Gondophares

Gondophares I (Greek: Γονδοφαρης Gondopharēs, Υνδοφερρης

Gondophares
Hyndopherrēs; Kharosthi: 𐨪𐨥𐨡 𐨒𐨂 Gu-da-pha-ra, Gudaphara;[2]
𐨣 𐨪𐨿𐨥𐨡 𐨒𐨂 Gu-da-pha-rna, Gudapharna;[3][4] 𐨪𐨵 𐨡𐨂 𐨒𐨂 Gu-du-vha-ra, King of Kings
Guduvhara[5]) was the founder of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom and
its most prominent king, ruling from 19 to 46. He probably
belonged to a line of local princes who had governed the Parthian
province of Drangiana since its disruption by the Indo-Scythians in
c. 129 BC, and may have been a member of the House of Suren.
During his reign, his kingdom became independent from Parthian
authority and was transformed into an empire, which encompassed Silver coin of Gondophares, minted
in Drangiana
Drangiana, Arachosia, and Gandhara.[6] He is generally known
from the Acts of Thomas, the Takht-i-Bahi inscription, and silver Indo-Parthian king
and copper coins bearing his visage. Reign c. 19 – c. 46
Predecessor Tanlis Mardates[1]
He was succeeded in Drangiana and Arachosia by Orthagnes, and
in Gandhara by his nephew Abdagases I.[7][8] Successor Orthagnes (Drangiana
and Arachosia)
Abdagases I

Contents (Gandhara)

Etymology Died 46

Background Religion Zoroastrianism

Rule
Chronology
The Biblical Magus "Gaspar"
Connection with Saint Thomas and Apollonius of
Tyana
See also
References
Sources
Further reading

Etymology
The name of Gondophares was not a personal name, but an epithet derived from the Middle Iranian name
𐭍𐭓𐭐𐭍𐭃𐭉𐭅, Windafarn (Parthian), and 𐭥𐭯𐭣𐭭𐭥𐭢, Gundapar (Middle Persian), in turn derived from the Old
Iranian name 𐎻𐎡𐎭𐎳𐎼𐎴𐎠 (Vin dafarnâ, "May he find glory" (cf. Greek Ἰνταφέρνης, Intaphernes))[9],
which was also the name of one of the six nobles that helped the Achaemenid king of kings (shahanshah)
Darius the Great (r.  522 BC  –  486 BC) to seize the throne.[10][11] In old Armenian, it is "Gastaphar".
"Gundaparnah" was apparently the Eastern Iranian form of the name.[12]
Ernst Herzfeld claims his name is perpetuated in the name of the Afghan city Kandahar, which he founded
under the name Gundopharron.[13]

Background
Gondophares may have been a member of the House of Suren, one
of the most esteemed families in Arsacid Iran, that not only had the
hereditary right to lead the royal military, but also to place the
crown on the Parthian king at the coronation.[10] In c. 129 BC, the
eastern portions of the Parthian Empire, primarily Drangiana, was
invaded by nomadic peoples, mainly by the Eastern Iranian Saka
(Indo-Scythians) and the Indo-European Yuezhi, thus giving the
rise to the name of the province of Sakastan ("land of the
Saka").[14][15]
Map of Drangiana (Sakastan) in c.
As a result of these invasions, the Suren family was probably given
100 BC.
control of Sakastan in order to defend the empire from further
nomad incursions; the Surenids not only may have managed to
repel the Indo-Scythians, but also to invade and seize their lands in Arachosia and Punjab, thus resulting in
the establishment of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom.[10]

Rule
Gondophares ascended the throne in c. 19, and quickly declared
independence from the Parthian Empire, minting coins in
Drangiana where he assumed the Greek title of autokrator ("one
who rules by himself").[16]

Gondophares I has traditionally been given a later date; the reign of

one king calling himself Gondophares has been established at 20
AD by the rock inscription he set up at Takht-i-Bahi near Mardan,
Pakistan, in 46 AD.,[17] and he has also been connected with the
third-century Acts of Thomas.

Gondophares I took over the Kabul valley and the Punjab and
Sindh region area from the Scythian king Azes. In reality, a number
of vassal rulers seem to have switched allegiance from the Indo-
Scythians to Gondophares I. His empire was vast, but was only a Map of the Indo-Parthian Empire
loose framework, which fragmented soon after his death. His under Gondophares.
capital was the Gandharan city of Taxila.[18] Taxila is located in
Punjab to the west of the present Islamabad.

Chronology
On the coins of Gondophares, the royal names are Iranian, but the other legends of the coins are in Greek
and Kharoṣṭhī.

Ernst Herzfeld maintained that the dynasty of Gondophares represented the House of Suren.[19]
The Biblical Magus "Gaspar"
The name of Gondophares was translated in Armenian in "Gastaphar", and then in Western languages into
"Gasbar[d], Gaspas, Caspus, Kaspar, ‫" ִגזָּבר‬. He may be the "Gasbar[d], Treasurer and King of Persia",
who, according to apocryphal texts and eastern Christian tradition, was one of the three Biblical Magi who
attended the birth of Christ.[20] Through this interaction and association, Gaspar[d] was adopted by the
Europeans (and in Western tradition) as a male first name.

