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476 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
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Asvaghosha,1 Charaka, Nagarjuna, Samgharaksha, Mathara, Agesilaos the Greek and other worthies who played a leading part in the religious, literary, scientific, philosophical and artistic activities of the reign. Excavations at Mat near Mathura have disclosed a life-size statue of the great king. 3
After Kanishka came Vasishka, Huvishka and Kanishka of the Ara inscription. We have got inscriptions of Vasishka dated 24 and 28 which possibly prove his control over Mathura and Eastern Malwa. He may have been identical with Vajheshka, the father of Kanishka of the Ara inscription, and Jushka of the Rajatarangini, the founder of the town of Jushkapur, modern Zukur to the north of Srinagar.
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Huvishka's dates range from 28 to 60. A Mathura Inscription represents him as the grandson of a king who has the appellation "Sacha dhramaṭhita," i.e., steadfast or abiding in the true Law, which occurs on the coins of Kuyula Kaphsa. Kalhana's narrative leaves the impression that Huvishka ruled simultaneously with
(Andhra Coins, xii) the diversity of coin-types does not show religious eclecticism, but reflects the different forms of religion which prevailed in the various districts of the vast empire of the Great Kushans. Cf., Asavari and Bednur type of coins of the time of Iltutmish and of Hyder Ali.
1 For the legend about Kanishka and Aśvaghosha see a recent article by H. W. Bailey (JRAS, 1942 pt. 1)-trans, with notes of a fragment of a Khotan Ms. The king's name is spelt Cadrra (Chandra) Kanishka.
2 It is possible that Nagarjuna was a contemporary, not of Kanishka I, but of Kanishka II and Huvishka.
3 EHI, p. 272. Cf. Coin-portrait, JRAS, 1912, 670.
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As the Sanchi images may have been brought from Mathura, the findspots need not be regarded as forming necessarily a part of the empire of the king mentioned in the pedestals.
5 EHI, p. 275.
6 JRAS, 1924, p. 402.
7 The epithet is also applied to Amgoka in the Ksharoshthi documents (Burrow, p. 128).
