Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T06:57:55.263Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Kushan royal inscription among the Almosi rock inscriptions recently discovered in Tajikistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2023

Joe Cribb
Joe Cribb*
Affiliation:
Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China
*
Email: joecribb@btinternet.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An inscription in the name of a Kushan king, Wima Takto (circa 90–113 CE), has recently been discovered by the archaeologist Muhsin Bobomulloev of the National Museum of Tajikistan and his colleagues. The new inscription, found in the Almosi Gorge with other inscriptions in an ‘unknown script’, confirms the identity of Wima Takto, the second king of the Kushan Dynasty, which ruled a large territory stretching from Central Asia to North India in the first four centuries CE. The history of this dynasty is pieced together from inscriptions, coins, and archaeology, and fleeting references in Chinese sources. Each new inscription adds another piece to the jigsaw of Kushan history, revealing a powerful state in control of the central lands of the ancient Silk Road. This article positions the new inscription within the current understanding of Kushan history and the status of Wima Takto.

Keywords

Bactrian scriptcoinsKushan empireTajikistanWima Takto
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , April 2024 , pp. 361 - 375
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Asiatic Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 B. S. Bobomulloev, Sh. Khodzhaev, and M. G. Bobomulloev, ‘Наскальные надписи ущелья Алмоси [Rock inscriptions of Almosi gorge]’, in III Issyk Reading: The Written Monuments of Central Asia (the Challenges of Translation and Interpretation). The International Scientific and Practical Conference. Collection of Articles, 22 November 2022, (ed.) G. R. Mukhtarova (Almaty, 2022), pp. 59–65, https://www.academia.edu/98364044/Rock_Inscriptions_of_the_Almosi_Gorge_Наскальные_надписи_ущелья_Алмоси (accessed 21 May 2023).

2 Hill, J. E., Through the Jade Gate: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty 1st to 2nd Centuries AD, 2nd revised edn (Cooktown, 2015), pp. 28–29Google Scholar; Falk, H., Kushan Histories: Literary Sources and Selected Papers from a Symposium at Berlin, December 5 to 7, 2013 (Bremen, 2015), pp. 85–88Google Scholar.

3 Hill, Through the Jade Gate, pp. 28–29; Falk, Kushan Histories, p. 100.

4 Fussman, G., ‘Documents épigraphiques kouchans’, Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 61 (1974), pp. 1–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Bobomulloev et al., Наскальные надписи ущелья Алмоси.

6 G. D. Davary, Drei neu Inschriften in Baktrisch und in ‘Issek-Bactrisch’ (Limoges, 2022).

7 https://avesta.tj/2022/11/11/tadzhikskie-uchenye-rasshifrovyvayut-drevnie-nadpisi-obnaruzhennye-v-ushhele-almosi/ (accessed 22 May 2023).

8 https://uclcaal.org/2022/11/16/discovery-of-inscriptions-in-the-almosi-gorge-tajikistan/ (accessed 22 May 2023).

9 Bonmann, S., Halfmann, J., Korobzow, N., and Bobomulloev, B. S., ‘A partial decipherment of the unknown Kushan script’, Transactions of the Philological Society 121.2 (2023), pp. 293–329CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Falk, H., ‘Wema Takhtu, the graveyard near Almosi, and the end of an “unknown” script’, Annual Report of The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University 26 (2023), pp. 253–64Google Scholar.

11 Bonmann, personal correspondence, 10 March 2023: ‘ɛιδο, ɛδο is a common Bactrian demonstrative pronoun. -ηλο, -ιλο, on the other hand, is a suffix added to (a) adverbs (cf. μαληλο and basic μαλο, both meaning “here”) and (b) inflected forms of pronouns, either without any discernible change of meaning (cf. ɛιηλο “this” to ɛιο “this”) or adjectivising the pronoun, cf. μανηλο “my” vs. μανο (1st sg. oblique pronoun “me, by me”). A sequence ɛιδιηλο (though to my knowledge not attested so far, certainly only by chance) probably means “this”, perhaps used as a demonstrative adjective with a head noun that follows. The word boundary clearly is after the Omikron, the next word starts with (unexpected) Ypsilon.’

12 Falk, Wema Taktu, pp. 258–60.

13 Ibid., p. 260.

14 Davary, Drei neu Inschriften in Baktrisch und in ‘Issek-Bactrisch’, pp. 13–16.

15 Bonmann et al., ‘Partial decipherment’, p. 326.

16 Ibid., p. 323.

17 Sims-Williams, N., ‘Ancient Afghanistan and its invaders: linguistic evidence from the Bactrian documents and inscriptions’, in Indo-Iranian Languages and Peoples, (ed.) Sims-Williams, N. (Oxford, 2002), pp. 225–42Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., pp. 236–40.

19 Bonmann et al., ‘Partial decipherment’, pp. 324–26.

20 Sims-Williams, N. and Cribb, J., ‘A new Bactrian inscription of Kanishka the Great’, Silk Road Art and Archaeology 4 (1996), pp. 75–142Google Scholar, at pp. 95, 136, fig. 9.

21 Fussman, ‘Documents épigraphiques kouchans’.

22 H. Lüders, Mathurā Inscriptions (Göttingen, 1961), unpublished papers edited by K. L. Janert, p. 134, no. 98.

23 Sims-Williams and Cribb, ‘New Bactrian inscription’.

24 Sims-Williams, N., ‘The Bactrian inscription of Rabatak: a new reading’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 18 (2004), pp. 53–68Google Scholar.

