Kanishka is the most important of the Kushana kings. He alone among the Kushana kings has left a name which has been cherished by traditional accounts and literature.

He was famous both in India and abroad. His famous name lives in legends of Tibet, China and Mongolia. His name is a household name among the Buddhists of Far East and South- East Asia. He is regarded as next only to Ashoka as a Buddhist monarch.

The Buddhist texts of China, Tibet, Mongolia and other Far Eastern countries, hail him as the greatest royal patron of Buddhism and his name was closely associated with the spread of Mahayana.

Buddhism in Central Asia. Far East and South East Asia. His empire outside India became a scene of Indian Missionary activities.

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He was great carrier of Indian thought and culture to Central Asia and other parts of the world and he also acted through out his reign as a worthy patron and promoter of all aspects of the Indian culture.

According to some scholars including Sir John Marshall Sater Megas, not Kanishka immediately succeeded Kadphises it. They say so on the basis of the discovery of a seek at Taxila, bearing the above name.

There are several views about Kanishkas date of accession. J.Fleet, V. A. Smith and R. Majumdar respectively suggest that Kanishka ascended the throne in 58 B.C. 125 A.D. and 248 A.D. But the general accepted view about his accession is 78 A.D. as suggested by R.D. Banarjee and H.C: Roy Choudhury etc.

His war with Pan-Cha’o:

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He defeated and subdued the Parthians. The Chinese General Pan-cha’o occupied the Trons Pamir, regions of Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan and thereby threatened the estern frontier of the Kushan and Empire of Kanishka, in the last quarter of the first Century A.D.

To counter -act the Chinese occupation of the Pamir regions, Kanishka sent an ambassdor to China to ask the Chinese emperor to give a Chinese Princess in marriage to him (Kanishka).

General Pan-cha’o thought Kanishka’s proposal as an insult to the Chinese emperor and he therefore, illtreated the Indian ambassador and forced him to leave China for India.

To avenge the insult done to him and his ambassador. Kanishka sent a huge army of 70,000 horses and men to attack the Chinese in the Trans- Pamir regions.

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His general Si headed the army. But the Indian soldiers were defeated by the Chinese on account of several, reasons, such as the lack of equipment and resources.

After the death of Pan-cha’o Kanishka personally led a second army to the Pamir regions and miserably defeated the Chinese there and occupied Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan and annexed the or to his empire.

He also freed himself from paying tributes to the Chinese emperor. He had been paying the same to the Chinese emperor since the time of the defeat of his first army by the Chinese under Pan-cha’.

His Empire:

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His Empire in India extended from Kashmir in the North upper and lower Indus valley in the west, the Vindhya Mountains and Bihar in the South and South-East respectively.

His empire outside the frontiers of India, consisted of the whole of the Trans-Pamir region, such as Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, the Oxus valley (Bactria) and the territories between the Hindukush (in Central Asia) and the river Indus. Heart, Kabul and the Hemand regions formed these areas.

At present these territories between the Hindukush and the Indus are occupied by the Afghan Provinces of Kabul. Ghazni, Kandahar. Seisthan and Beluchistan. It was an extensive external empire. Thus Kanishka built and enjoyed one of the largest empires both in India and Asia in ancient time.

Capital -Purushapur:

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Purushapur (Peshwar) was the Capital of this vast empire. Kanishka beautified and decorated the capital city with beautiful structures, buildings, monasteries and towers. “The great relic tower was rare thing of beauty and artistic imagination.

Kanishka built this wonderful tower of wood. Purushapur was the capital of religious cultural and trading activities. The remnants of Purushapur have recently been discovered near modern Peshwar now in Pakisthan.

His Government:

Kanishka was not a conquer but he was great administrator. He sincerely endeavoured for the better administration of his empire. Little is known about his administration, The Sarnath inscripition which he made in the third year of his reign, states that he maintained a Strap system of Government in his empire, since he was an Indo-Greek by birth.

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He appointed Satraps (Vice-roys) in all imperial Provinces including the foreign Provinces. General Si was appointed as a Satrap or Kshatrapa. Sarnath Inscription lias mentioned one Kharara Pallana was the Satrap of Mathura, Benaras and the eastern regions.

Kanishka divided his empire into several provinces for administrative convenience and reasons. It is known that, Maliakshatrapa Kharapallana was in charge of the state of Mathura. His son Vanaspara was equally a Kshatrapa in- charge of Eastern Banaras.

