The Date of Kanishka
BY Sir J. H. Marshall, C.I.E.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
IX, 1915, pp. 191-196
II
p. 191
Since publishing my remarks on the date of
Kanishka in this Journal, 1914, pp. 973-86, I have
succeeded, by the employment of another chemical
process, in cleaning still more effectively the
silver scroll bearing the Taxila record of the year
136, and I am now able to present a photographic
reproduction of nearly the whole of the inscription
(Fig. 1).(1) Some fragments, it will be observed, are
missing in this reproduction from the upper and
lower edges of the scroll. These fragments were too
small and friable to be treated further or to be
photographed. Another fault of the illustration is
the unevenness of the light and shadow on the surface
of the metal. This is due to the curved or twisted
condition of the several sections and is unavoidable.
In order to obtain this illustration, some of the
sections of the scroll had to be photographed from
three or four different points of view, and the
negatives -- to the number of nineteen in all--were
then composed together into a single
_____________________________
1. As the half-tone block is bound to lose some of
the clearness of the original photograph, I am
sending two prints of the original to the
Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, which
anyone interested in the record may consult.
p. 192
plate. Even so, however, it was not practicable to
photograph clearly the lettering at the edges of some
of the sections, where the latter were bent sharply
inwards, and it is for this reason that I have made
another hand copy of the record (Fig. 2), so as to
show the form of those aksaras which are not discer-
nible in the Plate.
Notwithstanding that the writing is now much
clearer than it was when I made my former
transcription, I find that the emendations to be made
are very few and of minor consequence.
]. 1. For Dhurasakena read Urasakena, as Dr.·.Thomas
correctly surmised.
]. 2. For Dhitaphriaputrana read Lotaphria. The
aksara lo was much bent, but the reading is made
practically certain by the first aksara of the fifth
line.
]. 3. For Tanuae read Tanuvae.
]]. 4-5 For sadhihona read salohi(da)na = "blood
relations". The da is omitted, but the correctness
of the reading is established by another inscription
from the Chir Tope, which reads---
... e puyae atmanasa nati-mitra-salohidana- aroga-
dachinae hodreana ...
In one other particular also the translation
given by me on P. 976 requires alteration. I there
took the word dhamaraie to be an epithet of
Tachasila, but it is now evident from another record,
also found at the Chir stupa, that the ancient name
of this monument, like that of other stupas in India,
and Burma,(1) was "Dharmarajika" The record referred
to was inscribed on a stone lamp of Gandharan
manufacture and reads --
1. Tachaile agadhamarai[e] ... dhra ...o...
sa ... o easa ... putrasa
2. danamukhe..
_____________________________
1. e.g., the Dhamekh stupa at Sarnath and the Dharma-
rajika Pagoda at Pagan.
p. 193
As to the reading Ayasa, there is no room for
doubt. Although in the photograph, owing to the
curvature of the metal, the three aksaras which
compose the word are not quite as distinct as could
be wished, in the original they are as clear as any
letters in the record, the first aksara being 7, not
2 nor 7 nor 7, nor any other letter which ingenuity
can suggest. It may, of course, be urged that the
scribe wrote what he never intended to write, but of
the word, (as it stands, there is at least no doubt,
and at present there seems no sufficient reason for
supposing that it is anything but the genitive case
of the proper name "Aya".
In commenting on my interpretation of this record
Dr. Fleet has urged against it two objections.(1)
The first is that it involves the overlapping of the
two eras of Maues and Azes. This objection is one
which necessarily had not escaped my own notice, but
it appeared to me that the employment of the two eras
in these two records was as reasonable as the
simultaneous employment, of which Dr. Fleet is
himself well aware, of two eras by the Parthians,
namely the era of Seleucus (312 B.C.) and the era of
Arsakes (248 B.C.). Of the relationship of Azes to
Maues we know little or nothing beyond the fact that
the former succeeded the latter as ruler over part of
his eastern dominions. It is a plausible view,
adopted by the most eminent authorities on this
period of Indian history,(2) that Azes I of Taxila
was identical with Azes, the colleague of Spalirisa,
brother of Vonones, in Arachosia, and that after his
transfer from Arachosia to Taxila he founded a new
dynasty at the latter place. If this view is correct,
there is reason to suppose that Azes was more closely
connected with the Parthian Vonones than with the
_____________________________
1. JRAS, 1914, pp. 992-9.
2. Cf. Vincent Smith, Catalogue of Coins in the
Indian Museum, Calcutta, p. 36, and Rapson, Ancient
India, p. 144.
p. 194
Saka Maues, and it explains at once why a new era was
instituted by Azes. In any case, however, it is
obvious that in the present state of our knowledge of
these two kings there is no justification whatever
for assuming that the era of Maues was officially
adopted by Azes or his successors. On the other hand,
it is easy to understand that the Saka family of
Liake-Kusulaka may have had close ties with the
earlier king Maues, which prompted them to perpetuate
his era in their private records.(l) It is also a
reasonable supposition, which it would be easy to
defend by reference to analogous cases, that the era
or Azes did not come into use until some years after
his accession -- possibly not until some years after
his death, in which case, of course, there is no need
to assume that the eras of these two kings did
actually overlap.
