85
On the nationality of the Kusanas
By sten Konow.
About tbe beginning of the Christian era we meet with several
rulers and princes in North Western India and in the Indian
borderlands, who on their coins and in inscriptions are designated
as Kusanas. They have often been characterized as Indo-Scythians,
and it has long been known that they were not natives of India. 5
The common opinion is apparently that they belonged to the Turk!
race, and this opinion is said to agree with the features of the
heads figured on their coins*). Some scholars however hold that
they were in reality Scythians, i. e. that they belonged to the
Iranian race. lo
They established themselves in the Indian borderlands after
a long period of migration from their old seats in what is now
known as Chinese Turkistan. The broad facts of these wanderings,
which are now considered as the result of the gradual desiccatioa
of Central Asia, have long been known from Chinese sources, and 15
may be summarized as follows*). —
In the year 176 B. C. Moduk, the prince of the Hiung-nu,
despatched a letter to the Chinese emperor in which he stated that
he had conquered the Yiie-chi, the Lou-Ian, the Wu-sun and the
Hu-kie, and incorporated the territories of twenty six more small 20
states in his empire. The bulk of the Yiie-chi then moved west¬
wards. Some of them, however, took refuge with the K'iang in
Nan-shan, where they became known as the Little Yiie-chi.
On their way westwards the Yiie-chi followed the Southern
slopes of the T'ien-shan , and here they came into contact with 25
another tribe, the Sai, or, according to the older pronunciation Sek
or Sök, who apparently occupied the country to the south east of
Issi-kül. The Sai were ousted and migrated towards the south,
1) Cf. J. Kennedy, Tlie Secret of KanishkLa, JRAS., 1912, pp. 665ff., 981 ff., especially p. 670 with note 2.
2) Cf. O. Franlie, Beiträge aus chinesischen Quellen zur Kenntnis der Tüvltvölker und Skythen Zentralasiens. Aus dem Anhang zu den Abhandlungen der Königl. Preuß. Akademie der Wissenschaften vom Jahre 1904. Berlin 1904.
86 Konow, On the nationality of the Kufanas.
while the Yiie-chi settled in their country. Here they were sub¬
sequently, about 160 B. C. , attacked by the Wu-sun, and they
consequently continued their march towards the west, till they
came into contact with the Ta-hia, who were then settled in
6 Bactria. The Ta-hia were inferior soldiers, and the Yiie-chi made
themselves masters in their country.
These migrations and conquests have long ago been identified
with certain events mentioned by Classical authors. According to
Pompeius Trogus Bactria and Sogdiana were conquered by Scythic
10 tribes whom he calls Saraucae and Asiani The same author
incorporated an abridgement of Scythic history in his work , in
which he dealt with the Asiani, whom he calls the kings of the
Thocari, and apparently narrated how they ousted the Saraucae*).
Strabo mentions as the most famous of the nomadic tribes who
16 took Bactria from the Greek "Aaioi xal Uaaiavol xal ToxccQol xal
SaxdcQavXai.
The Saraucae or SaxaQavXot here evidently correspond to the
Sai of the Chinese sources, or, more properly, to the common
designation Sai-wang , i. e. Sai-prince , while the Yiie-chi seem to
20 be the same tribe which the Classical authors call Asiani , "Aaioi,
Ilaatavol and ToiaqoL Professor J. Marquart 8) has tried to show
that the form TlaOiavoi should be corrected to FaßiavoL; and that
it is only another form of "Aßiot , or of fartot , which we find in
Ptolemy. He thinks that all these forms, as well as Trogus' Asiani,
26 are renderings of the same word which the Chinese have made
into Yiie-chi. The old pronunciation of this word was apparently
gilt, yüt or get, and it has been identified by various authors with
the Getae of Classical authors.
Grave objections have however been raised against these identi-
sofications, and, as they do not affect the present argument, they
need not delay as further. We are however apparently justified
in inferring that some of the Sai, after their defeat, joined the
conquering Yiie-chi on their march towards Bactria, and also that
the Yiie-chi were not themselves an unmixed horde, but consisted
36 of a tribe , whom the Classical authors call Tochari , with chiefs,
who might of course have been descended from a different stock,
and whom Trogus calls Asiani.
The name Tochari is now evidently the same as the Indians
call Tukhära and the Chinese Tu-ho lo.
1) Trogus prol. 41. Deinde quo regnante Scytliicae gentes Saraucae et Asiani Bactra occupavere et Sogdianos.
2) prol. 42. Additae his res Scythicae. Reges Thocarorum Asiani iu- teritusque Saraucarum.
3) See J. Marquart, ErSnsahr nach der Geographie des Ps. Moses Xorenac'i.
Mit historisch-kritischem Kommentar und historischen und topographischen E.x- cursen. Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Phil.-hist. Klasse. Neue Folge, Bd. III, Nr. 2, p. 206.
Konow, On the nationality of the Kußanas. 87
This latter designation Tu-ho-lo has not been traced before
the time of the Northern Wei (386—556). It is used by later
authors to denote the same empire as was formerly called Yüe-chi.
Hüan Tsang, the famous Chinese pilgrim of the seventh century,
informs us that, in his days, the country was split up into 27 minor s
states, which were subject to the Tu-kiie or Turks. He also in¬
forms us of the existence of another Tu-ho-lo, which he calls Old
Tu-ho-lo, and which was situated 400 Li east of Ni-yang. Sir
Aurel Stein has proved that this Old Tu-ho-lo is represented by
the ruins on the Endere River in Chinese Turkistan , which must lo
have been abandoned in the third century A. D. , and were con¬
sequently lying in ruins when Hüan Tsang visited the place. The
natural inference from Hüan Tsang's statement is that the two
Tu-ho-lo tribes were of the same stock, and that if we could succeed
in settling the question about the nationality of one, we should 15
also be in a position to judge about the other. This would then
also clear up the difficulty about the nationality of the Kusanas.
