The Kushanid Religion

 Abdul Hai Habibi

According to Chinese historians the Kushanid were the Yueh-chin inhabitants of the western Kan-sou (circa 200 B.C.), when they were defeated by Mao-Touen in 176 B.C. They moved westward to the upper banks of the Syr-Darya (Iaxartes) and reached the region of Fargana (Ta-yuan) at the boundaries of the Greco-Bactrian state circa 160 B.C.

In 128 B.C. when Tchang Kien, the envoy of China, reached the Yueh-chin’s realm, he saw all of Sughd and northern Oxus valley under the rule of the chiefs of these nomadic tribes, whose capital was Maracanda (Samarkand) and according to Chinese historians the Kouei-Chouang (Kouchana) were only one branch of the five tribes whose chief Koujola-Kadphises (78-25 B.C.) found Kushanshahr, the empire of the Kushan tribes.[1]

What was the religion of these nomads?

The answer is not too clear, but the Hiong-Nou and Sakai, their contemporary nomadic tribes in the steppes who were alike in dress, nomadic life and other cultural circumstances, were professioners of a religion as ambiguous Shamanism,[2] worship of Tangri, the heaven or supreme non sensible providence and some of the holy mountains.[3]

In first century B.C. when Kushanid tribes were scattering in northern and southern valleys of Oxus, the people of these regions were influenced by the religious remnants of Vedic, Zoroastrian and Hellenic myths. Thus the eastern deities (Vedic) were called Divas, and the western deities of Avesta were Asuras=Ahuras.[4]

According to the rules of history the nomadic conquerors always were transmuted slowly into ancient civilized societies of the majorities of the people. Thus the nomadic Kushanid in their conquered land found themselves in a situation of cultural cross-roads between the religious process of India, Iran, Greece and Rome, at last believed in a combined Syncretic pantheon of religions of their Empire or Kushanshahr.

Syncretic combinations of this kind were common throughout the late Hellenistic period and the first three centuries of the Christian era. Such combinations were one product of the great intermingling of people which resulted from the successive imperial adventures in the Irano-Hellenic world and in the Kushanshahr. With the free movements of peoples along the great trade routes, with the expanded knowledge of foreign places and beliefs, attempts were made to establish underlying unities of convictions and to reconcile the different ideological communities in these polyglot empires. Noting is more eloquent of this intermingling than the syncretic deities celebrated at the Hierothesion of Antiochus I at Nimrud-Dagh, and the clay votive tablets of Palmyra show this process in a pantheon as expanded as that of the Kushans, where at least 40 deities were taken from Hellenic, Iranian, old senitic, and local sources.[5]

Archeological discoveries in Afghanistan reveals evidence of the syncretism of this period. For example a family of the Kushan nobles named Marig were famous as the officers of the royal court (circa 170 A.D.).  Surkh Kotal, the fire temple of Baghlan, was repaired by a member of this family and yet another member of this family founded at Khuwat of Wardag the Vihara of Lord Sakyamuni (the temple of Buddha) at about 179 A.D.[6]

On some of the Kushan coins Indian, Iranian and Hellenic deities are shown which reveals and explains the syncretism of the Kushan state. There are about 33 different divinities named on these coins which reflected the various ethnic or ideological and religious communities within the polygot Kushan empire as follows:

I. Shamanism

As mentioned above, an ambiguous Shamanism was seen in nomad Kushans in the steppes. It was a religious characteristic of Siberian and Ural-Altaic peoples. The Shaman itself is of Tungus origion (Saman) and it has passed by way of Russian language into European scientific terminology.

The shaman (in Manichaean papers, shman=Sanskrit Sramana) is medicine man, priest and psyschopompos, that is to say, he cures sicknesses, he directs the communal sacrifices and he escorts the souls of the dead to the other world. He is able to do all this by virtue of his techniques of ecstasy i.e. by his power to leave his body at will.[7]

According to John Lubbock, shamanism is the third step of evolution of religions, the belief in holiness of the magicians and medicines who were considered as mediators between the gods and mankind. By their mystic power they can turn divine will of gods to the interest or detriment of man.[8]

Shaman as a hermit who abandons his sensual desires, was used in Dari literature of Afghanistan in the works of Sanaei of Ghazna and Mui’zzi of Heart up to the 12^th century.

