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454 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
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 Takshasilā "for the bestowal of health on the Mahārāja Rajātirāja Devaputra Khushaņa,” 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 (atîtarājya), though the reckoning was still associated with his honoured name. The dating in the Jānibighā inscription (Lakshmana-senasy=ātītarājye sam 83) possibly furnishes us with a parallel."
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 says 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.
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).
After the death of the great Parthian monarch his empire split up into smaller principalities. One of these (probably Sistan ) was ruled by Sanabares, another (probably embracing Kandahār and the Western Pañjāb) by Pakores, and others by princes whose coins Marshall
1 Raychaudhuri, Studies in Indian Antiquities, pp. 165 f. 2 ASI, AR, 1929-30, 56 ff.