We learn from Chinese annals that the Yüe-chi, after having
settled in Bactria, divided the country into five parts, each under
a chief called hi-hou. "More than hundred years later", we are 20
told, 'the ki-hou of the Kuei-suang, K'iu-tsiu-k'io, attacked the
other hi-hou and conquered them. He made himself king, wang,
and adopted the dynastic title 'King of kuei-suang". He died at
the age of eighty, and was succeeded by his son Yen-kao-chen who
"again" conquered India and appointed a general as governor of 25
that country. The Yüe-chi now became very rich aud flourishing.
They were everywhere designated as kings of Kuei-suang. The
Chinese, however, stuck to the old designation and spoke of them
as the Ta Yüe-chi, i. e. Great Yüe-chi".
Now it has long been recognized that the Kuei-Suang are no 30
others than the Kusanas, who were accordingly Tu-ho-lo or Tochari.
Let us examine such indications as are available with regard to
the nationality of these tribes.
The Hiung-nu, who originally drove the Yüe-chi out from
their old home in Central Asia , are usually considered to have 35
been Turks , and it is possible that the Wu-sun , who were driven
out by the Hiung-nu together with the Yüe-chi, were likewise of
Turk! race. The Yüe-chi must accordingly have had Turkish tribes
as their neighbours, and Professor Franke is probably right in
assuming that they had assimilated some Turk! elements before they 40
embarked on their westward movement.
Friedrich Hirth *) has tried to show that the Yüe-chi themselves
must have been a Turkish tribe, because they used the title hi-hou
about their princes , hi-hou being a Chinese corruption of Turki
1) Nachworte zur Inschrift des Tonjuliuli (RadlofT, Die alttürliischen In¬
schriften der Mongolei, Zweite Folge, I. II.), p. 48 ff.
88 Konow, On the nationality of the Kusanas.
yahyu. The Kashmir chronicle Räjataraiiginl*) similarly describes
the kings Huska, Juska and Kaniska, i. e. the Kusanas, as descended
from the Turuska or Turki race, and the Turk! kings of Gandhära
in the S**" century claimed Kaniska as their ancestor. M. Sylvain
5 Levi -) has dravra attention to a passage in Hemacandra's Abhi-
dhänaciniämani, v. 959, according to which the Turuskas or Turks
are called ääkhis, which refers to the title säht of their kings.
He also 8) speaks of Kaniska as a Turk king, and similarly Dr. Bhan¬
darkar*) remarks that 'the dress, especially the cap, and the
10 features of the royal figures on their (the Kusana kings') coins
appear Turkish". Finally Mr. Kennedy*), the latest authority on
the question, states that 'the Tochäri belonged to the great Turki
family , and Kaniska's features are characteristic of his race ; he
has the pointed cranium, the salient cheek-bones, the large, long,
15 and heavy nose, the thick beard". We may also note that Byzantine writers in a similar way identify the Scythic tribes with the Turks.
Professor Pranke*), on the other hand, thinks it unsafe to base
any conclusion on the use of Turk! titles like yabyu by the Yiie-
chi. He rightly remarks that so many different tribes met and
20 intermixed in Central Asia that we would expect to find very
different elements everywhere, and official terms and titles derived
from various sources. He compares the state of affairs in modern
Mongolia, where we find numerous Turkish, Manchu and Chinese
loanwords, especially in the official language. Historically he main-
26 tains, the Yüe-chi appear in marked contrast to the Turkish tribes,
though they may have absorbed many Turkish elements. There is
not , on the other hand , anything in the sources which militates
against the assumption that the Yüe-chi belonged to the Aryan
race. On the contrary, several features rather favour such a hypo-
so thesis. On the whole Professor Franke seems inclined to consider
the Yüe-chi as an old Scythic or Getish tribe.
.4.1so Professor Marquart ') warns against Mr. Hirth's conclusion
that the Yüe-chi were Turks, because they made use of the Turkish
title yabyu, and remarks that at any rate the name Kadphizes
So worn by some Kusana kings is certainly not Turkish.
As a matter of fact the inference drawn from the use of the
Turkish title yabyu by the Kusanas has no safe foundation. From
the statement by Trogus that the kings of the Tochari were Asiani,
we might even conclude that these Asiani, who might have been
40 of a different race than the Tochari, were in reality Turks, if we
compare this statement with the use of a Turkish title by the
1) I, 170. Compare Stein's note in Iiis translation.
2) Journal Asiatique, IX. sirie, IX, p. 10, note.
3) Ibid. VIII, p. 445.
4) A Peep into tbe Early History of India. (Reprinted from the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.) Bombay 1900, p. 29.
5) loc. cit. 6) loc. cit. p. 44. 7) loc. cit. p. 204, note 4.
Konow, On the nationality of the Kufanas. 89
Kusanas and with the alleged fact that their princes have Turkish
features. But the question about the nationality of the Tochari
and Kusanas themselves would remain unsolved.
We have seen that the modern explorations in Central Asia
have brought to light some old ruins in the same neighbourhood s
where Hüan tsang located Old Tu-ho-lo. The finds of antiquities
in that neighbourhood might possibly throw some light on the
que.stion about the nationality of the Tu-ho-lo.