Dhanadevi atyamitra and Nahapana were known to have ruled over Kausambi, Ayodha and Western India respectively. The viceroys were all powerful and they were in-charge of trade and business. During his time, ‘there was a greater contact with Rome and China.

Religious Policy of Kanishka:

His early coins carry the potraits of Persian, Greek and Indian Gods. From this it can be concluded that he worshipped Persian, Greek and Indian gods during the early phase of his reign.

But his latter coins bear the images of the Buddha, which prove that Kaniska became a Buddhist and belonged to the Mahayana School of Buddhism during the later part of his carrier.

Kanishka was a foreigner by birth but an Indian by choice. He loved and adopted Buddhism as his religion. His later coins, many monumental and epigraphic evidences clearly point out his acceptance of Buddhism. Many Buddhist legends depict his early years in the darkest possible colour.

Like Ashoka before conversion, he is painted as modster with a heart thirsting for blood. He loved to kill. At last, he felt remorse and his heart recalled from the horrors of bloodshed and wars. At this stage he came across a Buddhist stage and took refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha and turned out to be a God- like man.

The legend is an echo of many such Buddhist legends which have been associated with the conversion of important personages that is Udayana.

Ashoka and Mcnander by the Buddhist writers to minify the virtue of their religion. In fact he had been drawn closer to Buddhism when he came in contact with the Buddhist Scholar Asvaghosha at Pataliputra.

He subsequently adopted Buddhism under the influence of Asvaghosa. He took Aswaghosha to Purushapura from Pataliputra, and later on became a great royal patron of Buddhism.

His association with Buddhism:

Kanishka was an ardent and devoted Buddhist. He followed the food- steps of Ashoka in the service of Buddhism. The Mahayana scriptures give him an honoured place as the Hinayana scriptures give to Ashoka, Kanishka held Fourth Buddhist Conference (Sangha) at Kundalvanavihar in Kashmir, under the presidentship of the Buddhist monk- scholar Vasumitra, the famous Asvaghosh acted as the Vice-President of the conference.

Several leading scholars and monks like Parsva, Asvaghosh, Nagaijuna and many others attended the conference. The conference newly codified the Buddhist Sastras or Sutras.

The language of the new codification was Sanskrit. Under the suggestion of the conference Kanishka declared the Mahayana Buddhism as the state religion of his empire. The greatest work of the conference was that it gave birth to a new School of Buddhism called the Mahayana Buddhism.

Mahayanism believed in the devinity of the Buddha, the necessity of prayer, devotion and faith. Goutam was regarded as a God. But not as a teacher. It aimed at achieving the salvation of the entire Universe. It suited to the mentality of his cosmopolitan subjects.

It became widely spread in Tibet, China, Burma, Japan, Siam and many other Far Eastern and Central Asian countries under the active and liberal royal patronage of Emperor Kanishka. Mahayanism is called the Northern School of Buddhism and where as Hinayanism is called the Southern School of Buddhism.

Sanskrit was the vehicle of the Mahayana literature and Pali was the medium of the Hinayana literature. Kanishka has occupied an important place in the Mahayana literature like that of his Prototype.

The great Ashoka in the Hinayana literature. Kanishka erected new Buddhist stops and monasteries and repaired the old ones. Such monasteries and stupas were also awarded grants for their maintenance.

Further, like Ashoka, Kanishka resorted to missionary activities for the spread of Buddhism outside India. Yet with intensive devotion to Buddhism, Kanishka was not intolerant of other religions. He was found to have paid equal respect to the Gods of all other religious faiths.

His patronage to art and architecture:

The reign of Kanishka marked a brilliant evolution of the distinct style of art and architecture. He was a builder. His reign witnessed the growth and development of beautiful style and exposition of different schools of art.

The sculptures, architecture and the relief works became developed at four different centres if his empire namely Mathura, Saranatha, Amaravati and Gandhara.

At every centre a separate school of art, with distinct characteristics of its own, came up. Thus four schools of art with different characteristics came into existence during the reign of Kanishka. Each school had a style of its own unifluenced by the other.

Saranath, Mathura and Amaravati each contained a large number of Buddhist Sculptural works. At Purushpur he constructed a huge relic tower which was 400 feet in height. He built a fine tower in Kashmir which still bears his name.

He built a new city called Sirsukh near Taxila. He beautified the city of Mathura with several buildings Monasteries and Stupas. Under his patronage numerous Buddha and Boddhisatva images were constructed.

