Table of Contents

  • KHAYYAM, OMAR ix. Translations into Italian

    Mario Casari

    The reception of Khayyam’s poetic work in Italy, as in the rest of Europe, was the result of the translation and rewriting of the English poet Edward FitzGerald (d. 1883) in the years 1859-79.  In Italy the more scholarly approach to Khayyam’s work by a few dedicated Iranists proceeded at a fitful pace over many decades.

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  • KHAYYAM, OMAR xiii. Musical Works Based On The Rubaiyat

    William H. Martin and Sandra Mason

    The enduring popularity of the verses in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is reflected in the large number of musical works they have inspired.

  • KHAYYAM, OMAR xiv. Impact On Literature And Society In The West

    Jos Biegstraaten

    The first scholar outside Persia to study Omar Khayyam was the English orientalist, Thomas Hyde (1636-1703).

  • KHAYYAM, OMAR xv. As Mathematician

    Bijan Vahabzadeh

    Three mathematical treatises of Omar Khayyam have come down to us: (1) a commentary on Euclid’s Elements; (2) an essay on the division of the quadrant of a circle; (3) a treatise on algebra; he also wrote (4) the treatise on the extraction of the nth root of the numbers, which is not extant.

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  • KHORASAN i. ETHNIC GROUPS

    Pierre Oberling

    The population of Khorasan is extremely varied, consisting principally of Persians, Arabs, Turks, Kurds, Mongols, Baluch, and smaller groups of Jews, Gypsies, and Lors.

  • KHORDEH AVESTĀ

    William W. Malandra

    “The Little Avesta,” the name given to a collection of texts used primarily by the laity for everyday devotions.

  • KHORRAMABAD

    Multiple Authors

    sub-province and capital city of Lorestan Province.

  • KHORRAMABAD ii. Population, 1956-2011

    Mohammad Hossein Nejatian

    This article deals with the following population characteristics of Khorramabad: population growth from 1956 to 2011, age structure, average household size, literacy rate, and economic activity status.

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  • KHORRAMSHAHR

    Multiple Authors

    (ḴORRAMŠAHR), a port city at the confluence of the Karun river and the Shatt al-Arab.

  • KHORRAMSHAHR i. PHYSICAL AND HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

    Eckart Ehlers

    (ḴORRAMŠAHR), a port city at the confluence of the Karun river and the Shatt al-Arab.

  • KHORRAMSHAHR ii. POPULATION, 1956-2011

    Mohammad Hossein Nejatian

    This article deals with the population growth of Khorramshahr from 1956 to 2011, age structure, average household size, literacy rate, and economic activity status.

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  • KHOTAN

    Multiple Authors

    town (lat 37°06′ N, long 79°56′ E) and major oasis of the southern Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, historically an important kingdom with an Iranian-speaking population. 

  • KHOTAN i. Geography

    Alain Cariou

    Located between the Kunlun mountains and the edge of the Taklamakan desert, the city of Khotan is today a major administrative center of the Khotan Prefecture, a vast area mostly concentrated in the piedmont oasis.

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  • KHOTAN ii. HISTORY IN THE PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD

    Hiroshi Kumamoto

    ancient Buddhist oasis/kingdom on the branch of the Silk Road along the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim basin, in present-day Xinjiang, China.

  • KHOTAN iv. KHOTANESE LITERATURE

    Mauro Maggi

    the body of writings contained in a large number of manuscripts and manuscript folios and fragments written from the 5th to the 10th century in the Khotanese language, the Eastern Middle Iranian language of the Buddhist Saka kingdom of Khotan on the southern branch of the Silk Route (in the present-day Xinjiang-Uygur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China).

  • KHUJAND

    Keith Hitchins

    (Ḵojand), city in northwestern Tajikistan on the middle course of the Syr Daryā River, about 150 km south of Tashkent and near the entrance to the Farḡāna valley.

