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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(NOVEMBER, 1903.
Yoe-tchi sent an ambassador to demand a Chinese princess in marriage. Pan-teh'ao, deeming the request insolent, stopped the ambassador and sent him back. The king of the Yue-tehi raised an army of 70,000 horsemen under the orders of the viceroy Sie. Pan-tch'ao's troops were affrighted at the number, (28) and his general had much trouble to reassure them; however, he made them see that the enemy, worn out by a long march, and by the fatigues endered in crossing the Tsoung-ling mountains, was not in a condition to attack them with advantage. Sie was vanquished, and the king of the Yue-tchi did not fail to send every year the tribute imposed apon him.10 It was not Kanishka, at the apogee of his reign and power, who consented to such a humiliation. Ouly a distant successor, still powerful, but enfeebled, could have submitted to it.
[In connection with the above, attention may be called to the following articles in the Journal Asiatique: -(1) Nahapana et l'ère Caka, by A. M. Boyer, July-Dec., 1897, pp. 120-151 ; (2) Les Indo-Scythes et l'époque du règne de Kanichka, d'apras les sources chinoises, by E. Specht, ibid. pp. 152-198; (3) Note additionelle sur les Indo-Scythes, by 8. Lévi, pp. 526-581; (4) Les missions de Wang Himen-te'e dans l'Inde, by S. Lévi, Jan.-June, 1900, pp. 401-468; and (5) L'époque de Kaniska, by A. M. Boyer, ibid. pp. 526-579.
[In the first article named, M. Boyer gives reasons for thinking that the Saka era must be held, not to begin with the coronation of Kanishka, but from the accession of the Kshatrapa Nabapāna, whom inscriptions and coins shew to have ruled over Snrashtra, Avanti, and part of the west coast of the Dekkan, and who seems to have been a Snks conqueror from the north-west. He places the accession in 78 A. D., the generally accepted year for the beginning of the era.
[In the second article, M. Specht combats the conclusions M. Lévi drew from Chinese sources, and in particular his view that Kanishka- was master of a part of China, and that his reign began abont B. 0.5. With one part of these criticisms M. Lévi has dealt in the fourth article named just above, pp. 447 ff., as will be seen in a continuation of these Notes.
[In the remaining article, M. Boyer argues that, though Kanishka did not inaugurate the Saka era, he did, as a matter of fact, begin to reign about the end of the first century of the Christian era.
[It is unfortunately not possible now to do more than thus briefly allade to the interesting articles by MM. Boyer and Specht, which bring together and discuss so much information from Chinese sources bearing on the ancient history of India. Some notes from M. Levi's additional articles specified above, (3) and (4), will be given in Part IV.]
SPECIAL NOTES.. Lan-cheu; Pushkalāvati.
(See page 418 above, and note 2;
original page 8, note 3, with an addition on page 42.) The seeming variant Kien-cheu, in the History of the First Han Dynasty, is only due to confusion of two almost identical characters. Seu-ma T'sien and the History of the Second Han Dynasty guarantee the reading Lan-cheu. The word tan designates plants from which blue dyes are extracted ; and the analogy of the name Hoa-cheu " (the town of flowers," to
29 De Mailla, 394. The original passage is found in the biography of Pan-tch'no, Hoou-han-chow, obap. 77. p. 44. Puther de Mailla's Histoire seems to furnish another important datum regarding the Yue-tohi in the time of Pan. teh'no. "In the year 94, Pan-toh'so, baring made eight kingdoms of Si-yu tributary to Chine, sesembled their "forces and attacked Kouang. king of Yue-obi, whom he pat to death" (Hist. P. 897). But the original (How-han-chou, chap. 77. p. 4") designsten Konang n king of Yen-ki (Karaahar). De Mailla, who transcribes this name Yen-lehi, hus by some mistake in writing substituted Yue-chi for it in his tranulation. There is no doubt about the reading in the original, for Pan-to'no passes from there into the kingdom of Kieou-teo (Koutebe), which sotaally borders on Yen-ki. - The biography of Pan-tah'ao notes also on another cocasion, the submission of the Yue-tohi to Pan-tah'ao. "In this time the Yne-tohi had just intermarried with the K'ang-kiu (Forgins), and "they were related. Then Teh'no sent ambassadors with rich presents to the king of the Yu-tahi, while inviting " him to show olearly to the king of Klang-kia the real truth. The king of K'ang-kia diabanded his soldiers."
