Political History Of Ancient India

SR No.: 032292
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hemchandra Raychaudhari
Publisher: University of Calcutta
Publication Year: 1950
Total Pages: 714
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 488

ORIGIN OF THE KUSHĀN PRINCIPALITY 459 drove the Yue-chi further west into the Ta-hia territory washed by the Oxus. The Ta-hia, who were devoted to commerce, unskilled in war and wanting in cohesion, were easily reduced to a condition of vassalage by the Yuechi who established their capital or royal encampment to the north of the Oxus (Wei), in the territory now belonging to Bukhārā (in ancient Sogdiana). The Yue-chi capital was still in the same position when visited by Chang-kien in or about B.C. 128-26.1
The adventures of Chang-kien as related by Ssū-macl’ien in the Sse-lce or Shi-ki (completed before B.C. 91) were retold in Pan-ku's Ts’ien Han-shu or Annals of the First Han Dynasty that dealt with the period B.C. 206– A.D. 9 or 24, and was completed by Pan-ku's sister after his death in A.D. 92, with three important additions, namely :
1. That the kingdom of the Ta-Yue-chi bad for its capital the town of Kien-chi (Kien-she), to the north of the Oxus,” and Kipin lay on its southern frontier.
2. That the Yue-chi were no longer nomads.
3. That the Yue-chi kingdom had become divided into five principalities, viz., Hi(eo)u-mi (possibly Wakhān3 between the Pamirs and the Hindukush), Chouangmi or Shuang-mi (Chitral, south of Wakhān and the Hindukush) Konei-chouang or Kuei-shuang, the Kushān principality, probably situated between Chitral and the Panjshir
1 JRAS., 1903, pp. 19-20 ; 1912, pp. 668 ff., PAOS., 1917. pp. 89 ff.; Whitehead, 171 ; CHI, 459, 566, 701; Tarn, Greeks, 84, 274 n, 277 ; Konow, Corpus, II. i. xxii-xxiii, liv, lxii.
2 Cf. Corpus, II. i. liv.
3 A Bakanapati, apparently lord of Wakhān, figures in the inscription of Mahārāja rājātirāja devaputra Kushānaputra Shāhi Vamataksha(ma ?) whose identity is uncertain. The title devaputra connects him with the Kanishka Group of Kushān kings, and not the Kadphises group. ASI. 1911-12, Pt. I. 15; 1930-34, pt. 2. 288.