25 Sharma, G. R., Reh Inscription of Menander and the Indo-Greek Invasion of the Ganga Valley (Allahabad, 1980)Google Scholar.

26 Gupta, P. L., ‘Kuṣāṇas in the Yamuno-Gangetic region: chronology and date’, Annali dell'Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli 45 (1985), pp. 199–222Google Scholar; Gupta, P. L. and Kulashreshtha, S., Kuṣāṇa Coins and History (New Delhi, 1994), pp. 160–61Google Scholar.

27 Mukherjee, B. N., The Rise and Fall of the Kushāṇa Empire (Calcutta, 1988), p. 43Google Scholar.

28 R. Göbl, ‘The Rabatak inscription and the date of Kanishka’, in Coins, Art, and Chronology: Essays on the Pre-Islamic History of the Indo-Iranian Borderlands, (eds.) M. Alram and D. E. Klimburg-Salter (Vienna, 1999), pp. 151–75, at p. 156.

29 Cribb, J., ‘The Soter Megas coins of the first and second Kushan kings, Kujula Kadphises and Wima Takto’, Gandharan Studies 8 (2014), pp. 79–140Google Scholar, see figs. 27, 33–36, 60.

30 J. Cribb, ‘A new coin of Vima Kadphises, king of the Kushans’, in Coins, Culture and History in the Ancient World, (eds.) L. Casson and M. Price (Detroit, 1981), pp. 29–37; Mukherjee, Rise and Fall, p. 53.

31 Sims-Williams and Cribb, ‘New Bactrian inscription’, p. 142, fig. 15f; Cribb, ‘Soter Megas coins’, pp. 79–140, fig. 60.

32 Rosenfield, J. M., The Dynastic Arts of the Kushans (Berkeley, 1967), fig. 1Google Scholar.

33 D. Schlumberger, M. Le Berre, and G. Fussman, Surkh Kotal en Bactriane, vol. 1, Les temples: architecture, sculpture, inscriptions (Mémoires de la Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan 25) (Paris, 1983), pl. 8, fig. 21a and b; Rosenfield, Dynastic Arts, fig. 118.

34 Pugachenkova, G. A., Skul'ptura Khalčajana (Moscow, 1971), fig. 54Google Scholar.

35 MacDowall, D. W., ‘Soter Megas, the king of kings, the Kushāṇa’, Journal of the Numismatic Society of India 30 (1968), pp. 28–48Google Scholar.

36 Mukherjee, B. N., ‘The great Kushana testament’, Indian Museum Bulletin 30 (1995), pp. 1–105Google Scholar (although dated 1995, this was published in 1997, as indicated in the author's preface); Fussman, G., ‘L'inscription Rabatak et l'origine de l’ère saka’, Journal Asiatique 2 (1998), pp. 571–651Google Scholar; G. Fussman, ‘L'inscription de Rabatak, la Bactriane et les Kouchans’, in La Bactriane au carrefour des routes et des civilisations de l'Asie centrale, (eds.) P. Leriche, C. Pidaev, M. Gelin, and K. Abdoullaev (Paris, 2001), pp. 251–91; D. W. MacDowall, ‘The Rabatak inscription and the nameless Kushan king’, in Cairo to Kabul—Afghan and Islamic Studies Presented to Ralph Pinder-Wilson, (eds.) W. Ball and L. Harrow (London, 2002), pp. 163–69.

37 Mukherjee, ‘Great Kushana testament’, p. 17.

38 S. Baums, ‘Catalogue and revised texts and translations of Gandharan reliquary inscriptions’, in Gandharan Buddhist Reliquaries, (eds.) D. Jongeward, E. Errington, R. Salomon, and S. Baums (Seattle, 2012), pp. 200–51, at pp. 227–33.

39 Mukherjee, ‘Great Kushana testament’, pp. 24–25.

40 Fussman, ‘L'inscription de Rabatak’, p. 268.

41 Ibid., pp. 268–72.

42 Ibid., p. 274.

43 MacDowall, ‘Rabatak inscription’, pp. 163–64.

44 Ibid., pp. 165, 169.

45 Bopearachchi, O., ‘Some observations on the chronology of the early Kushans’, Res Orientales 17 (2007), pp. 41–53Google Scholar, at pp. 46–49, fig. 6; this coin was recently sold by Classical Numismatic Group, Auction 118, lot 659, 13 September 2021. See also Cribb, ‘Soter Megas coins’, pp. 89–95.

46 Cribb, ‘Soter Megas coins’.

47 Sims-Williams and Cribb, ‘New Bactrian inscription’; Cribb, ‘Soter Megas coins’.

48 Chakravarti, R., ‘The Kushanas’, in History of Ancient India, vol. 4, Political History and Administration (c. 200 BC – AD 750), (eds.) D. K. Chakrabarti and M. Lal (New Delhi, 2014), pp. 35–68Google Scholar.

49 Cribb, ‘Soter Megas coins’, figs. 25, 27.

50 Ibid., figs. 33–36.

51 Ibid., fig. 60.

52 Ibid., fig. 37.

53 Ibid., figs. 22–25, 27, 29–31.

54 Ibid., figs. 22, 23.

55 Personal communication from Abdulrahman Sharifzoda, 26 August 2023.