II. Zoroastrianism

The founder of this religion was a reformer of earlier polytheism called Zarathustra (the man of the old camel), a name drawn from the pastoral life. According to Parsee tradition he was born C. 660 B.C. and killed in 583 B.C. in a fire temple of Balkh.[9]

Zarathustra created a religious, philosophical and ethical system designed to bring man and the world to salvation and belief in a single god, Ahura Mazda (The Lord who Knows, regarded as supreme deity of the heavens) who made him the founder and guide of the universe, the good spirit from whom six abstract entities (the sacred immortals) emanate: 1) right thought 2) good will 3) chosen sovereignty 4) meekness 5) integrity 6) immorality, and they fight by Ahura Mazda’s side against the anti-god or evil spirit, the Ahriman. This enemy was aided by the devas (the ancient gods debased to become demons): evil thought, lies, misgovernment, rebellion, infirmity and death.

In all the world there is the field of struggle between spenta-mainyu (the holy spirit) and evil spirit.

In Avesta, a work related to Zarathustra drawn up by the magi in the Achaemenid period (675-330 B.C.) we find a later phrase of this religion into Mazdaism[10] having three important basic principles of life: good mind, good work and good deed.[11]

Atar (the fire) in Avesta was considered son of Ahura Mazda and was worshiped by Zorastrians in the realm of Kushanshahar during pre-Kushan period. For example: (1) According to Gazeteeer of Peshawar 1931, the remnants of a spherical temple of the fire was discovered at Asuta of Mardan district in ancient Gandahara. (2) The remnants of a fire temple were discovered in Taxila and its Hellenic architectural style explains that it was built after spreading of the Greco-Bactrian civilization, before the beginning of our Era. (3) In Surkh Kotal, the Kushan dynastic shrine at Baghlan which was excavated on May 6, 1957 archeologists found an inscription of great significance written in cursive Greek letters in which is written that this mandar (temple) was the site of sacred fire (eir, in Pashto means the fire) where discovery of a hearth and large quantities of a peculiar fluffy white ash suggests that it was a fire altar and a worship-house of the later Zorastrians.[12]

In the deities shown on the coins of Kushanid kings we can see witnesses of the Zorastrian cult, for example an extremely rare coin of Kanishka bears the image of MOZD-O-OAN-O=Ahura Mazda of Avesta, the supreme divine creator of the Universe.

Some other Zorastrian deities on Kushanid coins are:

1.               ASHAEIXSHO=Asa-Vashista, the third among 6 Amesa-spentas, which means the truth which is best.

2.               ATSH-O = present Atash of Persian (the fire) = ATAR son of Ahura Mazda in Avesta, identified with Hephaistos of the Kanishka coin.

3.               LRO-O-ASP-O= Druvaspa=Lahrasp of Persian epic and guardian of the health of beasts.

4.               MAN-O-BAG-OVOHU-MANAH of Avesta, means good mind.

5.               MA-O-MAH the lunar deity of the Avestian literature=present Persian mah (the moon).

6.               MA-O-MIR-O= present Persian mah, himr. A combination of lunar and solar deities.

7.               MIIR-O=MIR=MEIR=MIRR=MIOR=MIUR= Persian mihr. Pashto meer, mir. The solar deity Mitra or Mithra of Avesta (the sun).

8.               OORMOZD-O or WOROMOZD= Avestan Ahura Mazda. The supreme god in Achaemenian inscriptions.

9.               PAD-O = Vata of Rigveda=VAYU of Avesta the wind god.

10.           OANIND-O= Avestic Vanainti the star goddess of victory. The word ANIND-O was used in Surkh Kotal inscription as the adjective of Kanishka. Wanaant means in yashtas of Avesta the victorious.

11.           ORLANG-O or OSHLANG-O= Avestic Verethraghna , the national lord of Iranians in arms, a popular figure in the Avestic pantheon who was called Baro-hvareno (bearing royal glory) = Bahram in the Yasht and Persian epic.

