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TUU8
KUSHÃN CONQUEST OF NORTH-WEST INDIA 455 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
“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." ---
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 Kushaņa, Gushaņa, Khushiaņa or Kushān? 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 Gushaņa 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, vājātirāja devaputra Khushaņa.” The Sui Vibār and Mahenjo Daro Kharoshthi Inscriptions prove the Kushān conquest of the Lower Indus Valley. The Chinese writer Panku, who died in A. D. 92, refers to the Yue-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 Toil-mi. But the mistake
1 For a note on the dynastic nomenclature, see Schafer JAOS. 67. 4.
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.).
