If you know of any site other than the ones listed here then please mail URL to ksc45@keele.ac.uk. If you run a site that has something on Kushan history I will be happy to add you to the list, and will try to avoid being too critical (poison tongue).

• Sites on Kushan History

  • Kajula and Wima

    • The Acts of Thomas

      Accurate details on Gondaphares by H.C.Merillat and some of the not terribly historical but rather nice story of Thomas.

    
    

  • The Trading Empire

    • The Age of Invasions 104BC-320AD

      Is a rough guide to the period and personalities of the period. Don't take it too seriously, it is a very quicke sketch, and look for the bit where the Scythian wave is placed after the Parthian conquest of northern India. However if you want a rough idea of what was going on in some of the areas I havent covered it may help.
      

    • Itihaas: Ancient : The Kushans and Kanishkas (AD 50 - 300) Is a very brief guide to the history of the empire from the time of Kadphises to Kanishka. Look out for yet more variations on the spellings you have seen in other places.
      
    • THE KUSHAN DYNASTY - MATHURA in pictures. This site has pictures of the statues and relics of the dynasty left at Mathura. Including the misattributed statue of Kadphises.
    
    

  • The date of Kanishka

    • The Buddhist Tradition

      A transcript of miscellaneous communications on the date of Kanishka in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society provided by Heidelberg University. The article was written in 1906 and concerns itself at some length with the Buddhist tradition on the date of Kanishka. For reasons explained in the section on the date of Kanishka the Buddhist tradition is now rejected as incompatable with the other evidence available, even so Mr Fleet quotes extensively from a number of translations of Buddhist tradition including Hsuan-Tsuangs travels in India (Translated by Watters and published posthumously) and should be read with care at least once.

    
    
  
  
• Coins and Numismatics
  • Overview of Pakistans Coins

    This provides a quick overview of some of the coins of the region. Including those that proceed the kushan period. The site is maintained by msstate but look out for a few intuitive jumps. We don't know that Kanishka was converted to Buddhism, he certainly built buddhist monuments and minted coins with Bhudda on but so had his predecessors and so would his successors. He also minted many other coins and built other monuments. The only positive evidence is Bhuddist tradition hundreds of years later, and it shows clear mystical elements and similarities with the stories of Ashoka which make it unreliable. Let us suffice to say that the Kushan empire showed a religous tolerance remarkable in human history and leave it to Kanishka what peace he made.
    

  • Coins of Kushana Dynasty

    Do visit this site. An example of each coin is presented. Read the notes, and most of all look at the pictures, the gold stater of Vasudeva is superb, some of the others are a little difficult to make out and the Huvishka gif wasnt working last time I went but if you can't get hold of some books this may be the only chance you get to see the coins.
    

  • Kushan Empire

    Yet another superb site on the Kushan Coins. This site contains pictures of many of the coins of the Kushan kings of the main dynasty, though it still lacks coins by the later kings. The site has some brief notes on each of the coins and their inscriptions. Thomas K.Mallon-McCorgray maintains the site as part of wider project on the coinage of the kingdoms of ancient India, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
    

  • Oriental coins would also like to sell a Gold Stater and they have a rather nice picture of it. However despite what that caption says this is not a Kushan coin. It is a coin belonging to one of the Kushan successors quite delibralty struck in the style of the kushan coins, though it loses some of the sharpness of the originals.
    
  • If you would like to compare them to some Indian Coins try this site, the pictures have been improved since the last time I visited.
    
  • Two Coins of the Kushans from a private collection. In amongst a much larger collection of Greco-Bactrian coins. No real comment on this site.
    
• Art Work
  • Kushan Sculpture, To avoid confusion, the term kushan style is being used to denote a style of work, it doesn't mean that a statue was produced with the chronological or spacial bounds of the empire.
    
  • Kushan King, or Su-rya from asianart.com. The identification by Rosenfield seems more plausable as Kushan Kings are shown in a more central asian mould. This statue however is a very typical piece of Mathuran work, which like Gandhara was a major center of art under the Kushan's.
    
  • Sculpture and other art, mostly from Gandhara and mostly of the Kushan period. They lack comprehensi
  • The Bulletin of the Asia Institute, have a list of the articles appearing in the bulletin connected to Gandharan art as well as ordering details on their web page.
    
  • If you would like to own a a piece of Mathuran art, a hand of a budhist statue. They say it's second century and from Mathura, so it would have been produced in the Kushan Empire and a snip at only four and half thousand dollars.
• Courses and Colleges
  • Mills College, Oakland, California run a course on indian art, Art History 121. The course is run by Mary Ann Miltzford-Lutzker.
  
  
• Putting it into context
  • The Internet Indian History Sourcebook is part of a wider project to provide primary source material for the teaching of history. It contains a variety of links related to India, mostly pre-Kushan and Islamic.
  • The Encyclopedia Iranica

    contains an article by M.Bates on the coinage of Iran which includes some breif notes on the Kushan coinage. And the encyclopedia also includes so notes on the town ofDelbarjen by P.Bernard and the archaeological work done their.
    

  • Map of the World

    Note the maps positioning of the Yu-Chi movement is a little misleading, they came from a more eastern point accross the jaxartes. However much of what is green on the map should in the reign of Kanishka (around the conquests of Trajan) be coloured brown. However the map shows very well the relative positions of the 4 greatest empires in the world at the time.
    

  • Timeline of Ancient and Medieval Civilizations

    With a very dodgy positioning of the Indo-Parthian dynasty but it does show graphicly once again the comparison with Rome.
    

  • Slide of Taxila

    Unfortunatly it could do with blowing up and a caption, but the site also contains a lot of other slides of Indian sites. A little more detail is available at this site but again it doesnt caption the rather nice pictures. The third city it mentions Sirsukh, is indeed the city believed to have been founded by the Kushans when they took over the area. Work by John Marshall showed that it was laid out in typical rectangle like other central asian cities with high walls and towers all around. However a village stands on the site and this has made any detailed archaeology such as was carried out at the Bhir mound and Sirkap impossible.
    

  • - Central Asian History Timeline

    On the dates it gives for the Kushan section I'll let you judge for yourself, it does extend further back and beyond my time line, helping to put it all into context.

  
  
• Museums
  • Kabul Museum