12.           PHARR-O= Far of present Persian literature, personifies the Khvareno, the Iranian concept of the glory and legitimacy of Kings. The deity with flaming shoulders suggested the Avestan Rasnu.

13.           SHAOREOR-O = Shahrevar of present Persian the sixth month of the solar year, who was the fourth deity among the six sacred immortals of the Zoroastrians.

14.           TEIR-O=TISHTRYA the fourth Zoroastrian month and deity of the rain and abundance.

15.           Rishno, a standing godess of Huvishka’s coin= Avestain Rashnum a male deity.[13]

III. Worship of the Sun God

Worship of the solar deity or Surya can be correlated with the Vedas. The cult of Surya in the Kushan period was, however, but one of several theistic movements which arose on the fringes of orthodox Brahmanism. One indication of the importance of Indo-Scythian influence on the solar cult is the very fact that some early images of Surya are so similar to Kushan royal portraits that it is possible to confuse one with the other.

Solar imagery in other guises long antedated the Kushans in this region. As early as about 155 B.C. an obscure Greco-Bactrian prince Plato issued tetra-drachms with the image of a solar deity.[14] Thus in the Kushanid period, Surya the sun god was also worshipped in Kushanshahar who appears over a chariot drawn by horses with some attendances. This symbol continues in the art of the Kushanid empire, as an interesting figure found in the royal shrine of Surkh Kotal ornamenting one of the many architectural “merlons.” This appearance of the solar image continued in the art of Gandahara as in an interesting capital from Abarchinar in the lower Swat valley.

The most elaborate example being the white marble image of Surya was discovered from the sun temple of Khair-Khana (the sun house) on the outskirts of Kabul, usually dated 5^th century. This solar temple existed up to the beginning of the 7^th century A.D.

Huen Tsang, the Chinese pilgrim, who in May 630 A.D. was on a visit of Kapisa mentioned one of the most famous temples of that era at O-Lu-Nu (Arurna mountain) about 30 miles to the south of Kapisa in which the heavenly spirit suna (the sun) came first from far desiring rest. Later suna went to the lofty Sunagir (mountain of the sun) in the southern districts of the Kingdom and all people worshipped it.

According to Martin, the Sunagir temple of Huen Tsang is the very same temple that was situated in Zamindawar of the Helmand valley. In Arabic literature the suna was Arabised as Zoon and Surya as Zoor (sur of the Afghan history). Al-Balazuri, the Arab historian who died in 892 A.D., wrote a chapter on the Moslem conquest of Seistan and Kabul in detail. He mentions the temple of the idol of Zoon on the mount of Zoor in Dawar which was captured and destroyed by the Moslem conqueror Ibn Samurah C. 652 A.D. According to Al-Balazuri the idol of Zoon was cast of pure gold and had eyes of ruby.[15]

At present we can see the remnants of the solar shrine of Surya on the mound of Kafir-Qala in Zamindawar, named after the Zoor=(Surya) and Deh-Zoor (the village of the Zoor).

Another great center of worship of the sun god was the legendary golden temple of Multan which existed up to Islamic period about 700 A.D. and in Arabic sources it is called “Bait-uz-Zahab (the golden house) which was seen by Huen Tsang when he visited Multan (630 A.D.)[16] On various types of the Kushanid coins the MIR-O-ELIOS (sun god) is shown in different variants as an armed deity sometimes with radiations of a halo.[17]

Thus the cult of the sun god spread from the Indo-Scythian invasions, and after the Kushan period flourished among the Huns especially under King Mihira Kula (Pashto meaning, the sun family). In 1924 Herzfeld found a stony modal at Jalalabad on which is show the sun god riding over his chariot.[18]

IV Indian Religions

Brahmanism, Visnuism, Sivaism

In the age of Indian dynasty of the Guptas (around about 400 A.D.) the old Vedic gods had become fossilized remnants of the past. The new pantheon of Purana belonged to this age, proclaims the glory of Brahma, the creator of Visnu, the preserver, and of Siva the destroyer.[19] In post-Vedic mythology these three gods forms the Indian Trinity,[20] and Sivaism had flourished in the northwest. One testament of this is a unique fragmented stele, found near Mathura which shows two Kush[21]an men worshipping not an image of Siva, but a Siva Linga, about the mid-second century A.D. A rude stone carving of three headed Siva in the museum of Mazar-e Sharif also is an evidence of the Siva that is called OESH-O on some coins of the Kushan period.