  • KHUZESTAN viii. Dialects

    Colin MacKinnon

    The dialects spoken by the Iranian folk of the province appear to be of two basic types: Dezfuli-Šuštari, spoken in those two cities, and Baḵtiāri.

  • KHWARAZMSHAHS i. Descendants of the line of Anuštigin

    Clifford Edmund Bosworth

    After the Saljuq takeover in Khwarazm in the early 1040s, the Saljuq Sultans appointed various governors in the province, including several Turkish ḡolām commanders.

  • KIĀ, ṢĀDEQ

    Habib Borjian

    Kiā’s primary achievement was promotion and publicizing of a Persian national identity that embraced the pre-Islamic heritage—not atypical of his contemporaries who had received their formal education during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi.  He taught and published, winning him reputation in society and eventually an appointment as the language academy’s president.

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  • KIĀNI, Sayyed NĀDERŠĀH

    S. J. Badakhchani

    (d. 1970), 20th century Ismaʿili poet and writer of Afghanistan, born in Kulāb, southwestern Tajikistan. 

  • KIDARITES

    Frantz Grenet

    a dynasty which ruled Tukharistan and later Gandhāra, probably also part of Sogdiana; the initial date is disputed (ca 390 CE for some modern authors, ca. 420-430 for others).

  • KIEFFER, CHARLES MARTIN

    Daniel Septfonds

    (1923-2015), French linguist and ethnographer of Afghanistan.

  • KILIZU

    Antonio Invernizzi

    capital of the Assyrian province of the same name, near the mound Qaṣr Šemāmok in northern Mesopotamia, where a Parthian necropolis was brought to light.

  • KIMIĀ

    Pierre Lory

    “Alchemy.” Externally, the purpose of alchemy was the conversion of base metals like lead into silver or gold by means of long and complicated operations leading to the production of a mysterious substance, the ‘philosopher’s stone,’ able to operate the transmutation. 

  • KING OF THE BENIGHTED

    NASRIN RAHIMIEH & DANIEL RAFINEJAD

    As Milani describes in his afterword to the English translation, Golshiri incrementally sent handwritten pages of the manuscript to Milani in California in the guise of personal letters, “to avoid the ever-watchful gaze of the Islamic censors.”

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  • Kingship ii. Parthian Period

    Edward Dąbrowa

    Parthian kingship started with the Arsacids monarchy and was an original form of Oriental kingship. The royal ideology was created by combining elements of different provenance; Greek elements were systematically removed or relegated to be replaced by Iranian traditions.

  • ḴIRI

    Ahmad Aryavand and Bahram Grami

    wallflower, a widely cultivated, sweet-smelling, ornamental plant of the mustard family, which often grows on old walls, rocks, and quarries, particularly limestone.

  • KIRSTE, Johann Ferdinand Otto

    Michaela Zinko

    Johann Kirste received his primary and secondary education in Graz, and after graduating from high school (Gymnasium) in 1870, he enrolled at the University of Graz to study Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit with Karl Schenkl. From 1872 until 1874, in the traditional manner of the time, Kirste studied at several German universities to broaden his training.

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  • KISH ISLAND

    D. T. Potts

    (Ar. Qeys), small island in the lower Persian Gulf, noted for its palm gardens.

  • KOBRAWIYA i. THE EPONYM

    Hamid Algar

    Abu’l-Jannāb Aḥmad b.ʿOmar Najm-al-Din Kobrā, eponym of the Kobrawiya, was born in Ḵᵛārazm in 1145 or possibly a decade later.

  • KOBRAWIYA ii. THE ORDER

    Hamid Algar

    The crystallization of a given line of Sufi tradition as an “order” should not be understood as imposing on all the spiritual descendants of the eponym a definitive and permanently binding choice of methods and emphases.

