Kanishka's war with Parthia

Kanishka's war with Parthia was a war that may have taken place between Kanishka I of the Kushan Empire and the Parthians. The king of Parthia is said to have attacked Kanishka I and been defeated in battle.^[5][6][8]

Kanishka's war with Parthia
The Parthian Empire ( ) with the Kushan Empire ( ) and zones of territorial contention.[1][2][3]
Date Possibly between c. 130 CE to c. 140 CE Location Possibly west of Kushan territory Result Kushan victory[4][5][6]
Belligerents
Kushan Empire	Parthian Empire
Commanders and leaders
Kanishka I	Vologases III[7]
Casualties and losses
Unknown	Unknown

Campaign

A Buddhist text translated into Chinese in 470 under the title Fu fazang yinyuan zhuan (付法藏因緣傳, A History of the Buddha's Successors)^[9] carried in the Historical Tales section of the Tripiṭaka as number 2058,^[10] is the solitary source attesting this conflict.^{[11][12]: 339} It is possible that the Kushans fought an earlier war against Parthia in conjunction with Trajan's Parthian campaign in 115 CE.^[13]: 189

The text recounts a war between Kanishka I and the Eastern Parthian King, not named in the original, but determined by later scholars to have been Vologases III.^[7] As the war commenced, the Parthian king attacked the Kushan Empire with an army consisting of mounted bowmen, armoured soldiers, archers on foot and spearmen.^[14]: 386 This seemingly took place around the middle of the 2nd century. The Parthians may have been seeking to reclaim lands previously conquered by the Kushans.^[13]: 189 Kanishka responded with a counteroffensive, ending in a brutal melee. The text records the patently inflated figure of 900,000 Parthian deaths, described as "slaughter".^[14]: 386 It is mentioned that both sides attacked each other incessantly in the battle until Kanishka won.^[15] This tale emphasises that Kanishka's actions were mitigated by the cruelty and stubbornness of the Parthian king.^[16]

Aftermath

Kanishka was victorious but was shocked to see the sufferings that he had caused. He decided to repent and seek guidance from religious leaders.^[15]

After Kanishka decided to launch the second expedition on China against Ban Yong, the son of Ban Chao. The expedition turned out to be successful as Ban Yong was defeated and Kanishka I annexed the provinces of Kashgar, Yarkhand and Khotan from the Han Empire. His Empire then stretched from central Asia to central India including Gandhara, Kashmir and the Pamir region.^[4]

References

1. Coatsworth, John; Cole, Juan; Hanagan, Michael P.; Perdue, Peter C.; Tilly, Charles; Tilly, Louise (16 March 2015). Global Connections: Volume 1, To 1500: Politics, Exchange, and Social Life in World History. Cambridge University Press. p. 138. ISBN 978-1-316-29777-3.
2. Atlas of World History. Oxford University Press. 2002. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-19-521921-0.
3. Fauve, Jeroen (2021). The European Handbook of Central Asian Studies. BoD – Books on Demand. p. 403. ISBN 978-3-8382-1518-1.
4. Daniélou, Alain (2003). A Brief History of India. Translated by Kenneth F. Hurry. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-59477-794-3.
5. B. N. Mukherjee (1988). The Rise And Fall Of The Kushāṇa Empire. Calcutta: Firma KLM. p. 83.
6. Rosenfield, John M. (1967). The Dynastic Arts of the Kushans. University of California Press. LCCN 65-14981.
7. Ghirshman, Roman (1965) [1954]. Iran: From the earliest times to the Islamic conquest. Baltimore: Penguin Books. p. 262. ISBN 9780140202397.
8. McLaughlin, Raoul (11 November 2016). The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes: The Ancient World Economy & the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia & Han China. Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-4738-8981-1.
9. "History of the Buddha's Successors, A". Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism. Nichiren Buddhism Library. 2002.
10. 付法藏因緣傳. Taishō Tripiṭaka 大正新修大藏經. Tokyo. 1929. p. 316. no. 2058.
11. Benjamin, Craig (2018). Empires of Ancient Eurasia: The First Silk Roads Era, 100 BCE – 250 CE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 191–192. doi:10.1017/9781316335567. ISBN 9781316335567.
12. Benjamin, Craig (2021). "The Kushan Empire". In Bang, Peter Fibiger; Bayly, C. A.; Scheidel, Walter (eds.). The Oxford World History of Empire: Volume Two: The History of Empires. Oxford University Press. pp. 325–346. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197532768.003.0011. ISBN 978-0-19-753278-2.
13. John Thorley (1979), "The Roman Empire and the Kushans", Greece & Rome, 26 (2): 181–190, doi:10.1017/S0017383500026930, JSTOR 642511, S2CID 163043267.
14. Zürcher, Erik (1968). "The Yüeh-chih and Kaniṣka in Chinese Sources". In Basham, Arthur Llewellyn (ed.). Papers on the Date of Kaniṣka: Submitted to the Conference on the Date of Kaniṣka, London, 20–22 April 1960. Brill. pp. 346–390. ISBN 978-90-04-00151-0.
15. McLaughlin, Raoul (2016). The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes: The Ancient World Economy & the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia & Han China. Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-4738-8981-1.
16. Wilson, Paul David (2020). The Kushans and the Emergence of the Early Silk Roads (Masters of Archaeology thesis). University of Sydney. p. 47.