•   Kushana origin

o  Kushanas are considered to be one of the five branches of the Yuezhi tribe who lived in the Chinese frontier or central Asia.

o  They eventually acquired dominance over the other Yuezhi tribes.

o  They moved eastward towards India defeating the Parthians and the Sakas in the 1st century AD.

o  They had various rulers in India; Kanishka was the most important one.

•   He was considered the greatest Kushana king and also a great king of ancient India.

•   He was the son of Vima Kadphises.

•   His kingdom included Afghanistan, parts of Sindhu, parts of Parthia, Punjab, Kashmir, parts of Magadha (including Pataliputra), Malwa, Benaras, perhaps parts of Bengal, Khotan, Kashgar, Yarkhand (last three in modern China).

•   His empire covered Gandhara, Peshawar, Oudh, Pataliputra, Kashmir and Mathura. His kingdom also included parts of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

•   His main capital was Peshawar, then known as Purushpura.

•   After the capture of Pataliputra, he is said to have taken away the Buddhist monk Ashvaghosha with him to Peshawar.

•   The scholars in his court included Parsva, Ashvaghosha, Vasumitra, Nagarjuna, Charaka and Mathara. He also patronised the Greek engineer Agesilaus.

•   Kanishka convened the fourth Buddhist Council at Kundalvana in Kashmir.

•   He patronised Buddhism although he was very tolerant in his religious views. His coins contain a mix of Indian, Greek and Zoroastrian deities.

•   He was also a patron of art and architecture. The Gandhara School of art flourished under him.

•   He also propagated the Mahayana form of Buddhism and he was largely responsible for propagating it in China.

•   It was the style of Buddhist visual art that developed in what is now northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan between the 1st century BCE and the 7th century CE.

•   The style, of Greco-Roman origin, seems to have flourished largely during the Kushana dynasty.

•   It was contemporaneous with an important but dissimilar school of Kushana art at Mathura (Uttar Pradesh, India).

•   The Gandhara region had long been a crossroads of cultural influences, rulers of the Kushana Empire, which included Gandhara, maintained contacts with Rome.

•   In its interpretation of Buddhist legends, the Gandhara School incorporated many motifs and techniques from Classical Roman art (including vine scrolls, cherubs bearing garlands, tritons, and centaurs), the basic iconography, however, remained Indian.

•   The materials used for Gandhara sculpture were green phyllite and gray-blue mica schist.

•   The Gandhara School drew upon the anthropomorphic traditions of Roman religion and represented the Buddha with a youthful Apollo-like face, dressed in garments resembling those seen on Roman imperial statues.

•   Buddha images have a uniformity of pose, costume, lakshana and other characteristics.

o  He is shown wearing a heavy robe that covers both shoulders,

o  His left hand hangs down, but the right hand is raised in abhaya or varada mudra.

o  There is an ushnisha or a top knot on the head.

o  He is not adorned with any other jewelry, though his elongated ear lobes suggest that as a prince he did wear heavy ornaments.

•   Gandhara Style has naturalism in body form, drapery, and pictorial scale.

•   The male figures are shown with musculature, drapery with sharp flowing folds,wavy curled hair and sharp features.

•   The extended ears are merely due to the downward thrust of the heavy earrings worn by a prince or magnate.

•   There is a standardization of composition, pose of figures and other incidents from the life of Buddha.

•   Bodhisattva icons that portrayed Buddhahood and form one of the most important elements of Mahayana Buddhism was prevalent in this era.

•   These male figures are shown standing or seated and wear a dhoti like lower garment, the torso is bare except for the shawl like length of cloth over the shoulder.

•   First Buddhist Council: 400 BC

•   Second Buddhist Council: 383 BC

•   Third Buddhist Council: 250 BC

•   Fourth Buddhist Council: 72AD

*Detail explanation is in Art and culture section

•   Buddhism was spread outside India through the efforts of missionaries, scholars, trade, emigration, and communication networks.

•   Foreign monks who travelled along the silk route between India and China were responsible for the spread of Buddhism at sub-elite levels.

•   Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing are some of the travellers who left account of their travel which helped in Buddhism spread.

•   Emperor Ashoka sent many missionaries to spread Buddhism.

Missionaries Sent by Ashoka

•   Majjhantika/Mahyantika ------- Kashmir and Gandhara

•   Mahadeva Thera ----- Mahismandala (Mysore)

•   Rakkhita Thera------Vanavasi (Northern Kanara, South India)

•   Yona Dhammarakkhita -------- Aparantaka (Northern Gujarat Kathiawar, Kachchh and Sindh)

•   Mahadhammarakkhita ------- Maharattha (Maharashtra)

•   Maharakkhita ------- Yona (Greece)

•   Majjhima ---- Himavanta (Himalayan Region)

•   Sona and Uttara ---- Suvarnabhumi (Myanmar/Thailand)

•   Mahindra and Sanghamitra --- Lakshadweep & Srilanka

Role of Kanishka in Buddhism Expansion:

•   Under Kanishka Pakistan and Afghanistan became cradle of Mahayana Buddhism.

•   Numerous Stupas and monasteries were built in Gandhara.

•   The Swat valley was the major center for tantric Buddhism.

•   Buddhism was carried by traders and pilgrims along silk road in China, Tibet and central Asia.

•   Jainism is a religion founded in ancient India.

•   Jains trace their history through twenty-four tirthankara and revere Rishabhanatha as the first tirthankara (in the present time-cycle).

•   Buddhist sources don't mention Mahavira as a founder of new tradition, but as part of an ascetic Nirgranthas (without knot) tradition.

•   This has led scholars to conclude that Mahavira was not the founder, but a reformer of a tradition just like his predecessor, Parsvanatha.

•   It was during Parsvanatha and Mahavira, Jainism gain popularity.