsudeva was used to show Buddha “rolling the wheel of dharma” (dharmacakraṃ pravatati), found on a golden token from Tilya Tepe buried in the first century a.d. This certainly was an ad hoc visualisation which did not become customary, and all later wheels loose the knobs. The flames from the shoulders of the Buddha signal that he shares these divine qualities with the Kushans. after a number of statues show just a Buddha with flames the topic was enlarged for the so-called “miracle of Śrāvastī”, mainly in monasteries of the Kabul plain, showing the Buddha emanating in addition water from his lower body or from his feet. If this reasoning holds good, then any depiction of the so-called yamakaprātihārya cannot be older than the shoulder flames of Vima Kadphises, after ca. a.d. 110. If we look for the source of the water we may point at the aspergillum of Huviṣka, who sprays water starting with his accession in the Kushan year 30, that is, around a.d. 157. at first glance no yamakaprātihārya with 43 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics Fig. 32. a) figure of Mēn as a boy, with lunar crescent, spear, cockerel, treading down a bovine animal (courtesy British Museum, acc.no. 1964,0721.1); b) Durgā in terracotta from Bogra, Bengal, 3rd–4th cent. a.d. (Bhattacharya 2018: 445); c) Buddha emitting flames from his shoulders and further flames surrounding his halo (private collection). Chr. luczanits (2009: 160, no. 111; 133a). There, the deity wears the standard coat of mail and puts his spear onto the neck of the succumbing animal. a parallel version makes use of Durgā, a female version of the male Durga (see p. 20b) alias Kārttikeya. Härtel (1993, nos. 119–26) found a number of terracotta plates at Sonkh illustrating the killing of a buffalo by a female deity, starting with Kushan levels. They show traits of the myth around the two sons (!) of Prajāpati Kaśyapa called Śumbha and Niśumbha (Granoff 1979). The weapon used for the killing starts with a knife, turns to a vajra consisting of three streaks of lightning, as used by the Wēš of Huviṣka while the deity holds on to the paṭṭiśa of Skanda, held upright. In a last move a triśūla was used for the killing, but not before the Gupta period, as Härtel (1992/2018: 82/350) has shown. The tauroctony of Mithra may well provide the reason behind this remodelling. That the tauroctony was at least graphically known in some regions becomes evident through a large Durgā on Mahiṣa from Bogra in Bengal, once close to the sea-linked city of Puṇḍranagara (Mahāsthāngarh). On this piece (Bhattacharya 2018: 445) Durgā pulls the head of the animal up by putting fingers into its nostrils. This is the butchering method of Mithra in the Roman tradition used not only for Mithra’s bull. It may not be by accident that this method is found associated with Durgā at Bogra far in the East. This could be due to a second line of transmission, effected by sailors in the service of Roman merchants plying up to the deltas of Ganges and Brahmaputra. Enjoying the use of more than two arms, the Bengali Durgā holds up the disk of the sun, for obvious reasons. The Royal Cult in Practice How far the Kushan rulers identified themselves with the gods we will never know on the basis of the evidence that has come to light so far. In principle, there is a continuum from a feeling of being related to the deities in some aspects, up to total identification. all of the possible shades may have been made real at some time by some or all of the kings in question. The topic of apotheosis has found a number of authors and will continue to produce various answers. However, if our reasoning was not totally off the mark then there was a sort of self-made deification warranted from within the family, based on being devaputra, introduced by Kujula, certainly with Seleucid and Parthian (θεοπάτωρ, bagpuhr), Chinese (天子) and Roman (divi filius) parallels 44 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics in view.90 Kujula’s son called himself at Dasht-e Nawur “the god worthy of worship”, and his “Mars” and “Mithra” types leave it to the onlooker as to whether he wanted to see only a god or the king as representative of the god. Vima Kadphises simply repeated the “god worthy of worship”, obviously a standard phrase of the clerks in the offices. But he also called his father “lord of the worlds” and himself his “son” (lokaïśvara-ja), soon changed into “lord of all the worlds” (sarvalokaïśvara) and “lord of the Earth” (mahiśvara), both for himself. By flames from his shoulders he expressed his identity in nature with the fiery god on the reverse. Kaniṣka named the highest god Wēš (Vāyu) and signalled by parallel equipment on both sides of the Wēš coins that he is under the care of god Wind as well. Huviṣka stuck to the fire symbolism and added the water side through an aspergillum. He depicted his grandfather Vima Kadphises in the yonder world of the gods in company with Wēš (fig. 23, d). Here, the posthumous apotheosis is made visible on a coin. Placing Vima Kadphises into the realm of the gods is just what was done by the Parthians at the death of arsakes (ca. 250– 211 b.c.), according to ammianus Marcellinus (23.6.4–5; ca. a.d. 330–395). The flight to heaven in the shape of a comet at the death of Julius Caesar and in the shape of an eagle rising from the pyre in the case of augustus was certainly a idea common with all. But in the end we can only say that the Kushans presented themselves as gods on earth, but how far they felt “godly” themselves we will never know. They certainly used their “godly” nature as a means to keep their subjects subservient. Here, on the field of politics, we always have known very little in comparison to the field of commerce, where the basics could at least be suspected. The analysis of the symbols found on the coinage of Vima Kadphises shows that the impact of this king seems to have been totally underestimated. He stopped conquering at Mathura where his fathers ended and left the regions to the south of it to the Kṣatrapas. He seems to have negotiated with the republics east of the Panjab and had already found a modus vivendi before he was enthroned and brought his coins into circulation. He used Indian, including Vedic, mythology and symbols to express through a newly invented compound figure that he respected the ideals and tenets of his Indian subjects. His alleged “Śiva” combines traits of Rudra, agni and Skanda and all of their kin with the idea of a highest god. This compound deity proved so successful that it was reinstalled by his great-grandson Vāsudeva and kept by the Kushanshahs after him in Bactria. Vima Kadphises’ son Kaniṣka, today famous for his support of the Buddhists, appears in comparison rather ruthless, removing the dominant Indian elements from his coinage, ignoring Kharoṣṭhī legends and intruding far into northern India for up to his tenth regnal year, conquering up to Pāṭaliputra and Śrīcampā, fighting what he calls on the Rabatak inscription the kṣatriyas, the indigenous kingdoms and republics. His so-called polytheism is addressed to the bordering regions where the neighbours can see from his coinage that he respects all of the fashionable new deities from the Roman West. His self-presentation, however, consists of Mithra rising from the rocks and the floating cloak which marks him as the deity that will be called “He who is active in the height” by the Kushanshahs. From the attached legend OΗÞΟ the Indian subjects may gather that the multi-armed and multi-headed Rudra-agniSkanda designed by Vima Kadphises is nothing but a variant thereof. Gods in the Eyes of the Public We do not know how far the kings felt elevated. living in palaces soon appears as a matter of course. But we know some of the