The Rabatak inscription of Kanishka

The text, carved on a stone block of 500–600 kg, records the foundation of a sanctuary (bagolango) for the gods and for statues of the Kushan kings. Kanishka is called “the great salvation, the righteous, just autocrat, worthy of divine worship, who has obtained the kingship from Nana and from all the gods, who has inaugurated the year one as the gods pleased”. In that year his rule was proclaimed in India, in Saketa, Kausambi and Pataliputra and as far as Sri-Champa, although it is unclear whether Champa itself was his. The king ordered his official Shafar, the karalrang, to build the sanctuary and to make images of the gods — Nana, Umma, Aurmuzd (Ahura Mazda), Mihr and others — and of four kings: his great-grandfather Kujula Kadphises, his grandfather Vima Taktu, his father Vima Kadphises, and himself. One phrase, whose translation is uncertain, may refer to replacing Greek with Bactrian, the “Aryan” language — a switch that Kanishka’s coins show soon after his accession.

The inscription fixed the order of the early Kushan kings and showed that Vima Taktu was Kanishka’s grandfather. Its words about “the year one” show that the Kushan era began with Kanishka’s reign; Harry Falk places its start in 127/128. Since the text also seems to mention the third and sixth years, it was probably carved no earlier than 132, so the date given here runs from 132 to the end of Kanishka’s reign by this chronology.

The stone was found in 1993 by mujahideen digging a trench on an artificial hill near the Rabatak pass, not far from the Kushan temple of Surkh Kotal. A worker of the demining charity HALO Trust photographed it, the photograph reached the British Museum, and Joe Cribb and Nicholas Sims-Williams published the first translation in 1996. In 2000 the stone was brought to the Kabul Museum, where it is on display today.