Kushan Lands, Peoples, Languages and Scripts

The Kushan realm linked river valleys, irrigated plains and high mountain approaches across Central Asia and northern India. During the first to third centuries CE, its rulers governed from a Bactrian base and extended their power into Afghanistan, Gandhara and the northern Indian plains. These regions were connected by political authority and movement, while their communities retained different languages and written traditions.

Geography helps explain those connections. Bactria’s farming districts supported towns north of the Hindu Kush; valleys guided movement across Afghanistan; and Gandhara joined mountain approaches with the Indus region. Mathura stood farther east in a different lowland setting. Coins, inscriptions and religious manuscripts then show how people wrote for the audiences and purposes of these places.

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Bactria and the irrigated northern landscape

Bactria lay around the Amu Darya, known to Greek writers as the Oxus, and the lands north of the Hindu Kush in what are now Afghanistan and Central Asia. River-fed irrigation supported cultivated oases, settlements and the supplies needed by urban populations. The surroundings included pastures and routes into neighbouring regions as well as concentrated areas of farming.

The Kushan dynasty emerged here from groups associated with the Yuezhi, who had migrated into Central Asia during the second century BCE. The region already contained established towns and traditions shaped by earlier Iranian and Greek rule. A new dynasty consequently entered a landscape with its own inhabitants, productive systems and forms of written communication.

At Dalverzin Tepe, in the Surkhan Darya valley, residential quarters, workshops, religious buildings and a citadel occupied a fortified town. Ancient Termez lay near the junction of the Surkhan Darya with the Amu Darya. Such places show how settlement concentrated around river systems and the farming districts that could supply inhabitants and institutions.

Mountain approaches and Gandhara

The Hindu Kush separated northern and southern districts without preventing movement between them. Travellers followed valleys towards passes and descended into another drainage system on the other side. The location of a town near a valley junction could therefore matter to travel and exchange as well as to its immediate agricultural surroundings.

Begram, north of Kabul, stood near the Panjshir and Ghorband valleys. Farther southeast, the Kabul river corridor connected Afghanistan with the Peshawar valley. Gandhara encompassed important parts of this northwestern South Asian landscape, including centres around Peshawar and Taxila. Its settlements stood within connections between Central Asia, the Indus region and northern India.

The rivers also created different local environments. Cultivation, towns and religious establishments developed in valleys and plains, while upland districts and mountain passages required other forms of movement and access. Kushan political expansion joined these districts, but the physical course of travel continued to follow the ground and available supplies.

Mathura and the northern Indian plains

Mathura, beside the Yamuna river in northern India, was an important Kushan centre far from the dynasty’s Bactrian base. Its inscriptions name Kushan rulers, and its workshops produced red sandstone images for several religious communities. Objects made there travelled to other destinations, including Bala’s large image erected at Sarnath.

The Rabatak royal inscription in Bactria claimed authority over cities farther east, including Saketa, Kaushambi and Pataliputra. It connects the court’s ambitions with the northern Indian plains, although the precise depth and duration of direct rule in the easternmost districts remain debated. Mathura’s local record is more concrete: named rulers, dated gifts and an active sculptural tradition place it firmly within the Kushan world.

These connections linked distinct environments. A Bactrian canal town, a Gandharan valley monastery and a Mathuran stone workshop depended on different resources while participating in wider flows of people, goods and patronage.

Bactrian and the adaptation of Greek writing

Bactrian was an Iranian language used in the region of Bactria. It belonged to a different language family from the Indo-Aryan languages of northern India. Its writing system used an alphabet based on Greek, reflecting the region’s earlier history of Greek rule and written practice.

A language is the system of words and speech, while a script is the set of signs used to write it. The Kushan use of Bactrian makes the distinction especially clear. Early coin issues carried Greek language as well as Greek letters. During Kanishka’s reign, Bactrian replaced Greek in coin legends while retaining and adapting the alphabet. The shape of the letters therefore continued across a change in the language they represented.

The alphabet included a special sign for the sound sh, which the ordinary Greek alphabet did not supply. Adapting a script in this way let writers express local names and words while working within an established set of letter forms. Royal titles, divine names and public building records became visible in Bactrian.

The Rabatak inscription refers to a language called Aryan, understood here as Bactrian, in a passage commonly interpreted as a change from Greek. The exact wording of the decision is debated, but the switch on the coinage gives a separate, tangible record of the change. Surkh Kotal’s restoration inscription provides another substantial Bactrian document, describing work carried out at a royal sanctuary.

Gandhari, Kharoshthi and Buddhist manuscripts

Gandhari was an Indo-Aryan language associated with Gandhara. It is one of the Prakrits, a group of historical languages related to Sanskrit and used in varied regional settings. Gandhari appears in religious texts, inscriptions and coin legends, commonly written in Kharoshthi.

Kharoshthi is a script written mainly from right to left. Its development drew on Aramaic writing, which had circulated through earlier imperial administration. A consonant sign normally includes a vowel sound, while additional marks can alter the vowel. This differs from an alphabet in which consonants and vowels are regularly written as independent letters.

Buddhist manuscripts preserve writing on birch bark, thin layers of bark prepared as a surface for ink. A scroll known in modern catalogues as Bajaur 5 is dated broadly to 50–150 CE. Another Gandhari manuscript of the Dharmapada, a collection of Buddhist verses, is dated to the second century and associated with the Khotan region. Such objects place a regional written language within a wider religious network, including destinations beyond Gandhara.

Manuscripts could be carried, read and copied, allowing teachings to travel separately from monumental inscriptions. Their material form therefore mattered: a scroll offered a portable surface for an extended text, while a carved dedication kept a gift’s record at its place of installation.

Brahmi, Sanskrit and writing for different purposes

Brahmi was another important South Asian script, generally written from left to right. It appears in the Kushan-period inscriptions of the Mathura region, where texts often use Prakrit forms and increasingly Sanskritized language. Sanskrit is an Indo-Aryan language associated with learned and religious traditions, distinct from Brahmi, the script used in these inscriptions.

Image inscriptions recorded donors, teachers, relatives and dates under a ruler. Their purpose differed from a royal proclamation or a coin legend. A dedication attached a named act of giving to a sacred object; a royal record announced a foundation or a claim; and a coin made its issuer and selected divine imagery visible wherever it circulated.

These forms of writing show several communities using the languages and materials suited to their work. Bactrian public inscriptions, Gandhari scrolls and Brahmi image dedications belonged to connected regions but different practices. Some of these traditions continued after Kushan political unity declined, allowing the region’s written history to extend beyond the dynasty that had brought its territories together.