Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c23.1

c23.1

§ 64. Definition. — As considerable confusion has sometimes arisen from an inaccurate use of the term 'Kuṣana', it should be borne in mind that it bears two distinct significations, according to the period of which it is used: — (1) the Kuṣanas were originally one of the five tribes of the Yueh-ti, who, by c. 120 B.C., had become the predominant power in Bactria and other neighbouring countries to the north of the Paropanisus; (2) c. 25 B.C., this particular tribe gained a supremacy over the other four tribes of Yueh-ti, and, from this time onwards, the word 'Kuṣana' is used to denote the whole Yueh-ti people united under their leadership. The first result of this unity of the previously separate and, perhaps, somewhat discordant forces of the Yueh-ti, was the conquest of the last remaining Greek kingdom in the Kabul valley under Hermaeus.