  • ḴODĀYDĀDZĀDA, BĀBĀ-YUNOS

    Habib Borjian

    (b. ca. 1870-75, d. 1945), Tajik folk poet and singer. His exceptional skill in singing the Guruḡli stories on the dotār (a long-neck lute) won him great reputation throughout Tajikistan. According to his biographer, his performance would take hours from evening to dawn, with only short breaks to relax and eat, for several nights in a row. 

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  • KOFRI

    Aḥmad Golčin Maʿāni

    pen name of the poet-calligrapher MAWLĀNĀ AMIR-ḤOSAYN TORBATI (d. 1607).

  • KOFRI, Moḥammad Kermānšāhi

    Shireen Mahdavi

    (1829-1908), physician and surgeon, the son of Pir Moḥammad Zāreʿ, a merchant.

  • KOH-I-NOOR

    Iradj Amini

    (Kuh-e Nur; lit. “Mountain of Light”), the most celebrated diamond in the world, with rich legendary and historical associations.

  • ḴOʾI, MIRZĀ ʿALIQOLI

    Ulrich Marzolph

    (1815-ca. 1856), the most prolific illustrator of Persian lithographed books in the Qajar period. Educated in Tabriz, he published an edition of the Ḵamsa‑ye Neẓāmi.

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  • ḴOJANDIS OF ISFAHAN

    David Durand-Guédy

    a prominent family of Šāfeʿi ulema, who were settled in Isfahan by the Saljuq grand vizier Neẓām-al-Molk.  They turned into the most important family and political actor in that city during the Saljuq period and continued to play a significant role up to the Mongol invasion.

  • ḴOJESTĀNI, Aḥmad b. ʿAbd-Allāh

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    (d. 882), commander of the Taherids in Khorasan, and after the Ṣaffarid occupation of Nishapur in 873, a contender for power.

  • KOJUR

    Multiple Authors

    historical district in the central Alborz, northwestern Māzandarān.  i. Historical geography.  ii. Language and culture.

  • KOJUR i. Historical Geography

    Habib Borjian

    The historical district of Kojur covers roughly a quadrangle bounded by the Caspian Sea on the north, the Čālus River on the west, Nur valley on the south, and Suledeh valley on the east. 

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  • KOJUR ii. Language

    Habib Borjian

    Two major languages of native Caspian and Kurdish dialects are spoken in Kojur. The Caspian dialect is structurally Mazandarani with some divergence. The Kurdish dialect is spoken by the Kurdish immigrants and remains unstudied.

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  • KOJUR iii. The Calendar

    Habib Borjian

    The Ṭabari or Deylami year observed in Kojur consists of twelve months, thirty days each, plus five intercalary days called petak, concluding the year.

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  • KOLAYNI

    Etan Kohlberg

    (d. 941), Abu Jaʿfar Moḥammad b. Yaʿqub b. Esḥāq Rāzi,  prominent Imami traditionist.

  • KOLUKJĀNLU

    Pierre Oberling

    a Kurdish tribe in the Ḵalḵāl region of eastern Azerbaijan.

  • KONDORI, MOḤAMMAD B. MANṢUR

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    (b. ca. 1024, d. 1064), vizier to Ṭoḡrel Beg (r. 1040-63), the first sultan of the Great Saljuqs, and, briefly, to Ṭoḡrel’s successor Alp Arslān (r. 1063-72).

  • KONOW, STEN

    Fridrik Thordarson

    Konow was an all-around Indologist, whose extensive scholarly work covers most branches of Indian studies. His occupation with Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India, where he edited half a dozen of volumes on various languages, resulted in a long series of studies of Tibeto-Burman, Munda and Dravidian languages.

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  • KORA-SONNI

    Pierre Oberling

    a tribe in western Persian Azerbaijan.

  • ḴORĀSĀNI, ĀḴUND

    Cross-Reference

    See AḴŪND MOLLĀ MOḤAMMAD-KĀẒEM ḴORĀSĀNĪ.

  • ḴORĀSĀNI, MOLLĀ ṢĀDEQ

    Vahid Rafati

    (d. 1874), teacher, defender and promulgator of the Babi-Bahai faiths.

