Families, Women and Religious Patrons in the Kushan World

Religious gifts brought families and teaching communities into the public life of the Kushan world. During the first to third centuries CE, donors paid for images, monuments and other facilities used by worshippers. Inscriptions carved on these gifts could name the giver together with parents, teachers, pupils or other participants. They preserved relationships as well as acts of generosity.

Mathura in northern India and Sarnath near modern Varanasi provide especially clear examples. Their dated inscriptions include women who were Buddhist nuns, learned teachers or members of a donor’s family. These people become visible through specific undertakings: commissioning an image, sharing in a dedication, and identifying a religious teacher. Their gifts helped furnish sacred places and associated relatives and communities with the resulting merit.

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How a dedication made a gift public

A dedicatory inscription recorded that an object had been established and identified the people connected with it. A sculptured image could carry its dedication on the pedestal or another part of its stone surface. Recording the king and a year in the current era gave the gift a public date. Names and titles then identified donors, their religious standing and those sharing in the act.

Creating such a gift required material resources. Stone had to be obtained and worked, the image transported, and its place of installation prepared. A large statue with a separate stone umbrella was a substantial undertaking. An umbrella placed above a sacred figure marked honour and dignity as part of the monument’s religious presentation.

The inscription made the gift visible to later visitors. Naming parents or teachers joined personal relationships to the dedication, while a statement wishing welfare for beings explained a broader religious purpose. A monument could consequently honour a sacred figure, support a place of worship and preserve the identity of its benefactors at the same time.

Buddhamitra and a learned religious network

Buddhamitra was a Buddhist nun associated with several early Kushan dedications. An image inscription from Kosam, ancient Kaushambi in northern India, records a dedication by her in year 2 of Kanishka. It describes her as knowledgeable in the Tripitaka, the three major divisions of Buddhist scripture: monastic discipline, discourses and systematic teachings. The title marks her learning within a religious tradition whose texts were studied and transmitted through teachers.

At Sarnath, a related dedication in year 3 of Kanishka names the monk Bala as the principal donor and includes Buddhamitra among the participants. The gift comprised a large standing image and a stone umbrella. Sarnath was associated with the Buddha’s first teaching after enlightenment, so installing a monument there joined the donors’ resources to an established sacred place.

The image was made in the Mathura sculptural tradition, using the characteristic red sandstone, and brought to Sarnath. Its dedication also names the great satrap Kharapallana and the satrap Vanaspara. Satraps were regional governors; their participation placed representatives of political authority alongside members of the religious community. The monument brought together production in one region, installation in another and the support of several kinds of patron.

Dhanavati, her aunt and her parents

A later Mathura inscription, dated to year 33 under Huvishka, identifies the nun Dhanavati as the donor of a bodhisattva image. A bodhisattva is a being on the path toward Buddhahood. Early image inscriptions use this designation for figures associated with the Buddha, giving a religious name to the object being installed.

Dhanavati is described as Buddhamitra’s sister’s daughter. The inscription also identifies Buddhamitra as a nun versed in the Tripitaka and a pupil of Bala, who held the same scholarly distinction. In a few lines, it preserves a family connection and a chain of religious instruction. The relationship between teacher and pupil was an important part of these women’s identities, alongside their participation as donors.

Dhanavati made the dedication together with her father and mother. The act therefore linked a nun with her parents and her aunt’s religious network. It shows relatives sharing in a public religious undertaking after one member had entered monastic life. The carved record commemorates those connections through the gift itself.

The years in these inscriptions belong to the Kushan dating system, an era used under successive rulers. The inscription’s year 33 under Huvishka is a date within that era. It places Dhanavati’s donation later than the early Kanishka gifts associated with her aunt and Bala.

Women as teachers and pupils

Other Mathura-area records make female teaching relationships explicit. One dedication dated to year 31 under Huvishka names Khuda and another donor as pupils of the nun Dinna. Another, in year 39, records a bodhisattva image established by the nun Budhadeva, pupil of the nun Pushahathini, together with her parents. Its stated purpose is the welfare and happiness of beings.

These records show learning being passed through relationships between women as well as through a nun’s relationship with a male teacher. The word translated as pupil identifies a connection within a teaching community. Buddhamitra’s title demonstrates that being someone’s pupil could coexist with recognized mastery of scripture.

Parents recur in the dedications because the act of giving could involve a wider circle than the named principal donor. The records place learning, kinship and support for images within the same religious setting. Women appear as people who commissioned gifts and as teachers whose names gave meaning to another person’s dedication.

Resources, merit and lasting remembrance

The idea of merit helped give donations their religious purpose. Supporting a sacred place or establishing an image was understood as a beneficial act, and the resulting dedication could associate others with that benefit. A wish for the happiness of beings extended the purpose beyond the donor’s own immediate interests. Giving also provided the objects and facilities around which religious activity took place.

The surviving monuments make patronage concrete. A nun could sponsor a sculpture, parents could join her dedication, and a governor could support a gift made by a monk. Craftspeople supplied the finished work, while religious communities gave it a place and continuing significance. These connections explain how monuments were created through networks of participants rather than through royal orders alone.

Dhanavati’s inscription is especially revealing because its family and teaching relationships remain legible centuries later. The image joined her parents, her aunt and her aunt’s teacher in a durable record. Alongside the other Mathura and Sarnath dedications, it shows how Kushan-period patronage turned resources and personal relationships into public religious gifts.