In Tagao (north of Kabul) a six armed Siva, and in Gardez (Pakthtia) a head of the Siva have been found similar to Surya of the Khair-Khana and the Visnu from Taxila.

Brahma, Brahmanism

In Vedic caste system the Brahmanas were the supreme class of the four-class division of all mankind.[22] According to the theory of late Vedic texts, the Brahmanas were born free from the Creator’s head (Rig Veda X, 90) and afterward they were the supreme beings from which everything comes and to which everything returns.[23]

In Sanskrit the Brahma was considered as nature, the universal supreme soul, the absolute supreme god and a priest in the Rig Veda, especially one who praises the gods.[24] But Brahmanism is a term commonly used to denote a system of religious institutions originated and elaborated by the Brahmans, from an early period, the dominant cast of the Hindu community.

The most prominent of the old gods were regarded in this cult as the appointed lokapalas, or guardians of the world.

Thus the regents of all directions were: Indra (the chief god), Agni (the fire), Surya (the sun) Varuns (god of the ocean), Vayu (the wind), Kabura (the god of wealth) and Soma, Yama etc.

The pantheistic doctrine which thus forms the foundation of the Brahanical system of belief found its most complete exposition in one of the six orthodox darsana, or philosophical systems, the Vendante philosophy.[25]

Thus some of the Brahmanic elements were combined in other cults of the Kushan age, for example some of these ideological elements were expressed in one of the most important Kushan sculpture from Shotorak datable from the middle of the 2^nd century A.D. in which a seated Sakyamuni is shown, receiving the submission of several bearded Brahman sages with two Kushan donors.

Brahmanism continued up to the age of later Kushanid princes in Kabul C. 800 A.D. when Kallar, the founder of the Brahman dynasty of Kabul Shahs took possession of Kabulistan, whose names and deeds are mentioned in Al-Biruni’s India and Raja Tarangini of Kalhana, the historian of Kashmir.

Since 1934 various Brahmanical marble objects have been found in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to these sources, Brahmanism and Buddhism are supposed to have coexisted especially during the 7^th and 8^th centuries A.D. in this region.

Thus a three headed image of Brahma standing on a small lotus throne was discovered at the palace of Sultan Masud III at Ghazna.[26]

Jainism

Mahavira (great hero) and jina (victorious one) was not the originator of Jainism, but the continuer of a tradition, to which he added much, but not over-much of his own. He died C. 477 B.C. the Jain religion to which he gave shape, is escentically an ascetic one. It reposes on a theory which denies the absolute validity of knowledge and recognizes solely its probability. The main external feature of Jainism is the monastic orders, in which no god is recognized, the Hindu deities are considered as impermanent and can be released only if they are reborn as men and turn ascetic.[27]

In 79 A.D. the followers of Jainism were divided into two major sects: 1) those who wore white clothes (shvetambara); 2) who believed in nudity (digambara).[28]

It is certain that both Mathura and Taxila were important Jainistic centers in eastern Kushanshahr, but no deity of the Jainism is known on Kushanid coins so far.[29]

Buddhism

According to most modern scholars Gantama Siddhartha, the founder of Buddhism lived C. 563-483 B.C. Born at Kapilavastu in the aristocratic republic of the Sakya in northern Bihar, he lived the luxurious life of a young nobleman until he felt impelled to abandon it to seek a means of release from samsara (existence) and henceforward the illuminate (Buddha), as he was called, taught and lived his doctrine until he died a the age of 80 at Kusingara.

