PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Kudara: A Rough Sketch of Central Asian Buddhism 95When the power of the Mauryan Empire declined, various tribalgroups from Central Asia began invading its territories in the northwest.First the Greeks of the Bactrian kingdom arrived, invading as early as thesecond century BCE. When they lost their homeland in Bactria during thelatter half of the second century BCE, they moved the base of their kingdomto the Panjab region. Among the Greek kings who migrated to India,Menandros (a.k.a. Milinda) is particularly noteworthy. According to aBuddhist text entitled Milindapañhå (The Questions of King Milinda), theking converted from his Greek religion to become a Buddhist as a result ofhis dialogues with the Buddhist monk Någasena.The power of Greek kings declined during the first century BCE, and theSakas and Parthians, Central Asian nomadic tribes, began invading northwestIndia. Then, in the latter half of the first century CE, the Kushana tribemoved south to invade northwest India. The Kushana tribe was an Iraniannomadic people who first spread into Central Asia. As their power increased,they began expanding their territory and invaded northwestIndia, eventually pushing deep into the Indian continent and occupyingthe central part of the Ganges River basin.Buddhism’s second step in becoming a world religion occurred duringthe reign of King Kani≈ka (r. 130?–155?, or 78?–103?) of the Kushan Empireas the religion was spread into Central Asia. The Kushan Empire alsoincluded many different ethnic groups within its territory. King Kani≈karose to power in about the first or second century of the common era. Itseems that he promoted Buddhism not out of belief but because he had toadopt its egalitarian ideals in order to manage the different ethnic groupsunder his reign. He would not be able to reign over diverse ethnic groupsby forcing the supremacy of either Indians or Iranians. The Kushan Empireestablished its capital city in Purushapura (modern Peshawar) in Gandhåra.To the south, the empire’s territory reached to the central part of the GangesRiver basin; to the north, it occupied the area where East and WestTurkistan meet—a strategically significant point in Central Asia. Thus,situated between Han China in the east and the Roman Empire in the west,the Kushan Empire controlled the major east-west trading routes for theexchange of rare goods and cultural information. This afforded Buddhisman easy opportunity to expand to both the east and west.3. Visualized Images and TextsLet me return to the issue of representation that I began my presentationwith. Greeks and Iranians, newly converted to Buddhism, were notbound by the Indian traditions that refrained from giving concrete expressionto sacred objects or beings. They began transcribing the Buddhist