Sir Aurel Stein has shown that the civilisation represented by
the oldest ruins in Old Tu-ho-lo was Indian, and even the language lo
of administration and trade was an Indian dialect. There cannot
of course be any question of assuming that the old inhabitants
of Tu-ho-lo, i. e. the old Tochari, were of Indian descent. There must
however have been an Indian element in the population, and this
agrees with the traditional tales recorded by Hüan-tsang from old is
Khotan chronicles that Indian colonists came to Khotan at a very
early period. This Indian colony has apparently exercised a very
great influence. It cannot however have been very numerous,
because it has disappeared without leaving any traces in the language
or in the anthropology of Eastern Turkistan. 20
All the oldest documents found in Chinese Turkistan have
been written in an Indian dialect. In addition to these there are
numerous manuscripts and documents, from a somewhat later time,
which have been found in the old Tu-ho-lo country. They are
written in a language, which was entirely unknown some few years 2S
ago, and which we can provisionally call Old Khotani*), from Khotan
the principal oasis in those parts of Turkistan where these manu¬
scripts have been found. It seems natural to infer that Old Khotani
is a later form of the original language of the Tochari. It cannot
be urged against such an assumption that the oldest documents so
found in Old Tu-ho-lo are written in an Indian dialect aud not in
Old Khotani. There are absolutely no indications that the old
Tochari had developed a civilisation of their own or used their
language for literary purposes. On the contrary, we find that the
Kusana kings in India and the Indian borderlands were entirely ss
under the influence of foreign civilisations, Persian and Indian.
Some of them tried to use their home tongue in their titles , but
their official language was that of their new subjects. Similar must
have been the case in Old Tu-ho-lo. The civilisation was entirely
Indian, and the people had to learn the art of writing and the 40
use of their language for literary purposes from the Indians. So
long as the Indian element was sufficiently strong, the language
used in trade and in administration was Indian. But later on,
probably under the influence of Buddhist missionary activity, the
1) See Kirste, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Vol.
XXVI, p. 394.
90 Konow, On the nationality of the Kusanas.
inhabitants learned to use their own language instead, and we are
quite justified in considering the language of the later manuscripts
and documents as the old home tongue of the country and conse¬
quently as the language of the Tochari. There is apparently one
6 grave objection to this assumption.
Among the numerous documents and manuscripts found in
Eastern Turkistan there are quite a number which are wi'itten in
a language which is different from Old Khotani, and which seems
to have been spoken in Kuchar. Following M. S. Levi*) I call
10 this language Kuchari. Now Professor P. D. K. Müller*) has main¬
tained that Kuchari and not Khotani was the language of the
Tochari and this view has been generally adopted. Professor Müller
draws attention to the fact that an old Turki fragment found in
Turfan by Dr. A. von Lecoq is in the colophon described as belonging
16 to the Maitrisamit of the Vaibhasika Aryacandra, which was com¬
piled in the Toyri language and thence translated into Turki. Now
this work is evidently identical with the Mailreyasamitinäikam
of the Vaibhasika Aryacandra, parts of which have been preserved
in a dialect of Kuchari and published by Messrs. Sieg and Sieg-
so ling in their excellent study on that dialect^). It would then
seem necessary to infer that the Turki manuscript contains a trans¬
lation of the Kuchari text, and that this latter one is meant under
the designation Tojf^ri, i. e. Tochari, in the Turkish colophon.
Baron A. von Sta6l-Holstein*) has however raised grave ob-
26 jections against this assumption. He has shown that an Uigur
text in the possession of the Russian Asiatic Museum has probably
been translated into Uigur from Khotani, and that there is no
serious objection to the assumption that the Maitreyasamiti was
originally composed in Khotani and then translated into Kuchari
30 on the one hand and into Turki on the other. There are some
features in favour of such a supposition , especially the form of
the name of the author given in the Turk! colophon. Baron
V. Stael Holstein's chief arguments for identifying To-j(ri with Kho¬
tani and not with Kuchari are the following.
85 The old texts found in the country corresponding to Hüan
Tsang's Old Tu-ho-lo are written in Khotani and not in Kuchari.
From the text of Hüan Tsang we may infer that, in his days, there
existed a language which was spoken all over the country of the
1) Journal Asiatique, Xle serie, II, pp. 311 ff.
2) Beiträge zur genaueren Bestimmung der unbekannten Sprachen Mittel¬
asiens. Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1907, pp. 958 ff.
3) Tocharisch, die Sprache der Indoskythen. Vorläufige Bemerkungen über eine bisher unbekannte indogermanische Literatursprache. Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1908, pp. 915 ft'.
4) Tocharisch und die Sprache II. Bulletin de l'Academie Imperiale des Sciences de St.-Pitersbourg, 1908, pp. 1367ft".; Tocharisch und die Sprache 1.
Ibid., 1909, pp. 479 ff.
Konow, On the nationality of the Kusanas. 91
Tochari from near Samarkand towards Kabul. We learn from Ibn
al Muqaffa' that, about a century later, the spoken language of
Balkh, in the heart of that country, was more like High Persian
than was any other Eastern dialect. Professor Marquart*) explains
this statement by inferring that the Tochari had adopted the Persian 6
language. There is however no foundation for this inference, and
it seems necessary to follow Baron v. Stael Holstein in assuming
that the language of the Tochari was an Iranian tongue. That is
the case with Khotani and not with Kuchari.
It must be admitted that these arguments are of considerable lo
force. Khotani is certainly an Iranian dialect*), which in many
respects agrees with High Persian, and which also shows some points
of close agreement with the Pamir dialects. This latter fact reminds
us of the statement made by Hüan Tsang that the people of Khotan
resembled the population of Sariqol , both in appearance and in is
language. The investigations of Sir Aurel Stein") tend to show
that the present inhabitants of the Khotan oasis are in fact anthro¬
pologically related to the Pamir tribes, and such stray philological
features in which Khotani can already now be shown to agree
with the Pamir tongues, add some strength to the inference of a 20
closer connexion which can be drawn from Hüan Tsang's statement.