Connection with Saint Thomas and Apollonius of Tyana

The apocryphical Acts of Thomas mentions one king Gudnaphar.
This king has been associated with Gondophares I by scholars such
as M. Reinaud, as it was not yet established that there were several
kings with the same name. Since St. Thomas is said to have lived
there in a specific time frame, this is often used to provide more
specific chronology to an otherwise historiographically lacking time
frame.[21] Richard N. Frye, Emeritus Professor of Iranian Studies at
Harvard University, has noted that this ruler has been identified
with a king called Caspar in the Christian tradition of the Apostle St
Thomas and his visit to India.[22] Recent numismatic research by
R.C. Senior supports the notion that the king who best fits these
references was Gondophares-Sases, the fourth king using the title
Gondophares.[23]

A. D. H. Bivar, writing in The Cambridge History of Iran, said that

the reign dates of one Gondophares recorded in the Takht-i Bahi
inscription (20–46 or later AD) are consistent with the dates given Gondophares receives a letter from
in the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas for the Apostle's voyage to India St. Thomas
following the Crucifixion in c. 30 AD.[24][25] B. N. Puri, of the
Department of Ancient Indian History and Archaeology, University
of Lucknow, India, also identified Gondophares with the ruler said to have been converted by Saint
Thomas the Apostle.[26] The same goes for the reference to an Indo-Parthian king in the accounts of the life
of Apollonius of Tyana. Puri says that the dates given by Philostratus in his Life of Apollonius of Tyana for
Apollonius' visit to Taxila, 43–44 AD, are within the period of the reign of Gondophares I, who also went
by the Parthian name, Phraotes.[27]
Saint Thomas was brought before King Gundaphar (Gondophares) at
his capital, Taxila.[28] "Taxila" is the Greek form of the contemporary Pali name for the city, "Takkasila",
from the Sanskrit "Taksha-sila". The name of the city was transformed in subsequent legends concerning
Thomas, which were consolidated into the Historia Trium Regum (History of the Three Kings) by John of
Hildesheim (1364–1375), into "Silla", "Egrisilla", "Grisculla", and so on,[29] the name having undergone a
process of metamorphosis similar to that which transformed "Vindapharnah" (Gondophares) to "Caspar".
Hildesheim's Historia Trium Regum says: "In the third India is the kingdom of Tharsis, which at that time
was ruled over by King Caspar, who offered incense to our Lord. The famous island Eyrisoulla [or
Egrocilla] lies in this land: it is there that the holy apostle St Thomas is buried".[30] "Egrisilla" appears on
the globe made in Nuremberg by Martin Behaim in 1492, where it appears on the southernmost part of the
peninsula of Hoch India, "High India" or "India Superior", on the eastern side of the Sinus Magnus ("Great
Gulf", the Gulf of Thailand): there Egrisilla is identified with the inscription, das lant wird genant egtisilla,
("the land called Egrisilla"). In his study of Behaim's globe, E. G. Ravenstein noted: "Egtisilla, or
Eyrisculla [or Egrisilla: the letters "r" and "t" in the script on the globe look similar], is referred to in John of
Hildesheim's version of the ‘Three Kings’ as an island where St. Thomas lies buried".[31]
See also
Indo-Greek Kingdom
Indo-Scythians
Kushan Empire

