Photo: Kushan Emperor Kanishka (2nd century CE) · Public domainA stone in the Bactrian language, written in Greek letters, in which Kanishka lists his ancestors and the gods of his shrine.
Kanishka names his great-grandfather Kujula Kadphises, grandfather Vima Taktu and father Vima Kadphises. He orders images of the goddess Nana and of Umma (Uma), with Mihir and other gods, and says his rule reached cities of the Gangetic plain including Saketa, Kaushambi, Pataliputra and Champa.
It settled the order of the Kushana kings and shows Indian deities such as Uma honoured at the Kushana court.
InscriptionA treaty between the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I and Shattiwaza, prince of Mitanni in north Syria, sworn before the gods of both kingdoms. Among the Mitanni gods stand four names any Vedic priest would know.
InscriptionThe Persian king Darius I tells, in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian, how he took the throne and which lands obeyed him. Gandhara is on the list.
InscriptionAshoka’s message of dhamma, carved in Greek and Aramaic for the Greek and Persian-speaking subjects at the western edge of his empire.
InscriptionFourteen major rock edicts, minor rock edicts and seven pillar edicts in which the Maurya emperor speaks in his own voice, as Devanampiya Piyadasi.
InscriptionIn conquered Kalinga, Ashoka left out the thirteenth rock edict, which mourns the war, and carved two separate edicts addressed to his officers there instead.
InscriptionA small bronze-copper plate in early Brahmi, issued by the officials of Shravasti, cast with symbols of storehouses above the text.
InscriptionSeventeen lines in Prakrit and Brahmi recording, year by year, the reign of Kharavela, the Jain emperor of Kalinga.
InscriptionA stone Garuda-dhvaja raised to Vasudeva by Heliodorus, a Greek envoy from Takshashila, at the court of King Bhagabhadra.
