Routes and Travellers in the Kushan World

The Kushan realm connected regions divided by some of Asia’s highest mountains. In the first to third centuries CE, travellers moved between Bactria, north of the Hindu Kush, the valleys of Afghanistan and Gandhara, and the cities of northern India. Merchants, religious teachers, envoys and soldiers used this geography for different purposes. Their journeys depended on finding workable passages through mountains and sufficient supplies between settlements.

The routes formed a network. Some connected nearby towns and farming districts; others carried travellers towards the oasis kingdoms of the Tarim Basin, in what is now western China. A long journey could therefore involve several stages, different carriers and changes in political authority. The movement of objects and ideas across this network connected places whose inhabitants might never themselves travel far.

On this page5 sections

Valleys and cities on the approaches to the Hindu Kush

Bactria and northern India were linked through Afghanistan’s valleys and mountain crossings. Travellers had to approach a pass along usable ground, climb across a watershed and descend into a different river system. Valleys concentrated routes because they offered access through the terrain and connected movement with settlements and cultivated land.

Begram, north of modern Kabul, stood near the junction of the Panjshir and Ghorband valleys. Its location helped connect approaches from the Kabul region with routes into the Hindu Kush. The ancient city’s finds include Indian ivory furniture fittings, Chinese lacquer and glass associated with the Roman world. This mixture makes the town’s participation in distant exchange tangible.

Farther southeast, the Kabul river corridor connected Afghanistan with the Peshawar valley and Gandhara. From there, travellers could move towards the Indus region and northern India. Mathura was a major destination in the Gangetic plain and a centre of religious activity and stone carving. These connections brought upland and lowland districts into contact while leaving mountains, river crossings and local conditions important to the practical course of a journey.

Pack animals and the work of carrying

Transport depended on animals as well as roads. Camels carried loads along Central Asian routes, with the two-humped Bactrian camel especially suited to cold conditions. A pack animal allowed goods to move without the level surface needed by a wheeled cart. Nevertheless, it still required water, fodder, handling and a manageable path. Supplying animals was part of supplying the journey.

Horse equipment appears in Gandharan sculpture. A second- or third-century relief in the British Museum represents Kanthaka, the horse of the future Buddha, with his groom Chandaka. The horse has reins, a saddle with raised front and back, a girth securing it beneath the body and a strap around the hindquarters. These fittings show how artists represented control of the animal and stability of its saddle. The narrative concerns the Buddha’s departure from princely life, while its carved equipment belongs to the visual world of the Gandharan workshop that made it.

The groom carries a bulging bag and a parasol. Those details place belongings and attendance alongside the rider, making the depicted journey more than a horse moving by itself. In actual travel, loads and riding animals had to be managed together with provisions. Rivers, steep ground and available water could make a physically longer route preferable to a more direct crossing.

Merchants and journeys in stages

Long-distance exchange commonly passed through successive hands. A merchant could take goods to a market, sell or exchange them, and allow another carrier to continue their movement. This helps explain how an object from China or the Mediterranean might reach a Kushan city without a caravan travelling the entire distance from its place of manufacture.

Cities and farming districts supplied these stages with food, fodder and opportunities to obtain new goods. The costs of carrying also favoured valuable products that occupied relatively little space. A piece of fine glass or an ivory fitting could justify a long journey more readily than a large quantity of low-value bulk material. Local transport and distant exchange nevertheless depended on many of the same practical activities: packing, feeding animals, obtaining supplies and arranging the next stage.

The northern connections led towards Kashgar and other oasis centres around the Tarim Basin. These settlements mattered because the surrounding deserts and mountains made access to water and cultivated land decisive. Reaching an oasis was both a geographical achievement and an entry into a community with its own rulers, markets and relations with neighbouring powers.

Religious travellers and the work of translation

Religious movement could turn a journey into a lasting intellectual connection. Lokaksema, a Buddhist translator associated in later Chinese biographies with the Yuezhi people from whom the Kushan dynasty emerged, worked in Luoyang during the later second century. Luoyang was a capital of the Eastern Han dynasty and a place where Buddhist teaching was being rendered into Chinese.

Translation required more than transporting a manuscript. Terms for meditation, awakening and religious practice had to be expressed in another language, and collaborators had to connect the source teaching with the understanding of a new audience. Accounts of Lokaksema’s activity associate him with texts on the perfection of wisdom and meditative practice. His work helped make forms of Buddhist teaching accessible to readers far from the communities in which they had developed.

Another kind of religious movement is visible within Kushan territories. The large standing image installed by Bala at Sarnath came from Mathura. Here the sacred object travelled, while the destination gave it a particular meaning: Sarnath was remembered as the place of the Buddha’s first teaching. Moving religious furnishings, supporting a teacher and visiting a holy place could all connect communities across regional boundaries.

Diplomacy, armies and the importance of supplies

Chinese historical accounts describe movement across the Kushans’ northern connections. The Hou Hanshu, a fifth-century compilation drawing on earlier Han records, relates how Chenpan, a member of Kashgar’s ruling family, lived among the Kushans after being sent away from his homeland. During the period 114–120 CE, he obtained Kushan support for his return. Soldiers accompanied him to Kashgar, where he took power and received the seal and ribbon associated with royal office.

The episode shows that a journey could carry a political claim as well as a person. An escort provided force, while the transfer of the insignia made the change of ruler visible. Kashgar’s position near mountain approaches and routes around the Tarim Basin helped make its political connections significant to neighbouring powers.

A different account concerns a Kushan expedition against the Han commander Ban Chao in 90 CE. The Chinese tradition describes a large force crossing the mountains, then being compelled to withdraw when Ban Chao denied it supplies. Getting an army across difficult terrain did not ensure that it could remain there. Soldiers and animals still needed food, and control over provisions could determine the outcome of a distant expedition.

These journeys connected religious work, exchange and state power through the same broad landscape. A valley might carry a load of goods, a sacred image or an armed escort, but each traveller had to turn geographical connections into a sequence of achievable stages.