The Spread of Buddhism

84 xavier tremblay

Were the Kuas Buddhists?

The Kua epoch is characterised by an Indian cultural and particu-

larly iconographic in ux in Bactria. This in ux is in fact more Hindu

than Buddhist. Tokens of such an in uence are legal terms such as

     “royal tribunal” < Skt. rjakula- “royal court”, or 

   

“authoritative” < prama-. In Dilberjin, a fresco portraying iva with

Parvat was painted in a temple dedicated to the Dioscures. As a matter

of fact, some of the divinities with a non-Greek name pictured on the

Kua coins^30 follow Greek iconographical conventions while others

follow Hindu ones. Gods with four arms appear on seals.^31 All coins of

king Vima Kadphises portray iva accosted by a bull with a Kha ro

hi

dedication borrowing its vocabulary to the ivaite cult.^32 Fussman^33

concluded, under standably, that Vima Kadphises was a ivaite. How-

ever, Foucher^34 had already called for prudence. In fact, Vima was depicted

in the Mazdean temple in Rabatak (Rabatak 13). And the icono-

graphical iva on Vima’s coins was a Bactrian god named 

þ.

Now the Sogdian correspondent of 

þ, Wparkar, was identi ed

as iva.^35 Still, the etymology of Wparkar (Avestan Vaiiu upar -kai-

rii ) and Wparkar’s function as patron of the air, iden ti ed with the

spiritus vivens in the Manichaean fragment M 178, 106, ensure that

Wparkar was in fact the Avestan Vaiiu. Since it is highly unlikely that



þ and its homonym Wparkar are not one and the same god,^36 the

religious af liation of Vima Kadphises must be understood in another

way than Fussman did.^37 As the supreme king of India, Vima Kadphises

sought the protection of the mightiest god, iva; but for his Iranian

(^30) A good overview of the types of Kua coins is Göbl 1984.
(^31) Humbach 1974.
(^32) Maharajasa rajadirajasa sarvalogaivararasa mahi varasa Hima-kapti asa “Of the great
king, king of kings, lord of the whole word, great lord (or “devout of the Great Lord”
= iva), Vima Kad phi ses”.
(^33) Schlumberger, Le Berre & Fussman 1983, pp. 149f.; Fussman 1989b, p. 199.
(^34) Foucher 1905–1951, vol. 2, p. 519.
(^35) The Sogdian version of the Vessantara Jtaka (910–935) four times calls “Wparkar”
a major deity with three faces, which corresponds to Mahdeva (Sogd. M’ty) in the
Sogdian parallel god-list P 8. This can hardly be anyone else than iva, see Humbach
1975, p. 403. Moreover, wyprkr is written on a PenÌikent fresco (8th century) depicting
a three-headed 36 iva, see Marak apud Azarpay 1981, pp. 29f.; Marak 1990.
According to Tanabe 1991/1992, 
þ was a Wind-god for the Kuas as well.
Unfortunately, his iconographical arguments are disputable, (Lo Muzio 1995–1996, p. 170
n. 8). See further Grenet 1994, p. 43. Vaiiu’s main function is not naturalistic.
(^37) It is no parsimonious hypothesis to imagine that the Kuas, an Iranian dynasty,
converted to ivaism under Vima Kadphises and returned to Mazdeism under his
son Kanika.
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