The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c31.105

v1.c31.105

Most of the coins of Kujūla Kadphises show clearly both by their types and by their fabric that they were struck in the Kābul valley. They are imitated from the barbarous issues of that region which still continued to reproduce mechanically the legends with the name of the last Yavana king, Hermaeus, long after his death. They are found in enormous numbers beyond the limits of the Kābul valley in Takshaçilā, where the stratification of the objects discovered in the excavations proves unquestionably that, in that district, they are rather later than the coins of Gondopharnes. At first sight the evidence of the finds would thus seem to show that Kujūla Kadphises himself was later in date than Gondopharnes and that he was the actual conqueror of Takshaçilā; but, since the coins in question manifestly come from the Kābul valley, we must suppose rather that they represent the ordinary currency of the Kushāṇas at the time when the invasion took place, and that they were introduced into Takshaçilā as large numbers of Sassanian coins were brought into the country of the lower Indus from Irān by the Hūṇas in the fifth century A.D. It is, therefore, by no means impossible that Kujūla Kadphises may have been not later than, but contemporary with, Gondopharnes; and there is no reason to doubt the statement of the Chinese writers that it was not Kujūla Kadphises, but his son and successor, V'ima Kadphises, who extended the dominions of the Kushāṇas from the Kābul valley to N.W. India.