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The Steppe and Central Asia (1st–5th c.)Wars and battles

Shapur I conquers Kushanshahr

By about 262 the Sasanian king Shapur I — perhaps already as crown prince under his father Ardashir I — had brought the Kushan lands north of the Hindu Kush under his rule: his great inscription at Naqsh-e Rostam lists “Kushanshahr as far as Peshawar” among his dominions, and a rock relief at Rag-i Bibi in northern Afghanistan is thought to show him hunting a rhinoceros, with a submissive Kushan figure before him.

Date
between 230 and 262exact date unknown: an interval is given
Place
Rag-i Bibi relieftoday: Near Pul-i Khumri, Baghlan Province, Afghanistan · Central and Northern Asia
Participants
Shapur I, Sasanian Empire, Kushan Empire, Ardashir I
Threads
The Steppe and Central Asia (1st–5th c.)
Also known as
Sasanian conquest of the Kushans; Rag-i Bibi; Kushanshahr; Res Gestae Divi Saporis; Раг-и Биби; Сасанидское завоевание Бактрии; Кушаншахр

The conquest is known almost only from its results. In the trilingual inscription carved on the Ka‘ba-ye Zartosht at Naqsh-e Rostam about 262, Shapur lists the lands of his empire, among them “Kushanshahr as far as Peshawar, and up to Kash, Sogdiana and the mountains of Chach (Tashkent)” — a claim that probably covered Bactria and the lands up to the Hindu Kush and perhaps beyond, while the Kushan dynasty kept its Indian territories. The same inscription names a brother of Shapur, Ardashir, as ruler of Merv. Arabic historians credit the first submission of the Kushans to his father Ardashir I, and campaigns in Ardashir’s time cannot be ruled out; but the coins suggest that the Kushans actually submitted to Ardashir’s son, the future Shapur I, perhaps before his accession in 240.

In 2002 Western scholars learned of a rock relief at Rag-i Bibi, near Pul-i Khumri on the road from Bactria to Kabul. Surveyed in 2004 by Jonathan Lee, Frantz Grenet and François Ory, it shows a mounted king hunting an Indian rhinoceros, accompanied by several figures. Grenet identified the king as Shapur I and the figure before him as a submissive Kushan king or noble; É. de la Vaissière sees the relief as confirming the claim of the inscription. The attribution is not unanimous: a study of 2020 suggested that the relief might be Kushan work. The date of the conquest itself is not recorded; it falls between the first Sasanian campaigns in the east, around 230, and the inscription of about 262.

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3rd century

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (English): Shapur I
  2. Wikipedia (English): Shapur I's inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht
  3. Wikipedia (English): Rag-i-Bibi
  4. Wikipedia (English): Sasanian–Kushan Wars
  5. Wikipedia (English): Sasanian Empire
  6. Wikipedia (Russian): Шапур I
  7. La Vaissière É. de. Kushanshahs i. History // Encyclopaedia Iranica. — 2016
  8. Grenet F., Lee J., Martinez Ph., Ory F. The Sasanian relief at Rag-i Bibi (Northern Afghanistan) // After Alexander: Central Asia before Islam / Ed. G. Herrmann, J. Cribb. — Oxford, 2007. — (Proceedings of the British Academy; 133). — P. 243–267.
  9. Levine E. I., Plekhov D. Reconsidering Rag-i Bibi: Authority and audience in the Sasanian East // Afghanistan. — 2019. — Vol. 2, № 2. — P. 233–260.