The second objection put forward by Dr. Fleet, as
well as by Dr. Thomas,(2) is that, if Ayasa is the
genitive of the proper name Aya, the opening words of
the new record mean "In the year 136 of some
unspecified era and in the reign of Aya", who thus
becomes identified with the Kushan king referred to
in line 3. Dr. Fleet does not, I imagine, maintain
that the use of the genitive, in the sense in which I
have interpreted it, is grammatically incorrect, but
he holds that it is contrary to common usage, and in
support of this contention he cites as examples four
inscriptions belonging respectively to the reigns of
Huvishka, Vasudeva, Rudravarman, and Kumaragupta.
These inscriptions open in the usual way with the
titles and name of the ruler, expressed in the
genitive case, followed by the date, and it is, of
course, well known that in their case, as in that of
many other records
_____________________________
1. Vincent Smith, Early History of India, 2nd ed.,
p. 216, speaks of Azes as a nephew of Vonones. R.
B. Whitehead, Catalogue of the Coins in the Punjab
Museum, Lahore, p. 52, presumes that Azes was a
relative of Vonones.
2. JRAS, 1914, pp. 987-92.
p. 195
phrased in a similar way, the era in which they are
dated is unspecified. In the two Taxila records, on
the contrary, the opening formula presents a
significant difference. Here, the year of the era in
which they are dated comes first, then the name of
the king, and, lastly, the month and the day. If,
then, any deduction is to be drawn from the phrasing
of the inscriptions cited by Dr. Fleet, it is
assuredly that their meaning is not the same as that
of the two Taxila records, and that the writers of
the latter had a special purpose in not putting the
name of the sovereign first, namely the purpose of
indicating the name of the king in whose era these
records were dated. For my own part, however, I am
not disposed to attach unduly great importance to any
arguments based on the Brahmi records of Mathura or
other remote places of Hindustan, the culture and
arts of which at this time differed widely from those
of Taxila, and where writers may have employed
different modes of expression, just as they employed
a different script, in their documents, If Dr. Fleet
can point to a single Kharoshthi inscription of this
age phrased in the same way as the Taxila
inscriptions and dated in all unspecified era, his
argument will be materially strengthened.
Turning to the more important question of
Kanishka's date, I confess to having read with some
surprise Dr. Fleet's remarks on what I wrote anent
the Chir stupa finds. On p. 992 Dr. Fleet says that
my argument based on discoveries at this site depends
on views about art, with regard to which there is a
great divergence of opinion among authorities. The
evidence, however, to which I drew attention is not
based on views about art at all, but on the
stratification of buildings, which admits of no
dispute. If my meaning was not clear before, let me
try to make it so now. The buildings at the Chir
stupa occur in four strata, one above the other; in
each stratum a different type of masonry is used in
their construction,
p. 196
and with each stratum are associated coins of the
kings or dynasties indicated in the following
table:---
Stratum. Masonry Construction. Coins.
1. Uppermost. Semi-ashlar, semi-diaper. Vasudeva and later
Kushan.
2. Second. Large diaper. Kanishka, Huvishka,
and? Vasudeva.
3. Third. Small diaper. Kadphises I and II.
4. Fourth. Rubble and kanjur. Saka and Pahlava.
In the city of Sir Kap also precisely the same
stratification is found so far as the third, fourth,
and earlier strata are concerned, but the city was
deserted before any buildings of the 2nd and 1st
classes came to be erected, and consequently there
are no coins here of Kanishka, Huvishka, or Vasudeva,
but thousands, on the other hand, of those of
Kadphises I and II, of the Saka and Pahlava kings and
of the Greeks. Dr. Fleet calls my argument based on
this evidence from Sir Kap an argumentum ex silentio,
and quotes the case of Vasishka as a warning
against accepting the absence of coins as evidence.
The analogy between the two cases is not apparent. In
the case of Vasishka we do not know that he struck
any coins at all. In the case of Kanishka, Huvishka,
and Vasudeva, multitudes of their coins are found on
the sites at Taxila where buildings of the later type
occur, and if, as Dr. Fleet maintains, these rulers
preceded the two Kadphises and the Pahlava kings, it
is incredible that none of their coins should be
found in a city which was in continuous occupation,
not only during the period which Dr. Fleet assigns to
their reigns, but for several decades afterwards.
My excavations at Taxila have now been resumed,
and fresh evidence on this question is accumulating
every day. There seems nothing to be gained, however,
by dwelling further upon it. Further inscriptions are
sure to come to light ere long, and it can only be
hoped that one of them will put the date of Kanishka
and his successors beyond all possibility of dispute.