i. Kushan Period

The name originally derives from the Bactrian bagolango “image-temple” (< OIr. *baga-dānaka-), a term used in the inscription of Nokonzoko (SK4) from the archeological site of Surkh (Sorḵ) Kotal in Afghanistan. In this text, the temple-complex excavated by the Delegation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan from 1951-63, is named as Kanēško oanindo bagolango, probably to be understood as “Kanishka-Victory-Temple.” Though since the word oanindo represents both the name of an astral deity of victory, depicted winged and thus named on the Kushan gold coinage, and as an adjective “victorious,” some scholars have taken it as an epithet referring to Kanishka.

The temple excavated at this site appeared to be a fire-temple of dynastic character, dedicated for the rulers of the Kushan dynasty. It was founded perhaps early in the reign of Kanishka (according to the unfinished inscription SK2 in the year 289 of an unstated era which is most probably a Greco-Bactrian era of about 155 B.C., thus fixing the date of construction to about A.D. 124), and restored in the year 31 of a different era, probably of Kanishka I’s own enthronement, perhaps thus equivalent to A.D. 125 + 31 = 156 or shortly after. The complex contained a cella, an attached subsidiary fire-temple piled with fine ashes, statues of at least two Kushan emperors, one of which seems identical with a coin-portrait of Huvishka, and a stone orthostat in poorly preserved state which appears to show an enthroned ruler in the presence of a trophy (for another theory see Fussman, p. 123).