The theory of the Iranian nationality of the Yüe-chi or Tochari
would further receive some additional support if the old supposition
could be proved that the Ta Yüe-chi , i. e. Great Yüe-chi of the
Chinese is a rendering of the same name as was known to Greek 28
authors as Massagetai. Marquart *) rejects the equation , while
Franke *) seems to favour it. If it proves to be correct, the first element
of the name massa would be the Iranian mas or masan, great.
Baron v. Stael Holstein*) further tries to strengthen his theory
by an analysis of certain titles of Indo-Scythic princes which are so
known from Indian literature and inscriptions, and from coins.
According to the Jaina Prakrit work Kälakäcäryakathänaka''),
the overlords of the country Sagaküla, beyond the Indus, had the
title sähänu säht. Similarly the title sähänu säht occurs, together
with titles which are commonly used by Kusana kings and with ss
the ethnic name Öaka, in an inscription of the Gupta emperor
Samudragupta*). Sähänu säht and sähänu §ähi are certainly the
1) loc. cit., p. 89.
2) Cf. my review of Ernst Leumann, Zur nordarischen Spraciie und Literatur, in Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen, 1912, pp. 551 ff.
3) See M. Aurel Stein, Ancient Khotan, Oxford 1907, Vol. 1, pp. 143 ff;
T. A. Joyce, Notes on the Physical Anthropology of Chinese Turkestan and the Pamirs, .Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. XLII, pp. 450 ff.
4) loc. cit., p. 206, note 2. 5) loc. cit., p. 43.
6) Tocharisch und die Sprache II, pp. 1368ff.
7) See H. Jacobi, Das Kälakäcärya-Kathänakam, ZDMG., 34, pp. 247 ff.;
cf. Ernst Leumann, Zwei weitere Kälaka-Legenden, ZDMG., 37, pp. 493 ff.
8) Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. Ill, No. 1.
1 2
92 Konow, On the nationality of the Kufanas.
Middle Persian title säkän Sah , king of kings , and they must
belong to a language in which the terminations of the nom. sing,
and the gen. plur. of a-bases were i, anu, respectively. Now
Khotani is , so far as we know , the only language where that is
5 the case , and we are again led to the conclusion that it was the
home tongue of at least some of the Indo-Scythic tribes.
Now Baron v. Staöl Holstein has tried to show, by an
analysis of the coin legends of the Kusana kings , that also the
Ku.sanas, i. e. the Tochari or Yüe-chi, spoke that same language.
10 The legends on the Kusana coins have been examined by
several scholars. The results have not however, been quite satis¬
factory, and I hope to be able to explain them with greater cer¬
tainty than has hitherto been the case.
There are at least two groups of Kusana princes: the so-called
16 Kadphises kings, Kujula Kadphises and his son Vima Kadphises,
and the Kaniska group. Now Professor Marquart*) has proved that
Kujula Kadphises is the Kusana hi-hou K'iu-tsiu-k'io who according
to Chinese sources conquered the other hi-hou of the Yüe-chi, and
that his son Yen-kao-chen is the same as Vima Kadphises. The
20 latter certainly lived about the middle of the first century A. D.
The oldest coins struck by Kujula Kadphises show on one side
the bust and the name of the Greek king Hermaios and on the
other side the legend Kujula-Kasasa Kusana yavugasa dhrama-
fhidasa, [coin] of Kujula Kasa the Kusana yavuga, the righteous,
25 in KharosthT letters. It is here clear that yavuga is a rendering
of the Turki title yahyu, and Professor Marquart is quite right
in infeiTing that these coins were struck by Kujula as prince of
the Kusanas and before he had conquered the other yahyus. Then
follow coins where the name of Hermaios has disappeared and
30 been replaced by the semi-Greek legend korsano (or koSano) Ko-
zoulo-Kadphizou , of the korsan (koSan) Kozoulo-Kadphizes. Then
there are some coins , where also the bust of Hermaios has dis¬
appeared , and we find on one side the head of a king with the
legend Khoransu zaoou Kozola Kadaphes in Greek letters, and
36 on the other side the Kharos^hl legend Khusanasa javuasa Ku-
yula Kaphsasa. Later on we find the titles maharaja, rajaraja,
rajatiraja and devaputra, and the designation kusana disappears.
It will be seen that these titles correspond to the gradual
increase in power which is attested in the case of this king by
40 Chinese sources, till he at last assumes the title rajatiraja, over¬
lord over kings, which has long been recognized as a translation
of the Greek ßaOtksvg ßuaikiav and its prototype the ^Säya&iya
ySäya&iyänäm of the Achaemenide kings*).
1) loc. cit., p. 208 ff.
2) See now E. Kuhn, Zu den arischen Anschauungen vom Königtum. Fest¬
schrift Vilhelm Thomsen zur Vollendung des sechzigsten Lebensjahres am 25. Jan.
1912 dargebracht von Freunden und Schülern. Leipzig 1912, pp. 214 ff.
1 2
Konow, On the nationality of the Kufauas. 93
The languages used in theye legends are barbaric Greek and
an Indian dialect. There are, if we abstract from the names of
the king, only two words which might belong te the old language
of the Kusanas, viz. yavuga , javua , or zaoo , and the designation
Kusana for which the Greek legends give korsano , kosano , or 5
khoransu. The former has already been mentioned, and the latter
will be dealt with later on. It is impossible to base any con¬
clusions on these words.
The coins of Vima Kadphises do not carry us further. Thej'
likewise contain legends in Greek and an Indian language , and lO
nothing which seems to throw light on the nature of the language
of the Kusanas. The names Kujula and Vima, and the name or
designation Kadphises I am unable to explain.
