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Indo-Parthian Kingdom
Indo-Parthian Kingdom
YUEZHI
subcontinent (most of modern Pakistan and parts of 40 CE
authors.[2] MALAVAS
MITRAS
WESTERN
SAMATATAS
SATRAPS
The kingdom was founded in 19 when the governor MAHAMEGA-
VAHANA
of Drangiana (Sakastan) Gondophares declared SATAVAHANAS
-500
CHUTUS
later make expeditions to the east, conquering territory
-150
CHERAS 120
350
CHOLAS
from the Indo-Scythians and Indo-Greeks, thus PANDYAS
500
600
AY 1000
1175
1250
1500
following the invasions of the Kushans in the second Indo-Parthian Kingdom at its maximum extent,
half of the 1st. century. They managed to retain control circa 40 CE, and neighbouring South Asian
of Sakastan, until its conquest by the Sasanian Empire polities.[1]
in c. 224/5.[5] In Baluchistan, the Paratarajas, a local
Indo-Parthian dynasty, fell into the orbit of the
Capital Taxila
Sanskrit, Prakrit
(Brahmi script)
Parthian
Contents Religion Buddhism
Hinduism
There were other minor kings: Sanabares was an ephemeral usurper in Seistan, who called himself Great
King of Kings, and there was also a second Abdagases Coin (https://web.archive.org/web/2004041100204
0/http://www.grifterrec.com/coins/par_rel/print/i_abdagases.jpg), a ruler named Agata in Sind, another ruler
called Satavastres Coin (https://web.archive.org/web/20051001231145/http://www.grifterrec.com/coins/par
_rel/print/i_satavastres.jpg), and an anonymous prince who claimed to be brother of the king Arsaces, in
that case an actual member of the ruling dynasty in Parthia.
But the Indo-Parthians never regained the position of Gondophares I, and from the middle of the 1st
century AD the Kushans under Kujula Kadphises began absorbing the northern Indian part of the
kingdom.[11]
— Al-Tabari[13][14]
"This river (Indus) has seven mouths, very shallow and marshy, so that they are not
navigable, except the one in the middle; at which by the shore, is the market-town,
Barbaricum. Before it 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." Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, Chap 38[19]
An inscription from Takht-i-Bahi bears two dates, one in the regnal year 26 of the Maharaja Guduvhara
(again thought to be a Gondophares), and the year 103 of an unknown era.[20]
Buddhist sculptures
The statues found at Sirkap in the late Scythian to Parthian level (level 2, 1–60 AD) suggest an already
developed state of Gandharan art at the time or even before Parthian rule. A multiplicity of statues, ranging
from Hellenistic gods, to various Gandharan lay devotees, are combined with what are thought as some of
the early representations of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas. Today, it is still unclear when the Greco-
Buddhist art of Gandhara exactly emerged, but the findings in Sirkap do indicate that this art was already
highly developed before the advent of the Kushans.
Stone palettes
Numerous stone palettes found in Gandhara are considered as good representatives of Indo-Parthian art.
These palettes combine Greek and Persian influences, together with a frontality in representations which is
considered as characteristic of Parthian art. Such palettes have only been found in archaeological layers
corresponding to Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian rule, and are essentially unknown the
preceding Mauryan layers or the succeeding Kushan layers.[28]
Very often these palettes represent people in Greek dress in mythological scenes, but a few of them
represent people in Parthian dress (head-bands over bushy hair, crossed-over jacket on a bare chest,
jewelry, belt, baggy trousers). A palette from the Naprstek Museum in Prague shows an Indo-Parthian king
seated crossed-legged on a large sofa, surrounded by two attendants also in Parthian dress. They are shown
drinking and serving wine.
Notes
a. "As a result, the Indo-Greek kingdom emerged to the south, but it did not exist long and was
soon replaced by the Indo-Parthian kingdom."[3]
References
1. Schwartzberg, Joseph E. (1978). A Historical atlas of South Asia (https://dsal.uchicago.edu/r
eference/schwartzberg/pager.html?object=058). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
p. 21, 145, map XIV.1 (f). ISBN 0226742210.
2. Gazerani 2015, p. 26.
3. Ellerbrock 2021, p. 117.
4. Rezakhani 2017, p. 35.
5. Olbrycht 2016, p. 25.
6. "New light on the Paratarajas" Pankaj Tandon p.29-35 (http://people.bu.edu/ptandon/Paratar
ajas.pdf)
7. Rezakhani 2017, p. 56.
8. The chronology of the Gondopharid kings has long been uncertain, predominantly based on
coins. This reconstruction is based on "Indo-Scythian Coins and History IV" by Robert
Senior, CNG 2006, as the four volumes of Senior's work provide an almost complete
catalogue of the coinage of the period. Senior's chronology is based on the existence of only
one king Azes, a theory that was vindicated when it was shown that a coin of the so-called
Azes II was overstruck with a type attributed to Azes I (see Senior, "The final nail in the coffin
of Azes II", Journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society 197, 2008).
9. Rosenfield, p129
10. A votive inscription of the 26th year of Guduvhara or Gondophares, is reported to have been
found on a stone at Takht-i-Bahi, northeast of Peshawar with a date in the year 103 of an
unspecified era reckoning. This era is likely to have been the Malva or Vikrama era, founded
in 57 BCE, this would give a date of 20 CE for this king's ascension (see Hindu calendar).
