Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c18.s2: Section II. The Pahlavas or Parthians
Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c18.s2
- Language
- English
Section II. The Pahlavas or Parthians
c18.s2.1
¹ The Parthians (Pārthava, Pahlava) were an Iranian people established on the borders of the district that is today Mazandarān and Khurāsān. About 249/8 B.C. they revolted against the Seleukids under the command of Arshaka (Arsaces), a leader of Scythia (Pope and Ackerman, *A Survey of Persian Art*, p. 71).
c18.s2.2
Already in the time of Eukratides, Mithradates I, King of Parthia (*c.* 171-138/37 B.C.), had probably conquered portions of the Pañjāb or Sind, and in the days of the Śaka Emperors of the family of Maues-Moga, princes of mixed Śaka-Pahlava origin ruled as Satraps in Northern India. But it is important to note that Isidore of Charax, possibly a younger contemporary of Augustus, who wrote not earlier than 26 B.C. (reign of Phraates IV and the revolt of Tiridates) and is quoted by Pliny, does not include the Kābul Valley, Sind or the Western Pañjāb within the empire of the Parthians or Pahlavas. The easternmost provinces of the Parthian empire mentioned by that writer are Herat (Aria), Farah (the country of the Anauoi, a segment of Aria (i.e., the Herat Province), the districts between the Lake Hamun and the Helmund (Drangiana and Sakasthāna), and Kandahār (Arachosia or "White India"). Towards the middle of the first century A.D., however, Śaka sovereignty in parts of Gandhāra must have been supplanted by that of the Parthians. In 43-44 A.D., when Apollonios of Tyana is reputed to have visited Taxila, the throne was occupied by Phraotes, evidently a Parthian.² He was however independent of Vardanes, the great King of Babylon and Parthia (*c.* 39-47/48 A.D.)³, and himself powerful enough to exercise suzerain power over the “Satrap of the Indus.” Christian writers refer to a king of India named Gundaphar or Gūdnaphar and his brother Gad who are said to have been converted by the Apostle St. Thomas and who, therefore, lived in the first century A.D.¹ We have no independent confirmation of the story of the biographer of Apollonios. But the “so-called” Takht-i-Bāhī record of the year 103 (of an unspecified era) shows that there was actually in the Peshāwar district a king named **Guduvhara** (**Gondophernes**). The names of Gondophernes and, in the opinion of some scholars, of his brother Gad, are also found on coins.² According to Rapson the two brothers were associated as sub-kings under the suzerainty of Orthagnes (Verethragna). Sten Konow, however, identifies Orthagnes with Guduvhara himself, while Herzfeld suggests that he was the “unnamed son of Vardanes, mentioned by Tacitus, who claimed the throne against Volagases I about A.D. 55.”³ Dr. Fleet referred the date of the Takht-i-Bahaī (Bāhī) inscription to the Mālava-Vikrama era, and so placed the record in A.D. 47.⁴ He remarked “there should be no hesitation about referring the year 103 to the established Vikrama era of B.C. 58; instead of having recourse, as in other cases too, to some otherwise unknown era beginning at about the same time. This places Gondophernes in A.D. 47 which suits exactly the Christian tradition which makes him a contemporary of St. Thomas, the Apostle.''
c18.s2.3
² *Apratihata* (Gondophernes) according to Herzfeld and Tarn (*Greeks*, 341).
c18.s2.4
³ Debevoise, *A Political History of Parthia*, 270.
c18.s2.5
¹ The original Syriac text of the legend of St. Thomas belongs probably to the third century A.D. (JRAS., 1913, 634). *Cf. Ind. Ant.*, 3. 309.
c18.s2.6
² Whitehead, pp. 95, 155. Gondophernes=Vindapharna, “Winner of glory” (Whitehead, p. 146, Rapson and Allan). The king assumed the title of Devavrata. S. Konow, following Fleet, takes the word Guḍana on the coins to refer to the tribe of Gondophernes (*Corpus*, II. i. xlvi).
c18.s2.7
³ *Corpus*, xlvi; *The Cambridge Shorter History of India*, 70.
c18.s2.8
⁴ *JRAS.*, 1905, pp. 223-235; 1906, pp. 706-710; 1907, pp. 169-172; 1013-1040; 1913, pp. 999-1003. *Cf.* the views of Cunningham and Dowson (IA, 4, 307). The discovery of the Khalatse and the Taxila silver vase inscriptions, however, makes the theory of Fleet less plausible unless we believe in the existence of a plurality of Śaka-Pahlava eras. Dr. Jayaswal was inclined to place Gondophernes in 20 B.C. But this date is too early to suit the Christian tradition.