The state of affairs is different if we turn to the coins struck
by Kaniska and his successors. The alphabet is Greek , but the 16
language is often neither Greek nor Indian, and it seems probable
that it is actually the home tongue of the Kusanas as some scholars
have maintained. It will be sufficient to examine the coins of
Kaniska. The inference which might be drawn from them also
holds good with reference to the coins struck by his successors. 20
The coins of Kaniska, so far as they do not show the Greek
legend BASIAETS bJzIAESIN KANEPKOT, are inscribed with
Greek letters which are usually read saonano sao KaneSki Kosano.
Sir Aurel Stein*) reads äähanäno sah, Dr. Salemann*) Sähiäno
Sah , while Baron v. Stael Holstein ") thinks that sähänu säht is «5
the reading intended. I think it possible to explain the legend
without assuming that the letter which we read 0 in Kosano,
should be read h in Sao and Sao{nano}.
There cannot be any doubt that Saonano sao corresponds to
the ancient Persian designation of the king as king of kings, Middle so
Persian Sähän Säh; Saonano must accordingly be the gen. plur.
of a word which in the nom. sing, has the form Sao. The word
must consequently be an n-theme and cannot be etymologically
the same as Middle Persian Sah, though it is derived from the
same base ;f*5y, to have power over, to rule. Middle Persian säh, 35
Old Persian ySäya&iya is a secondary derivation from *ySäya&a
power, while Saon contains the base yjäy with the suffix van,
possessing.
The termination ano, i. e. probably äno, of the gen. plur. of
an n-theme is not what we would expect from a comparison with 40
Old Iranian. Forms such as Avestan aSaonqm , of the righteous
ones, show that the old termination was äm and not änäm, which
latter termination properly belongs to a-themes like ySäya&iya.
1) Indian Antiquary, 1888, p. 95.
2) Grundriß der iranischen Philologie, I, i, p. 269.
3) Tocharisch und die Sprache II, p. 1369.
94 Konow, On the nationality of the Kti^anas.
But in Khotani it is used in all nouns , as generally in Middle
Persian. Compare hvandänu, gen. plur. of the base kvand, man,
where the termination is anu, and it will be seen that this is
exactly identical with ano, i. e. äno in saonano. The only difTerence
5 is found in the final vowel, which in Khotani is u and in the coin
legend o. This does not however signify much. In the first place
the from kusana as compared with the kosano of the coin legends
shows that M and o cannot have differed very much in sound in
the language of the Kusanas. In the second place we sometimes
10 find o instead of u in Khotani; compare ayso instead of the common
aysu, I. And, finally, the termination of the gen. plur. in Khotani
has probably formerly been äno and not anu. We know that an
old am in Khotani becomes u, while äm regularly becomes o ; com¬
pare the acc. sing. masc. and fem. of the demonstrative pronoun ttu,
15 tto, respectively. The genitive termination is derived from an old
änäm and not änam, and we should therefore in Khotani expect äno
and not anu, which latter form must be due to a secondary
shortening.
1 am not in a position to say how the nom. sing, of an n-theme
20 was formed in Khotani. The probability is that the n was dropped
as in Old Iranian, and that an old ksävä would become sao, com¬
pare, odä, up to which must be connected with Av. avat.
The forms saonano sao are accordingly just what we would
expect in Old Khotani , and I even think it possible to trace the
25 identical word saon in that language. In a version of the Apa-
rimitäyuhsütradhäranl which Sir Aurel Stein found in the cave
temples near Tun-huang, a word sauna is used to translate Skr.
kürunikasya, of the Merciful one, of the Buddha. The same word
occurs in the fragment of the Suvarnaprabhäsasütra published by
30 M. Pelliot*) where we read ukaride muku haysa muMa ssauna
sirna aysmüna cu ra dasau di^ vl ide ttirstamda cu äivävärn
pirma. The corresponding Sanskrit passage runs samanväharantu
mäm buddhäh krpäkärunyacetasah atyayam pratigrhnantu daia-
dik.m vyavasthitah. It will be seen that the words rnuMa ssauna
35 sirna aysmüna and cu siväväm pirma are used to translate krpä¬
kärunyacetasah. The translation is however far from being literal.
Sirna aysmüna is a noun and its adjective in the instrumental,
"with benevolent mind", and cu diväväm pirma seems to mean
"those who are the foremost of the gracious ones". Mu^da is a
40 well known noun which means "compassion", "pity", and ssauna
must be the nom. plur. of a noun governing it, so that the whole
must mean 'possessed of compassion", 'compassionate", or, perhaps
"lords of mercy". The whole passage can accordingly be translated,
^ 1) Un fragment du Suvarnaprabhäsasütra en iranien oriental par P. Pelliot.
Etudes linguistiques sur les documents do la mission Pelliot, Fasc. IV, Paris 1913, p. 12.
Konow, On the nationality of the Kufanaa. 95
•the Buddhas will proclaim me, the lords of mercy, with benevolent
mind, those who are standing in the ten quarters, who are foremost
of the gracious (?) ones". In the Aparimitäyuhsütra the word sauna
is used in a passage which recurs several times and which runs
sauna ttramdye stäm klthäsfä västa, which translates Sanskrit 5
Srunlyati karunikasya pure praves'avte, it is heard when they
enter the town of the mercyful one. The translation is not however
literal. The Khotani text can only mean "it is read by him who
has entered into the town of sauna". Sauna here accordingly
means the same as rtrndda ssauna in the Suvarnaprabhäsasütra and 10
must be the genitive singular of the word which in the nom. plur.
is ssauna. The meaning "master", "lord" is certainly possible in
both passages, and if so, it is very likely that here we have the
identical word which occurs in the title Saonano sao.
