Kanishka

KANISHKA. - Most of the information from Chinese sources concerning the kingdom and life of K., the "king of kings" of the Kušānas, is devoid of historical value, and the time in which he lived is also a matter of controversy, since the dates proposed by the most authoritative historians differ from one another by centuries.

The excavations at the base of the great stūpa or "mound" of Peshavār unearthed a metal casket bearing engraved the names of K. and of Agesilaus, the Greek builder of the monument, but it bears no date. The opinion of Hoernle, that K. reigned from c. 225 to 152, seems the most plausible. The boundaries of K.'s vast empire, largely extra-Indian, whose capital was Puruṣapura (Peshavār), are not precisely known, but it appears to have extended, to the north, as far as the Tarim basin and to have included Gandhāra, the territory of present-day Afghanistan as far as the Oxus (Amu Darya), and the Indian provinces of the Panjab and Sind, to which K. also added Kašmīr. He was engaged in a trans-Himalayan campaign when he was killed by officers discontented with him. He was succeeded by his son Huviška. In his old age, K. became a zealous supporter of Buddhism (v.), into which he was initiated by the elder Pārśvika. In the hours free from the cares of state, he carefully studied the sacred texts of Buddhism, and manifested his veneration for the Buddha (v.) by having the image of the Enlightened One stamped on his coins. To quell the disputes among the monks, which were the cause of schisms, and to restore the doctrine of the Buddha to purity, K. was induced to convoke a council which was the IVth 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 took part in it. These did not subject the Canon to revision; they limited themselves to commenting on the Tripiṭaka. Hsüan-tsang relates that the three commentaries elaborated by the monks, engraved by order of K. on copper plates, were sealed in a stone urn, over which a stūpa was erected in perpetual remembrance of the council. But the Chinese pilgrim was writing several centuries after K., and many of the reports he gathered during his travels (630-44) have a fabulous character. Tradition also associates with the memory of the IVth Council the name of Aśvaghoṣa, the author of the life of the Buddha (Buddhācārtha), which is the oldest artistic poem of Sanskrit literature. He is said to have taken part in the Council as vice-president. At the court of K. the celebrated Čaraka, to whom the oldest treatise on Indian medicine is due, is also said to have lived as archiater.

Ferdinando Belloni Filippi