c18.s2.9
The power of Gondophernes did not probably in the beginning extend to the Gandhāra region. His rule seems to have been restricted at first to Southern Afghānistān.¹ He succeeded, however, in annexing the Peshāwar district before the twenty-sixth year of his reign. There is no epigraphic evidence that he conquered Eastern Gandhāra (Taxila) though he certainly wrested some provinces from the Azes family. The story of the supersession of the rule of Azes II by him in one of the Scythian provinces is told by the coins of Aspavarman. The latter at first acknowledged the suzerainty of Azes (II) but later on obeyed Gondophernes as his overlord. Evidence of the ousting of Śaka rule by the Parthians in the Lower Indus Valley is furnished by the author of the Periplus in whose time (about 60 to 80 A.D.) Minnagara, the metropolis of Scythia, *i.e.*, the Śaka kingdom in the Lower Indus Valley, was subject to Parthian princes who were constantly driving each other out. If Sten Konow and Sir John Marshall are right in reading the name of Aja-Aya or Azes in the Kalawān Inscription of 134 and the Taxila Inscription of 136, then it is possible that Śaka rule survived in a part of Eastern Gandhāra,² while Peshāwar and the Lower Indus Valley passed into the hands of the Parthians. But the absence of an honorific title before the name of Aja-Aya and the fact that in the record of the year 136 we have reference to the establishment of relics of the Buddha in Takshaśilā "for the bestowal of health on the *Mahārāja Rājātirāja Devaputra Khushaṇa*," probably suggest that the years 134 and 136 belong, not to the *pravardhamāna-vijayarājya* (the increasing and victorious reign) of Azes, but to a period when his reign was a thing of the past (*atītarājya*), though the reckoning was still associated with his honoured name. The dating in the Jānībighā inscription (*Lakshmaṇa-senasy=ātītarājye saṁ* 83) possibly furnishes us with a parallel.¹
c18.s2.10
¹ JRAS, 1913, 1003, 1010.
c18.s2.11
² For Fleet's interpretation of "*Sa 136 ayasa ashaḍasa masasa, etc.,*" see *JRAS*, 1914, 995 ff.; also *Calcutta Review*, 1922, December, 493-494. S. Konow thought at one time that *ayasa* stood for *ādyasya* (=the first). He took the word as qualifying *ashaḍasa*. But he changed his views after the discovery of the Kalawān Inscription of 134. He now thinks that the addition *ayasa*, *ajasa* does not characterize the era as instituted by Azes, but simply as 'connected with Parthian rulers' (*Ep. Ind.*, xxi. 255 f.). He refers the dates 134, 136 to the era of 58 B.C.
c18.s2.12
¹ Raychaudhuri, *Studies in Indian Antiquities*, pp. 165 f.
c18.s2.13
The Greek principality in the Upper Kābul Valley had apparently ceased to exist when Apollonios travelled in India. We learn from Justin that the Parthians gave the *coup de grace* to the rule of the Bactrian Greeks. Marshall says² that the Kābul valley became a bone of contention between the Parthians and the Kushāns. This is quite in accordance with the evidence of Philostratos who refers to the perpetual quarrel of the "barbarians" with the Parthian king of the Indian borderland in 43-44 A.D.
c18.s2.14
² *ASI*, *AR*, 1929-30. 56 ff.
c18.s2.15
With Gondophernes were associated as subordinate rulers his nephew Abdagases (in S. Afghanistān), his generals Aspavarman and Sasa(s) or Sasa(n), and his governors Sapedana and Satavastra (probably of Taxila).
c18.s2.16
After the death of the great Parthian monarch his empire split up into smaller principalities. One of these (probably Sīstan) was ruled by Sanabares, another (probably embracing Kandahār and the Western Pañjāb) by Pakores, and others by princes whose coins Marshall recovered for the first time at Taxila. Among them was Sasa(s) or Sasa(n) who acknowledged the nominal sway of Pakores. The internecine strife among these Parthian princelings is probably reflected in the following passage of the *Periplus* :—
c18.s2.17
"Before it (Barbaricum) there lies a small island and inland behind it is the metropolis of Scythia, Minnagara ; it is subject to Parthian princes who are constantly driving each other out."