References
1. Rezakhani 2017, p. 56.
2. Gardner, Percy, The Coins of the Greek and Scythic Kings of Bactria and India in the British
Museum, p. 103-106
3. Alexander Cunningham, Coins of the Sakas, The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the
Numismatic Society, Third Series, Vol. 10 (1890), pp. 103-172
4. Gardner, Percy, The Coins of the Greek and Scythic Kings of Bactria and India in the British
Museum, p. 105
5. Konow, Sten, Kharoshṭhī Inscriptions with the Exception of Those of Aśoka, Corpus
Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. II, Part I. Calcutta: Government of India Central Publication
Branch, p. 58
6. Rezakhani 2017, p. 35.
7. Rezakhani 2017, p. 37.
8. Gazerani 2015, p. 25.
9. W. Skalmowski and A. Van Tongerloo, Middle Iranian Studies: Proceedings of the
International Symposium Organized by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven from the 17th to
the 20th of May 1982, p. 19
10. Bivar 2002, pp. 135–136.
11. Gazerani 2015, p. 23.
12. Mary Boyce and Frantz Genet, A History of Zoroastrianism, Leiden, Brill, 1991, pp.447–456,
n.431.
13. Ernst Herzfeld, Archaeological History of Iran, London, Oxford University Press for the
British Academy, 1935, p.63.
14. Frye 1984, p. 193.
15. Bosworth 1997, pp. 681–685.
16. Gazerani 2015, pp. 24–25.
17. A. D. H. Bivar, "The History of Eastern Iran", in Ehsan Yarshater (ed.), The Cambridge
History of Iran, Vol.3 (1), The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods, London, Cambridge
University Press, 1983, p.197.
18. B. N. Puri, "The Sakas and Indo-Parthians", in A.H. Dani, V. M. Masson, Janos Harmatta, C.
E. Boaworth, History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 2003,
Chapter 8, p.196
19. Ernst Herzfeld, Archaeological History of Iran, London, Oxford University Press for the
British Academy, 1935, p.63; name="Bivar_2003"/> cf. name="Bivar_1983_51">Bivar, A. D.
H. (1983), "The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids", in Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.),
Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3, London: Cambridge UP, p. 51
20. Alfred von Gutschmid, Die Königsnamen in den apokryphen Apostelgeschichten, in the
Rheinisches Museum für Philologie (1864), XIX, 161-183, nb p.162; Mario Bussagli, "L'art
du Gandhara", p.207
21. Keay, John (2000). India: A History (https://books.google.com/books?id=3aeQqmcXBhoC).
Grove Press. ISBN 9780802137975.
22. Richard N. Frye, "The Fall of the Graeco-Bactrians: Sakas and Indo-Parthians", in Sigfried J.
de Laet, History of Humanity, London, New York and Paris, Routledge and Unesco, Volume
III, 1996, Joachim Herrmann and Erik Zürcher (eds.), From the Seventh Century BC to the
Seventh Century AD, p.455.
23. Robert C. Senior, Indo-Scythian Coins and History, Volume 4: Supplement, London,
Chameleon Press, (2006).
24. W. Wright (transl.), The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas, Leiden, Brill, 1962, p.146; cited in A. D.
H. Bivar, "The History of Eastern Iran", in Ehsan Yarshater (ed.), The Cambridge History of
Iran, Vol.3 (1), The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods, London, Cambridge University
Press, 1983, p.197.
25. India and the Apostle Thomas, A. E. Medlycott, fully reproduced with illustrations (including
the coins of Gondaphares) in the Indian Church History Classics ed. George Menachery,
Ollur, 1998
26. B. N. Puri, "The Sakas and Indo-Parthians", in János Harmatta, B. N. Puri and G.F. Etemadi
(editors), History of civilizations of Central Asia, Paris, UNESCO, Vol.II, 1994, p.196.
27. Puri, "The Sakas and Indo-Parthians", p.197.
28. A. E. Medlycott, India and the Apostle Thomas, London, David Nutt, 1905, Chapter 1, "The
Apostle Thomas and Gondophares the Indian King"
29. Frank Schaer, The Three Kings of Cologne, Heidelberg, Winter, 2000, Middle English Texts
no.31, p.196.
30. Joannes of Hildesheim, The Three Kings of Cologne: An Early English Translation of the
"Historia Trium Regum" together with the Latin Text, London, Trubner, 1886; repr. Elibron
Classics, 2001, cap.xi, pp.227–28; translation by F.H. Mountney, The Three Kings of
Cologne, Gracewing Publishing, 2003, pp.31, 47.
31. E. G. Ravenstein, Martin Behaim: His Life and His Globe, London, George Philip, 1908,
p.95.

Sources
Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (1997). "Sīstān" (http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/enc
yclopaedia-of-islam-1/sistan-SIM_5452). In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P.
& Lecomte, G. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume IX: San–Sze.
Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 681–685. ISBN 978-90-04-10422-8.
Schmitt, R. (1995). "DRANGIANA". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. II, Fasc. 5 (http://www.iranica
online.org/articles/drangiana). pp. 534–537.
Frye, Richard Nelson (1984). The History of Ancient Iran (https://archive.org/details/historyof
ancient0000frye). C.H.Beck. pp. 1 (https://archive.org/details/historyofancient0000frye/page/
n20)–411. ISBN 9783406093975. "The history of ancient iran."
Gazerani, Saghi (2015). The Sistani Cycle of Epics and Iran's National History: On the
Margins of Historiography (https://books.google.com/books?id=92zsCgAAQBAJ&q=false).
BRILL. pp. 1–250. ISBN 9789004282964.
Bivar, A. D. H. (2002). "GONDOPHARES". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. XI, Fasc. 2 (http://ww
w.iranicaonline.org/articles/gondophares). pp. 135–136.
Rezakhani, Khodadad (2017). ReOrienting the Sasanians: East Iran in Late Antiquity (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=bjRWDwAAQBAJ&q=false). Edinburgh University Press.
pp. 1–256. ISBN 9781474400305.
Further reading
"Gondophares"  (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Gon
dophares). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). 1911.
A. E. Medlycott, India and the Apostle Thomas, London 1905 (http://www.indianchristianity.c
om/html/chap4/chapter4a.htm): Chapter i: "The Apostle Thomas and Gondophares the
Indian king"
Coins of Gondophares (http://www.coinarchives.com/a/results.php?results=100&search=Go
ndophares&Thumb=1)
Indo-Parthian coinage (https://web.archive.org/web/20050206140303/http://www.grifterrec.c
om/coins/indoparthian/indoparthian.html)

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