790 INDIA [HISTORY, Scythian), takes its commencement in 78 A. D., 1 and is supposed to commemorate the defeat of the Scythians by a king of southern India, Salivahana. 2 During the seven centuries which followed, three powerful monarchies, the Sahs, Guptas, and Valabhfs, established themselves in northern and western India. The Sahs of Surashtra are traced by coins and inscriptions from 60 or 70 B.C. to after 235 A.D 3 After the Sahs come the Guptas of Kanauj, 4 in the North- Western Provinces, the Middle Land (Madhya- desha) of ancient Brahmanism. The Guptas introduced an era of their own, commencing in 319 B.C., and ruled in person or by viceroys over northern India during one hundred and fifty years, as far to the south-west as Kathiawar. The Gupta dynasty was overthrown by foreign invaders, apparently a new influx of Huns or Tartars from the north-west (450-470 A.D.). The Valabhis succeeded the Guptas, and ruled over Cutch, the north western districts of Bombay 5 and Malwa, from 480 to after 722 A.D. G The Chinese pilgrim gives a full account of the court and people of Valabhi (630-640 A.D.). Buddhism was the state religion, but heretics (Brahmans) abounded ; and the Buddhists themselves were divided between the northern school of the Scythian dynasties and the southern or Indian school of Asoka, The Valabhis seem to have been overthrown by the early Arab invaders of Sind in the 8th century. The relations of these three Indian dynasties, the Sahs, Guptas, and Valabhis, to the successive hordes of Scythians who poured down on northern India are obscure. There is abundant evidence of a long-continued struggle, but the attempt to assign dates to its chief episodes has not yet produced results which can be accepted as final. Two VikramMitya Sakaris, or vanquishers of the Scythians, are required for the purposes of chronology ; and the great battle of Korur, near Mult an, at which the Scythian hosts perished, has been shifted backwards and forwards from 78 to 544 A.D. 7 The truth seems to be that, during the first six centuries of the Christian era, the fortunes of the Scythian or Tartar races rose and fell from time to time in northern India. They more than once sustained great defeats ; and they more than once overthrew the native dynasties. Their presence is abundantly attested during the century before Christ, represented by Vikramaditya (57 B.C.); during the first century after Christ, represented by the Kanishka family (2 B.C. to 87 A.D.) ; and thence to the time of Cosmas Indicopleustes, about 535 A D. The latest writer on the subject 8 believes that it was the White Huns who overthrew the Guptas between 465 and 470 A.D. He places the great battles of Korur and Maushari, which "freed India from the Sakas and Hunas," between 524 and 544 A.D. Cosnia* Indicopleustes, who traded in the Red Sea about 535 A.D., speaks of the Huns as a powerful nation in northern India in his days. 9 1 Monday, 14th March, 78 A.D. , Julian style. 2 General Cunningham. See also Mr E. Thomas s letter, dated 16th September 1874, to the Academy, which brings this date within the period of the Kanishka family (2 B.C. to 87 A.D. ). 3 By Mr Newton. See Mr E. Thomas, "On the Coins of the Sah Kings," Archceol. Rep. Western India, p. 44, 1876 ; and Dr J. Fer- gusson, Journ. Roy. As. Soc., 18Sfl. 4 Now a town of only 17,000 inhabitants in Farrakhabad district, but with ruins extending over a semicircle of 4 miles in diameter. 5 Lat-desa, including the collectorates of Surat, Broach, Kaira, and parts of Baroda territory. 6 The genealogy is worked out in detail by MrE. Thomas, ut supra, pp. 80-82. 7 78 A.D. was the popularly received date, commemorated by the Sdkfi era ; " between 524 and 544 A.D." is suggested by Dr Fergusson (p. 284 of Journ. Roy. As. Soc., vol. xii. ) in the latest discussion of the subject during 1880. 8 Dr J. Fergusson, ut supra, pp. 282-284, &c. 9 Topographia Christiania, lib. xi. p. 338, Paris, 1707 ; apud Fergusson, ut supra. ties. While Greek and Scythic influences had thus been at N on work in northern India during nine centuries (327 B.C. to Aryr 544 A.D.), another element was profoundly affecting th (1 . yn;; future of the Indian people. In a previous section we have traced the fortunes, and sketched the present condition, of the non- Aryan " aborigines." The BrAhmanical Aryans never effected anything like a complete subjugation of these earlier races. The tribes and castes of non-Aryan origin still number about 18 millions in British territory; the castes who claim a pure Aryan descent are under 17 millions. The non- Aryans have influenced the popular dialects of almost every province, and in southern India have given their speech to 46 millions of people. The Vedic settlements along the five rivers of the Punjab were merely colonies or confederacies of Aryan tribes, who had pushed in among a non-Aryan population. When an Aryan family advanced to a new territory, it had often, as in the case of the Pandava brethren, to clear the forest and drive out the aboriginal people. This double process con stantly repeated itself , and so late as 1657 A.D., when the Hindu raja founded the present city of Bareilly, his first work was to cut down the jungle and expel the Katheriyas. The ancient Brahmanical kingdoms of the Middle Land, or Madhyadesha, in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, were surrounded by non-Aryan peoples. All the legendary advances beyond the centre of Aryan civilization, narrated in the epic poets, were made into the territory of non- Aryan races. When we begin to catch historic glimpses of India, we find the most powerful kingdoms ruled by non- Aryan princes. Thus the Nandas, whom Chandra Gupta succeeded in Behar, were a Sudra or non-Aryan dynasty; and, according to one account, Chandra Gupta and his grandson Asoka came of the same stock. 10 The Buddhist religion did much to incorporate the non- Aryan tribes into the Indian polity. During the long struggle against Grreco-Bactrian and Scythian inroads (327 B.C. to 544 A.D.), the Indian aboriginal races must have had an ever-increasing importance, whether as enemies or allies. At the end of that struggle we discover them in some of the fairest tracts of northern India. In almost every district throughout Oudh and the North-Western Provinces ruined towns and forts are ascribed to aboriginal races who ruled at different periods, according to the local legends, between the 5th and llth centuries A.D. When the Mahometan conquest supplies an historical footing after 1000 A.D., non-Aryan races were in possession of some of these districts, and had been lately ousted from others. The statistical survey has brought to light many traces of these obscure peoples. It would be impossible to follow that survey through each locality ; but we propose, with the utmost brevity, to indicate a few of the results. Starting from the west, Alexander the Great found Eawal Piudi district in the hands of the Takkas or Takshaks, from whom its Greek name of Taxila was derived. This people has been traced to a Scythian migration about the 6th century B.C. 11 Their settlements in the 4th century B.C. seem to have extended from the Paropamisan range 12 in Afghanistan deep into northern India, Their Punjab capital, Takshdsila or Taxila, was the largest city that Alexander found between the Indus and the Jhelum (327 10 The Mudrfi-r&ksliasa represents Chandra Gupta as related to the last of the Nandas ; the commentator on the Vishnu Furdna says lie was the son of a Nanda by a low-caste woman. Professor Dowson s Diet. Hindu Mythology, &c., p. 68 (Tiiibner, 1879). 1 Such dates have no pretension to be anything more than intelligent conjectures based on very inadequate evidence. With regard to the Takshaks, see Colonel Tod and the authorities which he quotes, R&j&s- thdn, vol. i. 53 passim ; 93 seq. (Madras reprint, 1873). 12 Where Alexander found them as the Parae-tacse pahari, or Hill
Tacre (?).
