Kanishka.

Kushān ruler (r. c. 127-c. 152 c.e.) and patron of the arts. Considering the fame of Kanishka (kuh-NIHSH-kuh), remarkably little is known of his life, certainly not enough to construct a proper biography. Symbolic of this gap in history is the fact that the 6-foot (1.8-meter) statue of him in the archaeological museum in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India, is headless. The scarcity of data is further compounded by the tangled, obscure complexities of the wider history of Inner Asia and northern India during the first centuries c.e. What is known regarding Kanishka and his achievements has been gleaned principally from folklore and archaeological artifacts dating from this period. Inscriptions, coins, sculpture, architecture, legend, and Chinese and Iranian literary sources are the raw materials from which scholars have attempted to reconstruct an understanding of Kanishka’s life and times.