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KURDISH WRITTEN LITERATURE. 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, but it is comparable to that of Pashto (q.v.). The written literary output in…

KURDOEV, QENĀTĒ (b. Susiz, near Qaziman in the province of Kars, 1909; d. St. Petersburg, 1985), Kurdish philologist and university professor. Susiz was under Russian domination when Kurdoev (or Kurdo) was born. After the Armenian massacres, Kurdoev’s family found themselves, in turn, victims of Ottoman brutality. In 1918, they fled…

KURGANTEPE (Qūrḡonteppa in Tajik orthography; Kurgan-Tyube in Russian), provincial capital and former province of Tajikistan. The province is bounded by the mountain ranges of Bābātāḡ in the east and Tēraklitāḡ and Qarātāḡ on the west, and the river Panj on the south. The inhabitable lands lie along the two fertile…

KURUNI(KORĀNI), a Kurdish tribe of Kurdistan and Fārs. Most of the tribe was transplanted from Kurdistan to Fārs by Karim Khan Zand, along with several other Kurdish tribes, when he established himself permanently in Shiraz during the 1760s (Perry, p. 225). The remaining part of the tribe can be found…

KUŠ-NĀMA, part of a mythical history of Iran written by Ḥakim Irānšān b. Abu’l-Ḵayr between the years 501-04/1108-11 (lines 167-70; 5538-47) dealing with the eventful life of Kuš the Tusked (or Pil-guš, “The Elephant-eared”), the son of Kuš (brother of Żaḥḥāk). Kuš the Tusked is said to have lived 1,500…

KUSA (MPers. *kōsag, Arabicized kusaj “a man with little or no beard, beardless”), a carnival character known to the medieval and modern folklore of central and western Persia. The celebration of the Kusa festival (rokub al-kusaj, barnešastan-e kusa “the riding of the thin-bearded”) is reported by early Islamic authors (Masʿudi,…

KUSHAN DYNASTY (Kušān), the line of rulers in Bactria, Central Asia and northern India from the first century CE. The Kushan kings were succeeded in the third century, in part of the region they had ruled, by the Sasanian princes who governed with the title of “Kushanshah” (q.v.). This entry…

KUSHAN DYNASTY ii. Inscriptions of the Kushans 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…

KUSHAN DYNASTY iii. Chronology of the Kushans Dates in South Asia usually lack precision. Only in post-Kushan times do we meet with dates which are verifiably precise up to the day. The reason is that years can start in spring, the Indian way, or in the autumn, the Macedonian way….

KUSHAN DYNASTY (Mid. Pers. Kušān, Bactrian Košano) of the 1st-3rd centuries CE. i. Dynastic History 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. They were able to contend on equal terms with…

KUSHAN DYNASTY iv. Coinage of the Kushans The notion of a Kushan Dynasty or of a Kushan Period is entirely that of modern historians. Although the term Kushan is known in ancient sources, it is often used to refer to a dynasty other than the one designated by modern historians….

KUSHAN DYNASTY ix. Art of the Kushans The term Kushan art refers to a variety of artistic expressions that developed under the rule of the Kushan dynasty during the first three centuries of the Common Era on a territory spreading broadly between north of the Oxus River and the Gangetic…

KUSHAN DYNASTY vi. Archeology of the Kushans: in India Coins of Kushan rulers, seals in Kuṣāṇa Brāhmī as well as red ware with stamped motifs or sculptural and architectural features associated with the time of the Kushans have been discovered at numerous sites south of the Hindu Kush, thus leading…

KUSHANSHAHS the title of rulers, known between the 3rd-century Sasanian conquests and the 4th/5th-century Hunnic invasions, in parts of eastern Iran, Afghanistan, and Gandhāra. i. History. ii. Kushano-Sasanian Coinage.

KUSHANSHAHS i. History “Kushanshah” (Kušānšāh) was the title of the rulers, known between the 3rd-century Sasanian conquests and 4th/5th-century Hunnic invasions, in parts of eastern Iran, Afghanistan, and Gandhāra. This title is not characteristic of the main Kushan dynasty, whose members called themselves both Šaonano Šao “king of kings” and…