thoughts current with the public when perceiving the royals: The ideas of reincarnation and of karma are innate in Buddhism. Whoever appears as a noble on earth may have come down from a heaven first. There he was a deva in the strict sense. How devas behave in heaven can be seen at many a decorated stūpa, where the layers of image panels reflect the cosmos with the earth at the bottom. There is a level for the earthen Buddha, Śākyamuni, and above him, never below, are the gods, mostly in so-called “Bacchanalian” scenes. They drink liquor, the ladies are loosely dressed, music bands are active. Scenes based on the classical Western image-world are common, Bacchus almost drops from a donkey or panther, Heracles drunk, Dionysos with ivy around his bald head, and the music plays. This is heaven in the form of sex, drugs and rock’n roll. The same Bacchanalian scenes are carved on a number of stair risers. The 45 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics idea is clear: On earth we have the Buddha; one storey up and we land in heaven, devaloka or indraloka, which is easy living but not eternal. When we climb the stairs of a Gandharan stūpa, while elevating ourselves step by step above the gods with their parties, then we reach the cupola, the highest Buddhist tenet, visibly above heaven, and forever. Most of the public in ancient Gandhara will never have dreamt of reaching heaven, not here and not in the thereafter. But they could see from the panels that those gods behave in heaven rather similarly to the local royalty, also because they had to return from the devaloka and only continue the frolicking they were used to, that is music all day long—even in the bedroom, as we know from the panels showing Prince Siddhārtha leaving the common bedstead. In a way this is how in our countries the working classes looked at the nobility in their palaces not too long ago. Very few admired those nobles living in much better conditions; hunger and dependencies enlarged the distances between the social strata. The luxurious parties were a nuisance and humiliation to the hard-working peasant who had to supply the victuals for very little. Was this also the way an ordinary Gandhari looked at the Bacchanalian panels displaying orgiastic festivities? If yes, then his admiration for “the gods” was not that high as we believe when reading that someone takes himself to be a “son of the gods”. the tauroctony. an exciting solution was presented by Small (1979), who takes the raven as the planet Mercury with particularly bright appearances every seventh year. 3. Two cupids stab two bulls, relief from the Forum of Caesar, Museum arch. Napoli, acc.no. MN/a 6718. Counter-examples often are Renaissance copies of the tauroctony or modern repair. 4. There were rumors in 2000 that a Mithraic sanctuary was found in Kara-Kamar, at a site where Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan meet, west of Termez on the amu Darya, where the Sherabad Valley changes into the Kuyu-Kamar ridge. It is a cave, containing one Bactrian inscription and some short legends that were taken to be latin, but doubts are serious (Braund 1991), and KuyuKamar should be given up as a clear piece of evidence. 5. The source is an unpublished document dealing with securities in a financial transaction, preserved in the Bajaur collection (Falk and Strauch 2014: 72). 6. The type has been linked to its Roman exemplar (RIC2 270) already by R. Göbl (1960a: pl. I, 15). 7. Both pieces are heavily abraded after being used as weights for centuries. The heaviest weighs 10.40 g. and thus seems to represent the old 12.5 g. copper standard of the Heliocles imitations and the early Sōtēr megas “Mars” types. 8. For the various spellings and the reason for preferring this one cf. Falk 2009. 9. One single piece in silver is described by Masson (Wilson 1841: 334 with pl. IX, 9). 