Often lost among the giant second-wave empires of Persia, Macedonia/Greece, Rome, China, and India is the story of a smaller empire—that of the Kushan people—whose Central Asian state interacted directly or indirectly with all the others. At its height during the first two centuries of the Common Era, the Kushan Empire, according to one recent account, “created stable conditions at the heart of Central Asia, allowing for the great flowering of trans-Eurasian mercantile and cultural exchange that occurred along the Silk Roads.”15

The Kushans, originally a pastoral nomadic people from an area around Dunhuang at the far western edge of China, had migrated in the early centuries B.C.E. to the region that now makes up northwestern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, where they established a sizable and prosperous empire linked to the Silk Road trading network. It was a remarkably cosmopolitan place, illustrating the mixing and blending of many cultural traditions. Since parts of this empire had earlier been ruled by Alexander the Great and his Greek successors (see pages 114–17), classical Mediterranean culture was a prominent element of Kushan life. The Kushans used the Greek alphabet to write their official language, which was derived from India. Roman bronze and glassware items have been found in Kushan merchant warehouses, and scholars suspect that Roman gold coins, used to pay for Eastern imports, were melted down and recast as Kushan coins. From the other end of Eurasia, Kushans imported Chinese lacquer goods, and on at least one occasion, Kushan military forces clashed with those of an expanding Han dynasty China. The greatest of the Kushan rulers, Kanishka (r. ca. 127–153 C.E.), styled himself “Great King, King of Kings, Son of God,” a title that had both Persian and Chinese precedents.

Religiously, the Kushan Empire was a diverse and apparently tolerant place. Hindu devotional cults as well as Buddhism flourished, and evidence of Persian Zoroastrian religious practice is found on many Kushan coins, which depict the ruler conducting a sacrifice over a fire altar. It was in the Kushan realm that the earliest human representations of the Buddha were sculpted, and often with distinctly Greek features. (See Working with Evidence, Source 4.2.) Despite these outside influences, Kushan artists recalled their nomadic past as they depicted their rulers in typical steppe nomadic style: on horseback, wearing loose trousers, heavy boots, and knee-length robes.

A Kushan pendant dating to the fourth century C.E., shown opposite, illustrates the cultural blending so characteristic of Kushan life. It features Hariti, originally a fearsome Hindu goddess who abducted and killed children, feeding their flesh to her own offspring. But in an encounter with the Buddha, Hariti repented and was transformed into a compassionate protector of children. Here she is depicted holding in her right hand a lotus blossom, a prominent Buddhist symbol; her left hand holds another lotus flower supporting a flask or cornucopia overflowing with pomegranates (symbolizing food and abundance). According to local mythology, the Buddha had offered Hariti pomegranates (often said to resemble human flesh) as a substitute for the children she was devouring.

While the content of this pendant is thoroughly Indian and Buddhist, its representation of Hariti was probably modeled after the Greek goddess Tyche (TEE-chee), also portrayed holding a cornucopia. Furthermore, her short tunic worn with a belt was likewise of Greek or Hellenistic origin. And the border of pearls and stylized flowers that surround the image derives from Persia.

During the time of the Kushan Empire, Central Asia, so often regarded as a backwater in recent centuries, was a place where the political, cultural, and economic influences of all the Eurasian civilizations overlapped and intermingled. For those several centuries, the Kushan Empire was at the center of an interacting world.

Questions: How does the Kushan Empire challenge impressions that second-wave civilizations of Eurasia existed in isolation from one another? Why do you think the Kushan artist who created this pendant chose to weave together so many distinct cultural strands?