The present work studies the historical contexts of the Bactrian inscriptions of the Kušān period and attempts to extract the historical information of this epigraphic corpus by contextualising it with related sources. Following an introduction on the historical backgrounds and the problem of Kušān chronology, four main topics are studied: (1) The linguistic and literary contextualisation of the texts, (2) the titulature of the Kušān emperors in the inscriptions, (3) the religious aspects of the inscriptions and their contexts and (4) the information on the expansion and administration of the Kušān Empire which are described here as the “Imperial Strategy”. (1) shows that Bactrian was reduced to writing in the early Kušān period to facilitate its use as an imperial means of communication. This process involved individuals who spoke Greek and probably identified themselves as such. This becomes apparent from various attempts to solve problems arising from writing Bactrian in Greek script, which is phonetically unsuited for this language. An epigraphical analysis of the corpus of inscriptions further shows that by the time of Huviška, the Kušān attempted to standardise and simplify Bactrian orthography at the cost of grammatical complexity. The inscriptions contain only little material for literary analysis, but a sense of style is apparent from several passages that can be related to the inscriptions of the Achaemenid, Arsakid and Sāsānian periods. This proves that the Bactrian inscriptions of the Kušān are part of the literary history of Iran. (2) shows that the Kušān had already established a canon of imperial titles under their founder Kujula Kadphises that was only subject to marginal change afterwards. The titles are largely taken from the Bactrian tradition and originate in the Hellenistic period. The Bactrian titles were mostly translated from Greek forms current in Bactria for several centuries. A few Kušān novelties in the repository of titles are probably attributable to Chinese and Roman influence. (3) adds a study of the deities appearing on Kušān coins to explain the religious information from the inscriptions. It becomes clear that the Kušān religion appearing in epigraphic, numismatic and archaeological sources is influenced by various religious ideas in the empire, but contrary to long-standing opinions by researchers, it did not intend to portray the religious diversity of the empire. Rather, the Kušān emperors Kaniška I and Huviška assembled various groups of deities for political ideas. The Rabatak Inscription shows that such groups were also the subject of collective cults. The only known parallel to this practice in the Iranian world is possibly the cult of the Commagenean king Antiochos I. This also includes the deification of the living emperor and his predecessors, for which the epigraphic and iconographic material provides indicators that can no longer be doubted. The present work cannot, however, trace the origins of this practice. (4) first examines the expansion of the Kušān Empire from the literary and archaeological sources. An excursus of sorts then examines the long-standing claim that Kušān expansion was primarily motivated by the interest of gaining control of long-distance trade routes. Further, the related idea of a Roman influence exerted mainly through trade on the foundations of the Kušān Empire is evaluated critically. The result is that these elements have been strongly overrated by researchers and the strategy of the Kušān does not display any sort of predominant commercial interests. Roman influence on the Kušān which is mostly observable in the material culture, also seems to have only been superficial. Following these investigations, the second part of (4) is concerned with the inner structure of the Kušān Empire and its administration. The main group of sources are administrative titles from Kušān inscriptions. Titles in Bactrian inscriptions and Iranian titles in Indian inscriptions show that, apart from the top layer of the imperial court, it is hard to argue for a centralised imperial administration of the empire. It would have been expected in such a case that Bactrian administrative titles would have been spread throughout the empire during its expansion. However, the Iranian titles in Indian inscription rather seem to be part of the Achaemenid legacy there, as they can best be etymologised as Old Persian. In place of a summary, a new narrative of Kušān history has been proposed. The dissertation also includes an appendix with a catalogue of the Bactrian inscriptions of the Kušān and a glossary of these inscriptions.