  • KORK

    Rudi Matthee

    soft wool, also called Kermān wool, used for the manufacture of fine clothing and felt hats.

  • KÖROĞLU

    Multiple Authors

    also Göroḡly, name of an early-17th-century folk hero and poet, whose stories are mainly known among the Turkic peoples; passed into the folk literature of the Armenians, Georgians, Kurds and Bulghars, and the Iranian provinces of Azerbaijan and Khorasan.

  • KÖROĞLU i. LITERARY TRADITION

    Hasan Javadi

    There are at least 17 versions of the Köroǧlu/Göroḡly tradition about a heroic bandit minstrel, but the Turkic versions of the story among the Azerbaijanis, the Turks of Anatolia, and the Turkmen, are most similar to each other regarding language and plot.

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  • KÖROĞLU ii. PERFORMANCE ASPECTS

    Ameneh Youssefzadeh

    The traditional venues for the performance of the Köroǧlu/Goroḡli epic are life-cycle celebrations, private gatherings, and teahouses. In Azerbaijan and northern Khorasan, from the 17th century up to the Islamic Revolution of 1978, teahouses played a pivotal role in the diffusion and the preservation of the epic.

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  • KOROSH

    Multiple Authors

    the name of a tribe scattered across southwestern Iran, whose language is closely related to southern varieties of Balochi.

  • KOROSH i. The Korosh people

    Maryam Nourzaei, Erik Anonby, and Carina Jahani

    Korosh communities are found in villages near large towns and cities, and in the suburbs of these cities, across southwestern Iran. Their traditional livelihood is based on camel and goat husbandry.

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  • KOROSH ii. Linguistic Overview of Koroshi

    Maryam Nourzaei, Carina Jahani, and Erik Anonby

    Koroshi can be described as a distinct subgroup within the Balochi macro-language, although it shares many features with southern dialects of Balochi. The Koroshi spoken in Fars Province (the ‘northern’ dialect) differs to some extent from varieties of the southern dialect.

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  • ḴORRAMIS

    Patricia Crone

    adherents of a form of Iranian religion often identified as a survival or revival of the Zoroastrian heresy, Mazdakism.

  • ḴORRAMIS IN BYZANTIUM

    Evangelos Venetis

    Iranians who fought the ʿAbbasid caliph Moʿtaṣem be’llāh (r. 833-41) and enrolled in the Byzantine army of the iconoclast emperor Theophilos I (r. 829-42).

  • ḴORŠĀH B. QOBĀD ḤOSEYNI, NEẒĀM-AL-DIN

    Kioumars Ghereghlou

    a Hyderabad-based diplomat and historian of Iranian descent best known for his composition of a universal chronicle in Persian in the name of the Qoṭbšāhi ruler, Ebrāhim (r. 1550-80).

  • ḴORŠĀH, ROKN-AL-DIN

    Farhad Daftary

    (1230-1257), Nezāri Ismaʿili imam and the last lord of Alamut.

  • ḴOŠ MAḤAL

    Phillip B. Wagoner

    Tughluqid audience hall in the Deccan.

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  • KOŠĀNIYA

    P. Lurje

    a medieval Sogdian town to the west of Samarkand. Its name is most probably related to the Yuezhi Kušān dynasty and its claimed heirs, such as the Kidarites.

  • ḴOSROW I

    Multiple Authors

    Sasanian king (r. 531-79), son of Kawād I.

  • ḴOSROW I i. LIFE AND TIMES

    Multiple Authors

    Sasanian king (r. 531-579). i. Life and Times (forthcoming).

  • ḴOSROW I ii. REFORMS

    Zeev Rubin

    a series of reforms in Sasanian taxation and military organization, probably initiated already under Kawāḏ I.

