Kingdom and Divinity: Kushan Numismatics

The National Museum of India in New Delhi has a large and diverse collection of coins from the Kushan period.

With the emergence of the Kushan kingdom, many interesting features began to appear in the field of coinage. From the 1st century AD, gold began to be regularly used in the production of coins. While simple portrait depictions were widespread on coins issued in other regions, a new concept - the deification of the king's personality - became common on Kushan gold coins, which can be easily seen from the coin's appearance.

The Kushans made coins mainly of gold and copper, silver coins were rare. The first Kushan ruler, Kujula Kadfizes, issued coins similar to the coins of Hermeus, the last ruler of the Indo-Greek kingdom, and added texts in the Kharoshthi language to them. His grandson, Vima Kadfizes, issued gold coins with texts in both languages - both Greek and Kharoshthi. On the reverse side of the gold and copper coins he minted, there is an image of Shiva with or without an ox. On the front side of the gold coins, you can see an image of the ruler in various positions, while on copper coins there is only one type - the ruler on the altar.

Vima Kadfiz mainly minted copper coins weighing about 16 grams. On Kanishka's coins, characters from the religious traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Greek religions are depicted, and their names are also inscribed. He was also the first to use inscriptions on coins in the Bactrian language, not Greek. For example, the Greek title "basilevs basileon" ("king" - "king of kings") was replaced by the Bactrian "shaonanoshao."

Coins of the Kushan period demonstrate an interesting evolution in the development of iconography of Brahmanism and Buddhism. Beautiful miniature images of rulers and deities, texts written in two languages testify to the high artistic standards of the rulers of the Kushan state.