A large headless statue of the Buddha, built in the second year of his reign has been discovered at Kausambi. A remarkable statue of Kanishak, without its head, has been found at Mathura.

During the reign of Kanishka a new school of art called the Graeco – Buddhist School of an or Indo-Greek School of Art, came into existence in the valley of Peshwar called Gandhar.

This school of art is popularly known as the Gandhar School of Art. Kanishka invited the Greek sculptors from Bastria, one of his Centeral Asian colonies to Gandhar and provided them all patronage and facilities to produce beautiful things of art in collaboration with the native Indian sculptors.

As a result, a new kind of art came up with both Greek and Indian characteristics, at Gandhara. The Gandhara Art was marked by foreign technique with Indian spirit. In it was found the Graceo – Roman style. The Indo-Greek sculptors made beautiful things out of stone stucco, terra cota and clay.

The specimen of this at proves the technical excellence and the artistic richness of the school of art. In other words, the characteristic of Gandhar.

Art was the depiction of human body in a realistic manner with greater physical accuracy elaborate ornamentation and complex symbolism. From Peshawar vally, in the North-West India, this Graeco- Buddhist Art gradually migrated to the Far-East along with Buddhism, under the personal patronage and care of the emperor Kanislika.

The Gandhra School of Art profoundly influenced the general sources of Indian culture and it successfully brought about a fine cultural synthesis or mixture which was half Greek and half Indian in character.

This is therefore, called the Graeco-Indian school of Art, which formed a significant feature of the cultural achievements of the regin of Kanislika.

A lover of education:

Kanishka was a great lover of education. Many learned men received his patronage. He always sorrounded by the men of letters and scholarship. In fact, group of highly learned men and scholars gathered around him. They were Aswaghosh, Nagarjuna, Vasumitra, Charaka and many others.

The Sanskrit literature was highly developed and both religious and secular literatures were equally enriched under the congenial atmosphere of royal patronage. Several eminent Buddhist writes made out wonderful and lasting works during this time. They are as follows.

The most famous among the Buddhist writers of this time was Aswaghosha. He is an accomplished poet, musician, preacher, moralist, Philosopher, dramatist and a tale-teller. He had rightly been compared with Milton. Gothe, Kant and Voltaire.

So N.N. Ghosh says that” He was an inventor of all these arts and science and excelled in all in richness and variety, he recalls Milton, Gothe, Kant and Voltaire. “He wrote the famous ‘Buddha Charita’ in Sanskrit, in the Mahakabya style The Book Buddha Charita is the complete life story of the Buddha.

The Buddhists compare this book with Valmiki’s Ramayan. He was the author of the “Soundarananda Kavya” written in Kavya style. This book deals with the various events of the life of the Buddha.

He was also the writer of the “Vajra Suchi”. This book condemns the Brahmanical caste system. He wrote the famous play called ‘Sariputta Parkarana’. He was a great thinker, author and intellectual.

The Next important writer of this period was Nagaijuna. He was born in Vidarbha in Southern India. He deeply studied the Vedas, and other Brahmanical Sastras.

After he became a Buddhist; he expounded the philosophy of relativity of the ‘Madhyamika Darsan’. This philosophy finds expression in his book called the ‘Prajna Paramita Sutta Sastra’.

The philosophy of relativity means that everything exists in relation to some things else and there is no independent existence of anything. In other words, if there can be good, than there should be something bad.

He was a great teacher and exponent of the Mahayana Buddhism. For this philosophy, Hieun -Tsang has described Nagarjuna as “One of the four lights of the world”. He has been also compared with Martin Luther.

Vasumitra was a great scholar and monk. He presided over the fourth Buddhist conference held at Kashmir. He contributed a lot to the Buddhist theological literature. He was the author of a famous commentry, called the Vibhash Sastra. He was an outstanding Buddhist intellectual of this period.

Charaka was the court physician of Kanishka. He was the author of the Ayurvedic Science in India. He made permanent contributions to the field of the Indian Ayurvedic Science. He was the author of ‘Susruta.’

Thus the reign of Kanishka was remarkables because it saw the stupendous improvements and developments in all aspects of the Indian culture.

Kanishka was undoubtedly a great conquer, soldier, ruler and constructive genius. Under his reign India was able to enjoy both material and cultural prosperity and riches.

He remains great in the annals of the India history not for his military conquests but for his achievements in the area of culture. He made pemanent lasting in many ways. His name has been closely associated with the progress of cultural in and outside India