c18.s2.18
Epigraphic (and in some cases numismatic) evidence proves that the Pahlava or Parthian rule in Afghanistān, the Pañjāb and Sind was supplanted by that of the Kushaṇa, Gushaṇa, Khushaṇa or **Kushān**¹ dynasty. We know that Gondophernes was ruling in Peshāwar in the year 103 (A.D. 47 according to Fleet, somewhat earlier according to others). But we learn from the Panjtar inscription that in the year 122 the sovereignty of the region had passed to a Gushaṇa or Kushān king.² In the year 136 the Kushān suzerainty had extended to Taxila. An inscription of that year mentions the interment of some relics of the Buddha in a chapel at Taxila "*for bestowal of perfect health upon the Mahārāja, rājātirāja devaputra Khushaṇa.*" The Sui Vihār and Mahenjo Daro Kharoshṭhī Inscriptions prove the Kushān conquest of the Lower Indus Valley. The Chinese writer Pan-ku, who died in A.D. 92, refers to the Yueh-chi occupation of Kao-fou or Kābul. This shows that the race to which the Kushāns belonged took possession of Kābul before A. D. 92. It is, no doubt, asserted by a later writer that Kao-fou is a mistake for Tou-mi. But the mistake in Kennedy’s opinion would not have been possible, had the Yueh-chi not been in possession of Kao-fou in the time of Pan-ku.¹ The important thing to remember is that a Chinese writer of 92 A.D., thought Kao-fou to have been a Yueh-chi possession long before his time. If Sten Konow is to be believed, the Kushāns had established some sort of connection with the Indian borderland as early as the time of Gondophernes. In line 5 of the Takht-i-Bāhī inscription Sten Konow reads “*erjhuṇa Kapasa puyae*,”² “in honour of prince Kapa,” *i.e.*, Kujūla Kadphises, the Kushān king, who is said to have succeeded Hermaios in the Kābul valley. Kujūla Kadphises has been identified with the Kuei-shuang (Kushān) prince K’iu-tsiu-k‘io who took possession of Kao-fou (Kābul), Po-ta and Ki-pin. It appears from numismatic evidence that this Kushān chief³ was possibly an ally of Hermaios with whom he appears to have issued joint coins.⁴ Kadphises seems also to have been at first on friendly terms with the Parthian rulers of Gandhāra. But the destruction of Hermaios' kingdom by the Parthians¹ probably supplied him with a *casus belli*. He made war on the latter and eventually destroyed their power in the north-west borderland of India.
c18.s2.19
¹ For a note on the dynastic nomenclature, see R. Schafer, *JAOS*, 67. 4. p. 296 ff.; *cf. AOS*, 65. 71 ff.
c18.s2.20
² We learn from Philostratos that already in the time of Apollonios (A.D. 43-44) the barbarians (Kushāns?) who lived on the border of the Parthian kingdom of Taxila were perpetually quarrelling with Phraotes and making raids into his territories (*The Life of Apollonius*, Loeb Classical Library, pp. 183 ff.).
c18.s2.21
¹ *JRAS*, 1912, pp. 676-678. Note also Pan-ku’s reference to a man’s head on the coins of Ki-pin (*JRAS*, 1912, p. 685 n.) which possibly suggests an acquaintance with the coinage of Kuyula Kaphsa (or Kasa?).
c18.s2.22
² *Ep. Ind.*, XIV, p. 294; XVIII (1926), p. 282. *Corpus*, II, i. 62. Some regard this “Kapa” as a phantom. It is interesting to recall in this connection a statement of Philostratos (*The life of Apollonius of Tyana*, Loeb Classical Library, p. 185) that in A.D. 43-44, the Parthian king of Taxila had enlisted the services of certain “barbarians” to patrol his country so that instead of invading his dominions they themselves kept off the “barbarians” that were on the other side of the frontier and were difficult people to deal with. Prince “Kapa” (if the reading and interpretation be correct) may have been at first one of these friendly barbarian chiefs. His date is indicated by his (?) imitation of a Roman emperor’s head of a style not later than about A.D. 60 (*JRAS*, 1913, 918).
c18.s2.23
³ Or one of his ancestors? *Cf.* Tarn, *The Greeks*, pp. 339, 343.
c18.s2.24
⁴ Pedigree coins according to Tarn.
c18.s2.25
¹ Before the Parthian conquest, Kāpiśi apparently had to obey, for a time, the rule of Maues and Spalirises (*CHI*, 590 f.). The Kushāns, the "barbarian" enemies of "Phraotes", may have had a hand in the restoration of Greek rule before its final disappearance in the Kābul valley.