  • ḴOSROW I iii. COINAGE

    Nikolaus Schindel

    The reign of Ḵosrow I (531-79) is generally regarded as the heyday of the Sasanian empire, but his coinage marks the nadir of Sasanian coin art. The most noteworthy features are innovations in reverse typology. In the first type, the assistant figures are shown frontally, a totally new depiction; and they hold what appears to be a spear.

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  • ḴOSROW II

    James Howard-Johnston

    the last great king of the Sasanian dynasty (590-628 CE). The principal extant history of the period, written in Armenia in the early 650s, was appropriately entitled The History of Khosrow. He is rightly accorded a great deal of space in the Šāh-nāma of Ferdowsi.

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  • ḴOSROW KHAN GORJI QĀJĀR

    Hirotake Maeda

    (1785/86-1857), an influential eunuch (Ḵᵛāja) of the Qajar era, who lived in the period spanning the reigns Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah (r. 1797-1834) to Nāṣer-al-Din Shah (r. 1848-96).

  • ḴOSROW MALEK

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    the last sultan of the Ghaznavid dynasty, in northwestern India, essentially in the Panjab, with his capital at Lahore. Various honorifics are attributed to him in the historical sources, in the verses of poets eulogizing him, and in the legends of his coins in the collections of the British Museum and Lahore

  • ḴOSROW MIRZĀ QĀJĀR

    George Bournoutian

    (1813-1875), the seventh son of Crown Prince ʿAbbās Mirzā, who led an official Iranian delegation to the Tsarist court in St. Petersburg.

  • ḴOSROW O ŠIRIN

    Paola Orsatti

    the second poem of Neẓāmi’s Ḵamsa, recounting the amorous relationship between the Sasanian king Ḵosrow II Parviz (r. 590-628 CE), and the beautiful princess Širin.

  • ḴOSROWŠĀH B. BAHRĀMŠĀH

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    penultimate ruler of the Ghaznavid dynasty, apparently still in Ghazna until the dynasty found its last home at Lahore in northwestern India at a date around or soon after the time of his death.

  • ḴOṬBA

    Tahera Qutbuddin

    (oration, speech, sermon), a formal public address performed in a broad range of contexts by Muslims across the globe, rooted in the extemporaneously composed discourses of pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabia.

  • ḴOTTAL

    Clifford Edmund Bosworth

    a province of medieval Islamic times on the right bank of the upper Oxus river in modern Tajikistan. A region of lush pastures, Ḵottal was famed for horse-breeding.

  • KRÁMSKÝ, JIRÍ

    Jiri Bečka

    (1913-1991), Czech general linguist who specialized in Persian language studies. He then studied English and Persian (the latter under Professor J. Rypka) at the Charles University, Prague. 

  • Křikavová, Adéla

    Jiri Bečka

    (1938-2002), Czech scholar of Iranian and particularly Kurdish studies.

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  • KRYMSKIĬ, Agfangel Efimovich

    Natalia Chalisova

    (1871-1942) Ukrainian orientalist, author of over 1,000 works on the history and culture of Iran, Arab countries, Turkey, the Khanate of the Crimea, and Azerbaijan.

  • KUFA

    Meir Litvak

    a city south of Baghdad.

  • KUFTA

    Etrat Elahi

    popular Persian dish usually made of ground lamb or beef, and more recently, ground chicken or turkey in a mixture of herbs, spices, or other ingredients. There are two kinds of kufta: with rice and without.

  • KUH-E ḴᵛĀJA

    Soroor Ghanimati

    a well preserved archeological site of chiefly Sasanian date, in the delta of the Helmand River, in the Iranian province of Sistān, near Zābol. The sacred precinct is located on the monumental upper part of the site and has inevitably attracted most attention.

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  • KUHPĀYA

    Multiple Authors

    piedmont district east of Isfahan province, historically known as Vir.

  • KUHPĀYA i. The District

    Habib Borjian

    Kuhpāya is a large piedmont boluk (3,000 km2) separated from Ardestān on the north and Nāʾin on the east respectively by the Fešārk and Kuhestān chains, extensions of the Karkas range.

