Daily Life in the Kushan World

Daily life under the Kushans depended on homes, resources, skills and relationships extending beyond a single household. From the first to third centuries CE, people lived in irrigated settlements in Bactria, north of the Hindu Kush mountains, the valleys of Gandhara around Peshawar in present-day northwestern Pakistan, and cities of northern India. Cultivators, herders, potters, religious teachers, donors and travellers participated in connected activities, while local geography and social position shaped their circumstances.

Excavated buildings explain the use of rooms and vessels; images show selected forms of clothing and work; and inscriptions preserve named people taking part in religious gifts. Together, these examples make particular lives and institutions visible. A wealthy Bactrian residence and a nun’s dedication at Mathura illuminate different settings within the same broad political world.

On this page5 sections

Settlements, homes and household supplies

At Dalverzin Tepe, in the Surkhan Darya valley of present-day Uzbekistan, Kushan-period houses stood within a fortified town containing streets, religious buildings and workshops. A separately defended citadel occupied its southern edge. Large residences in the central area had reception rooms, corridors and working spaces, while more modest dwellings occupied other quarters.

Two excavated houses known as DT5 and DT6 show how a prosperous household could organize access. A porch led into an entrance room and a reception hall; other rooms lay farther inside. The labels are modern excavation names, identifying buildings whose owners are not named. Their arrangements gave visitors an impressive place to be received while separating that activity from the household’s inner work and residence.

Earth brick and compacted clay formed much of the building fabric, with timber and other elements supporting roofs. Water arrangements included reservoirs and channels, while excavators also described underground supply and drainage. Bringing water in and taking wastewater away answered different needs. The upkeep of such systems connected household activity with work carried out across the town.

Pottery served storage, preparation and meals. Excavated groups at ancient Termez include jars, bowls, cups and plates, some finished with slip, a fine clay coating applied before firing. These objects connected people who produced food with those who processed, stored and served it. Villages and irrigated fields around the towns supplied crops and livestock, while carriers brought products to households that were not themselves farming.

Work, clothing and useful objects

Pottery workshops at Dalverzin supplied a concrete form of specialist work. Preparing clay, shaping a vessel, drying it and heating it in a kiln, an enclosed firing installation, turned a soft material into a durable container. Stone carvers and makers of clay religious figures followed different processes, but their work likewise required knowledge of a material and the use for which an object was intended.

Sacred images connected craft with patronage. Mathura’s red sandstone figures could be transported to distant places and erected with large stone furnishings. Their production involved quarrying and carving, while installation required preparation at the destination. A donor’s gift therefore supported a chain of practical work as well as the religious community that received it.

Personal objects brought skilled manufacture to a smaller scale. An ivory comb from Dalverzin was made for grooming; jewellery combined shaped metal, fastening and stones; and bars inscribed with weights made quantities of gold explicit. Possessions could thus serve bodily care, adornment or the handling of wealth, with different demands on their makers.

Clothing in art identifies particular social and religious presentations. Royal coats, trousers and boots recalled Central Asian traditions of dress and riding. Small gold ornaments could be sewn to tunics. Buddhist figures in monastic robes conveyed renunciation, while richly adorned bodhisattvas, beings pursuing awakening, could appear in princely form. Understanding whom an image represents explains why its garments and ornaments were selected.

Families, women and religious patrons

Inscribed gifts reveal relationships between relatives, teachers and pupils. The nun Buddhamitra, described as learned in the Tripitaka, the three major collections of Buddhist teaching, participated in early Kushan dedications at several northern Indian sacred centres. At Sarnath, the monk Bala’s image dedication included her within a network that also involved regional governors.

A later Mathura inscription names Dhanavati, Buddhamitra’s sister’s daughter, as the giver of an image with her parents. It also identifies Buddhamitra as Bala’s pupil. Family connection and religious instruction therefore appear together in the same record. Dhanavati’s monastic standing coexisted with a public gift made alongside her mother and father.

Other Mathura dedications name female teachers directly. Khuda and another donor were identified as pupils of Dinna; Budhadeva gave an image with her parents and was described as Pushahathini’s pupil. These records show women participating as teachers, learners and organizers of gifts. Their relationships were made durable by carving names and affiliations into a sacred object.

Merit gave such donations a wider religious purpose. Supporting a sacred place was understood as a beneficial act, and inscriptions could share its benefit with parents or all living beings. A gift supplied an institution with an image or furnishing while allowing a wider circle of people to participate in its significance.

Worship, pilgrimage and giving

Buddhist stupas enclosed relics and provided a focus for sacred remembrance. Worshippers approached them from outside and could follow a walking circuit, an action known as circumambulation. Sculpture on the monument’s drum presented episodes of the Buddha’s life, joining movement around a sacred place with images of its religious narrative.

Relic containers explain another part of this practice. A second-century stone box probably recovered from a stupa at Chahar Bagh in Afghanistan has a fitted lid and lotus-shaped knob. Such a reliquary prepared valued material for enclosure within a monument. Ritual vessels also gave devotion a physical form: a Gandharan bronze lid is associated by museum interpretation with water poured in honour of relics, while later related uses included bathing sacred images.

Monastic establishments connected these sacred spaces with communities. At Fayaz Tepe, near Termez, temple rooms, accommodation and service areas stood beside a stupa outside the main building. Donor paintings in Bactrian Buddhist settings made lay support visible alongside sacred figures.

Other religious communities had their own images and settings. Jain teachers at Mathura were represented in meditation, expressing liberation and renunciation. Brahmanical deities were identified by attributes such as Shiva’s trident or Vishnu’s wheel, mace and conch. A third-century painted panel from Bactria, possibly mounted in a family shrine, shows a worshipper approaching a deity identified by the museum as Shiva, associated with the Kushan divine name Oesho. Devotion could thus take place within a domestic interior as well as a monumental precinct.

Routes, travellers and communication

Movement joined the regions across valleys, mountain crossings and towns. Begram, north of Kabul near the Panjshir and Ghorband valleys, occupied an important position on approaches to the Hindu Kush. Routes through the Kabul river corridor connected Afghanistan with Gandhara, while other connections reached northern India and the oasis centres of the Tarim Basin.

Animals and supplies made those routes usable. Camels carried goods along Central Asian stretches, and horses appear with reins, saddles and securing straps in Gandharan sculpture. Carriers had to obtain food, water and fodder and manage loads over changing terrain. Long-distance goods could pass through successive merchants, allowing an object to travel farther than an individual trader.

Religious travel created intellectual connections too. Lokaksema, associated in later Chinese biographies with the Yuezhi, the people from whom the Kushan dynasty emerged, translated Buddhist teachings in Luoyang during the later second century. His work required language collaboration and interpretation, turning the movement of teachings into texts accessible to a new audience.

Diplomatic and military journeys used the northern connections for political purposes. The Chinese historical compilation Hou Hanshu records Chenpan’s return to Kashgar with Kushan soldiers during 114–120 CE, followed by his acquisition of royal insignia. Another account describes a Kushan expedition compelled to withdraw in 90 CE after the Han commander Ban Chao denied it supplies. The same landscape that connected markets and religious communities could therefore carry claims to power, with provisions remaining essential to every successful journey.