10. a number of pieces have the upper part preserved and show that this is just a spear (śakti) and not a triśūla or paṭṭiśa. 11. Cribb’s reasoning (2015: 107) in the conjunctive leads to the justified impression that the earliest SM coins could have been issued by Kujula, but more than “could have” cannot be defended. a large percentage of quarter standard coppers at Begram shows only that there was an active local mint. Vema Takhtu marked the border of his realm south of Kabul at Dasht-e Nawur (inscription) and Tepe Sardar (SM coin, no Kujula, Verardi 2010: 344), both way south of Begram, so that everything that would distinguish Kujula applies as well to Vema Takhtu. 12. Wavy shoulder flames as such are much older than Hyrcodes and a means to recognize the Mesopotamian sun-god Utu/Shamash, also when he appears between two mountains with his knife, already in the late 3rd mill. b.c. 13. The inherited bull-and-camel issues convey only a geographical meaning. 14. Such a traditionally hollow object is used in the service of Kybele at ai Khanum, golden and about 20 cm high (Bernard 2006: 156, 266, no. 23). For thymiateria in Buddhist contexts cf. Verardi 1994: 28. at Dura Europos a tauroctony from a.d. 168 is accompanied by the Notes Acknowledgments For help with linguistic peculiarities, art-historical detail, numismatic support and critical comments I thank aman ur Rahman, Osmund Bopearachchi, Gul Rahim Khan, Jens-Peter laut, Wilfried Pieper, Johannes Schneider, Pankaj Tandon and Jo Weisshaar. Phyllis Granoff, Elizabeth Steinbrückner and Giovanni Verardi and made useful comments and Carol Bromberg looked after better English. To all of them I am deeply beholden. 1. The base may have been a statue in Phrygia, as an identical depiction is still found much later on a coin of Commodus (fig. 1, d). 2. Insler (1978: 527) was not satisfied with the position of the raven, which as Corvus has a fixed position in the sky, but is rather mobile on the panels showing 46 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics 28. No. 4367 rtse gsum kha gdeng, ed. Sakaki = no. 4353 ed. Ishihama and Fukuda; kha could be “außenseite, Rand”, while gdeng remains enigmatic. The Mongolian translations took it for “fork” (Ml serege) or “broom ?” (MT sirbigür). 29. Cf. Schmidt Nachträge. Newid (1990: 636) does not realize that here a hand gesture is described and takes the measurement of 6 aṅgulas (ca. 11 cm) as the one of the weapon. 30. īśvarasyeśvarī piṇḍī nandinaś cāpi paṭṭasī. BhāratīyaNŚ 4.253. 31. brahmasya padmaṃ śakrasya vajraṃ varuṇasya pāśaṃ rudrasyaṃ śūlaṃ durgasya paṭṭiśaṃ ṛṣisya kamaṇḍalu yamasya daṇḍaṃ . . . 32. maheśvarasya likhec chūlaṃ vṛṣaṃ cāpi samālikhet. MañjMulaK 38.23. triśūlaṃ paṭṭiśaṃ cāpi skandasyāpi saśaktikam. alternatively, the Mbh (3.221,80d, addition 22, 13) calls Naigameya suduścara. 33. Cf. Printz 1911: 76, who shows that the frequent interpretation as “a broad sword with both sides sharpened” may derive from copyists mixing up paṭā and paṭṭiśa. This variance is also found in the mss of the abhidhānacintāmaṇi martyakāṇḍa 451: . . . śūle triśīrṣakam. śaktipaṭṭisa- . . . 34. E.g., Mbh 3.22,28; 6.86.52; 9.44.50; 10.7,34, 48; Rām 3.20,8. 35. E.g., Rām 6.22,25; Mbh 6.102.20; Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa 3.23.92. 36. E.g., HariV app.I,8.13; app.I,37.36; Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa 2.32,14. 37. triśūlapaṭṭisadharaṃ vyāghracarmadharaṃ harim, HariV app. I,37.36. 38. Cf. Burrow DED § 3190, paṭu ‘to perish, die’, caus. ‘make fall’, etc. There are entries of pattisa in Stone 1934: 490 for a “south Indian sword” with no relation to our object. 39. Pandya (Pl. 5,60), Cera (pl. 9,102; 10,119, 126) to name only indubitable cases. 40. This same ball is also seen on the 8 g. chariot type of Vima Kadphises (Jongeward and Cribb 2015: 56), on a large bronze medallion of Vāsudeva (CNG 90, 883), and on seals (Omananda 1975: no. 212, 252, without axe-blade), or replaced by a horizontal handle bar (nos. 25, 166). 