The first chapter of the Avestan Vendidād
(whatever may be the age of the chapter) contains an allusion to a portion
of Northern India in a list which it gives of sixteen lands or regions,
created by Ahura Mazda and apparently regarded as under Irānian
sway?
(whatever may be the age of the chapter) contains an allusion to a portion
of Northern India in a list which it gives of sixteen lands or regions,
created by Ahura Mazda and apparently regarded as under Irānian
sway?
Cambridge History of India - v1
D.
when the Purāņas cease to be historical.
The five dynasties just mentioned are, as usual, regarded as succes-
sive ; but this can only be true of the Nandas, Mauryas, and Çungas. The
Çungas, Kanvas, and Andhras were contemporary, although no doubt they
claimed the suzerainty of N. India successively. That the first two of
these were ruling at the same time may be inferred from the incidental
statement that the first Andhra king destroged the last of the Kanvas and
'what was left of the Çungas' power' (Kali Age, pp. 38, 71). But it is
certain that the Çungas were flourishing after the reign of the first Andhra
king. Both powers, Çunga and Andhra alike, arose on the ruins of the
Maurya empire- the former in the Midland Country and the latter in
Southern India. It was probably not until the reign of the third Andhra
king, Çāņakarni, that they came into collision ; and then their political
association appears to have been transient.
The Purāņas, however, state or imply that ten Çunga kings, reigning
for 112 years, were succeeded by four Kaņvas, who reigned for 45 years,
and that then the first of the Andhras, Simuka, having wrested the kingdom
from the last of the Kaņvas, Suçarman, became the founder of a dynasty
of thirty kings who ruled over Magadha during a period of 460 years.
This is manifestly incorrect. It is evident that by piecing together three
1 Vedic Index, 1, pp. 271-3; II, p. 289; Pargiter, J. R. A. S. , 1910, pp. 19, 27, 29;
Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, pp. 25-6, 40-1.
2 Pargiter, Mārk. Pur. , pp. 324-9, 334.
3 For the history of these dynasties, so far as it comes within the limits of the
present volume, see Chapters XVIII-XXI, and XXIV.
a
## p. 284 (#318) ############################################
284
[CH.
THE PURANAS
separate lists some editor has constructed an entirely false chronology and
has perverted history. The Andhras had probably no connexion with
Magadha. Their only possible claim to a place in its records must have
been founded on a conquest which transferred to them the suzerainty
previously held by Magadhal.
In order to understand the situation we must consider what the
consequences of a triumph of this kind must have been. Under the
Nandas and the Mauryas Magadha had established a suzerainty which
passed by conquest to the first Çunga king, Pushyamitra, and was solemnly
proclaimed by his performance of the 'horse-sacrifice' (açvamedha)? This
suzerainty, and with it the proud title of chakravartin, ‘universal monarch,'
was contested successfully by the Andhra king who, as is known from the
Nānāghāt inscription of his queen, Nāganikā, celebrated the Açvamedha
on two occasions ; and, as we have seen (p. 269), there is good reason for
believing that the genealogies preserved in the Purāṇas have their origin in
the proclamation of the king's lineage which accompanied the performance
of this sacrifice.
The rank of a chakravartin must, at this period, have conferred on his
family an hereditary distinction which entitled all his successors to be
commemorated in the records of Magadha. Imperial and royal dignities
of this kind, when once established, are not readily abandoned, however
shadowy and unreal they may have become. It must be remembered that
the sovereigns of our own country continued to use the title and the arms
of France until the beginning of the nineteenth century, nearly two
centuries and a balf after the loss of Calais, the last of their French posses-
sions. Regarded as historical documents, the British coin-legends of the
eighteenth century, with their purely hereditary titles, are as misleading as
the Purāņas, which, arranging all in one long series, ascribe to Magadha
both its own kings and the families of the suzerains of Northern India.
