Kushān

The Kushāns replaced the Greeks in Bactria about 130 bce. They are thought to have been of Yüeh-chih stock with a strong admixture of Hephthalites, Śaka, and Tocharian. One branch of this group migrated to the Tarim Basin and founded a short-lived empire, while…

…of Central Asian invaders, the Kushāns, founded a great empire in northwestern India; they left a wealth of gold and copper coins with legends in the Bactrian language, written in cursive Greek letters. Their coin types—of king on obverse and deity on reverse—became the general style of northern Indian coinage…

…a group known as the Kushans, under whom the country became a centre of Buddhism. In the latter half of the 4th century the Hephthalites (originally a tribe of the Yuezhi) settled in Bactria, and for almost two centuries they engaged in wars with the Sasanians. In 565 ce the…