THE GREAT ANCIENT EMPIREShimself king, attacked the Parthians and conquered Kao-fu (Kabul) and Ki-
pin (Kashmir). When he died, at 80 years of age, his son, Wima Kadphises,
so the chronicles state, proceeded to conquer India where he appointed a
viceroy. Numismatic research has confirmed these statements in recent
times. Several coins of Kadphises I were found which show on one side the
name of the last Greek ruler of the valley of Kabul, Hermaios, and on the
reverse his own name, Kujala Kada, Prince of the Kushanas. Since the later
coins of Kadphises I no longer refer to him as Yabgu but as King
(maharaja), the historians assume that Kadphises had earlier recognised the
suzerainty of Hermaios until the Parthians or Kadphises himself defeated
this monarch.
Wima Kadphises II continued his father’s aggressive policy and
conquered northern India all the way down to Mathura or perhaps even up
to Varanasi. He changed the standard of the coins which had so far been of
the same weight as the Indo-Greek ones by following Roman precedent.
The gold of these coins seems to have been procured by melting down
Roman coins (aurei) which flooded into the Kushana empire after the
discovery of the monsoon passage across the Arabian sea in the first
century AD. The Kushana coins are of such high quality that some
historians believe that they must have been made by Roman mint masters
in the service of the Kushana kings.
Whereas Kadphises I seems to have been close to Buddhism—he calls
himself on his coins ‘firm in right conduct’ (dharma thita)—his son seems
to have been a devotee of the Hindu god Shiva, because some of his coins
clearly show an image of Shiva. There were some other Kushana kings,
who were contemporaries of Kadphises II. Inscriptions and coins tell of
these kings but do not record their names. Thus an inscription was found
at Taxila, dated AD 76, of a king with the grandiloquent title ‘Great King,
King of Kings, Son of God, the Kushana’ (maharaja rajatiraja devaputra
Kushana). Other coins announce in Greek language a ‘King of Kings,
Saviour, the Great’ (basileus basileon soter mages). It is assumed that these
inscriptions and coins were produced at the behest of the viceroys whom
Kadphises had appointed in India and who have been mentioned in the
Chinese chronicles. The titles adopted by the Kushanas show how valiantly
they tried to legitimise their rule over all kinds of petty kings and princes.
‘Great King’ (maharaja) was an old Indian title, ‘King of Kings’ (rajatiraja)
was of Persian origin and had already been adopted by the Shakas, but the
title ‘Son of God’ (devaputra) was a new one. Perhaps it reflected the
Kushanas’ understanding of the Chinese ‘mandate of heaven’. The Greek
titles basileus and soter were frequently used by the Indo-Greek kings of
northwestern India.
Wima Kadphises II was succeeded by Kanishka, the greatest of all
Kushana rulers, though there may have been an interval between their
reigns filled by some nameless kings. The first references to Kanishka are