1 Chapter XXIV.
2 Chapter XXI.
3. Bhüler, Arch. Sur. West. Ind. , V', pp. 60 ff.
## p. 285 (#319) ############################################
CHAPTER XIV
THE PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN NORTHERN INDIA DOWN TO
THE TIME OF ALEXANDER'S INVASION
The connexions between Persia and India date back to the
gray dawn
of the period of Indo-Irānian unity, when the Aryan ancestors of the
Hindus and Persians still formed an undivided branch of the Indo-
European stock. Though the separation of these two kindred peoples,
through their migrating into the respective countries they have occupied in
historic times, must have taken place more than three thousand years ago,
nevertheless there long remained a certain community of interest, which had
a bearing upon the early history of the north of India, where Persian
influence, and even dominion, was strongest. The aim of the present
chapter, therefore, is to bring out the main points of contact between
the two nations from the earliest times and to indicate the effect of the sway
exercised by Persia in Northern, or rather North-western, India prior to the
invasion of Alexander the Great and the fall of the Achaemenian Empire
of Irān in the latter part of the fourth century B. C.
To begin the sketch with the most remote ages, it may be assumed
that every student is familiar with the evidence that proves the historic re.
lationship between the Hindus and the Persians through ties of common
Āryan blood, close kinship in language and tradition, and through near
affinities in the matter of religious beliefs, ritual observances, manners and
customs.
An illustration or two may be chosen from the domain of religion
alone. The Veda and the Avesta, which are the earliest literary monu-
ments of India and Persia, contain sufficient evidence of the fact of
such connexion, even though each of these works may date from times long
after the period of Indo-Irānian separation. A certain relationship,
for example, is acknowledged to exist between the Vedic divinity Varuņa
and the Avestan deity Ahura Mazda, or Ormazd, the supreme god
of Zoroastrianism. Equally well known are the points of kinship between
the Indian Mitra and the Irānian Mithra, and, in less degree, between the
victorious Indra Vșitrahan of the Rigveda and the all-triumphant Vere-
thraghna of the Avestan Yashts. Nor need more than mention be made of
the parallels between Yama and Yima or of the cognate use made by
>
285
## p. 286 (#320) ############################################
286
[Ch.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
the Indians and the Persians of the sacred drink soma and haoma in their
religious rites. Scores more of likenesses and similarities might be adduced
to prove the long-established connexion between India and Irān, but they
are generally familiar. 1
Additional evidence, however, has comparatively recently been
furnished by certain cuneiform tablets which the German professor Hugo
Winckler discovered, in 1907, at Boghaz-köi in North-eastern Asia Minor.
These documents give, in their own special language, a record of treaties
between the kings of Mitāni and of the Hittites about 1400 B. C. Among the
gods called to witness are deities common in part to India and Persia, what-
ever the relation may be. The names involved in the tablets are Mi-it-ra,
U-rui-w-na, In-da-ra, and Na-sa-at-ti-ia, corresponding respectively to Mitra,
Varuņa, Indra, and Nāsatyā (the latter regularly a dual in the Veda, and re-
presenting the two Açvins) in the Indian pantheon. They answer likewise
in due order to the Persian Mithra and to those elements common between
the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda and the Vedic Varuņa, as explained
above ; but on the other hand Avestan Indra and Nāonhaithya (a singular
in Av. , Vd. x, 9 ; XIX, 43) appear as demons in the Zoroastrian scriptures.
It is not the place here to enter into a discussion of the question as
to whether the super-natural beings thus mentioned in the Boghaz-köi clay
tablets are to be interpreted as being 'proto-Irānian,' “Vedic,' 'Āryan,'
or even “Mitānian' alone, because the matter is still open to debate
by scholars. It is sufficient to draw attention to the general bearings of such
a discovery upon the subject of relationship between India and Persia, how-
ever direct or indirect the connexion may be. ?
1 A convenient summary of these now familiar facts will be found in F. Spiegel,
Die arische Periode, Leipzig, 1887. Throughout the present chapter the terms 'Irān’and
'Irānians' are to be taken broadly, so as to comprehend Persia and its people in
the widest significance—whether Medes, Persians, or Bactrians-as forming a special
division of the Indo-Irānian branch of the great Indo-European, or Indo-Gemanic,
stock. The designation ‘Āryan’ should really be restricted (as is done by scholars) to the
common bond represented historically by the Hindus and the Persians.