41. Why this terrible lady is regarded as a Hāritī remains unclear. Her raudrī aspect is too obvious. Because of the nearness of the bhīmāsthāna on Kashmir Smats a lowlands version at Sahri Bahlol would be a boon to non-mountaineers, so that a name bhīmā would be most appropriate. 42. Handa (2005) shows two pieces pl. VII,3 + 4 from different dies. No. 3 is also given enlarged in pl. IX. It seems to read viśpamitra, while no. 4 is now accessible on zeno.ru under no. 130983. In an older publication (Handa 1997) the same coin was photographed with sidelight showing a seemingly clear vertical running main sacrificer feeding a thymiaterion (yale University art Gallery acc.no. 1935.97). 15. Starting in the back in one uninterrupted line (a) BACIΛEYΣ OOEMO ΚΑΔΦΙCHC starting at 8h; or with a break starting at 1h (c–d): BACILEYOS OOE / MO KAΔΦΙCHC. 16. The Kharoṣṭhī side has a curious phrase saying kṣatrapasa pra kharaostasa arṭasa putrasa. If we take the dative on the Greek side seriously this proclitic pra could change the genitive into a sort of perphrastic dative, comparable in meaning to prō in latin. 17. Cribb separates the four coins into the two (c, d) which were first published by Bopearachchi (2006: 1437; 2007: 53) in a brief notice written immediately after the coins became known. In Bopearachchi (2008b: 6, nos. 1, 2) all four Takhtu coins are presented. Cribb constructs from this growing number in consecutive publications a growing activity of one single faker. 18. acc.nos. 2000.42.1 to 4. 19. Mathura Museum acc.no. 40.2880, flames from the shoulders on acc.no. 23171; Quintanilla 2007: 84, no. 280; acc.no. 40.2883. 20. This is Rudra according to Kauśitakibrāhmaṇa 25.12.7: rudro vai jyeṣṭhaś ca śreṣṭhaś ca devānām. 21. For the variants cf. Winternitz 1895. 22. Parpola (1990: 277 with fig. 3) deals with an amulet from Harappa (H-178) showing a standing ram-headed human-bodied figure that he regards as Naigameṣa. Parpola next refers to a khila of the Kashmirian Ṛgveda, to be inserted before RV 10,185, addressed to Nejameṣa, asking for conception. 23. Sherrier (1993) presents four examples of “Śiva”, all with three heads, of which one side-head is called an “animal head”, all being goat’s heads. There is one seemingly old piece where this three-headed Skanda stands alone. In the other three cases he is accompanied by a female consort, with Sherrier’s nos. 2 and 4 rather dating to the Gupta or Huna times. 24. Forty-eight grains according to Cunningham 1892: 71, no. 14. Cf. Göbl 1984, Tafel 73, no. 765. 25. On the Indo-European connotation of “cow” and “earth” cf. Schlegel 1826. 26. Bhattacharya (1977: 1555) finds first evidence for a bull called Nandi in the service of Śiva in some Purāṇas, that may be dated in the last half of the first millennium. For earlier times we can check the punchmarked coins, but there is no triśūla with axe, or any Śiva or triśūla on these early coins, which would allow one to place the punch signs into the 3rd/2nd century b.c. Bhattacharya (1977: 1556) refers to Banerjea (1st ed., 1941: 130), who interprets an element of cattle by the side of a man with stick in hand as proof to the contrary. 27. Newid (1990: 636–39) was on the right track and was looking for halberds and other items combining spear and axe. Taking coins into consideration would have him led to more certainty. 47 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics first (Tandon 2011: 391). So this king as well should be shown shortly after his enthronement. 56. The head of a similar figure in terracotta, with thick black beard and funnel-shaped object topping his hair is found in Tanabe 2007: 198, fig. V-31 “Head of a Donor”. 57. Perhaps Vima Kadphises did not expect the lower strata of society to have any knowledge of Mithra petrogenitus. 