Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c9.55

c9.55

Lastly, about the last quarter of the first century B.C., the Yueh-chi, after conquering Baktria, descended upon India. The leading tribe, the Kushāns, had now gained the supremacy, and headed by the monarch Kujūla Kadphises, they invaded Kābul, and conquered the last of the Baktrian monarchs, Hermaeus, as the coins clearly indicate¹. The Kushān kings finally, at a date which is still quite uncertain, conquered and superseded the Indo-Parthian dynasty, and under their monarch Kanishka, became the paramount power in India. The Kushāns had, no doubt, many Greek and semi-Greek subjects, and it is uncertain whether they employed Baktrian Greeks or outsiders to execute the remarkable Gandhāra sculptures which are the most striking relic of their period which we possess². Their coins are singularly interesting. They bear traces of imitation of both Baktrian and Roman models, but they also shew a great deal of artistic originality and power of realistic portraiture. The Greek element in India was now rapidly absorbed. Yavanas appear among the pious donors in the Buddhist 1. Gold double stater struck in the Punjab in the time of the Persian occupation. Probably belongs to Darius Codomannus 337 B.C. (Rapson, Indian Coins, I. 2).