So far, accordingly, my analysis of the legend on Kaniska's ir
coins favours Baron v. Sta6l Holstein's theory that the language
of the Kusanas was Old Khotani, though I cannot follow him in
assuming that the real form of the words in the title is Sähänu
Säht. If we now turn to the next word KaneSki, we will there
find a further corroboration. The termination i is, in Khotani, the 20
regular one in the nom. sing, of a-bases*), and Kaneski would be
a quite regular form. In Khotani, the gen. sing, of a-bases also
ends in i', and it is quite possible that we have here the explanation
of the false concord in the Greek legend of some of Kaniska's
copper coins hasileus hasileon Kaneskou. If this is a mechanical «5
translation of Saonano Sao KaneSki, we cannot wonder at its in¬
correctness considering that Sao can only be the nom. , while
KaneSki can be the gen. as well.
If we compare the form KaneSki with the form Kaniska,
which is common in inscriptions and in literature, we will find that so
there is an interchange between e and i. It is of course impossible
to lay much stress on this state of things. Still, if we consider
that everything else points towards Khotani, it is worth remembering
that that language possessed a sound which is denoted by means
of two dots over the consonant, and which is commonly transliterated S5
ä, and that this sound must have been similar to i, with which
it often interchanges; compare mästä and mistä, great. It is
possible that the e in KaneSki denotes this same round. The name
itself I cannot explain. The compound sk is not however, un-
frequent in Khotani, and the beginning of the name of Kaniska's iO
successor Huviska shows that we have here to do with an Iranian
tongue.
The remaining word of the legend is KoSano. The form
cannot be a nom. sing., if we assume it to belong to the same
language as the rest, but must necessarely be a gen. plur. Baron
1) Cf. Baron v. Stael Holstein, 1. c, p. 1370.
1 2 *
96 Konow, On the nationality of the Kusanas.
V. Stael Holstein has, some time ago, in a letter to me suggested
this explanation, and also drawn attention to the Cakravartins Kuda,
Upakuia, and Mahäkusa mentioned in the Mahävyutpatti, 180, 14-16.
I think there are also some other traces of an ethnic name
6 kosa or kuaa, which must be inferred from the gen. plur. koiano.
The Puraiias*) know a continent or dvtpa which is called
Kuda-dvlpa; the town Dvärakä was also known as Kuäa-sthali;
we hear of several kings of the name of Kusa, and so forth.
Marquart*) draws attention to a passage in Claudius Mamertinus'
10 Panegyricus, in which we are informed that Ormies in a war against
his brother Bahräm II (276—293) was assisted by Sacci Ruffi and
Gelli, where Ruffi is probably miswritten for Cussi.
In his study on the tales about Kaniska recorded in the Chinese
translation of the SütralankäraSästra , which was executed about
15 the year 405 A.D., Professor Levi remarks^) that the translator
of a passage which runs "in the lineage of the Kusanas there was
a king Gen-tan-Kia-ni-c'a (i. e. devaputra Kaniska)", the trans¬
lator has read Kusänäm varnse, in the lineage of the Kusas , and
not Kusanavamäe, in the Kusana lineage, 'soit par distraction soit
20 par faux savoir". We have however seen that the form Koäano
on Kaniska's coin can only be the gen. plur., of a koäi. Moreover
king Kanika is in the Mahäräjakanikalekha *) said to belong to the
Ku^a race. It is therefore very likely that the original reading
of the passage in the Süträlaiikära was actually Kusänäm varnse,
25 and this would be of considerable importance because Aävaghosa,
the author of the Süträlankära, is stated to have been a contemporary
of Kaniska. On the other hand, the existence of an adjective
kusana seems to be certain, but this must be derived from the noun
kusa by adding a suffix na, just as we, in Khotani, find adjectives 30 formed from nouns by means of this suffix; cf. hudihuna, belonging
to good men, from dahä, a man ; ysarnrmai, golden, from ysara, gold.
If this explanation is correct, the forms korsano, kosano in
the coin legends of Kujula Kadphises must likewise be the gen.
plur. of the base koäa, and khoransu must be miswritten for
85 khorsanu. It should be noted that this last form contains the
genitive suffix anu, which corresponds to Khotani anu, while the
forms ending in ano, i. e. äno, as has already been remarked,
represents an older form.
The base of the noun is accordingly koia or perhaps, koräa,
40 from which the Khotani nominative forms would be koäi, koräi,
respectively. Baron v. Stagl Holstein is of opinion that this word
is the same as that which the Chinese have transmuted to Yiie-chi.
1) Cf. Visnu Puräna, II, iv, 35 ff.
2) ioc. cit., p. 36, note 2.
3) Notes sur les Indo-Scytlies , Journal Asiatique, IX< sirie, VIII, 1896, p. 457, note.
4) See Thomas, Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXII, p. 848.
1 2 *
Konow, On the nationality of the Kusanas. 97
We have seen that the old form of this word is gilt or get, and
we know that a final r was occasionally rendered by the Chinese
with a sign which in Modern Cantonese has become t^). There
is accordingly much to be said for this identification, and it would
considerably strengthen the explanation of the form koiano as a 6
gen. plur.
