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The Kushan Empire (, ''Kushano''; (サンスクリット:कुषाण राजवंश) ''Kuṣāṇ Rājavaṃśa''; BHS: '; ''Kušan-xšaθr''〔''The Dynasty Arts of the Kushans'', University of California Press, 1967, (p. 5 )〕) was a syncretic Empire formed by Yuezhi in the Greco-Bactrian territories of the early 1st century. It spread to encompass much of Afghanistan, today's Peshawar, Pakistan,〔http://www.kushan.org/general/other/part1.htm and Si-Yu-Ki, Buddhist Records of the Western World, (Tr. Samuel Beal: Travels of Fa-Hian, The Mission of Sung-Yun and Hwei-S?ng, Books 1–5), Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd. London. 1906 and Hill (2009), pp. 29, 318–350〕 and then the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath near Varanasi (Benares), where inscriptions have been found dating to the era of the Kushan emperor Kanishka the Great.〔which began about 127 CE. "Falk 2001, pp. 121–136", Falk (2001), pp. 121–136, Falk, Harry (2004), pp. 167–176 and Hill (2009), pp. 29, 33, 368–371.〕 Though Kanishka greatly honored Buddhism, he is also said to have protected the teachings of Zoroastrianism. As Kushan expanded southward, the deities of its later coinage came to reflect its new Hindu majority. Kanishka sent his armies north of the Karakoram mountains, capturing territories as far as Kashgar, Khotan and Yarkant, in the Tarim Basin of modern-day Xinjiang, China. A direct road from Gandhara to China remained under Kushan control for more than a century, encouraging travel across the Karakoram and facilitating the spread of Mahayana Buddhism to China. The Kushans were one of five branches of the Yuezhi confederation, a possibly Iranian or Tocharian, Indo-European〔〔"They are, by almost unanimous opinion, Indo-Europeans, probably the most oriental of those who occupied the steppes." Roux, p.90〕 nomadic people who migrated from the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang) and settled in ancient Bactria.〔 The Kushans at first retained the Greek language for administrative purposes, but soon began to use an Iranian Bactrian language closely related to the modern Afghan languages,〔 The Bactrian Rabatak inscription (discovered in 1993 and deciphered in 2000) records that the Kushan king Kanishka the Great (c. 127 AD), discarded Greek (Ionian) as the language of administration and adopted Bactrian ("Arya language"), from Falk (2001): "The yuga of Sphujiddhvaja and the era of the Kuṣâṇas." Harry Falk. Silk Road Art and Archaeology VII, p. 133.〕 absorbing the coinage system, Greco-Buddhist religion and art, and the Central Asian tribes that had previously conquered parts of the northern central Iranian Plateau once ruled by the Parthians.. The Kushan dynasty had diplomatic contacts with the Roman Empire, Sasanian Persia, Aksumite Empire and Han China. While much philosophy, art, and science was created within its borders, the only textual record of the empire's history today comes from inscriptions and accounts in other languages, particularly Chinese.〔Hill (2009), p. 36 and notes.〕 The Kushan empire fragmented into semi-independent kingdoms in the 3rd century AD, which fell to the Sasanians invading from the west. In the 4th century, the Guptas, an Indian dynasty also pressed from the east. The last of the Kushan and Sasanian kingdoms were eventually overwhelmed by the Hepthalites, another Indo-European people from the north.〔 Historian H. G. Rawlinson states that the "Kushana Period is a fitting prelude to the age of Gupta's".〔H.G. Rawlinson., India, A Short Cultural History, P 105 〕 ==Origins== Chinese sources describe the ''Guishuang'' (貴霜), ''i.e.'' the Kushans, as one of the five aristocratic tribes of the Yuezhi (月氏), with some people claiming they were a loose confederation of Indo-European peoples,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Kushan Empire (ca. 2nd century B.C.–3rd century A.D.) | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art )〕 though many scholars are still unconvinced that they originally spoke an Indo-European language. The Yuezhi had been living in the arid grasslands of eastern Central Asia's Tarim Basin, in modern-day Xinjiang, China, possibly speaking varieties of the Tocharian languages, 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'' (休密), ''Guìshuāng'' (貴霜), ''Shuāngmǐ'' (雙靡), ''Xìdùn'' (肸頓), and ''Dūmì'' (都密). The Yuezhi reached the Hellenic kingdom of Greco-Bactria (in northern Afghanistan and Uzbekistan) around 135 BC. The displaced Greek dynasties resettled to the southeast in areas of the Hindu Kush and the Indus basin (in present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan), occupying the western part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom. General Cunningham identified the Kushans as Gurjars or ''Gujjar''. The word ''Gusur'' is referenced in the Rabatak inscription of Kushan king Kanishka. According to some scholars, in this inscription the word ''Gusur'', which means ''Kulputra'' or a "man or woman born in high family", stands for ''Gurjara''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kushan Empire」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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