2 This valuable find of the tablets by Winckler (who died April 19, 1913) was first
reported in his Vorlaufige Nachrichten uber die Ausgrabungen in Boghaz-koi im Sommer
1907, in Mittheilungen der deutschen Orientgesellschaft, No. 35 (1908). The importance of
the discovery was at once recognised by scholars and has since received wide attention;
compare, for example, Eduard Meyer, Zt. für vergleichende Sprachforschung, Neue Folge
(1908). XLII, 1-27 ; idem, Sitzb. d. kgl. preu88. Akad. d. Wiss. , 1908, pp. 14-19; also
H. G. Jacobi J. R. A S. , 1909, pp. 721-726 ; H. Oldenberg, ibid. pp. 1095. 1100; A, B.
Keith, ibid. pp. 1100 1106 ; A. H. Sayce, ibid. pp. 1106-1107; J. Kennedy, ibid.
pp. 1107-1119; H. G. Jacobi, ibid. 1910, pp. 456. 464 ; A. B. Keith, ibid. pp. 464-466 ;
H. Oldenberg, ibid. pp. 846-850; see also M. Winternitz, Globus (1909), xcv, 120 ;
Macdonell and Keith Vedic Index, I. p. viii; and most recently J. H, Moulton, Early
Zoroastranism, pp, 5-7, 45, 139, 235 ; Eduard Mayer, Geschichte des Altertums, 3rd ed. ,
vol. I, pt 2. ** 455, 585, 590.
3
## p. 287 (#321) ############################################
XIV]
COMMON INDO-IRĀNIAN DOMAINS
287
in a
The geographical connexion between India and Persia historically was
a matter of fact that must have been known to both countries in antiquity
through the contiguity of their territorial situation. The realms which
correspond to-day to the buffer states of Afghānistān and Baluchistān
formed always a point of contact and were concerned in antiquity with
Persia's advances into Northern and North-western India as well as,
far less degree, with any move of aggrandisement on the part of Hindustān
in the direction of Irān? . Evidence from the Veda and the Avesta alike
attest the general fact.
Vedic scholars, for example, will agree with Avestan students that the
partly common Indo-Irānian domains comprised in the river-system above
the Indus basin, and verging toward the north-western border adjacent to
Irān, are referred to in the Rigveda in certain allusions to the district
indicated by the rivers Kubhā (Kābul), Krumu (Kurram), and Gomatī
(Gumal). They will equally unite in emphasising the fact that there are
other incidental allusions in the Veda, such as those to Gandhāra and
Gandhari, which may certainly be interpreted as referring to the districts of
Peshāwar and Rāwalpindi S. E. from Kābulº. A part of these districts has
belonged rather to Irān than to India in historic times, but it is equally
impossible to deny or to minimise the role they have played in India's
development ever since the remote age when the tribal ancestors of the
present Hindus occupied them on their way into their later established
home'. For the earliest period, we may well agree with the opinion
expressed by Eduard Meyer in an encyclopaedia article on Persia : The
dividing line between Iranian and Indian is drawn by the Hindu-Kush and
the Soliman mountains of the Indus district. The valley of the Kabul
(Cophen) is already occupied by Indian tribes, especially the Gandharians ;
and the Satagydae (Pers. Thatagu) there resident were presumably also of
Indian stock". These facts, because of their importance in regard to this
1 Arrain, Indica, 9, 12, for example, may be cited in support of this statement ;
for he avers, on Indian authority, that ‘a sense of justice, they say, prevented any
Indian king from attempting conquest beyond the limits of India. The assertion
certainly seems true for the earliest times.
2 For references to passages in the texts and for bibliographical allusions con-
sult Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index, I, 162 (Kubhā), 199 (Krumu), 238 (Gomati),
and 218-219 (Gandhāra, Gandbāri). In regard to the territory to be located by the
Vedic river Sarasvati, the present tendency among Sanskrit specialists (most recently,
for example, Macdonell and Keith, op. cit. , II, 434-437) is to confine it to India itself
and not to follow the suggestions that have been made, on etymological grounds, to
connect the region thus watered by the Sarasvatſ directly with the region around the
Irānian river Harahvaitſ of the Avesta, or Hara(h)uvati of the Old Persian Inscriptions,
as a designation of the ancient land of Arachosia.
