Item: i102852

Authentic Ancient Coin of:

India – Kushan Empire
Kanishka I – King circa 127-151 A.D.
Bronze Didrachm 22mm (8.10 grams) main mint in Kapisha (Begram?)
Reference: ANS Kushan 391.
BACIΛЄYC BACIΛЄωN KANHÞKOY, Kanishka standing front, head to left, sacrificing with his right hand over altar and holding standard in his left.
HΛIOC, Helios, radiate, standing front, head to left, raising his right hand; to left, tamgha.

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In Greek mythology, the sun was personified as Helios. Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion, while Hesiod (Theogony 371) and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia (Hesiod) or Euryphaessa (Homeric Hymn) and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. The names of these three were also the common Greek words for sun, moon and dawn.

Helios was imagined as a handsome god crowned with the shining aureole of the sun, who drove the chariot of the sun across the sky each day to earth-circling Oceanus and through the world-ocean returned to the East at night. Homer described Helios’s chariot as drawn by solar steeds (Iliad xvi.779); later Pindar described it as drawn by “fire-darting steeds” (Olympian Ode 7.71). Still later, the horses were given fiery names: Pyrois, Aeos, Aethon, and Phlegon.

As time passed, Helios was increasingly identified with the god of light, Apollo. However, in spite of their syncretism, they were also often viewed as two distinct gods (Helios was a Titan, whereas Apollo was an Olympian). The equivalent of Helios in Roman mythology was Sol, specifically Sol Invictus.
 

Kanishka I (Sanskrit: कनिष्क; Greco-Bactrian:  ΚΑΝΗϷΚΕ Kanēške; Kharosthi: Ka-ṇi-ṣka,  Kaṇiṣka; Brahmi: Gupta ashoka kaa.svgGupta  ashoka nni.jpgGupta ashoka ssk.jpg Kā-ṇi-ṣka),  or Kanishka the Great, an emperor of the Kushan  dynasty in the second century (c. 127–150 CE),  is famous for his military, political, and  spiritual achievements. A descendant of Kujula  Kadphises, founder of the Kushan empire,  Kanishka came to rule an empire in Gandhara  extending to Pataliputra on the Gangetic plain.  The main capital of his empire was located at  Puruṣapura (Peshawar) in Gandhara, with another  major capital at Kapisa. Coins of Kanishka were  found in Tripuri (present-day Jabalpur).

His conquests and patronage of Buddhism  played an important role in the development of  the Silk Road, and in the transmission of  Mahayana Buddhism from Gandhara across the  Karakoram range to China. Around 127 CE, he  replaced Greek by Bactrian as the official  language of administration in the empire.

Earlier scholars believed that Kanishka  ascended the Kushan throne in 78 CE, and that  this date was used as the beginning of the Saka  calendar era. However, historians no longer  regard this date as that of Kanishka’s  accession. Falk estimates that Kanishka came to  the throne in 127 CE.

  The Kushan Empire (Ancient Greek: Βασιλεία Κοσσανῶν; Bactrian: Κυϸανο, kus, khasano, Kushano; Late Brahmi Sanskrit: , Ku-ṣā-ṇa, Kuṣāṇa; Devanagari Sanskrit: कुषाण राजवंश, Kuṣāṇa Rājavaṃśa; BHS: Guṣāṇa-vaṃśa; Chinese: 貴霜 was a syncretic empire, formed by the Yuezhi, in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. It spread to encompass much of modern-day territory of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and northern India, at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath near Varanasi (Benares), where inscriptions have been found dating to the era of the Kushan Emperor Kanishka the Great.  

The Kushans were most probably one of five branches of the Yuezhi confederation, an Indo-European nomadic people of possible Tocharian origin, who migrated from northwestern China (Xinjiang and Gansu) and settled in ancient Bactria. The founder of the dynasty, Kujula Kadphises, followed Greek religious ideas and iconography after the Greco-Bactrian tradition, and also followed traditions of Hinduism, being a devotee of the Hindu God Shiva. The Kushans in general were also great patrons of Buddhism, and, starting with Emperor Kanishka, they also employed elements of Zoroastrianism in their pantheon. They played an important role in the spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and China.

The Kushans possibly used the Greek language initially for administrative purposes, but soon began to use the Bactrian language.  Kanishka sent his armies north of the Karakoram mountains. A direct road from Gandhara to China remained under Kushan control for more than a century, encouraging travel across the Karakoram and facilitating the spread of Mahayana Buddhism to China. The Kushan dynasty had diplomatic contacts with the Roman Empire, Sasanian Persia, the Aksumite Empire and the Han dynasty of China. The Kushan Empire was at the center of trade relations between the Roman Empire and China: according to Alain Daniélou, “for a time, the Kushana Empire was the centerpoint of the major civilizations”. While much philosophy, art, and science was created within its borders, the only textual record of the empire’s history today comes from inscriptions and accounts in other languages, particularly Chinese.

The Kushan Empire fragmented into semi-independent kingdoms in the 3rd century AD, which fell to the Sasanians invading from the west, establishing the Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom in the areas of Sogdiana, Bactria and Gandhara. In the 4th century, the Guptas, an Indian dynasty also pressed from the east. The last of the Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian kingdoms were eventually overwhelmed by invaders from the north, known as the Kidarites, and then the Hephthalites.