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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. III.
with three Purånic kings of the Lunar Race, to which race the copper-plate charters refer Sivagupta and his successors, suggests a knowledge of the fact that there really had been kings of Orissa who claimed to belong to that lineage ; (2) there certainly is preserved a reminiscence, but a completely erroneous and anachronistic one, of two of those real kings, Janamêjaya-Mahd-Bhavagupta I. and Yayati-Mah-Sivagapta; and (3) the alleged occupation by the Yavanas for a hundred and forty-six years, from A.D. 328 to 474, plainly embodies & vague memory of the Early Gupta kings, for whom, 48 far as their unbroken lineal succession goes, we have dates (see Gupta Inscriptions, Introd. p. 17) ranging from the year 82 to the year 147 or 149 of an era commencing A.D. 320, and whose power, extending from Kåthiåwåd right across India to Lower Bengal, formed a barrier between Orissa or any part of Southern India and the Yavanas' of that period, viz. the Indo-Scythians of the Panjab.? And, with such results as these before us, it is evident that everything relating to ancient times, which has been written on the unsupported authority of these annals, has to be expunged bodily from the pages of history.
It only remains to say a few more precise words about the Yavanas' who are mentioned in these annals: it is obvious that, whoever they may be, no real history connected with them is preserved in the annals; but it is also as well to shew clearly who they really were. They are first brought to notice in connection with Vajradeva (allotted to the period B.C. 538 to 421), in whose reign, we are told, they invaded Orissa from Marwar, Delhi, Babul Des' (supposed to be Iran, i.e. Persia, and so explained to Mr. Stirling), and Kabul, but were repulsed; and, Mr. Stirling says (Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV. p. 258), " then follows an incomprehensible story, "involving some strange anachronism, about Imarût or Himarat Khan, who comes from Delhi " with a large army and attacks the Raja." They are not specifically named in connection with Narasimhadeva (B.C. 421 to 306; he is called 'Sarsankh Deo' by Mr. Stirling); but they seem to be meant in the statement that " another chief from the far north invaded the country “during this reign, but he was defeated, and the Orissa prince reduced a great part of the Delhi "kingdom" (Orissa, Vol. II. Appendix VII. p. 184),- or, as Mr. Stirling says, “ Sarsankh Deo, "a warlike prince, is attacked by another Khân, whose name is variously written, and is always “so incorrectly spelt that it is impossible to unravel it; the Raja defeats the invader, and, "emboldened by his success, advances upon Delhi, and reduces a great part of the country." In the time of Månakrishnadeva (B.C. 306 to 184; he is called Hans or Hangsha Deo' by Mr. Stirling), the Yavanas again invaded the country, from Kashmir,- but were driven back after many battles. Bhôjadêva also (B.C. 184 to 57) is said to have repulsed a Yavana invasion, from Sindh, according to Mr. Stirling's account. And finally, in the time of Sobhanadeva (A.D. 319 to 323) the Yavanas invaded Orissa by sea, under the leadership of a person named Raktabâbu, i.e. Red-arm'or Bloody-arm,' and on this occasion with success : the Yavana force, indeed, after effecting a landing and plundering the town of Puri, was overwhelmed by the sea; but the Yavanas remained masters of the country; Sobhanadeva, who had fled before their approach, died in the jungles ; his nominal suocessor, Chandradeva, was put to death by them in A.D. 328; and so they held the country until they were driven out from it by Yayati-Kosari in A.D. 474. Sir William Hunter admitted this last story so fully as to remark that, while the very fact of this invasion having been made by way of the ses would suggest a doubt as to whether the invaders were ordinary Hind 0s, the idea of braving the ocean in armed galleys, in order to descend on a province which could easily be reached by dry land, being
repugnant alike to the Hindu genius and the Brahmapical faith,'--"it formed an adventure " exactly suited to the imagination of the Asiatic Greek; it was Alexander's sail down the
11' and mmencement of the Yavana occupation might perhaps (see the preceding note) be brought to
10.
ta records, however, they are called Baku (Gupta Insoriptions, p. 14); the name. Yavana' does
