Indian Antiquary Vol 48

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 78

74
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(MAY, 1919
origin in the general notion that they were associated with Witchcraft and as such being fit mothers for the demon-breed of the Huns.
Indian evidence on the question. But coming down to the Indian side of the evidence, we have already noticed that in the geography of Orosius, the characteristic Huni-Scythæ name occurs in the neighbourhood of Uttarakuru. The torm Uttarakuru designated according to the Indian authorities a race of people on the other side of the Himalayas. The Pauranic associations of these people give them an unbelievable longevity and ascribe to them other attributes which remove them from the realm of an actual race of people. This notion of their being a legendary people gets only conferred y the early Greek arcounts of them, which describe them as they do the Hyperboreans of the Greeks. The Mahabharata refers to them as quite an earthly people among whom polyandry prevailed in the days of Pându:15 But if we get back to the earlier literature of the Hindus, we seem to be on more historical ground, and the Uttarakuru would be a race of human people, who lived on the other side of the Himalayas. The Aitareya Brahmana 16 describes them merely as located beyond the Himalayas. Their country is described as the lands of the gods' no doubt, but it is at the same time stated that the disciple of Vasiştha Satyahavya, by name Jânantapi Atyarâti, was anxious to conquer it. It cannot therefore be regarded as mythical. They are generally mentioned in connection with another people, the Uttara-Madras, who themselves get connected with the Kambojas, as a Kamboja Aupamanyava is described as a pupil of Madragâra. 17 There is the further interesting detail in the Satapatha Brahmaņa 18 o a dispute between the Kuru-Panchala Brahmans and of the Northern Brahmans in which the latter got the better of it. These Northern Brahmans are described as having speech similar to that of the Kuru-Pânchalas. Their speech was regarded as celebrated for purity, and the Brahmans are described as going to the north for purposes of study. This is confirmed by the Buddhist tradition that Gandhåra was famous as a University centre to which even such an exalted personage as Prasên ajit of Kosala, the contemporary of Buddha, went for education as a prince.19 It might also be noted here that the Mahdva na refers to the region of the Uttarakuru as one to which some priests were directed to fetch & stone for working the relio chamber of the Great Stúpa. 20 We would not therefore perhaps be far wrong if we located this Uttarakuru somewhere in the Tarim Basin in what is known as Chinese Turkistan, so that they would be on the frontiers of China and India and in touch with the Hiung-Nu.
Hluen-Tsiang's reference to the 'Rats' in the City west of Khotan. That this is the identical location of the Hiung-Nu in the earlier periods of their history, as known to the Chinese, is in evidence in the account of Khotan in the Chinese Traveller Hiuen-Tsang's travels. He says there “in old days, a general of the Hiung-Nu came to ravage the borders of this country with several tens of myriads of followers." A body of rats of extraordinary size, who had their habitat not far from Khotan are, according to the story, said to have miraculously overthrown the Hiung-Nu.31
15 Adiparva, Ch. 128. 26 Soo Haug's Translation, VIII, 14 & 23, 17 Vedio Index by Macdonell and Keith, I, 84. 18 XI. 4, 1, \ III, 2, 3, 15, Eggeling's Translation in the Sacred Books of the Eams 1 Rhys Davids' Buddhist India, pp. 8, 28 & 203. 20 Geiger's Trans., F. 203. 21 Beal's Si-Yu-li, II, pp. 314-15.