Huvishka

Who is Huvishka?

Huvishka was a Kushan emperor from the death of Kanishka until the succession of Vasudeva I about forty years later. His rule was a period of retrenchment and consolidation for the Empire. In particular he devoted time and effort early in his reign to the exertion of greater control over the city of Mathura. Mathura represented the southernmost extent of the Empire and, like much of the Indian Subcontinent, had been ruled via a series of subordinate rulers. These rulers, the ksatraps, maintained a certain amount of autonomy up under Kanishka, but they vanish from records in Huvishka's reign, while Huvishka patronised both Buddhist and Brahmin institutions in the town.