3 The student of history, with an eye to the significance of territorial location,
will at once recall the part played in after ages by Kābul as a strategic centre, and
as the doorway into India from the north, in the annals of Hindustān.
4 Encyclop Brit. , 11th ed. XXI, 203, art. 'Persia,'
## p. 288 (#322) ############################################
288
[CH.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
>
>
>
bridge between India and Irān, will be touched upon again below
(pp. 303-4).
Regarding the interpretation of certain other references in the Rigveda
as containing allusions, direct or implied, to Persia in a broader sense,
there is a wide divergence of opinion among Sanskritists, even though the
Irānian investigator may feel assured of the truth of so explaining such
passages. Vedic specialists are at variance, for example, as to whether an
allusion to the Pārthavas in Rv. VI, 27,8, is to be understood as a reference
to the ancestors of the Parthians, and as to whether the Persians are really
referred to under the designation Parçavas (e. g. Rv. X, 33, 2), especially as
the difficulty is increased by the uncertainty in determining the real signi-
ficance historically of the names Prithu and Parçu from which the terms
Pārthavas and Parçavas are derived. The name Balhika (Atharvaveda, V,
22, 5, 7, 9) has been interpreted by some Indic scholars as containing an
allusion to the ancient Irānian tribe of the Bactrians, especially because it
is mentioned in connexion with the Mūjavants, a northern people ; but other
specialists oppose this view and deny an appeal to certain other Vedic
words that might be cited. Nevertheless, and in spite of the differences
among Sanskrit authorities, there is more than one Irānian investigator who
feels positive that some at least of Rigveda references in question
allude to Persia or to Persian connexions in by-gone days. The assump-
tion may reasonably be made that scholarship in the future will tend to
prove the correctness of the attempts (wide of the mark though some of
them may have been in the past) to show through the Veda the continuity
of contact between India and Persia during the period under consideration'.
From the Irānian side, if we made judge by the sources available, the
evidence seems to be much stronger in favour of Persian influence
upon India and modifying control over the northern part of the country
than it is for a reverse influence of India upon Irān. Throughout ancient
a
1 For complete references to the Vedic passages involved in the discussion,
including full bibliographical citations, see Macdonell and Keith, op. cit. I. 29 (Abhyā.
Virtin), 347-9 (Dasyu), 4. 0 (Ninditācva), and especially 501-5 (Parcu), 521-2
(Pārthava) ; JI, 63 (1. Balhika). Vacdonell and Keith join with those Sanskrit scholars
who oppose the attempt to find any allusions to Irān in the Veda. The extravagant en-
deavours of Brunnhofer, Crgeschichte der Arier; 3 vols. Leipzig, 1893, to identify erery
remote Vedic term that had a possible geographical content as an Irānian allusion are
bizarre in the extreme, even though there are grains of truth in the author's views when
he touches more conservatively on the domain bordering between India and Irān. The
writer of the present chapter sympathises strongly with certain of the pleas made by
the Vedic scholars Ludwig, Hillebrandt, and Weber to recognise Persian allusions in
the Rigveda ; the titles of the special articles on the subject by these scholars are
duly cited by Macdonell and Keith in the pages of their l'edic Index, referred to above.
It seems for sample, that some Avestan student may yet make more use than has
been done of the material collected by E. W. Hopkins, Prāgāthikāni, I, in J. A. 0. S. 1896
XVII. 84-92.
## p. 289 (#323) ############################################
XIV]
EVIDENCE OF VEDA AND AVESTA
289
on
a
history, as indicated above (p. 287), Persia was the more aggressive
power of the two. Yet it is uncertain how far the sphere of Irānian
knowledge and authority in India may have extended prior to the time of
the Achaemenian Empire at which era our information takes
more definite form. At no time, however, does the realm of Persian
activity in this direction appear to have extended much beyond the limit
of the Indus.
