remoter kinsmen from the Chinese frontiers to the Jaxartes.[1] These emigrants displaced the various Greek and (it is presumed) other Aryan rulers then in possession of the Oxus valley, and gradually worked their way south; forming at last, between the Jaxartes and the Indus, the vast empire of the Kushans, or Indo-Scythians. The Chinese were too late to witness with their own eyes the remnants of Greek active rule, and considered that most of the dynasts thus displaced belonged to a race called Séh or Săk.[2] The Indo-Scythians in their further conquests southward from the Jaxartes, but before they themselves approached India, drove the Săk rulers from the Oxus valley further south to Ki-pin, In other words, they took possession of the rich valleys, and drove the displaced Săk rulers to the poorer hill tribes for a living.
The positive statements of the Chinese, made before the beginning of our era, show almost conclusively that Ki-pin must then have included most of the mountainous region embracing Candahar, Ghazni, Cabul, Chitral, Jelalabad, Cashmere, and Baltistan. The argument is as follows: One thousand years ago P'i-shan was annexed by Khoten, and the Ta-ts'ing Yih-t'ung-chï, or 'Official Geography,' of the present Manchu dynasty—a work in 500 books published about 1760—tells us that the site of ancient P'i-shan is 'the modern Bishnam, between Khargalik and Isse-Kul.' Although there may be doubts as to what is really meant by Isse-Kul and Bishnam, there is no doubt whatever about Khargalik, which lies south-east from Yarkand, about two-fifths of the distance that Yarkand lies south-east from Kashgar. Now, 2,000 years ago, we are told that from P'i-shan you go east to Khoten 380 li (120 miles), and from P'i-shan you go north-west to Yarkand exactly the same distance. Hence both ancient and contemporary P'i-shan must be the first considerable town north of Shahidula, in the immediate neighbourhood of Sanju. Ki-pin was 3,790 li west-south-west of P'i-shan on the way to U-yih-shan-li. We know from Mr. Stein's recent observations[3] that from Rawal Pindi to S'rînagur is 200 miles, from S'rînagur to Leh 260 miles, and from S'rînagur, viâ Skardo, northwards to Misgar 500 miles. Hence from S'rînagur viâ Skardo to Shahidula would be about 700 miles; or, say, 900 to 1,000 miles from Rawal Pindi to Sanju. It is well known that Chinese li are calculated as though shorter in distance but longer in time over mountainous roads, ten li being, in fact, under all varying conditions, the German Stunde. Moreover the ancient Chinese Geography known as the Shwei King, or 'Rivers
- ↑ Asiat Quart. Rev. July 1902, p. 131 et seqq.
- ↑ The Chinese commentators of the seventh century of our era consider these Săk of B.C. 100 to be the same as the S'ákya or Shakya princes of Buddhistic India (for instance, Yen Shï-ku, Mayer's Chinese Manual, p. 275). Western writers suggest rather that the Saca princes were of Turanian stock.
- ↑ Journal of the Royal Geogr. Soc. December 1902.
