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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXI.
And it would seem to be quite intelligible if the Sakas had introduced an era of their own about that time. We know from Chinese sources that their southward march and invasion of Ki-pin coincided with the Yüe-chi conquest of the Ta-hia country, which is stated to have been effected ca. 160 B. C. The Sakas must then have come into contact with the Greek and with the Parthians, whose King Mithradates I (ca. 171-138 B. C.) is stated to have extended his empire to the Indus and to have brought force to bear on the Scythians. This would naturally lead to the Sakas trying to consolidate their power and to their introducing an era of their own, in imitation of the Greek, who used the Seleucidan era. Under Mithradates' successors they were more than able to hold their own, until Mithradates II (123-88 B. C.) succeeded in establishing his suzerainty over them.
The pressure thus exercised on the Sakas seems to have led to their invasion of the Indus country. In the Saka year 58, i.e. about 92 B.C., we apparently find the Saka king Moga mentioned in the Maira well inscription, and ten years later perhaps a Saka chief Lia in Månsehrã, while Moga again appears in the Taxila copper-plate of the year 78, i.e. about 72 B.C. How long he remained in power, we do not know, but he seems to have had a fairly long reign.
The Saka empire, however, soon broke up. In Mālava it was, according to an Indian tradition, brought to an end by an Indian ruler, known as Vikramāditya, and in the NorthWest we soon find the Parthian ruler Azes, who may have risen to power about the middle of the first century B.C.
The Kushānas, who made an end to the empire founded by Azes, are known to us from Chinese sources. We there learn about their gradual rise to power. At first we hear about them as forming a principality, Kuei-shuang, near or within the Ta-hia country conquered by the Great Yüe-chi.
We are told about five such principalities, each under a hi-hou, viz. Hiu-mi, the present Wakhān; Shuang-mi, the present Chitrāl; Kuei-shuang, apparently immediately to the north of Gandhāra, or Gandhāra itself; Hi-tun, the present Parwan on the Panjshir, and Kao-fu, i.e. Kābul.. The hi-hou of Kuei-shuang, K'iu-taiu-k'io (Kujūla Kadphises), attacked the four other hi-hou and styled himself king, the name of his kingdom being Kuei-shuang (i.e. he assumed the title "Kushana-king"). He further invaded An-si (i.e. the neighbouring Parthian realm) and seized Kao-fu. Moreover he triumphed over P'u-ta (unidentified)' and Ki-pin and entirely possessed those kingdoms. He died more than eighty years old. His son Yen-kaochen (i.e. Wima Kadphises) became king in his stead. He again (anew) extinguished (conquered) Tien-chu (i.e. the Indus country) and appointed a general there for the administration.
We are distinctly told that these events belong to the period Kien-wu (A. D. 25-55) and later, and that they had been related by Pan-yung at the end of the reign of the emperor Ngan (A. D. 107-125). Kujula Kadphises cannot, therefore, have started on his career before A. D. 26, and the whole development narrated in the Annals, including Wima Kadphises' reconquest of T'ien-chu, had been concluded in A.D. 125.
1 Otherwise Rapson, The Cambridge History of India, i, p. 568. ol. Marquart, Iringahr, pp. 242 ff. According to the Hou Han-shu Kao-fu should be replaced by Tu-mi.
The Tang pronunciation of the name was, acoording to Karlgren, Nos. 760 and 956 Buk-d&t. Ten miles ont of Kabul we find the small village Batthāk, at the place where the two routes to Kåbul from the east moet. It is mentioned by Baber, Iransl. by John Leyden and William Erskine, II, p. 130, and the name is said to moan " idol-dast," with reference to the legend that Mahmud of Ghazni here broke up the idola he brought from Hin. dustan. That sounds like a popular etymology, and if the place is old, Butkhak might be a corruption of an old Bukda. But it is more likely that Piu-te was some part of Arachosis.
.of. Chavanno, Toung Pao, II, viii, p. 168.
