The Birth of the Kushan Empire // Four Exceptional Kushan Gold Double Dinars

Sale: Triton X, Lot: 468. Estimate $25000.  Closing Date: Monday, 8 January 2007.  Sold For $28500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

INDIA, Kushan Empire. Vima Kadphises. Circa AD 100-127/8. AV 2 Dinars (16.00 g, 12h). Mint A. 3rd emission. BACILEYC OOH-MO KADFICHC, diademed and crowned figure of Vima Kadphises seated facing cross-legged on clouds, head right, holding mace-scepter in right hand over shoulder; flames at shoulders, tamgha to left / “Maharajasa rajadirajasa trarvaloga isvarasa mahisvarasa Vima Kathphshasa tratara(sa)” in Karosthi, ithyphallic Siva standing facing, head left, holding trident in right hand and resting left arm on bull Nandi behind, who is standing right with head facing; Buddhist Triratana (“Three Jewels”) to left. MK 10 (O1/R12A; unlisted die combination); Donum Burns 75. Superb EF. Very rare, only six examples known to Göbl.

The name Kushan derives from the Chinese term Guishuang, used to describe one branch of the Yuezhi, a loose confederation of Indo-European people who had been living in the Xinjiang Province of modern China. Driven west by Xiongnu between 176 and 160 BC, the five groups of the Yuezhi – the Xiumi, Guishuang (Kushans), Shuangmi, Xidun, and Dumi – reached the Hellenic kingdom of Baktria by 135 BC. They expelled the ruling Greek dynasties there, forcing these kings further south to settle along the Indus River. In the following century, the Guishuang forced the other tribes of the Yuezhi into a tight confederation. Now, as the Guishuang was the predominant power, the entire group became known by that name. This appellation was Westernized as Kushan, though the Chinese still referred to them as Yuezhi.

Like the Hellenistic Greeks and Romans, the Kushans were a multi-cultural society, incorporating much of the cultures they ruled into their own. Like their Baktrian predeccesors, early Kushan coins used Greek legends on the obverse, along with a translation in the local Karosthi script on the reverse. Beginning with Kanishka I, however, the Kushan language, written in an adaptation of the Greek alphabet with some local alterations, was used almost exclusively. From the time of Vima Taktu (Soter Megas), the Kushans also began to adopt Indian cultural elements. Embracing a wide variety of local Indian and Central Asian deities, they assimilated them with Greco-Roman types already prevalent in the region. Overall, the Kushan pantheon represented a religious and artistic syncretism of western and eastern elements.

An adept military leader who expanded Kushan power throughout much of Central Asia, Vima Kadphises was the first Kushan ruler to send a diplomatic mission to Rome, during the reign of Trajan. Vima Kadphises was also the first Kushan ruler to strike gold coins. Because the Kushans under his reign had extended their protective control over the Silk Road, the Roman gold they obtained through the trading of luxury items with the Roman Empire–such as silk, spices, and other exotic goods–provided the metal for the striking of the first Indian gold coins. In addition to the existing copper and silver denominations, Vima Kadphises introduced three gold denominations: the dinar (struck on an 8g weight standard), the double dinar, and a fractional quarter dinar.

The reverse type of these coins, showing the Hindu deity Siva, known to the later Kushans as Oesho, indicates that Vima Kadphises, like his father and predecessor, Vima Taktu (Soter Megas) embraced the religion of Shaivism, a branch of Hinduism. Shaivists recognized Siva as the supreme god of the Brahma-Siva-Visnu triad, contrary to the more traditional view that the three deities were parts of the Trimurti, the three aspects which make up the supreme godhead. Siva is sometimes portrayed as a figure with a tripartite head and is usually shown in association with Nandi, the bull of happiness and strength. Siva often appears in an ithyphallic state, recalling the ancient and abstract form of the god: that of a conical or ithyphallic-shaped stone, or siva lingam, set within a yoni, a round base with a single projecting channel, which together represented the respective male and female parts and the mystical powers of generation. Likewise, these coins also display the Buddhist Triratana, or “Three Jewels”, on the reverse, indicating that like his son and successor Kanishka I, Vima Kadphises was interested in Buddhism.

While the dinars and their fractions were clearly meant to facilitate international trade, the purpose of the double dinars is less certain. While it is quite possible that they too were used in trade, especially when larger sums were required, their rarity would seem to indicate that they may have served a more special, possibly ceremonial function: gifts presented to the king’s favorites as a way of strengthening support for the regime and deposited resources from which the king could later draw.

Kanishka I, the son and successor of Vima Kadphises, was a fervent Buddhist who convened a great Buddhist council in Kashmir. Its outcome was the adoption and promotion of Mahayana, or “Greater Vehicle” Buddhism, which, unlike Theravada Buddhism, allowed for different levels of Buddhist achievement, placed as great an emphasis on the life of the Buddha as on his teachings, and allowed for the existence of Buddhist “saints”, or bodhisattvas. Kanishka’s special interest in the Buddha is reflected in his use of the Buddha as a reverse type on his gold and bronze coinage.

Huvishka I succeeded his father Kanishka and oversaw a period of consolidation and prosperity. Huvishka was a patron of art and architecture, and his coins reflect the artistic developments of the time as well as the remarkable religious and cultural pluralism of the empire. By the mid-third century the Kushan empire began to weaken and fragment. Upon the death of Vasudeva I in 225 AD, a split into western and eastern halves occurred. The Sasanian Empire under Ardashir I conquered Baktria and northern India. The southern portion of this territory remained under direct Sasanian control, while in the north arose the Kushanshahs, or Kushano-Sasanians, Sasanian nobles who ruled the region as vassals. By 270 AD, Kushan control of the Ganges plain was ceded to the rising Gupta kingdom. By 320 AD, the Gupta Empire was expanding northward, pressing on the remaining Kushan-held territories. During this period, several rebel leaders and generals appeared, further weakening the remaining Kushan state. By the middle of the fourth century AD, the former Kushan vassal, Kidara, absorbed the now-moribund Kushan state and brought it under his control. This new kingdom lasted for only the next century or so, when the Hunnic rulers and later, the Muslims, incorporated it into their own territories.