Origin of Kushana Empire Ancient History

Kushans or Kuei-Shang were one of the five Great Yueh-chi (tribes) principalities. In the 1st century CE, Kujula Kadphises (Kadphises I) brought together these five principalities and founded the Kushan Empire. The Kushans movement in India can be traced back to the first century CE during Kadphises I time. 

Kushan Empire Origin:-

# Kushanas are considered to be one of the five branches of the Yuezhi tribe who lived in the Chinese frontier or central Asia.

# They are known as Guishuang in Chinese sources.

# They eventually acquired dominance over the other Yuezhi tribes.

# They moved eastward towards India defeating the Parthians and the Sakas in the 1st century AD.

# The Kushan Empire in South Asia originally formed in the early 1st century CE, in the territories of ancient Bactria, around the Oxus River in Central Asia. 

# The Kushans spread from the Kabul River Valley to defeat other Central Asian tribes. 

# These conquests included parts of the northern central Iranian Plateau, once ruled by the Parthian Empire— a major political and cultural power in ancient Iran and Iraq. 

# The Kushans reached their peak under Emperor Kanishka (127-151 CE), a Buddhist whose realm stretched from China to northern and eastern India and parts of Pakistan.

# The Kushans were one of five branches of the Yuezhi confederation, an Indo-European nomadic people. 

# The Yuezhi lived in the grasslands of eastern Central Asia’s Tarim Basin, in modern-day Xinjiang, China (possibly speaking varieties of Indo-European languages), until they were driven west by the Xiongnu in 176-160 BCE.

# The Yuezhi reached the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, located in northern Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, around 135 BCE, and displaced the Greek dynasties that resettled to the southeast in areas of the Hindu Kush and the Indus basin, in present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

# The Kushans spread out from Bactria to defeat other Central Asian tribes.