The stone was formerly in the museum at Lahore. The point is especially important for those
Christians who consider that a germ of history is embedded in the Acts of Thomas.
11. Gazerani 2015, pp. 26–27.
12. Mitchiner, Michael (1975). Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian Coinage (https://books.google.co
m/books?id=a4EaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA779). Hawkins Publications. p. 779. ISBN 978-0-
904173-12-3.
13. Mitchiner, Michael (1978). The Ancient & Classical World, 600 B.C.-A.D. 650 (https://books.g
oogle.com/books?id=zuQLAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA348). Hawkins Publications. ISBN 978-0-
904173-16-1. "Pakores was succeeded in the office of Great King by Sanabares (c. AD 135-
160). The much reduced Indo-Parthian realm then split into its two geographical
constituents. These now became the Kingdom of Turan whose king was named Pahares
and the Kingdom of Sakastan ruled by a second king bearing the name Sanabares (c. AD
160-175). These two kingdoms, Turan and Sakastan, were to persist until the first Sasanian
Emperor, Ardeshir I, about AD 230. Both then became vassal kingdoms within the Sasanian
Empire. Tabari recorded the submission made by the King of Turan which transpired when
Ardeshir was at Gor: then envoys of the king of the Kushan, of the kings of Turan and
Mokran came to him with declarations of their submission."
14. Bracey, Robert (1 January 2012). The Mint Cities of the Kushan Empire (https://www.acade
mia.edu/2078818/The_Mint_Cities_of_the_Kushan_Empire). BAR International Series
2402. p. 124.
15. see Senior, "The final nail in the coffin of Azes II".
16. Description of the Hellenistic urbanism of Taxila:
"Taxila, they tell us, is about as big as Nineveh, and was fortified fairly well after the
manner of Greek cities" (Life of Apollonius Tyana, II 20) (https://www.livius.org/ap-ark/ap
ollonius/life/va_2_16.html#§20)
"I have already described the way in which the city is walled, but they say that it was
divided up into narrow streets in the same irregular manner as in Athens, and that the
houses were built in such a way that if you look at them from outside they had only one
story, while if you went into one of them, you at once found subterranean chambers
extending as far below the level of the earth as did the chambers above." (Life of
Apollonius Tyana, II 23) (https://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollonius/life/va_2_21.html#§23)
17. (Life of Apollonius Tyana, II 29) (https://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollonius/life/va_2_26.html#§
29)
18. (Life of Apollonius Tyana, II 31) (https://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollonius/life/va_2_31.html#§
31)
19. Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, Chap 38 (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/periplus.ht
ml)
20. Rosenfield, p130.
21. Gazerani 2015, p. 111.
22. Gondophares I Indological researches in India: selected works of Prof. K.D. Bajpai[1] (https://
books.google.com/books?id=MOJtAAAAMAAJ&q=indo+parthian+shiva+coin&dq=indo+part
hian+shiva+coin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNhLHfkePfAhXPknAKHZBfDyw4ChDoAQg
nMAA)
23. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Volume 46 Pg. 274
[2]
(https://books.google.com/books?id=TPMXAQAAMAAJ&q=indo+parthian+shiva+coin&dq=i
ndo+parthian+shiva+coin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNhLHfkePfAhXPknAKHZBfDyw4C
hDoAQgsMAE)
24. "Gondopharescoins" (http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/0001_0099/
gondopharescoins/gondopharescoins.html).
25. Described in "Rome's enemies, Parthians and Sassanid Persians", ISBN 0-85045-688-6
26. "Parthians, from about the 1st century AD, seem to have preferred to show off their carefully
tonsured hair, usually only wearing a fillet of thick ribbon; before then, the Scythian cap or
bashlyk was worn more frequently". In "Parthians and Sassanid Parthians" Peter Willcox
ISBN 0-85045-688-6, p12
27. Pierfrancesco Gallieri, in "Crossroads of Asia": "The parallels are so striking that it is not
excluded that the objects discovered in Taxila and dated to between the 1st century BCE
and the 1st century CE were in reality produced earlier, maybe by artisans who had followed
the Greeks kings during their retreat from Bactria to India" p211 (in French in the original)
28. "Let us remind that in Sirkap, stone palettes were found at all excavated levels. On the
contrary, neither Bhir-Mound, the Maurya city preceding Sirkap on the Taxila site, nor
Sirsukh, the Kushan city succeeding her, did deliver any stone palettes during their
excavations", in "Les palettes du Gandhara", p89. "The terminal point after which such
palettes are not manufactured anymore is probably located during the Kushan period. In
effect, neither Mathura nor Taxila (although the Sirsukh had only been little excavated), nor
Begram, nor Surkh Kotal, neither the great Kushan archaeological sites of Soviet Central
Asia or Afghanistan have yielded such objects. Only four palettes have been found in
Kushan-period archaeological sites. They come from secondary sites, such as Garav Kala
and Ajvadz in Soviet Tajikistan and Jhukar, in the Indus Valley, and Dalverzin Tepe. They
are rather roughly made." In "Les Palettes du Gandhara", Henri-Paul Francfort, p91. (in
French in the original)
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External links
Coins of the Indo-Parthians (https://web.archive.org/web/20050206140303/http://www.grifterr
ec.com/coins/indoparthian/indoparthian.html)
History of Greco-India (https://sites.google.com/site/grecoindian/Home/history-of-greco-indi
a)