58. In all of these earliest legends on gold coins the va of vima has not yet the backstroke of a va, the śa has not yet the upward bend of a śva, the pi has just the single slanting line of a pre-consonantal l- and istrokes are very faint. There is part of a stroke atop the ha of mahaïśara, so that it may have been meant to be a hi, giving mahiïśara, comparable to mahiśvara of the younger issues. For the lpi cf. Glass 2000: 132 with the examples from Niya. 59. The -i- in mahiśvara is not there on the only specimen I can see in detail, Triton 11, 370, which reads here mahaśarasa. For a parallel formula in achaemenid self-descriptions cf. Tanabe 1997: 269. 60. Bracey (2009) has produced a useful overview of editions and legends. although referring to my reading and interpretation (2009: fn. 13) he seem to ignore it, not being familiar with the nature of a Sanskrit chāyā nor the content of the singular logaïśvaraja- which he takes for a miswritten sarvalogaïśvarasa. 61. Rudra (MBh 1.188,22), Viṣṇu, Kṛṣṇa, Prajāpati (MBh 6.15,35; BrahmāṇḍaP 1.24,53), Skanda (BrahmāṇḍaP 2.10,51), and, less frequently, Śiva. 62. Cf. Bickel (1956: 359), explaining a stanza of Propertius on the basis of “achilles als allegorie für augustus”, which would provide the Homerian scene of the Hoby scyphus (Poulsen 1968) with a contemporary second level showing the submission of a Phrygian chief to augustus. 63. Most of these are dealt with in Sims-Williams 2015, who, apart from listing all relevant references, in the end proposes to regard Umā as a deity linked to the moon, based on a rather complicated etymology. Cf. also Grenet 2015: 210. 64. at Rabatak (Sims-Williams 2008: 56) the author first says that he received kingship “from Nana and from all the gods”. Some sentences later the temple is said to be the meeting-place “for the glorious Ummā”, immediately subdivided into “the above-mentioned Nana and the above-mentioned Ummā”, where the “above-mentioned Ummā” runs parallel to “all the gods” from the initial phrase. This “above-mentioned Ummā” is then personally enumerated: “aurmuzd, Muzhduwan, Sroshard, Mihir”. 65. The Museum at Mathura houses the statue of a standing Kuṣāṇa king with a club and an inscription naming him Kaniṣka. From Huviṣka’s Maṭ inscription we know of a devastating attack on the family sanctu- through tra, turning it into tri. This would mean a “descendant of Viśvāmitra” (un-Pāṇinian for vaiśvāmitri), one of them possibly the founder of the brahminical Udumbara-dynasty, a gotra of the Kauśiya-group, all derived from the seven sons of Viśvāmitra, as outlined in the Brahmāṇḍa- (2.66,69) and Vāyupurāṇa (2.29[91],91– 95); cf. Das Gupta 1965. 43. In full bhagavato cetreśvaramahatmaṇa. a particular type of silver coins attributed to the audumbaras or Vemakas shows the same paṭṭiśa and a similar legend, bhagavatamahadevasa rajaraña, “Of the lord Mahādeva, King of Kings”, cf. Pieper 2013: 382f. no. 1148. On mahādeva not being the name of a king cf. Handa 1993. 44. Not catreśvara (Cunningham 1891: 72; Paul and Paul 1989: 118), or chitresvara, meant for citreśvara, as found in Majumdar (2009–2010: 1054). The ce is clearest on acc.no. 1892,0207.3; the o in bhagavato is not always clear. 45. The Bhaṭṭadīpikā of Khandadeva on the Mīmāṃsasūtra 2.1 uses both terms making use of an identity in meaning of caitra and īśvara, so that caitraḥ pacati can be said, meaning “month Caitra lets (cereals) ripen”, but not īśvaraḥ pacati, because it would be understood as “The god cooks”. 46. Maps of the relevant tribes are found in Handa 2007: 32 and Dwivedi 2015: 229. 47. This does not apply for seal-makers who have clerical habits of their own. 48. Neumayer 1992–1993: 58; I understand: “Dambuka ordered it, Oḍa made it”. 49. Female royals have their female bodyguard with this pseudo-vajra, e.g., a panel showing the seated Buddha surrounded by mostly women; the descent from the Trayastriṃśa heaven in the lower half. Chazen Madison Museum, acc.no. 1972.24; Swati style, 2nd/3rd century. 