Talk:Kanishka

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What country was he King of? RickK

Kanishka ruled the Kushan Empire whose boundaries are not certain but included modern Pakistan, modern Afghanistan, parts of Tibet and Central Asia, and parts of Northern India.

Readers might be interested to know that the majority of Kushan scholars believe the date of Kanishka to be solved. There are full references on my discussion:

www.kushan.org/essays/chronology/kanishka.htm

Note I hold a minority position.

Robert

[edit] Kanishka was a Jat King of Kaswan clan

Kaswan or Kuswan or Kasuan is a gotra of Jats in Rajasthan and Haryana in India. The word Kaswan is 'XWN' of Tocharian language meaning 'King'. The Taxila Ladle Copper inscription bears this as 'Kaswin' word. In Mahabharata also there is mention of a country named 'Kuswan' which was situated in the north of Mansarovar lake.

Presently Kaswan Jats are living in about 300 villages of Bikaner, Churu and Ratangarh areas. They were rulers in Sindh. Raja Kharwel has mentioned in an article about their rule in 2nd century of Vikram samvat - ‘Hathi Gumpha and three other inscriptions’ (page 24) in Sanskrit as under:

“Kusawanam Kshetriyanam cha Sahayyatavatan prapt masik nagaram”.

This means that the city of 'Masik' was obtained with the help of 'Kuswa' Kshatriyas

According to historian Bhim Singh Dahiya the correct name for Kushans in India is Kasuan, the present Kaswan clan of Jats of Rajasthan and Haryana. This title remains in use by Jat clan indicates their possibility of ancestral lineage from Kushans.

James Legge : A RECORD OF BUDDHISTIC INGDOMS, (Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414), in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline Translated and annotated with a Corean recension of the Chinese text)

mentions in chapter XII about the rule of Kanishka in foot note-4 that “Kanishka appeared, and began to reign, early in our first century, about A.D. 10. He was the last of three brothers, whose original seat was in Yueh-she, immediately mentioned, or Tukhara.”

He further mentions in footnote-6 that “This king was perhaps Kanishka himself, Fa-hien mixing up, in an inartistic way, different legends about him. Eitel suggests that a relic of the old name of the country may still exist in that of the Jats or Juts of the present day. A more common name for it is Tukhara, and he observes that the people were the Indo-Scythians of the Greeks, and the Tartars of Chinese writers, who, driven on by the Huns (180B.C.), conquered Transoxiana, destroyed the Bactrian kingdom (126 B.C.), and finally conquered the Punjab, Cashmere, and great part of India, their greatest king being Kanishak (E. H., p. 152).”

As per above discussion it is clear that the Kushan ruler Kanishka was a Jat. It is proposed accordingly to included this fact in the History Kanishka in this article. burdak 04:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hazaras and Kushans

Hazara people of central Afghanistan remains one of least known ethnic group in Afghanistan.

Hazara people are very honest, hardworking, loyal. talented and trusthworthy. Unfortunately in the last one hundred years they have experienced the most inhuman suppression, facsism and sufferings by Pashtun rulers who were supported by colonist powers.

Between 1880s and 1890s Hazaras rebeled against Pashtun king Amir Abdur Rahman when He started invading Hazara land. Hazara people lost more than 60% of their population in the war of independece, back then Hazaras were the largest group in Afghanistan. More than 62% of their land was occupied by Pashtun people. More recently Taliban (Pashtun) massacred millions of Hazaras brutally. British paid 1.85 million rupees annualy to Abdur Rahman, all his imunation was imported from Britain.

For the last one hundred years nothing changed for the Hazara people. The government completly kept them in dark, and did nothing in all sphere of their life.

Buddah of Bamiyan is in Hazara region and the Hazara people clearly remember that the face of Buddah looked like Hazara people face before its destruction and alot of discoveries has been found from kushan era in Hazara region.

Pashtun people destroyed Buddah of Bamyan in purpose to completly annihilate Hazaras historically.

I advise you if you are interested about problems of modern Afghanistan, you need to go back and study from its foundaton more 150 years ago.

