Tushaspha

Girnar
Location of Girnar in India.
Tushaspha is mentioned in Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman (150 CE).

Tushaspha was a "Yavanaraja" (Greek King or Governor) for Emperor Ashoka, in the area of Girnar, near Junagadh, in Gujarat, India.[1] He is only know from the Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman, in which the Western Satrap king Rudradaman, writing circa 150 CE, mentions his role in the construction of a local dam, in which he added a canal during the reign of Ashoka.[1] The part of the inscription mentioning him reads:

"(L.8)……… (The dam was) ordered to be made by the Vaishya Pushyagupta, the provincial governor of the Maurya king Chandragupta; adorned with conduits for Ashoka the Maurya by the Yavana king Tushaspha while governing; and by the conduit ordered to be made by him, constructed in a manner worthy of a king (and) seen in that breach, the extensive dam…………..."

— Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman[2][3]

According to some authors, the name Tushuspha seems to be Persian rather than Greek.[1] Other authors however, consider that he was Greco-Bactrian, given his qualification as a "Yavana", the usual name for Greeks in the east.[4]

Ashoka is known to have mentioned the presence of "Yavanas" in his kingdom in several of his Edicts of Ashoka:

"Here in the king's domain among the Greeks, the Kambojas, the Nabhakas, the Nabhapamkits, the Bhojas, the Pitinikas, the Andhras and the Palidas, everywhere people are following Beloved-Servant-of-the-Gods's instructions in Dhamma".

— Rock Edict Nb13 (Translated by S. Dhammika)

References

  1. 1 2 3 A History of India, Hermann Kulke, Dietmar Rothermund, Routledge, 2016 p.154
  2. ↑ Epigraphia Indica, Vol. VIII. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1905-6, 45-49
  3. ↑ "Junagadh Rock Inscription of Rudradaman", Project South Asia.Archived 23 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ↑ Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor, Charles Allen, Hachette UK, 2012 p.129
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