The main external feature of the Buddha’s teaching was the institution of monastic community living on alms and striving towards the nirvana (salvation). Thus a Buddhistic traid was formed, containing three main points the Triratna (three jewels) which are the Buddha, the Dharma (low) and the Sangha (community) as the mainstay of this religion. Afterward a religious code of the sayings of the master called Tripitaka (three baskets of flowers) was collected by his apostles and received its final shape in the years before our era.[30]

Anyhow, the schism did not impede the decisive expansion of Buddhism from a local sect into a pan-Iranian religion, but about B.C. 250 when Asoka the emperor of Maurya dynasty became a devout and patron of Buddhism he took serious and efficient steps to spread his faith, even outside of India, his bilingual Greek-Aramaic inscription recently found at Kandahar, which explains the spreading of Buddhism up to the banks of Arghandab. Afterwards on some coins of the Kushanid we can see the image of the BODD-O with nimbus about head and aureole about his body.[31]

Many donor images are among the great quantity of religious Buddhist sculptures found in the environs of the Kushan capital at Kapisa probably datable to the first half of the 2^nd century A.D.[32]

These relics gives evidence that some people of the period were devotees of the cults of Buddhism. An image emerges from various Chinese sources that Kanishka was a second Asoka patron of the Buddhist faith and energetic builder of religious works.

According to Huen Tsang in the age of the later Kushanid princes of many countries of the northwestern India, two theological doctrines of Buddhism: Mahayana (the greater vehicle) and Hinayana (the lesser vehicle) were appealed[33] up to the rise of Islam in the first half of the 7^th century.

On an inscription of Greek script on a rock of the Bargul mount in Jaghatu, about 20 km  northwest of Ghazna, we can see the last evidence of Buddhism in this region which contains Triratna:

NAMW-O-BOD. Reverence to the Buddha.

NAMW-O-DHARMA. Reverence to the Dharma.

NAMW-O-SANGA. Reverence to the Sangha.[34]

On some coins of the Kushan kings, images of various Indian deities are shown, expressing some religious influences of Indian cults on the peoples of Kushanshahr, for example:

1. SAKA MAN-O-BODD-O. A standing Buddha on the Kanishka’s coin.
2. BAG-O-BODD-O.  A seated Buddha on the Kanishka’s coin.
3. MA-O-SEN-O. Mahasena an epithet of the Hindu war-god. A male standing and armed figure.
4. OESH-O-OMM-O=Two deities, Uma with her consort Siva.
5. SKAND-O-KOMAR-O. The war god son of Siva, on Huvishka’s coin.[35]

V.   Local Religions

Anahita, Nana, Ardoxsh-O, Oaxsh-O

From prehistoric ages a composite nature goddess of abundance and prosperity was worshiped from Indus valley to Mesopotamia. The female images of the deity were discovered at Mohenjodaro (Sind) and the Mondigak mound of Kandahar. Afterward in the historic periods a deity called Nanaina=Nana was lady of heaven was corelated with some other deities as Anahita, Artemis, Uma, Ardoxsh etc.

One of the most important of all the deities on Kushan coins, Nana with Ardosh was the feminine embodiment of the principle of abundance and prosperity, and the two deities should be considered together.

Wakhsh was clearly an aquatic deity, probably the god of river Oxus[36] which is now the name of a river in Tajikistan flowing into Oxus. But ARD-OXSH-O of the Kanishka and Huvishka’s coins is Ard-Wakhsh of the Persian combined name: ARD + WAKHSH (the holy or bountiful god of the Wakhsh river or Oxus) which is described in a Manichaean text as BG’RD W’XS, the deity who is a “frontier guard of Khurasan”.[37]

In any case, the names or images of the above mentioned local deities shown on Kushan coins is a clear evidence that these divinities were subjects of worship in early years of our Era, whose names are known in our later literature, for example: Anahita=Naheed of Persian (the Venus). Nana in Afghanistan means, the mother or an adopted mother. Nana in Pashto is holy man and in some Hindukush dialects Nahn means the mother.[38]

Manichaeism

In pre-Sassanid period the Arsacid kings of Parthia did not pursue a Zoroastrian policy of an exclusive kind. They inclined towards tolerance, and allowed syncretilstic ideas in the first century A.D. But when the first Sassanid king, Ardashir I, came to the throne in 224 A.D., it was he who devised he idea of making Zoroastrianism a state religion.