50. On several panels he demolishes the maṇḍapas of Pūraṇa at Śrāvastī with his pseudo-vajra. 51. In the wake of H. Härtel’s research (2019: 234ff., 374ff.), often misnamed as “Kapardin Buddhas”; cf. Falk 2012: 496. 52. The two have been adopted for Jaina art, both as caurī bearers, cf. Pal 1994: 130f. 53. Zwalf 1996, II: 124 no. 203 = 1966, I: 185 = acc. no. Oa 1961.2–18.1; Penn Museum acc.no. 22082. 54. The quality of the color takes is high. They are in the public domain and can be accessed through https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection → “gandhara painting”. 55. The crescent above the front is the symbol of the deity Nana(ya), visible as the planet Venus (Falk ed. 2015), which provides royal authority according to the Rabatak inscription. Once authorized the inaugurating event will soon lose importance. Kaniṣka wears three crowns, and the one with the crescent disappears 48 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics reckons with a “carefully calculated imperial initiative, targeted at the Vaishnavites as Wēš was targeting at the Shivaites”. 78. There is a similar deity called Mēn (gen. Θεου Μηνὸς) with the same crescent in his back, lodged at several holy places in western anatolia (lane 1971, particularly 101–10). Cf. lane 1971–1976. 79. Kushan year 68 (ca. a.d. 195) is the earliest date for his successor Vasudeva found written so far (Falk and Sims-Williams 2017: 122). I see no literary or numismatic reason to think of more than one ruler called Vāsudeva, although the name is used on issues after his demise again and again. The same continuation of a historical name inspiring confidence happened to azes as well. 80. The astronomical Bṛhatsaṃhitā says in the 6th century that Skanda in the shape of a kumāra holds a spear (57.41cd skandaḥ kumārarūpaḥ śaktidharo). The same text lists Skanda and Viśākha in a dvandva compound (45/46,11) along with a number of planets. Other texts turn the epithet kumāra into a figure on its own. 81. Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa 1.21,145f.: kṛttikānāṃ yadā sūryaḥ prathamāṃśagato bhavet, viśākhānāṃ tadā jñeyaś caturthāṃśa niśākaraḥ. 145. viśākhānāṃ yadā sūryaś carate ’ṃśaṃ tṛtīyakam, tadā candraṃ vijānīyāt kṛttikāśirasi sthitam. 146. Similar Vāyupurāṇa 50,196; 1.21,145; Viṣṇupurāṇa 2.8.76–77. 82. One piece in the British Museum, acc.no. 1990.8.20.2 (Cribb in luczsanits 2008: 152, fig. 97). The triśūla is probably seen on the left, much oversized. His six arms are related to the six heads of the audumbara type and to the six stars of the Kṛttikās. So far the yodhavade series shows Viśākha, Kārttikeya, ardoxšo, Vāta, Rāma and a figure with triśūla, flask and halo. 83. Typical new starts are the birthday of the Buddha on the full moon in Viśākha, the installation of the three śrauta fires on the new moon of Vaiśākha (Weber 1862: 321, 382). 84. The Rāmayaṇa (7.16,1) has one Daśagrīva go to the Śaravana to see the “birth of Mahāsena” (mahāsenaprasūti). This must refer to śarajanma, one of the many names of Kārttikeya in the amarakośa (1.1,95). 85. sarvasatvaṇa arogadakṣiṇae bhavatu. 86. There is a rare paṭṭiśa in the hand of Wēš on CNG 949807. 87. First published by P. Tandon 2011: 393, fig. 7h; a second exemplar is in the collection of aman ur Rahman. 88. I can see traces of the axe only on a large (80 g.) copper medallion (CNG 90, 883), where on the reverse also the flask is unmistakable. 89. For the king being fire to his servants cf. arthaśāstra 5.4,16. ary there. I take this statue as originally one of Vima Kadphises, beheaded and mutilated in the course of the turmoil, probably in Huviṣka’s time, repaired, given a plaster head and re-dedicated with the inscription, which was first incised in a short version and then a larger one superimposed. 