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SASSANIANS IN NORTH-WEST INDIA 479
These were Ta-hia (the Oxus region, i.e., Bactria), Ki-pin (Kāpiša), Kao-fou(Kābul) and "Tien-tchou'(lit. India, meaning probably the country on either side of the Indus with a vague suzerainty over a wider area). In 230 the Ta Yue-chi, i.e., the Great (?) Yue-chi king Po-tiao sent an embassy to the Chinese Emperor. The Yue-chi kingdom of "Tientchou' began to fall to pieces some time after this date and probably disappeared as an important power in the fourth century A. D. having already lost some of the remotest provinces to the Nāgas. Those nearer the Indus emerged as petty states. Sakasthāna and parts of North-West India were conquered by the Sassanians in the days of Varhran II (A. D. 276-93). During the early part of the reign of Shāpār II ( A. D. 309-79 ) the Sassanian 'suzerainty was still acknowledged in those regions.
who is apparently to be identified with Po-tiao, A.D. 230 (Corpus, II. i. lxxvii): and Grumbates, A.D. 360 (Smith, EHI, p. 290). Kings claiming to belong to the family of Kanishka continued to rule in Ki-pin and Gandhāra long after he had passed away (Itinerary of Oukong, Cal Rev., 1922, Aug-Sept., pp. 193, 489). The last king of Kanishka's race was, according to tradition, Lagatūrmān who was overthrown by his Brāhmaṇa minister Kallar (Alberuni, II, 13). For an alleged invasion of India in the later Kushān period by Ardeshir Bābagān (A.D. 226-41), the founder of the Sassanian dynasty, see Ferishta (Elliot and Dowson, VI, p. 557). Varhran II (A.D. 276-93) conquered the whole of. Śakasthāna and made his son Varhran III governor of the conquered territory. Sakasthāna continued to form a part of the Sassanian empire down to the time of Shāpūr II. A Pahlavi Inscription of Persepolis, which Herzfeld deciphered in 1923, dated probably in A.D. 310-11, when Shāpūr II (309-79) was on the throne, refers to the Sassanian ruler of Sakasthāna as "Sakānsāh, minister of ministers (dabiran dabir) of Hind, Sakasthāna and Tukhāristhān" (MASI, 38, 36). The Paikuli Inscription mentions the Saka chiefs of North-Western India among the retainers of Varhran III, governor of Sakasthāna in the last quarter of the third century A.D. (JRAS. 1933, 219). The Abhiras of Western India seem also to have acknowledged the sway of the Sassanians (Rapson, Andhra Coins, cxxxiv). J. Charpentier points out (Aiyangar Com. Vol. 16) that at the time of Cosmas Indico-pleustes (c. 500 A.D.) the right side of the Indus Delta belonged to Persia. Persians figure also in early Chalukya epigraphs and the Raghuvamśa of Kalidasa.