As already intimated, the Avesta is in general the oldest source
showing Persia's interest in India, although the greatest uncertainty
still prevails among specialists in regard to assigning any precise date
or dates. The present writer shares the opinion of those scholars who
believe that, however late may be some of its portions, the Avesta in
the main is pre-Achaemenian in content ; in other words, even though it is
possible to recognise Achaemenian, Parthian, and, perhaps, Sassanian
elements in the collection, the general tenor of the work and the material
on which it is based represent a period antedating the fifth century B. C. , or
the era when the Persian Empire reached its height? . For that reason (and
with due emphasis on the broad latitude that is to be allowed in the
matter of dates) it is appropriate to cite the Avestan references to India,
or the region of the Indian Frontier, directly after the possible allusions to
Persia in the Veda already given.
The name for India in the Avesta is Hindu, which, like the Old
Persian Hi(n)du, is derived from the river Indus, Sanskrit Sindhu, –
the designation of the stream being transferred to the territory adjacent to
it and to its tributaries.
The first chapter of the Avestan Vendidād
(whatever may be the age of the chapter) contains an allusion to a portion
of Northern India in a list which it gives of sixteen lands or regions,
created by Ahura Mazda and apparently regarded as under Irānian
sway? . The fifteenth of these domains, according to Vd. I, 18 was Hapta
1 For a convenient presentation of the various views regarding the date of
Zoroaster and the age of the Avestan Gāthās as well as concerning the relative antiquity
of other portions of the sacred canon, see J. H. Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, London,
1913. Dr. Moulton summarises his opinion as follows, on p. viii : The traditional date
[of Zoroaster] (660-583 B. C. ) is a minimum, but there are strong reasons for placing
Zarathushtra and his Gathas some generations earlier still. The Yasths may be
placed in the later Achaemenian age, and the prose Avesta, in particular the ritual of
the Vendidād, probably after Alexander. Ho elaboratos this view further on pp. 8-22,
78, 87, 103, 193, 204, 240. It is important throughout to bear in mind the fact that
the material may sometimes be very old even though the form is late, and that different
chapters as well as sections of the Yashts, vendidād, and Yasna may vary considerably
:
in age
2 One might be inclined (as the writer has been led, especially through a study of
the Pahlavi commentary and other Sassanian sources) to regard Vd. I, though late in
form, as containing older material that might antedate in substance the division which
[P. T. O
## p. 290 (#324) ############################################
290
(ch.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
Hindu, Seven Rivers,' a region of “abnormal heat', probably identical
with the territory of Sapta Sindhavas, 'Seren Rivers', in the Veda (sce
especially Rv. VIII, 24,27)? The district in question, which was more
comprehensive than the modern Punjab, or 'Five Rivers', must have
included the lands watered in the north and north-west of Hindustān
by the river Indus and its affluents - answering, apparently, to the Vedic
Vitastā (now Jhelum), Asikni (Chenāb), Parushni (later named Irāvati,
whence its present designation Rāvi), Vipaç (Beā-), and Çutūdri (Sutlej),
the latter being the easternmost stream”.
In connexion with this Avestan passage (Vd. 1, 18), moreover, in
its bearing on Persian domains in Northern India, it is worthwhile to call
attention to the Pahlavi gloss of the Middle Persian rendering of the
paragraph in Sassanian times. Whatever may be the full import of
this difficult gloss, the passage may be literally translated as follows :
“The Seven Hindukān; the expression "Seven Hindukān" is due to
'
this fact, that the orer-lordship (sar-xūtāi) is seven ; ard therefore I
do not say “Seven Rivers,” for that is manifest from the Avesta (passage]
"From the Eastern Indus (or, India) to the Western Indus (Irdia)"},"
In partial support of the scholast's interpretation as 'the over-lordship is
seven' it has been further pointed out that a tradition as to the dominions
involved may have lingered down to Firadausi's time, inasmuch he
mentions in one passage seven princes of India, namely the lords of
Kābul, Sindh, Hindh, Sandal, Chandal, Kashmir, and Multān; but
too much stress need not be laid on the point. *
The Avestan fragment above cited from the gloss Vd. I, 18-
'from the Eastern Indus (India) to the Western Indus (India)' — is best
interpreted as alluding to the extreme ends of the Iraniān world for Spiegel
has clearly shown by sufficient references that, at least in Sassanian times
Contd. from p. 289.
