Material Culture and Ruler Ideology in South Asia

This chapter examines a reverse gold coin pattern of the Kuṣāṇa king Huviṣka (ca. 153–191 ce) depicting the closely related deities Skanda-Kumāra and Viśākha. ¹ I will argue that the coin illustrates a Kuṣāṇa royal material culture of hybridity that had a significant impact on the traditions of these deities. While the coin type depicts two “Hindu” deities whose roles and identities could be described as in flux during the Kuṣāṇa era (see Mann 2012: 101–48), this coin pattern and its mixing of devices from various cultures does much to solidify a particular image of both deities; an image that comes to dominate textual depictions of them by the Gupta era. The Kuṣāṇa mint masters employed a blend of South Asian, Hellenistic, Parthian, and Roman emblems and numismatic designs that emphasize the martial personas of Skanda-Kumāra and Viśākha, as do they imply the gods' support of the king and his right to rule. Huviṣka's Skanda-Kumāra with Viśākha gold coin patterns demonstrate a Kuṣāṇa imperial agenda that sought in particular to solidify Skanda's identity as the Mahāsenāpati of the gods at the expense of the other traditions and personas of the deity current at the time, in large part because the martial identity of the deity was of more use to Huviṣka's royal persona. Based on this evidence, I will suggest that the cultural hybridity employed by Kuṣāṇa mint masters represents conscious choices designed to modify the characterization of certain deities to further imperial agendas. Further, I suggest that these changes to material culture had a significant impact on the narrative traditions of Skanda in the Kuṣāṇa and post-Kuṣāṇa eras. In short, I wish to suggest, to borrow from John Kieschnick (2003: 14), that “… at times internal developments in the history of objects provoke doctrinal changes, and not the other way around.”