Talk:Gondophares

Alternate reality?
This diff records an edit by a new editor with a dicey record. Adult editors competent in this area may want to vet this.--Wetman (talk) 07:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Full discussion about the chronological review is found on the main Indo-Parthian page. I have updated the Indo-Parthian history to include recent research. If anybody wants to contribute to these pages with other views about the current status of the field - rather than make ad hominem remarks and imply that I have added fictional history ("Alternate reality") - this would of course be most welcome. Until then, I have taken the liberty to revert to my last version. Kindly, Sponsianus (talk) 10:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The following is copied from User talk:Wetman (Wetman (talk) 19:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)):
 * Hi!
 * I saw that you reverted my edit of Gondophares, with the motivation "This diff records an edit by a new editor with a dicey record." I suppose you mean new editor as new on this very page, for I have certainly contributed to many other pages in the same field. As for "dicey", I would be grateful if you could please specify this. The link to my discussion page that you have provided includes no warnings from Wikipedia officials, except some bot messages regarding copyright on images. It does include a rather heated discussion with a user who used aggressively anti-Arab and clearly biased sources for medieval Persian history, from some years ago, as well as discussions about the Indo-Greek page, where there was indeed some controversy, but to my knowledge nobody has blamed me for that. I also argued with an Argentinian who wanted to be personally mentioned as a descendant of the Hasmonean kings, and some other smaller disputes (where I have by no means always been right) that have also occured during my four year tenure on Wikipedia.


 * As for my edits regarding Gondophares, I rely on Robert Senior's Indo-Scythian Coins and History IV from 2006 (published by Classical Numismatic Group), the fourth part of an encyclopaedia of such coins and probably the most ambitious specialist work published in this field. Senior reviews the chronology of the Indo-Parthians by a few decades (please see the Indo-Parthian main page for full references, including some other articles.) New chronological evidence has appeared in the last decade or so, in form of overstrikes and dated inscriptions.


 * Please feel free to add modern research that proposes a different chronology, if there is such material that I have not mentioned, but until then, I have taken the liberty of reverting back to my last edit.

Kindly, Sponsianus (talk) 09:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Other users more competent than I may want to vet some of the suppressed material lost at this diff.--Wetman (talk) 19:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Please read and address the arguments for my revisions
The point here is that it is now established that Gondophares was a title, not only the name of one king. A bit like Augustus for the Romans - it was first Octavianus' name but was used by his successors as a title. The older references that have been added, and who identify Gondophares I with the Gondophares of the Takht-i-Bahi inscription and the Saint Thomas gospel, do so more or less by default, not fully recognising the other Gondophars. New coin types have emerged since, others have been better attributed. The numismatic evidence presented by R.C. Senior, who is the leading author on Indo-Scythian chronology, is quite forcing to its nature, based as it is on sequences of overstrikes of coins. Gondophares I is not as late as 20-46 AD, that would have absurd consequences for the chronology of the Kushans and many minor dynasties of the same period.

Older and less specialised sources can't really be used to challenge such new advances, and such an approach does not do justice to these sources. If Bivar, an excellent scholar whose work The History of Eastern Iran is a general introduction to this subject, would write a newer edition - the one mentioned here is 27 years old - he would naturally absorb the latest numismatic advances. Ditto for even older theological works: theologists did not do the dating of Gondophares themselves.

Please don't change back without adding some comments addressing these problems. My update of the Indo-Parthian chronology was first met by an unmotivated revert, coupled with ad hominem accusations; I would appreciate a more constructive approach. Kindly, Sponsianus (talk) 13:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately this is a general difficulty with wikipedias critieria and specialist fields in which there are few experts. If someone takes an idio-syncratic approach (as Senior does) to one aspect in a major work on the source material it is unlikely to be contradicted in the secondary literature for quite a long time, so might appear to be uncontested. Senior's re-attribution of the Takht-i-Bahi inscription to the later ruler Sasan has met with almost no acceptance. In part this is because his claim that a late date to Gondophares would require an 'absurd consequence' for Kushan chronology is completely unfounded. In fact, because Gondophares and his successors are connected to Kushan chronology by mutual over-strikes of their coins it is Senior who has been backed into defending a very early chronology for the Kushans, almost fifty years earlier than is now widely accepted. You might find it useful to look at post-2000 works by Joe Cribb, Harry Falk, and Robert Bracey (some of which I suspect you are already familiar with) on the reasons to favour an AD 127 date for Kanishka, rather than the AD 78 date used by Senior, and then reconsider the changes you have made. In fact all of those authors have at one point or another suggested the Azes era might be later than 57 BC and thus that Gondophares may even be a decade later than his traditional dating. RBr (talk) 16:09, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Recent changes and referencing query
The text: "Indian names include 'Gondapharna', 'Guduvhara' and Pali 'Gudaphara'. Gondophares is 'Gastaphar' in Armenian. “Gundafarnah” was apparently the Eastern Iranian (Sistani) form of the name. ". . . . has recently been changed to: "Gondophares is 'Gastaphar' in Armenian. “Gundaparnah” was apparently the Eastern Iranian (Sistani) form of the name. In Pashto, the most widely spoken Eastern Iranian language, it is Gandapur, a sirname and one denoting a certain tribal lineage amongst the Pashtoons of Pakistan and Afghanistan. " Does the reference really say this? I can't remember ever reading this in Boyce and Genet's work - but I have not read it for years and I no longer have access to the (very expensive and difficult to find) text.

Can anyone with access to a good library please check this out? Many thanks, John Hill (talk) 10:14, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

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House of Suren?
There's a lot of flowery content in this article about Gondophares "belonging to the great house of Suren". First, I don't think there is any proof of this, second this is merely an interesting theory from a hundred years ago by Ernst Herzfeld: in the reference, Bivar just mentions that theory, and does not corroborate it or affirm it as true, he just suggests that some legends may refer to this indirectly, and that the Surens were probably involved in repelling the Sakas. It's all we should do: describe the theory, but certainly not affirm it as fact. The Cambridge History of Iran has "possibly member of the house of Suren", that's probably the farthest we can go. पाटलिपुत्र Pat   (talk) 15:07, 30 November 2021 (UTC) I'm pinging User:LouisAragon too, would apparently also had a comment about that. पाटलिपुत्र Pat   (talk) 15:32, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * It is theory indeed, but also seemingly the most prelevant one in scholarship regarding the Indo-Parthian origin. However, I do agree that this can be better written. Both Gazerani (The Sistani Cycle of Epics and Iran's National History) and Olbrycht (Dynastic Connections in the Arsacid Empire and the Origins of the House of Sāsān) go into depth about Gondophares and the Indo-Parthian relation with the Surenids. I can send them both to you if you're interested? I currently have no interest in expanding the article, maybe someday. --HistoryofIran (talk) 18:27, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * It's OK, I'm not too interested either, I'll just add some "possibly" wording into the article, to better reflect current sources, and you can expand when you have time for it. Best पाटलिपुत्र  Pat   (talk) 18:51, 30 November 2021 (UTC)