But this program was interrupted by the activities of Mani, the creator of a new religion. He was born in 215 A.D. at Mainshan between Euphrates and the Tigris. His father, Phatek had been a member of he Gnostic movement known as the Baptists. It was said that his mission had been revealed to him by Parakletos (the holy spirit), whereby he became the Messenger of Apostle of Light “the seal of the prophets” in 240 A.D.

In reality he derived inspiration and ideas from each one of the prophets who had gone before him, his religion was a combined system containing some ideas from Zervanism, Mithras cult, Gnostic doctrines and Christianity, based on three chief points: 1)This cult was to be universal. 2) The new religion was to spread by means of missionary work. 3) The faith must be established in writing. To this end Mani published seven works and spread his cult from Egypt up to Khotan in several languages as Soghdian, northern and southern Pahlavi and Coptic, from which the Shahbhuragan was dedicated to his patron King Shahpur I (240-271 A.D.), and some of his works were illustrated.

He conceived that the world’s evolution had here stages. In the first the two eternal principles separated from each other. The principle of the good or of the father of greatness (the Christian god, the father, the Mazdean Zervan), whose dominion was in  the north, and in the south the principle of the spirit of darkness=the devil or Ahriman. In the second stage the two principles mingled again, and in the third they once more became separate. Man passes through three processes which one after another give him some salvation, first abstinence from many things, then a process of purification, and lastly worship of the divine being by prayer, fasting and attendance at solemn feasts. The hierarchy of the faithful is composed of apostles or masters, bishops, priests, the elects (temple convents) and the hearers.[39]

Thus Manichaeism spread in northern regions of the Kushan empire during the 3^rd century in Oxus valleys up to Syrdarya and Khotan. But in the vigorous antagonism of the fanatic chief Magi Kartere, Mani was imprisoned and then martyred in 276 A.D.[40]

Christianity

Coins and other archeological evidences of the Kushanid period does not confirm that Christianity was a means of worship in the court or in the public communities of the empire, but it is certain that some Christian churches existed in Khurasan and in the western parts of Kushanshahar.

The legends of the mission of saint Thomas the Apostle state that he had been summoned to the court of king Gundofar (C 50 A.D.)[41] Afterward in the Sassanid period, some followers of the Nestorian cult were minority of the population.[42] In about 553 A.D. the cities of Rampiroz, Merv, Abiward, Heart and Badghes of Khurasan are considered as the Nestorian centers, and thus this cult spread up to Tukharistan.[43] Nestorianism flourished afterwards in the western parts of the Kushanid empire when the great council of  Seleucid Nestorians was convened in about A.D. 480. Gabriel the great patriarch of Heart’s Nestorians represented his cult in that council.[44]

According to Al-Biruni, Christianity was brought to Merv 200 years after Christ by Barshiya the patriarch, and thus several Nestorians and Malekaian churches existed in Khurasan until the Islamic period.[45]

Royal Deification

The Kushan kings were called Devaputra (son of god) in the Mathura inscriptions, BAG-O-POHR-O (son of god) and BAG-O-SHA-O (god king) at Surkh Kotal.

The concept of king’s divinity as king of the universe and a divine Epiphany is shown in the king’s titles and in some other evidences in the remains of the period, as the presence of the images of kings with pantheon in the temples. According to Daniel Schlumberges, the excavator of the Surkh Kotal, this idea is suggested among discoveries of the great Kushanian shrine.[46]

Some Other Deities of the Kushan Period

(Hellenistic or Roman)

1.               ERAKIL-O=Herakles: nude bearded man standing holding a knurled club on Huvishka’s golden coin.

2.               Elios=Helios: a male figure standing on Kanishka’s coin.

3.               Phaistos=Hephaistos on Kanishka’s coin.

4.               Salene, a male figure standing on Kanishka’s coin, as a counterpart for the MA-O coins.

5.               SARPO-O: male seated figure of Serapis the Graeco-Egyptian divinity.[47]