Parthian Princes Vonones, Spalygis, and Spalirisas ; during the reign and perhaps with the assistance of the Arsacidan king, Mithridates the Great. But it was wrested from them by the Scythian Azilisas, the successor of Azas; and about 80 B. C., the whole of Khorasan, Afghanistan, Sindh, and the Panjáb, were united under the dominion of some nameless king of the Sakas, or Saca Scythians.*

5. A few years later the Sakas were dispossessed of their conquests in Afghanistan and the Western Panjab by the Yuchi or Tochári Scythians, who, with their leader Kadphises, of the Hieu-mi tribe, were at once converted to Buddhism. The possessions of the Sakas on the Lower Indus were seized by the Ujain Prince, Vikramaditya, who after his conquest assumed the title of Sákári, or foe-of-theSákás. By these losses the Sakas were confined to the south-western parts of Khorasan; which, after them, was called Sákásthan (or Sacastene), a name which still exists in the modern Sistan.

6. The Hieumi Prince, Kadphises, was followed by Kanishka of the Khoránt tribe, who is celebrated

*All these details of the Greek princes of Kabul and the Panjab have been derived principally from coins. They will be treated at full length in my forthcoming work of "Alexander's Successors in the East."

+ The name of Khorasán is most probably due to the occupation of the country by the Khorán tribe: Khorasán or Khorastán would be the country of the Khor tribe, as Sacassene or Sákastán was that of the Sákás.

as one of the most eminent patrons of Buddhism. His coins, which are now discovered in very great numbers over the whole of Afghanistan and the Panjab, attest the wide spread of his dominions; and their common occurrence in Rajputána and the North Western Provinces of India perhaps shows the extent of his conquests. He subdued the valley of Kashmir, and there founded a town named after himself which

is still called Kámpur or Kánikpur. * For the honour of his religion he erected numerous Topes, of which the most magnificent is still standing in the Khaibur Pass beyond Peshawar.† Another of his Topes at Manikyála was opened by General Court; and its deposits form one of the most interesting discoveries that have yet been made in the archæology of India. At ten feet above the ground level, General Court obtained a stone box covered with a flat slab, which on its under surface bore an inscription of nine lines in the Ariano-Pali character. The published copy is very corrupt; but through the kindness of Professor Lassen I possess a more correct transcript, from which I have been able to read with certainty the name of Maharaja KANISHKA of the Gushang tribe. The second line contains a figured date which I have not yet been able to read, but which looks like either 520 or 120. Inside the

* Raja Tarangini, i. 168.

+ Hwan Thsang, in the Appendix to the Fo-kwe-ki.

↑ See the account of this discovery in Prinsep's Journal, vol. iii. p. 558.

K

stone box were found three cylindrical caskets of copper, silver, and gold, each containing a certain number of coins. The copper casket held eight copper coins; the silver casket held seven silver coins; and the gold casket held four gold coins. On the lid of the stone box also there were four copper coins. The gold coins and all the copper ones, excepting three, belong to Kanerki or Kanishka himself; two of the copper coins are of his predecessor Kadphises Hieumi, and the third is of Kadphizes or Kadaphes Khóran. The seven silver coins all belong to the last years of the Roman Republic, from B, C. 73 to 33,* and they serve to establish the period of Kanishka's reign in the latter end of the first century before the Christian

era.

7. At this time the Eastern Panjáb was governed by Milindu, Raja of Sákala or Sangala, one of the most learned disputants in India. He had challenged the Buddhist Arhats of Sákala to argue with him, and had silenced them all. † The discomfited monks retired to Rahkhita-talo or Rakshita-Tál in the Hemawanta region; where after a lapse of twelve years they were joined by the youthful Nágásena or Nágárjuna, whom they persuaded to undertake the difficult task of coping with Raja Milindu in argu

Journal des Savans, Fevrier, 1836, p. 74. The battle of Actium was fought in B.C. 31.

+ Turnour's Páli Annals, in Prinsep's Journal, v. 533; also Colonel Low. Jour. As. Soc. Bengal, xvii. 616.

ment. The challenge was accepted by Nágásena, and the whole body of monks returned to Ságala which once more "glittered with the yellow robes" of the Buddhist fraternities. The disputation, which was held in the king's palace in the presence of ten selected Sthaviras, ended in the immediate conversion of Milindu to Buddhism, and in his ultimate ordination as a monk.

8. The teaching of Nágárjuna extended through the reigns of Milindu of Sákala, and of Kanishka of Kashmir.* By his influence five hundred Kashmirian Arhans were deputed to Tibet for the propagation of Buddhism, and to the enthusiasm created by his example must be attributed the contemporary extension of the Buddhist religion to the island of Java at the beginning of the Christian era, when twenty thousand families arrived from India. The conversion of the Javanese to the faith of Sákya is attested by the numerous Buddhist remains, which still exist on the island.

9. About twenty years later, when the sophist Apollonius visited India, the dominion of the Parthian Bardanes extended to the banks of the Indus.‡

Csoma, Tibetan Grammar, p. 182, states that Nágárjuna was born in B.C. 93. The Raja Tarangini places him 500 years after the death of Buddha, and makes him a contemporary of the IndoScythian Kanishka.

+ Klaproth, in Prinsep's Useful Tables, places this event between the years 24-57, A.D. Raffles, Java ii. 69, places it in A.D. 10. The difference is only a few years.

Philostratus, ii. 18. Tacitus, Ann. xi. 10.

*

A petty chief named Phraortes reigned at Taxila ; and a more powerful but nameless sovereign possessed all the country between the Hyphasis and the Ganges. The whole story of this sophist's travels is so full of fables that it is difficult to know what to believe and what to reject; but from the agreement of several passages, it may be inferred that both of the Indian kings were Buddhists. The Gangetic prince abstained from animal food, and his Sages (that is wise men, or Bauddhas) let their hair grow long, wore white mitres on their heads, and had no clothing save short tunics. This is an exact description of the Bodhisatwa, or upper class of Buddhist monks, who throughout the Sánchi bas-reliefs are represented seated in abstract meditation with long hair, covered by a low conical cap or mitre, and with no clothing save the kilt or sangháti.

10. For the next four centuries the history of India is almost a blank; and for this dark period we must be guided by the feeble glimmer of a few slight notices preserved by the Chinese. From them we learn that the Yuchi or Scythian Tochári retained their power in Northern India until the beginning of the third century of our era. They abstained from wine and from animal food, and practised the law of Buddha. The prevalence of Buddhism at this period is also attested by several classical authors, of whom

Philostratus, iii. 15-26.

+ Until A. D. 222. See Chinese account of India, in Prinsep's Journal, vi. 63.