KANISKA. — Most of the information from Chinese sources concerning the reign and life of K., the "King of Kings" of the Kuśāna dynasty, is devoid of historical value, and even the period in which he lived is a matter of controversy, since the dates proposed by the most authoritative historians differ by centuries.
Excavations at the base of the great stūpa or "tumulus" of Peshāwār uncovered a metal casket bearing the names of K. and of Agesilaus, the Greek builder of the monument, but it is undated. Hoernle’s opinion that K. reigned from about 225 to 152 seems the most plausible. The precise boundaries of his vast empire, much of it outside India, with its capital at Puruṣapura (Peshāwār), are not known, but it appears to have extended northward to the Tarim basin and to have included Gandhāra, the territory of modern Afghanistan as far as the Oxus (Amu Darya), and the Indian provinces of the Panjab and Sind, to which K. also added Kashmir. He was engaged in a campaign beyond the Oxus when he was killed by disaffected officers. He was succeeded by his son Huvjskā. In his later years, K. became a zealous patron of Buddhism (v.), in which he was initiated by the elder Pārśvika. In his leisure hours from state duties, he studied the sacred texts of Buddhism assiduously and Buddha (v.) by having the image of the Enlightened One impressed on his coins. To settle disputes among monks, which were causing schisms, and to restore purity to the doctrine of the Buddha, K. was induced to convene a council, the fourth since the founding of the monastic order. It was held in a monastery near Jālandhara, under the presidency of Pārśvika and Vasumitra, and, according to tradition, 500 monks attended. They did not revise the Canon but limited themselves to commenting on the Tripiṭaka. Hiuen Tsiang relates that the three commentaries prepared by the monks, ordered to be inscribed by K. on copper plates, were enclosed in a stone urn, over which a stūpa was erected to perpetuate the memory of the council. The Chinese pilgrim, however, wrote several centuries after K.’s time, and many of the details he collected during his travels (630–44) are fabulous. Tradition associates with the memory of the Fourth Council the name of Āvāghoṣa, the author of the Buddhaśārita, the oldest artistic poem in Sanskrit literature. He is said to have taken part in the council as vice-president. At K.’s court there also lived, as court physician, the celebrated Caraka, to whom is attributed the oldest treatise on Indian medicine.