The Kidarites emerged from the broader collapse of Kushano-Sasanian authority in Bactria during the mid-fourth century, and their coinage reflects that transitional moment — deliberately imitating earlier Kushan types to assert dynastic continuity they hadn't quite earned through conquest. Buddhamitra is one of the few Kidarite rulers identifiable by name on coinage, which itself tells you something about how compressed and poorly documented this dynasty's internal succession was.
Göbl's Kushan corpus remains the foundational reference for attributing these issues, though subsequent scholarship has contested several of his sequence dates by decades in either direction.
The Kidarites emerged from the broader collapse of Kushano-Sasanian authority in Bactria during the mid-fourth century, and their coinage reflects that transitional moment — deliberately imitating earlier Kushan types to assert dynastic continuity they hadn't quite earned through conquest. Buddhamitra is one of the few Kidarite rulers identifiable by name on coinage, which itself tells you something about how compressed and poorly documented this dynasty's internal succession was.
Göbl's Kushan corpus remains the foundational reference for attributing these issues, though subsequent scholarship has contested several of his sequence dates by decades in either direction.