Imperial Congruencies and Interregional Connections: The Role of the Kuṣāṇa Empire in Shaping the Early Historic Period

For over two-hundred and fifty years, from the mid-first to early fourth centuries CE, the Kuṣāṇas ruled over an empire that stretched from the Amu Darya River in Central Asia to the Ganges River in India and my research focuses on the modes of consolidation that enabled these rulers to integrate this geographically and culturally diverse region.  The corpus of Kuṣāṇa inscriptions comprises the main evidence I will use to examine the relationship between the state, religion, and society in the Kuṣāṇa Empire.  By constructing a more detailed history of this empire and its relationship with the social and religious forces in South Asia, especially the emergence of Buddhist monastic sites, I want to situate the Kuṣāṇas within a broader world historical context and compare this empire with the Roman, Parthian, and Han empires that co-existed at this time.  The goal of my dissertation is to highlight the significance of the Kuṣāṇa Empire to both South Asian and World History with an emphasis on epigraphy.