It will be seen that every word and every form in the coin
legend of Kaniska is in full agreement with the state of affairs in
Old Khotani, and, so far as we know, there is absolutely nothing
that militates against the supposition that the Kusanas actually lo
spoke a form of the language which we know , from a somewhat
later period, in Old Khotani. There is also some additional indi¬
cation that Kusanas have been settled in the Khotan country. A
man of the n&me Kusanasena is mentioned in the KharosthT
documents from Old Tu-ho-lo published by Professor Rapson*). i5
The fact that Kaniska and his successors used the native tongue
of the Kusanas in their coin legends, while the Kadphises group
have replaced it with Greek and Indian, would seem to add some
strength to the theory advocated by Dr. Fleet 8) and Professor
Franke *) that the former proceeded the latter, and this theory would 20
also explain the statement in Chinese sources that Vima Kadphises
"again" conquered India. It would even be possible to assume
that Kujula Kadphises, who was not properly an Indian ruler,
might have ruled as a contemporary, during some time of his reign,
of Vasudeva. Professor Lüders's brilliant discovery of the word 25
kaisar in an inscription dated in the 41'' year of the Kaniska era*)
makes it however impossible to place Kaniska in the first century
B.C., and the testimony of the coins*) is distinctly in favour of
the common theory according to which Kaniska and his successors
succeeded the Kadphises group. Dr. Marshall's recent discoveries so
at Taxila have finally brought the much desired proof that such
was the case. "I have no hesitation". Dr. Marshall says in a
lecture delivered before the Panjab Historical Society, Septembre 4"^, 1913, "in saying that the evidence from this site points to Kaniska
having reigned in the 2"* rather than the 1'' century A. D. and 35
entirely precludes 57 B.C. as the date of his accession".
The use of their old language by Kaniska and his successors
does not therefore prove anything. It is even possible to compare
1) See Baron v. Stael Holstein, Tisastvustik , Ein in türkischer Sprache bearbeitetes buddhistisches Sütra. Bibliotheca Buddhica. XII. St, Fetersbourg
1910, p. 141, foot notes 2 and 3.
2) See E. J. Rapson, Specimens of the Kharostbl inscriptions discovered by Dr. Stein at Niya, p. 9.
3) JRAS., 1903, p. 334. 4) loc. cit., p. 94.
5) Epigraphische Beiträge, Sitzungsberichte der Kgl. PreuS, Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1912, pp. 806 ff.
6) See now F. W. Thomas, The Date of Kaniska, JRAS., 1913, pp. 627 ff.
an the literature there quoted.
Zeitichrift der D. M. G. Bd. G3 (1914). 7
98 Konow, On the nationality of the Kufanas,
the state of things in ancient Turkistan. The language of trade
and of government a long time remained Indian, and it was only
later on that it was replaced by the spoken language of the country.
In the same way the Kadphises kings used the language of their
5 Indian subjects, and it was only Kaniska and his successors who
introduced their own language. It is also worth remembering that
the title saonano äao Koiano exactly corresponds to the designation
"king of kuet-Suang", which was, according to Chinese sources,
first adopted by Kadphises I, but which did not come into general
10 use till after the conquest of India by Kadphises II.
If I am right in assuming that the home tongue of the Kusanas
was Old Khotani, we would expect to find other traces of this
language in India. Now Professor Lüders has shown*) that the
word horamurta which occurs in the Manikyala inscription, must
15 denote "som lay official in connection with the administration of
the vihara". Now hora is the Khotani word for "gift", and murta
might correspond to Zend mania, man , so that horamuria might
be a Khotani word meaning "the alms man", i. e. an official in
charge of the alms. When I suggested this explanation to Professor
20 Lüders some time ago, he informed me that he had himself, in a
paper read to the Berlin Academy, arrived at the same explanation
of the word hora, and the fact that we have both independently
arrived at the same conclusion, makes me more confident that it
is correct. With regard to murta it should be stated that we
25 would expect to find muda and not murta in Khotani as the
representative of Zend mardta. But no Khotani documents are so
old as the Manikyala inscription , and muda must ultimately be
derived from murta. An intermediate form murda seems to occur
in the words horamurnda or horamurndaga in some later Mathura
30 inscriptions*). The writing murnda makes it very probable that
I was right") when I explained the use of nd in the room of d
in Khotani alphabets as an indication that old nd had become d.
At all events, it is of interest to find the same orthographic peculi¬
arity in Khotani and in the Mathura inscriptions.
35 We do not know how the Kusanas were related to the various
other foreign rulers in India in the centuries about the beginning
of our era. We possess coins of kings with " Scythic names together with the Parthian title basileus basileön" ; and we find several
rulers with the Persian title ksatrapa in Northern and Western
40 India. It is not likely that all these ksatrapas belonged to
one and the same tribe, but some of them may have been related
1) JRAS., 1909, pp. 650ff.
2) See Rakbal Das BandyopadbySya , Mathura Inscriptions in the Indian Mnseum. Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Voi. V, pp. 237 ff.
3) Sitzungsberichte der Kgl. Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1912, p. 1130.
Konow, On the nationality of the Kufanat. 99
to the Kusanas. Professor Rapson*) maintains that "the Kusanas
certainly imitated their Parthian and Öaka predecessors in many
respects". "They use", he says, "the same or similar titles — basileus
basileön and its equivalent Saonano Sao, and Kujula, Kuyula, or
Kozoulo, Kozola = Kusulaa or Kozoulo, the forms of the same 5
title used by the satraps of Taxila, and the Sarnath inscrs. show-
that they adopted also the established system of government by
means of satraps. Their empire in the time of Kaniska seems to
have "extended all over North-Western India, probably as far south as the Vindhyas", and it is reasonable to suppose that the Western lo Ksatrapas were originally their viceroys in the south-western provinces of this vast dominion ".