Darius made of his empire into twenty satrapies ; but Darmesteter warns against the
attempts that have been made to discover much antique history in the chapter. His
rather strorg statement (Vendidad Translated, 2nd ed. , S. B. E. IV, 1) is : We hare here
nothing more than a geographical description of Iran, seen from the religious
point of view. '
1 See Bari holomae, Altiranisches Worterbuch, col. 1814 ; Macdonell and Keith,
Vedic Inder, II 424 ; Hopkins, J. A. OS, XVI,278 ; XVII, 86-88.
2 Cf. Spiegel, Die arische Periode, pp. 112-118 ; Macdonell, History of Sanskrit
Literature, p. 140 ; see also above, p. 287, n. 2, (on the question of Sarasvati=Harah-
vaiti).
3 For the Pallavi text of the passage, and especially the variant readings,
see the addition by D. D. P. Sanjana, The Pahalvi Vendidad, p. 9, Bombay, 1895 ; and the
earlier edition by F. Spiegel, A resta sammt der Huzvāresch Übersetzung, vol. I pt 2, p. 7,
Leipzig, 1851.
4 The passage Firdausi, Shāhnāmah, ed. Macan, p. 1579, was pointed out by W'.
Geiger, Die Pehleviversion des ersten Capitels des Vendidūd (1887), p. 62, and likewise by
Spiegel, Die arische Periode, p. 117.
## p. 291 (#325) ############################################
XIV)
THE EASTERN AND WESTERN INDUS
291
>
and doubtless earlier, there prevailed an idea of an India in the west as
well as an India in the east'. This is borne out by a passage in Yasht x, 104,
in which the divine power of Mithra, the personification of the sun, light,
and truth, is extolled as destroying his adversaries in every quarter. The
passage (Yt. 8, 104), which is metrical and therefore relatively old, runs
thus : 'The long arms of Mithra seize upon those who deceive Mithra : even
when in Eastern India he catches him even when in Western [India] he
smites him down ; even when he is at the mouth of the Ranhā (river), [and]
even when he is in the middle of the earth? '. The same statement is
repeated in part in Yasna LVII, 29, regarding the power of Sraosha, the
guardian genius of mankind, as extending over the wide domain from India
on the east to the extreme west : 'even when in Eastern India he catches
(his adversary), even when in Western [India] he smites him down. '
There is still another Avestan allusion which may possibly be
interpreted as referring in a general way to Indian connexions ; it is the
mention, in Yt. VIII, 32 of a mountain called Us-Hindava, which stands in
the midst of the partly mythical sea Vouru-kasha and is the gathering
place of fog and clouds. The name Us-Hindava mean 'Beyond (or, Above)
India,' according to one way of translating ; but another rendering
makes it simply 'the mountain from which the rivers rise. ' Owing to this
uncertainty, and to a general vagueness in three passages in which the
mountain is referred to as Usind and Usindam in the Pahlavi, or Middle
Persian, texts of Sassanian times (Būndabishn, XII, 6 ; XUT, 5; Zātsparam,
XXII, 3), it seems wiser for the present to postpone an attempt to decide
whether the allusion is to the Hindu Kush or possibly the Himālaya, or
even some other ranges.
1 Spiegel, op. cit. p. 118. Compare also the remarks made below, p. 305, n. 2 on
Esther, I, I.