Please visit for info. on Hazara people this websits. www.hazara.net www.hazaristan.net www.hazaraworld.com www.hazara.org

[edit] Concern about the so-called "Clan of Kanishka"

I am very concerned about the recent addition of the section called the "Clan of Kanishka." I don't know of any convincing historical evidence that Kanishka was a Jat and this addition certainly does not prove it. As far as I am concerned it remains a hypothesis or theory at best and, until more evidence is produced, I don't think this section should remain. I have, therefore, added the following label to this section

John Hill 07:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

John

Perhaps you could provide some verifiable evidence , that Kaniska was not a Jat

Ravi Chaudhary 20:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] sources cited for "Clan of Kanishka"

Hi John Hill, After your note to verify sources about the clan of Kanishka I further searched books with me and put more references at appropriate places in the article on clan of Kanishka's section. All references lead to the same fact that Kanishka was Kaswan Jat and it can not be anything else. Apart from literature and inscriptions the biggest evidence is that Kaswan clan is in Jats as on today in Rajasthan. Majoritry of them are in Churu district in Rajasthan. So as I am from that area and have first hand information about them. If there is any evidence otherwise, as Ravi Chaudhary has said, it may be placed for discussion.

About the origin of Kushans I take from Wikipedia article on Kushan which is as under -

"Chinese sources describe the Guishuang (Ch: 貴霜), i.e. the "Kushans", as one of the five aristocratic tribes of the Yuezhi (Ch: 月氏), a loose confederation of Indo-European peoples. The Yuezhi are also generally considered as the easternmost speakers of Indo-European languages, who had been living in the arid grasslands of eastern Central Asia, in modern-day Xinjiang and Gansu, possibly speaking versions of the Tocharian language, until they were driven west by the Xiongnu in 176–160 BCE. The five tribes constituting the Yuezhi are known in Chinese history as Xiūmì (Ch: 休密), Guishuang (Ch: 貴霜), Shuangmi (Ch: 雙靡), Xidun (Ch: 肸頓), and Dūmì (Ch: 都密).

The Yuezhi reached the Hellenic kingdom of Greco-Bactria, in the Bactrian territory (northernmost Afghanistan and Uzbekistan) around 135 BCE, and displaced the Greek dynasties there, who resettled in Indus basin (in present day Pakistan) in the western part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom.

In the following century, the Guishuang (Ch: 貴霜) gained prominence over the other Yuezhi tribes, and welded them into a tight confederation under yabgu (Commander) Kujula Kadphises. The name Guishuang was adopted in the West and modified into Kushan to designate the confederation, although the Chinese continued to call them Yuezhi."

According to Thakur Deshraj the Shivi gotra Jats of Shivaliks and lower reaches of Lake Manasarowar left this area after the war of Mahabharata and migrated to Uttar Kuru. Some of them settled in Punjab in the area known as 'Yadu ki Dung', some settled in Kashmir and the rest moved far north up to Siberia. ^[1]

The Krishna vanshi people in Sanskrit were called 'Karshney' and 'Karshniya'. Karshniya or Kasaniya is a gotra of Jats found in Rajasthan. These Krishna vanshi people in China were known as Kushan or Yuezhi.^[2]

Bhim Singh Dahiya has established that Kushan or Yuezhi were Jats. There were two branches of Yuezhi people. One of the branches was called 'Ta-Yuezhi' which means 'The great Jats'. The other branch was 'Siao-Yuezhi' which means 'The little Jats'. The Greek historian Herodotus has written Massagetae for Ta-Yuezhi and Thyssagetae for Siao-Yuezhi. The Yuezhi people inhabited the Outer Mongolia and Gansu province of China.^[3][4] burdak 03:35, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

1. ^ Thakur Deshraj: Jat Itihas (Hindi), Maharaja Suraj Mal Smarak Shiksha Sansthan, Delhi, 1934
2. ^ Thakur Deshraj: Jat Itihas (Hindi), Maharaja Suraj Mal Smarak Shiksha Sansthan, Delhi, 1934
3. ^ Bhim Singh Dahiya: Aryan Tribes and the Rig Veda, Dahinam Publishers, Haryana, India,1991
4. ^ Bhim Singh Dahiya: Jats the Ancient Rulers, Dahinam Publishers