Indian Antiquary Vol 08

SR No.: 032500
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 404
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 380

336
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1879.
tion can only be sought for in the Indus Valley, This moreover is what Hiwen Thsang affirmg.
Herodotus informs ug that Darius, the son of Hystaspos, conquered the Indus Valley, and his testimony is confirmed by the cuneiform inscriptions engraved in his reign. But Herodotus is careful to state that his conquest did not extend beyond the valley."? Persian and Arab writers who come later do not speak of Darius, and attribute the conquest of India to a king called Gustasp. They add that Gustasp gave the government of the Indus Valley to one of his grandsons named Bahman surnamed Deraz-D est or Longimanus. During his Government Ba h mi a n founded, in the north of the delta of the Indus, a city which he called Bahman å bad, or city of Bahman, After the death of his grandfather, Bahman returned to Persia, and mounted the throne; but at his death he left the crown to his daughter Humai, in preference to his son Sassan, and the latter retired discontented to B ah ma na bâd where he had a family. From one of his children descended Sassan, the father of Ardeshir, founder of the dynasty of the Sassanian kings.'
Be this as it may, the existence of Bahmanå båd as a city and even as a special seat of government is indisputable. It was found exist- ing by the Arabs in 706 A.D. when they first arrived in the Indus Valley: it was there the king of the country resided. It continued to be the seat even of the government established by the Arabs.60
The names of four or five localities in Beluchistan are mentioned by Hiwan Thsang. It is almost impossible that he should not have mentioned Bahman-Abåd. Now there is a city which he calls the capital of the kingdom of Sindh, which he places exactly in the position of Bahman-Abåd, and which exercised supremacy over Beluchistan.
Can the Chinese and Persian names be brought to coincide P The Chinese name was rendered in 1836 by Abel Rimusat, Klaproth and Landresse as Pi-chen-pho-pu-lo." In 1853 M. Stanislas Julien, in his translation of the life of Hiwen-Thsang." wrote the word Vijanva-pura. He transcribed it in 1859 in his translation of the travels of HiwenThsang as Vichava-pura. Finally in his Méthode pour déchiffer et transcrire les noms sanscrits que se rencontrent dans les livres chinois," he writes Vijambha-pura. In 1853 and 1858, M. Julien accompanied his transcriptions with a note of interrogation; in his later publication he gives the new transcription as definitive.
Now to express the word city the Persians say abad, and the Indians sometimes pura (Gr. móds) and sometimes wagara. Thus the last word need not trouble us, and we take up the first. Now Bahman ends in 1, a letter often suppressed in Chinese; thus for avadana they write po-to. Then Bahma may be rendered as Bahma, Bahpa, Bahba, Bahva, Basva, Vasva, Vasma, &c. In facto and b are employed indifferently. We know also that the Hindus employ indifferently h and s; thus in India they say Hind or Sind; so, to express
seren' the Greeks said 'Enta and the Latins septem. Then in Chinese, while the name of Buddha is written fo, Bengal is written mang-ga-la, and mang-ga-ta. Now in Pi-chen-pho, we have a p in place of b and of o, a ch in place of hors, and a ph in place of m--the whole giving Vas ma pura and Bahmapura.
It is also possible that the natives, in place of pura used nagara, if as I am led to believe the city in question is the same as Minnagara of which Ptolemy and the Periplus speak. Be this as it may, by a curious coincidence, Isidor of Kharax places a town named Minpolis in the neighbourhood of the Indus.
** Rawlinson, Jour. R. As. Soc. vol. X. pp. 280, 291; Oppert, Jour. As. févr. 1852, pp. 141 ff.
47 Bk. III. c. 101, and Bk. IV. c. 44.
45 The Persian writers besides the name of Bahman give him also that of Ardeshir, which has led certain authors to confound him with Artaxorxes Longmanus. Moreover the word Bahman itself is susceptible of the sense of Long-Hand, if as often happens we substitute for h and read bazu (Sans. bahu) in place of bah. See Bohlen De Origine Linguee Zendico e Sanscrita repetenda p. 48. The Peblvi form was Vohumano (Spiegel, Die traditionelle Literatur der Parsen, Vienna, 1860, p. 419). Perhaps Vohamano is equivalent to the Sansk. Vasumanas, a word wbich in the Rig Veda designates an indigenous person.
** Mouradgea D'Oheson, Tableau historique de l'Orient, t. I. p. 355 seqq. t. II. p. 156; see also Reinaud, Frag. arabes et persans inédits sur l'Inde, p. 41.
50 For an account of the revolutions through which Bahman-Åbåd passed, see my Mémoire geographique historique et scientifique sur l'Inde, which appeared in tome XVIII. of the Recueil de l'Académie
[Here follows a digression on the difficulties of identifying names written in Chinese, with reference to Sinibaldo de Mas, La Chine et les puissances chrétiennes t. I. p. 14; t. II. p. 250; M. Pauthier in Jour. As. September 1861,
Literatur der was vodice e Sane
pp. 272 seqq. Léon de Rosny, Essai sur la langue chinoise. On the Mongol alphabetical writing called passt pa from ita inventor: Jour. As. avr. 1860, p. 321 and Jan. 1862, p. 5, and the identification of certain places in the author's Mém. sur l'Inde.-ED.
51 Hist. de la vie de H.-T. pp. 207 ff. 465; Rel. du voy. tom. II. pp. 169 ff.
52 Foe-koue-ki, p. 393. 53 P. 444.
5. Tom. II. p. 170. ** Paris, 1861, p. 92.
* Abad ( 1) ig still used in Persia in the sense of 'a place where there is water,''inhabited place, dwelling.' It is found in Pehlvi under the form afat (Spiegel, Dic. traditionelle Litter. p. 355). It is composed of ab or af, water, and the suffix ad indicating possession, and which exists in Sanskrit ander the forms at and ant. For abad, the Persians use also abdan (ul or place containing water.
67 Sansk.–Saptan, Zend-haftan, Greek-hepta, Ltin---septem, German--sieben, Gothic-sibuan, Lithuanianseptyny, Armenian--eutan (Bopp. Vergleich. Gram. II. P. 29 . A
68 Miy mós-Geog. Gr. Min. tom. I. p. 258.