Among the names of these Western Ksatrapas there is one
which seems to belong to the same language as the coin legend
of Kaniska, viz. Ysamotika, the name of the father of Cas^ana. i8
The name has formerly been read Ghsamotika, and I have myself tried
to explain this as a Khotani word*). The late Professor Bühler*),
however, maintained that the proper reading is Ysamotika, and
Professor Lüders has lately, in a paper read to the Berlin Academy,
shown that this is the case , and that the compound letter ys is *o
here used to denote the voiced sibilant z , just as is the case in
Khotani. We can perhaps get a little farther. Ysamotika is perhaps
a derivation of the Khotani word ysama, earth, with a suffix utika,
which is formed from uti, by adding ka. Ut-i would in Khotani
be the regular weak form of the suffix vant, possessing, and tbe 25
literal meaning of Ysamotika would accordingly be "earth-possessing",
i. e. it would have the same meaning as the name Bhümaka, which
is used of another Western Ksatrapa. Similarly the name of one
of the great grandsons of Castana is variously written Dänuijada
and Dämaysada, and the latter form again contains ys for the so
voiced z, ysada, ysada being the form of the participle of the base
ysan, to bear. This form is again Khotani, where it is written
ysata but was certainly pronounced ysada. Later on it becomes
ysada, with a cerebral d'^) , and it is possible that this identical
form if also used in Damnysada, where the last aksara is often 35
read as da.
1) See Rapson, Catalogue of the coins of the Andhra Dynasty, the Western Ksatrapas , the Traikütaka Dynasty and the ' Bodbi" Dynasty. London 1908, pp. XCVlIlff.
2) loc. cit., p. CVI.
3) Oöttingische gelehrte Anzeigen, 1912, Nr. 9, p. 556.
4) Die indischen Inschriften und das Alter der indischen Kunstpoesie.
Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Phil.- hist. Classe, Bd. CXXII, No. XI, p. 48.
5) See A. F. Rudolf Hoernle, A Report on the British Collection of Anti¬
quities from Central Asia with thirteen facsimile plates, three tables and six woodcuts. Part II. Extra Number 1 to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. Ixx, Part i, 1901, CalcutU 1902, p. 38, No. 8, 1. 4.
?•
100 ifConovj, On the nationality of the Kufanas.
The forms of these names therefore add probability to the view
that the Western Ksatrapas were the viceroys of the Kusanas.
It must then have been Vima Kadphises who extended the empire
of the Kusanas to those parts of Western India where we find the
6 Western Ksatrapas. This would lead to the conclusion that the
^aka era, which was used by the Western K.satrapas, starts from
this conquest.
I am not however going to add a new one to the several
theories which have already been propounded about the origin of
10 the Öaka era. What I hope to have done is to add some strength
to the theory that the Tochari, to whom the Kusanas belonged,
were Iranians, and, more especially, that their language was closely
connected , if not identical with the form of speech which is
represented in numerous manuscript fragments and documents found
15 in the south of Chinese Turkistan, and which we have provisionally called Khotani.
This agrees with the view advocated by Professor L6vi*) in
his remarks on the title Cen-t'an applied to Kaniska in the Chinese
version of the Süträlankära, *Cen-t'an Kaniska", he says, "would
20 be Kaniska, king of Khotan". And further, "I cannot avoid
believing that the cradle of the power of the Tukhära-Turuskas
is to be found in that region".
1) Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXII, p. 385.
101
Das Sastitantra^).
Von F. Otto Schräder.
I.
Wenn in einem Werke der Yoga-Literatur*) das §astitantra
nicht unter diesem Namen sondern schlechthin als „das Öästra" zitiert
wird, und wenn dasselbe Zitat in Väcaspati's Bhämati") bei der Be¬
sprechung des Yoga und als der Ausspruch eines yogaäOstram
vyutpädayitä erscheint, so möchte man glauben, daß jenes ver¬
schollene Lehrbuch der Sämkhya - Philosophie für den Yoga be¬
trächtlich mehr übrig gehabt habe als seine angeblich vollständige
Inhaltsangabe: die Sämkhya-Kärikä*).
Verstärkt wird dieser Eindruck durch die heiligen Bücher der
Jainas "). Man vergleiche die folgenden beiden Stellen *): „. . . vdi-
sesiam, vuddha-vayanam , kävilam, vesiam, logäyatam, sat-
thitantam, mädharam, puränam . . und „samkhä jogl'^)
kävilä, hhiuvvü, harnsä, paramahamsä . . .". Es entsprechen
einander also kävilam und kävilä, satthitantam und samkhä jogi.
Leider fehlt der Kommentar zur ersten Stelle; zur zweiten aber
1) Wesentlich identisch mit einem in der Sitzung vom 11. April 1912 der Indischen Sektion des Internationalen Orientalisten-Kongresses in Athen gehaltenen Vortrag.
2) VySsa's BhSsya zu Yo. Sü. IV, 13.
3) Zu Bra. Sü. II, 1, 3; vgl. Tuien, Toga, p. 15.
4) Saptatyäm kila ye'rthäs te'rthäh krtmasya ^aßtitantrasya , Sä.
Kä. 72. In der KärikS ist vom Yoga nur andeutungsweise die Rede, und zwar wird derselbe {aiivarya) als der Erlösung hinderlich betrachtet (Vers 63).
5) Vgl. Garbe, Sämkhya-Philosophie, p. 58/59: „Wenn aber in den heiligen Texten der Jaina das Satthitamtaip neben dem Kävilam (= skt. Käpilam, was für ein Sämkbya-Werk könnte damit gemeint sein?) angeführt wird' usw.
(der Schluß ist verfehlt, wegen vaisesiam usw.).
6) Die erste steht im Anuyogadvära-Sütra, ed. Calc. p. 92 (Berl. HSS. V, p. 697), die zweite im Aupapätika-Sütra, ed. Leumann § 76 (ed. Calc. p. 268;
Berl. HSS. V, p. 539; Ind. Stud. XVI, p. 379).
7) Daß diese beiden hier als Vertreter eines und desselben Systems, eben des Sämkhya-Yoga , und nicht mit dem Kommentator einzeln zu zählen sind, ergibt sich aus der Zahl (beide Male 8, nicht 9) der in den folgenden beiden Listen genannten Hauptvertreter jener brahmanischen Asketenorden.