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  • KUHPĀYA ii. The Dialect

    Habib Borjian

    The dialects spoken in the Kuhpāya district belong to the Central Dialects, but in a narrower sense they are grouped together with the welāyati “provincial” idioms around the city of Isfahan.

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  • KUKADARU, JAMSHEDJI SORAB

    Michael Stausberg and Ramiyar P. Karanjia

    (1831-1900), Parsi Zoroastrian priest. He was renowned for his spiritual powers, in particular with respect to healing and divination.

  • KULĀB

    Habib Borjian

    or Kōlāb, city and former province (the greater part of medieval Ḵottal[ān]) of Tajikistan.

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  • KULĀBI DIALECT

    Habib Borjian

    a distinct variant of Tajik spoken in Kulāb and adjoining districts.

  • KUNDA(G)

    Mahnaz Moazami

    a demon in Zoroastrian literature;  in the Avesta, Sraoša or Ātar is implored to cast it into hell; in Middle Persian books, it is the steed of the sorcerers.  

  • ḴUR

    Habib Borjian

    oasis on the southern border of the Great Desert in central Persia; the administrative center of the sub-province of Ḵur and Biābānak.

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  • KURDISH LANGUAGE i. HISTORY OF THE KURDISH LANGUAGE

    Ludwig Paul

    from Old and Middle Iranian times, no predecessors of the Kurdish language are yet known; the extant Kurdish texts may be traced back to no earlier than the 16th century CE.

  • KURDISH LANGUAGE ii. HISTORY OF KURDISH STUDIES

    Joyce Blau

    The article provides a brief account of Kurdish studies, which is a relatively recent academic field. The earliest studies of the Kurdish language and civilization were carried out by missionaries.

  • KURDISH TRIBES

    Pierre Oberling

    Kurdish tribes are found throughout Persia, eastern Anatolia and northern Iraq, but very few comprehensive lists of them have been published.

  • KURDISH WRITTEN LITERATURE

    Philip G. Kreyenbroek

    Written, “elevated” poetry traditionally played a less prominent role in Kurdish society than folk poetry (q.v.) did. The number of written literary works in Kurdish is far smaller than in the surrounding cultures.

  • KURDOEV, QENĀTĒ

    Joyce Blau

    (1909-1985), Kurdish philologist and university professor.

  • KURGAN TEPE

    Habib Borjian

    (Qūrḡonteppa in Tajik orthography; Kurgan-Tyube in Russian), provincial capital and former province of Tajikistan.

  • KURUNI

    Pierre Oberling

    a Kurdish tribe of Kurdistan and Fārs. Most of the tribe was transplanted from Kurdistan to Fārs by Karim Khan Zand during the 1760s.

  • KUŠ-NĀMA

    Jalal Matini

    part of a mythical history of Iran written between 1108 and 1111, dealing with the eventful life of Kuš the Tusked.

  • KUSA

    Anna Krasnowolska

    a carnival character known to the medieval and modern folklore of central and western Persia.

  • KUSHAN DYNASTY

    Multiple Authors

    the line of rulers in Bactria, Central Asia and northern India from the first century CE.

  • KUSHAN DYNASTY i. Dynastic History

    A. D. H. Bivar

    During the first to mid-third centuries CE, the empire of the Kushans (Mid. Pers. Kušān-šahr) represented a major world power in Central Asia and northern India.

  • KUSHAN DYNASTY ii. Inscriptions of the Kushans

    N. Sims-Williams and H. Falk

    The inscriptions issued by the Kushan rulers or in areas under their rule include texts in Bactrian, written in Greek script, and in Prakrit written in Brāhmī or Kharoṣṭhī script. Naturally enough, the Bactrian inscriptions are mostly found in Bactria and the Indian inscriptions in the Kushan territories to the south and east of the Hindu Kush.