![]() As to Kanishka he says, “The Śaka era has usuallybeen supposed to date from the abhiṣeka of Kanishka at Mathurā in 78 a.d. Rapson makes Kanishka succeed Wema Kadphises, whom he dates c. Wema Kadphises' father, Kozoulo Kadphises, struck only copper coins. note 1 “With the exception of two or three gold coins of Eukratides, one of Menander, and, perhaps, one of Taxila, and another coin of uncertain attribution, no specimens which can possibly have been struck in India, during the two centuries previous to the date of Hima (Wema) Kadphises, are to be found in the collections of the present day” ( Rapson,, Grundriss, “Indian Coins,” p. This coinage is quite striking in its novelty. The basis of our study is the coinage of Kanishka and his successors, more particularly of Huvishka. I shall now show by two independent lines of research that he cannot be assigned to any other period. I have already brought forward direct evidence to prove that he flourished in the latter half of the first century B.C. We have now to consider him as an important figure on a much larger stage, a connecting link in the history of the earliest commerce between China and Europe. So far we might regard him merely as a prototype of many a barbarian chief of the West in the early centuries of the Middle Ages. A barbarian prince, he became a convert to an alien faith, and set an example which was followed by his tribe he also instituted an era which, although essentially Buddhist, was accepted by the Brāhmans and the Jains, and has endured to the present day. And we have found that his permanent achievements were twofold. We have considered Kanishka, so far, only as an Indian king, whose existence is revealed to us through the incidental mention of him in inscriptions and the accounts of the Yue-che (Tokhāri) given by the Chinese. ![]()
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