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DECEMBER, 1879.]
ON THE PERIPLÚS OF THE ERYTHRÆAN SEA.
335
able river for so arid a country falls into the bay : it is the Bhegvor or Bhug wur, on the left bank of which stands Kej.
It may be objected here that the Periplus asserts that the Parsidai were independent of Persia, and separated Persia from India. Our most trustworthy authorities aver that, if, during the rule of the Arsacidæ, Persia was divided into principalities and fiefs, the policy of Ardeshir was, on the contrary, to re-unite the separate branches into one stock, and restore the glorious times of the Akhæmenian kings. Is it unnatural to refer what is said in the text to what prevailed under the Arsacidan kings, and consequently before the fall of Mêsêne P
The coasts of the country known under the general name of Beluchistan have always been barren and unhealthy. In early times, ships when they were unable to quit the coast nor avoid passing the nights in bays and creeks, the navigation gave a certain activity to these inhospitable parts. But the discovery of the monsoon gave the first blow to this unhappy country. The advance of navigation increased the evil. For the time preceding the use of the monsoon we have the account of Nearkhus; for times a little later we have the relation of the biography of Apollonius of Tyana when he returned from his visit to India.39
Herodotus tells us that Darius Hystas- pes subjugated the whole valley of the Indus; this leads us to believe that he also occupied the coast of Gedrosia. But it is only necessary to read the account of Nearkhus to show that this occupation could not have been complete ; and that it possessed no interest for the Persian government except with a view to maritime commerce more or less active at that date. It was the same at a later date with the Arabs, when they had conquered Persia and the Indus valley. The populations of the interior were cantoned in the mountains, those of the coast were left almost to themselves."
History tells us that the condition of Beluchistan under the rule of the Sassanidæ was almost the same, and that, if, for a time, the country was re-conquered, it was rather as a matter of boast than with a view to actual occupation. It is enough to cite three instances which seem to me decisive.
About 435 A.D. the Sassanian King Bahram 5. Philostrati Opera (ed. Didot, p. 70), Vit. Apoll. Tyan. lib. iii. c. 53 seqq.
0 Pliny says (lib. vi. c. 26) that the rule of Persia under the Akhæmenians did not extend to Gedrosis.
" See the Arabic work of Alestakhry, autograph text by M. Moeller, pp. 71 ff.
Nikbi, Recueil des notices et extraits, t. II. p. 836. - Silvestre de Sacy's text p. 246, and translation p. 872,
Gor, seized with a desire for travel, visited India, and there, say oriental writers, he received from the king of India his daughter in marriage, and the district here under discussion. These districts then did not belong to Persia. A century later, about 560 A.D., the king Khosrd-Nushirwan, who raised the government to great splendour, and who had a complaint of certain acts of piracy committed by Indian shipe, caused these same provinces to be restored to him. Finally, a century after, about 640, the same districts according to the decisive testimony of Hiwen Thsang, were under the rule of an Indian prince.
Mirkhond relates that Nushirwan having despatched an army against the king of India, the Indian Prince sent deputies to him with presents, and that to obtain peace he gave up the countries situated on the borders of Oman, which touch on the frontiers of Persia, that is the modern Beluchistan.
We have less difficulty in understanding the influence exercised by India over the eastern provinces of Persia, when we consider the religions of these countries. When Darius, son of Hystaspes, conquered these provinces, the worship of the inhabitants was probably a mixture of the Zoroastrian and Brahmanical cults, which were not then so settled as they were later. Under Asoka about 210 B.C. Buddhism was introduced into the country by a teacher from Mathur& called Upagupt a* and made great progress. Then came the doctrines of the Indian Saiva s. If we add to this the worship of the Sun and of the goddess Nanea or Anaïtis, which had also penetrated the whole of the Indus Valley, we see that the inhabitants of eastern Persia belonged at the same time to India and Persia. When Hiwen Thsang passed through the Indus Valley about 640 A.D., in the same towns were professors of Zoroastrianism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, &c.
Now the question is to determine what king of India it was who for most of this time made his authority felt even over Beluchistan P India is a vast country, and, parcelled out as it almost always has been, we cannot imagine orders, issuing from the banks of the Ganges, put in execution in Beluchistan. With Sanskrit writers, however, Beluchistan and the valley of the Indus are not regarded as belonging to India properly speaking. It is evident that according to the author of the Periplús, India proper did not extend beyond the Ganges and Gulf of Khambay. The king in ques
where however he has not rendered it with his usual precision, and this has led V. Saint-Martin (Biographie Universelle, t. XXII. p. 382, ler ed.) into serious error. On the use of the term Oman here seo above, p. 384.
" Conf. Burnouf, Introd. pp. 138, 221, 484 ff. and St. Julien's Relat. des voyages de Hiowen Thsang, t. 418, t. II. p. 171.
" See however Pliny, lib. i. c. 28.