66. azilises shows gajalakṣmī and mahāsena on his coins. However, these coins are different from the classical azilises coins showing “king mounted with spear”. Because of their motifs, their graphic style linked to Jihonika and their complex monograms I put them into the time of Kujula/Vema Takhtu and would rather speak of azilises II or pseudo-azilises. 67. On crude coppers of Kaniṣka I, most of which show a Kharoṣṭhī letter ca on the obverse, the weapon is still a paṭṭiśa. The same workshop also often adds an ūrdhvaliṅga to the Wēš figure. Still rarer is a paṭṭiśa on coppers of Huviṣka. 68. For an avestan site called Wayšagird, i.e., *Wēšgird, cf. Humbach (2014: 5f.), “founded and protected by Vaiiu”. according to the arab geographers its position was somewhere near Faizabad east of Dushanbe. 69. KauśU 4.7a,b: sa hovāca bālākir ya evaiṣa vāyau puruṣas tam evāham upāsa iti. taṃ hovācājātaśatrur mā maitasmin saṃvādayiṣṭhā. indro vaikuṇṭho ’parājitā seneti vā aham etam upāsa iti. 70. GarP 3.18,40: tvam īśa vaikuṇṭha suvāyusaṃjñas. 71. Cf. Hultzsch (1925: 26), who reads a rva before sveto, emended to sarva-, but this reading is not certain. 72. Maitreya (always), agni (always), Indra (occasionally), Śiva (mostly). In Sanskrit the terms kutupa, kūpa, kūpaka, kūpikā, kācakūpī could apply. It is bewildering to see how often just about every water container is labelled kamaṇḍalu by Western research. a kamaṇḍalu deserving the name has a basket handle, a funnel-shaped upper part and a globular lower body with a stand. It serves to collect food for brahmin or other (but not Buddhist) begging students and is made from non-iron metal. The famous Bhīmā (see p. 21) at the Peshawar Museum holds one in her lower left hand as does the mānava from Shnaisha (Taddei 1998: 179, fig. 9), showing that the vessel was also well known in Gandhara. 73. Mbh 13.151,5 umāpatir virūpākṣaḥ skandaḥ senāpatis tathā, viśākho hutabhug vāyuś candrādityau prabhākarau. 74. Mbh 13.135,49 skandaḥ skandadharo dhuryo varado vāyuvāhanaḥ. 75. Mbh 9.43,39 śākho yayau ca bhagavān vāyumūrtir vibhāvasum. 76. agniP 104,9 ādityāḥ pūrvataḥ sthāpyāḥ skando ’gnir vāyugocare. 77. For the contradictions arising from a comparison with an amesha spenta cf. Grenet (2015: 216f.), who 49 f a l k : Kushan Religion and Politics 90. For Egypt cf. Marcus antonius, consort of Kleopatra, who was called θεòς ὲκ θεοῦ, “god (born) from a god” in Greek, and in hieroglyphic texts “Kaisar, the god, son of a god” (Kjsrs, p3 nṯr, p3 šrj p3 nṯr; Heinen 1995/2006: 3166/176; Tafel IX/195). References agrawala 1968 asthana 1999 Banerjea 1941 Bernard 2006 Bhattacharya 1977 Bhattacharya 2018 Bickel 1956 Bivar 1970 Bivar 1979 R. C. agrawala. “Gandhāra Skanda with Flames”. EW 18: 163–65. S. P. asthana. Mathurā Kalā. New Delhi. J. N. Banerjea. The Development of Hindu Iconography. Calcutta. P. 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Ariana Antiqua: A Descriptive Account of the Antiquities and Coins of Afghanistan. With a Memoir on the Buildings called Topes, by C. Masson. london. M. Winternitz. “Nejamesha, Naigamesha, Nemeso”. JRAS 1895: 149–55. Bulletin of the asia Institute New Series/Volume 29 2015–2019 Published with the assistance of the Monimos Foundation Contents Harry Falk Phyllis Granoff Étienne de la Vaissière Dieter Weber Liu Wensuo, trans. Albert E. Dien Anca Dan Kushan Religion and Politics The art of Protecting Children: Early Images of agni The Faith of Wirkak the Dēnāwar, or Manichaeism as Seen from a Zoroastrian Point of View Studies in Some Documents from the “Pahlavi archive” (2) The Ephedra and Cannabis Discovered in Xinjiang 69 79 117 Heraclius, the Boar Hunter: Notes on the Hermitage Meleager and atalanta Silver Plate 137 Review article Philippe Gignoux Un grand-prêtre parsi du 20ème siècle : Dastour Dr. Firouze M. Kotwal 175 Books Received 179 v 1 57