There are other features in addition to the boots and the coat. A.L. Basham draws our attention to his “grasping in one hand a sword and in the other its sheath, the king stands with legs apart, in an attitude of authority.”

Stella Kramrisch brings to our notice further details of the statue and wonders about the artist. She describes it in the words “Stern economy confines the main effect . . . to the surface, to harsh angles and to lines incised as if with the stroke of the sword . . . an upright posture weighs on the ground with the firmness of will. The angles of Kanishka’s coat, the enormous horizontal bar of his boots, the inscription of his name across the surface of his vestments, indicate that the artist was of the same race as his patron.” On the other hand, A. L. Basham points out the absence of depth, which gives the statue a flat look. According to A. L. Basham, the artist was working on a theme that was outside his area of specialization.

But above all these details, there is one feature which cannot be ignored by even the most casual observer — the statue has no head. Or, to use an old-fashioned phrase, it is conspicuous by its absence! It is not that we do not know how Kanishka looked like; in fact, several coins with engraving of his head have been found. Still, a statue with broken head does seem incomplete and lacking.

The most surprising thing is that only the head and hands are missing while the remaining statue is intact. According to A. L. Basham it was destroyed by the succeeding rulers. But then, why only head? Unfortunately, there is no authentic material to throw light on that question.

Whenever there is no definite knowledge, several stories are cooked up, and myths and folklore are born. Interestingly, in this case, we don’t even have any myths or folklore! Why this silence?

Sunil’s story

The only historical fiction on this subject that I have come across is by noted Bengali writer Sunil Gangopadhyay. How far is it correct, I cannot say, because Sunil did not give references that might support his hypothesis. This is interesting, as Sunil’s works are often written after exhaustive research work, and mostly he gives reference list of all the books and sources that he had consulted. In the absence of any references, I would only call his story as a fiction.

After gaining victory over one kingdom after another, Kanishka had grown into a formidable emperor. One day someone presented him two pieces of cloth. Kanishka was so impressed with the quality of fabric that he kept one for himself and sent the other to his wife. The queen wore the garment and came in front of the emperor. Kanishka was shocked to see a print of a hand in ocher colour over her bosom. He thought that the person had gifted him with a second-hand item. The person was summoned, but he knew nothing of the matter. He had purchased it from a merchant and finding it very good, decided to gift it to the emperor. It turned out that all the clothes with the merchant had this mark of a hand on them. Merchant told him that he had got these clothes from a southern kingdom of Satavahan. After these clothes had been manufactured, they were brought to the king who imprinted his hand mark on them. The mark was made in such a way that if a man wore the cloth, the mark came over his back, whereas if a woman wore it, the mark fell over her bosom. The claim was checked and found to be correct.

Offended as he was, Kanishka ordered that he wanted to see that hand chopped off. Satavahan king was given two options — either to lose his hand or face war. Satavahan ministers loved their king so much that they hid him somewhere. Then they told Kanishka that their king was so innocent that he didn’t know how to run an empire. Hence, they themselves ran the affairs on his name. They offered to chop off their own hands, if it served the purpose. Well, it didn’t serve the purpose and Kanishka declared war.

Ministers hid their king in a cave and in his place erected a statue. When Kanishka arrested the king, he realized that he had been tricked. He possessed magical powers, and used them on this occasion. He chopped the hands of the statue, and it was found later that the hands of the king hiding in the cave were cut off.

At this point, Sunil presents another version of the story purportedly based on Al Beruni’s account. In this version, instead of Satavahan, there is mention of Kannauj and in place of hand it was the mark of foot. This story tells us how one of the ministers hid his king in a cave and went to Kanishka, told him that he had switched his loyalty, and misled him to a desert. There Kanishka’s army suffered immense miseries due to heat and lack of water. Kanishka realized that he had been cheated. He invoked his magical powers, hit his weapon into the sand with such a force that a stream of water came out from the land. Then he turned to the minister and asked him to go and check the welfare of his king. The king was found in the same condition as in the other version. Anyway, let us return to the first version.

After the death of their king, some Satavahan loyalists united and vowed to take revenge by killing Kanishka by hook or crook. The task was difficult mainly because of Kanishka’s security and bodyguards. In the meantime, Kanishka was drunk with the pride of his supernatural abilities and strengths, and started creating and installing his own statues in his lifetime itself. His plan was to engrave all the stories of his adventures inside the heads of his statues because his head was the source of all his natural and supernatural strengths. Satavahan warriors, unable to reach Kanishka, broke the heads of the statues instead. Their idea was to present them to the queen who would kick them and assuage her anger to some extent.

My analysis and criticism of Sunil’s story