Indian Antiquary Vol 48

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

Page 79

MAY, 1919]
THE HUN PROBLEM IN INDIA
75
It is also noteworthy that to reach this, the traveller had to cross the river Sita, which must be the Pauranic Sita, one of the seven holy rivers that took their rise round Mêru or Sumêru, the Pauranic centre of the earth. It is this river that again seems to be referred to by the classical writers generally by the term 'Silas.' 39 It seems now clear that the land of the Uttarakuru was in the valley of the Tarim in the north-western margin of what is now known to Central Asian travellers as the Takla Makan desert on the eastern slopes of the out-gpurs of the Tianshan Mountains. A mere glance at a map of Asia will show clearly that in the days of the Hiung-Nu-Hun ascendanoy that must have formed the road of oommunication between China and India, from the middle of the first century B.O. onwards. If the Chinese know the Hiung-Nu in this locality, it is just possible that the Indians might have heard of them in the same region, and as such it would be untenable to draw, from the occurrence of any reference to the Hûņa, the inference that it is necessarily inade to the Ephthalite Huns.
___Conelusion. The Huns may no longer exist, perhaps as a people, but the Hun is not yet dead, and if according to what Professor Maitland said in one of his addresses that history is lengthening both forwards and backwards, Lere is an illustration of the backward extension of the Hun history. In the days of his dominanoe, the Hun was universally regarded as the destroyer of civilization and his activities in this evil work were experienced alike all along the frontiers of civilization beginning from the walls of China along the Tarim basin down to the sources of the river Oxus, and along the river Oxus itself to the Caspian Sea, and across the southern coast of Russia through the whole length of the Roman frontier extending from the mouth of the Danube to the lower Rhine, if not to the mouths of the Rhine. It is to the good fortune of humanity that the principles of civilisation triumphed ultimately all along this frontier.
APPENDIX.
Raghuvashna Book IV. पारसीकांस्तवो जेतुं प्रतस्थे स्थलधर्मना इन्द्रिवारवानिव रिपूंस्तत्वज्ञानेन संबमी ॥१०॥ यवनीमखपमाना सेहे मधुमन सः। बालातपनिवाग्जानामकालजलवीरवः ॥११॥ संपामस्तुमुलस्तस्व पाश्चात्यैरवसाधनैः। शार्गकूषितविशेवप्रतिबोधे रजस्वभूत् ॥ १५॥ मल्लापवर्जितस्तेषां चिरीमिः श्मभुलैर्मशम् | तस्तार सरपाबासैः स सौद्रपटलेरिव ॥५॥ अपनीतशिरस्त्राणाः रोषात पर बबुः। प्रषिपातप्रतीकारः संरम्भो हि महात्मनाम् ॥ ४॥ विनवन्ते स्म तपोधा मधुमिनियम।।
आस्तीर्णाजिनरतासुद्राक्षावलयभूमिड ।। १५॥ ततः प्रवस्यै कौवेरी भास्वानिव रथिन् । परेरिवादीच्यानुवरिष्यवनसानिव ॥७॥ विनीवापत्रमास्तस्व सिन्धुपीरविघटनः ।. पशुवभिनः स्कन्धावनकुमसरान ||.॥
Rolerted to Sailodam' in the Mahabharata, 41, 42
* The alternative roading given is Vaiku. Even where the reading Sindhu is adopted the comment is made referring it to that part of the course where it flows westwards.