Person · Indo-Parthian king
Gondophares
Also known as Gondophares I, Guduvhara, Gudaphara, Gondopharēs, Hyndopherrēs, Gudnaphar, Gundaphorus, Windafarn, Gastaphar
Founder of the Indo-Parthian kingdom, generally dated about 19–46 CE, who broke away from Parthian authority in Drangiana, in Sistan, styling himself autokrator on his coins, and extended his rule over Arachosia, the Punjab and Gandhara with Taxila as his capital. He is known chiefly from his silver and copper coins. He matters to the Thomas story because the Acts of Thomas send the apostle to the court of a king Gudnaphar, the one point where the tradition meets a ruler attested in his own time.
- Date
- 19–46
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Confidence
- Established / referenced — A king attested on his own coins and probably in the Takht-i-Bahi inscription; his identification with the Gudnaphar of the Acts of Thomas is a scholarly proposal, not a certainty.
Worth knowing
Gondophares was a title rather than a personal name, from the Old Iranian Vindafarna, 'may he find glory'. Rendered Gastaphar in Armenian, it may lie behind Caspar, the name later Western tradition gave to one of the three Magi.
Several kings used the title, and which one the Acts of Thomas mean is unsettled: Robert Senior's numismatic work favours Gondophares IV Sases and would put the first Gondophares's conquests around 20–10 BCE, and Wikipedia's Taxila article has him take Taxila around 20 BCE. The Takht-i-Bahi inscription, dated in Guduvhara's 26th regnal year and year 103 of an unnamed era, gives an accession of 20 CE only if that era is the Vikrama era of 57 BCE.
Connections (6)
- Court associationThomas the Apostle
In the Acts of Thomas the apostle is sold as a carpenter to a merchant of king Gudnaphar and set to build the king a palace; he gives the money to the poor instead, and the king and his brother are converted. Scholars such as M. Reinaud identified Gudnaphar with Gondophares, and A. D. H. Bivar judged the reign dates of the Takht-i-Bahi Gondophares consistent with a voyage soon after the Crucifixion. The meeting is legend; a king of that title is historical.
- Ruled fromTakshashila / Taxila
Gondophares made the Gandharan city of Taxila his capital after taking the Kabul valley, the Punjab and Sindh from the Indo-Scythian king Azes, according to B. N. Puri; Wikipedia's Taxila article, citing John Marshall, has him conquer it around 20 BCE. His empire was a loose framework of vassals that broke up soon after his death, and inscriptions show Taxila under the Kushan Kujula Kadphises by 76 CE. The sources differ by decades over when his rule there began.
- Imperial inscription atTakht-i-bahi
A votive stone inscription found at Takht-i-Bahi, north-east of Peshawar, is dated in the 26th regnal year of the Maharaja Guduvhara and in year 103 of an unnamed era; if that era is the Vikrama era of 57 BCE, the king came to the throne in 20 CE. The stone was formerly in the Lahore museum. It is generally assigned to Gondophares, though Robert Senior thinks it names Gondophares IV Sases. The monastery itself was founded in the early first century CE.
- Ruled fromSistan
Gondophares probably came from a line of local princes who had governed the Parthian province of Drangiana, called Sakastan or Sistan, since the Saka invasions of about 129 BCE, and Ernst Herzfeld held that the family was the noble House of Suren. Around 19 or 20 CE he declared independence there, minting coins in Drangiana with the Greek title autokrator. King Misdaeus of the Acts of Thomas, who had the apostle killed, has been taken for Abdagases, Gondophares's viceroy in Sistan.
- Associated withSirkap & Sirsukh
Sirkap was the walled city of Taxila in the Indo-Parthian period, and John Marshall's excavations there are usually related to Indo-Parthian layers, though more recent scholarship assigns some to the Indo-Greeks. Statues from its late Scythian to Parthian level, dated 1–60 CE, mix Hellenistic gods, Gandharan lay devotees and early Buddha images, showing that Gandharan art was developed before the Kushans. Philostratus's description of Taxila's walls and irregular streets, set under an Indo-Parthian king, probably refers to Sirkap.
- Traditional linkActs of Thomas
One section of the Acts is headed 'concerning his coming unto the king Gundaphorus', and scholars such as M. Reinaud identified this Gudnaphar with the Gondophares known from coins, before it was clear that several kings bore the title. Recent numismatic work by Robert Senior suggests the best fit is the fourth of them, Gondophares IV Sases. Richard Frye notes that the same ruler was identified with Caspar in the Christian tradition of Thomas's visit, so the coin king entered legend twice over.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Gondophares", "Indo-Parthian kingdom" and "Taxila". A. D. H. Bivar, "Gondophares", Encyclopaedia Iranica (2002), and "The History of Eastern Iran", Cambridge History of Iran 3(1) (1983); Khodadad Rezakhani, ReOrienting the Sasanians (2017); Robert C. Senior, Indo-Scythian Coins and History, vol. 4 (2006).
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