13 Economic Development under the Greek Kingdoms of Central Asia to the Kushan Empire: Empire, Migration, and Monasteries

Abstract

This chapter examines the development of the economy under and between two successive empires emergent from the Central Asian region of ancient Bactria. These are the Greek Kingdoms of Central Asia (the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek Kingdoms, ca. 250 –10 ) and the Kushan Empire (ca. 50–350 ). Here, I focus on the core regions of Bactria and Gandhāra, although when available data permits, I look to other regions within and beyond the empires under examination. The character of the available evidence for looking at economic development in this period, of course, presents a litany of limitations that make it impossible to achieve a finegrained historical perspective on these processes.1 That being said, it is certainly possible to observe broader trends at play – although it should be reiterated that development throughout this period was not necessarily linear – and identify some of the major catalysts instigating these changes. I begin by describing three key catalysts: the phenomenon of empire, increasing migration, and the growing influence of Buddhist monasteries. Then, I look at key processes of development that characterize the period under study, and examine the role of empire, migration, and monasteries in helping to drive them. These processes are changes in settlement patterns, urbanization, and agricultural extensification, in addition to an increase in volume and specialization in production, and ultimately intensifying connectivity and coordination both within regions, as well as across increasingly broad spaces – crucially, between southern Central Asia and northern India. Of course, from a wider historical perspective, these processes were neither inherently new, nor inscribed onto a blank slate. In southern Central Asia, urbanization phases had already begun in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Agricultural production had drawn on artificial irrigation since the Neolithic in Bactria, and double-cropping was practiced since the Bronze Age in the Swat Valley.2 Sedentary agriculturalists and mobile pastoralists had cultivated symbiotic relationships from at least the