Conquest
In the 220s the Sasanian dynasty overthrew the Parthians and took over Iran. Its first kings, Ardashir I and Shapur I, campaigned in the east. Shapur's great inscription at Naqsh-i Rustam, of about 262, lists among his provinces the Kushanshahr, "the land of the Kushans", extending as far as Peshawar, Kashgar, Sogdiana and Tashkent. Historians debate how much of this was direct rule, but it is clear that the western part of the Kushan empire, including Bactria, passed under Sasanian control, while later Kushan kings continued to rule in the east, in Gandhara and the Punjab.
The Kushanshahs
The Sasanian territories in the east were governed by princes of the Sasanian house who took the title Kushanshah, "king of the Kushans", and later Great Kushanshah. They issued coins in gold, silver and copper, which are the main source for their history. The coins combine Sasanian styles, with the crowns that identified each Sasanian ruler, and Kushan conventions, with legends in Bactrian written in Greek script and in Middle Persian. Names that appear on them include Ardashir, Peroz and Hormizd. On the reverse, many show the Iranian god Mithra or the Indian god Shiva with his bull Nandi, whom Kushan coins had identified with the Iranian Oesho, which shows how Indian and Iranian religion blended in the region.
The Kushanshahs at times acted with considerable independence. One of them, Hormizd, appears to have rebelled against the Sasanian king Bahram II in the 280s.
The end
In the middle of the fourth century the Kushano-Sasanian kingdom was overrun by new peoples from Central Asia, the Chionites and especially the Kidarites, who took over Bactria and Gandhara and imitated the Kushanshahs' coins. The Kidarites in turn were displaced by the Alchon and Hephthalite Huns. The period is obscure, and its chronology, built largely on coins, is still debated.
Significance
The Kushano-Sasanian period shows the north-west of the subcontinent and Bactria as a border zone between the Iranian and Indian worlds. Buddhism continued to flourish in Gandhara and Bactria under their rule, and the art of the period, with Sasanian influence on the late Gandharan style, reflects the mixture.
Further reading
- Neelis, Jason. Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks. Brill, 2011
- Thapar, Romila. Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300. Penguin, 2002
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
See also
- Kushan Empire — The Kushan Empire (c. 1st-3rd century CE) was a Central Asian dynasty of Yuezhi origin that ruled a domain stretching from Bactria and the Tarim Basin to the Gangetic plain, linking the Silk Road's trade and Buddhist networks between China, India, Persia, and Rome.
- Kidarites — The Kidarites were a Central Asian dynasty that took the former Kushan territories of Bactria and Gandhāra in the fourth century CE, styling themselves Kushans and known to Chinese sources as the Little Yuezhi.
- Gandhara — Gandhara was an ancient region centred on the Peshawar Valley, Swat Valley, and Taxila in present-day northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan that served for over a millennium as a crossroads between the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, and the Persian and Hellenistic worlds, and as a major centre of Buddhist art and learning.
- Kanishka — Kanishka I was a Kushan emperor of the 2nd century CE whose empire spanned Central Asia and northern India and who became one of history's foremost imperial patrons of Buddhism.
This entry was last revised on 12 November 2026.