2 The Av. word niyne, here translated ‘smites down,' is best so taken as a verbal
form ; so also by Bartholomae, Air. Wb. coll, 492, 1814, followed by F. Wolff, Avesta
übersetzt, pp. 79, 214. J. Darmesteter, Le Zend Avesta, I, 366, also n. 52 (and of. II,
469) has 'il abat a la riviore du Couchant'. Others have taken nirne as
thus F. Justi, Handbuch der Zendsprache (1864), p. 171, renders ‘im westlichen Niniveh';
F. Spiegel, Die ar. Per. p. 119, 'im westlichen Nighna' (i. e. the Nile). Opposed to the
explanation as a proper name is C. de Harlez, Avesta traduit (1881), p. 461 who gives
dans les profondeurs de l'occident,' with a footnote dans l'enforcement nocturne';
cf. also ibid. p. 377, n. 4.
3 The interpretation as Hindu Kush is given by Geldner, Grundriss d. iran. Philol.
II, the rendering of Bartholomae, Air. Wb. col. 409, is 'jenseits von Indien gelegen';
Darmesteter, Le Z. -A. , II, 423, n. 70, remarks : ‘Le mot us-hindu signifie litteralement
"d'où se lovent les rivieres. " Il est douteux que ce soit une montagne reelle; Ushiñdu est
le representant de la classe. ' For translations of the Pahlavi passages in which Usind,
or Usindam, is mentioned, see E. W. West, S. B. E. v. 35, 42 ; XLVII, 160 (and cf. v. 67,
n. 3). It may be noted incidentally that an attempt has been made to connect the
meteorological phenomena described in the myth of the Tishtar Yasht (Yt. VIII)
[P. T. O.
;
9
a loc. sg. ;
38 ;
:
## p. 292 (#326) ############################################
292
(CH.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
.
Precisely as was noted above (p. 287), in considering the ‘Vedic
material as sources for the historian's review of the distant past, there are
likewise a number of Avestan names of places located south of the Hindu
Kush in the territory that once at least was common in part to the Indians
and the Irānians and has had, as a natural borderland, an important
influence upon India's history in later ages. A portion of these domains
corresponds to a considerable section of Afghānistān and possibly to a part
of Baluchistān, realms now under direct British influence or included
politically as a part of the Indian Empire. One of the proofs of this
community of interest is the fact that the territory of Arachosia (Av.
Harahvaitī, O. P. Hara(h)uvati), which corresponds to the modern province
of Kandahār, was known, at least in later Parthian times, os 'White India'
('Ivoikn' Asvkr'). This we have on the authority of the geographer Isidor of
Charax (first cent. A. D. ), who, when mentioning Arachosia as the last in his
list of Parthian provinces, adds (Mans, Parth. 19), 'the Parthians call it
"White India". ' As a supplement to this statement, in its historic aspects,
may be quoted a pertinent observation made by the French savant James
Darmesteter in touching upon the realms of Kābul and Seistān. He regards
the language of Vd. I as indicating that 'Hindu civilization prevailed
in those parts, which in fact in the two centuries before and after Christ
were known as White India, and remained more Indian than Iranian till
the Musulman conquest? '
All of the realms concerned in the next Avestan references to be cited
have their historical and political bearing, important for the statesman as
well as for the historian of India ; and they can be identified with the pro-
vinces under the imperial sway of Darius I of Persia, as mentioned in his
cuneiform inscriptions. The dominions are equally included in the account
of the ancient Persian satrapies given by Herodotus and are comprised in
the geographical descriptions of Irān by his successors. For that reason, in
the following enumeration, the Old Persian, Greek, and modern designations
are recorded in every case together with the Avestan.
To confine attention first to the land that is now Afghānistān, it may
be noted that the Hindu Kush range may possibly be referred to in the
Avestan allusion to Us-Hindava, mentioned above (p. 291). It is likewise
Contd. from p. 291.
in which this allusion occurs with the breaking of the monsoon. See the articles by
Mrs. E. W. Mounder, The Zoroastrian Star-Champions, in The Observatory Nov. and
Dec. 1912, March 1913 ; and the similar view by Mr. E. W. Maunder, of the Royal
Observatory, Greenwich, quoted by Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, pp. 25, 26 n. 2,
436. 7.
1 Darmesteter, S. B. E. (2nd od. ), IV. 2 ; and cf. Le 2. -A. II, 13, n. 33, where he
bases his statement about the character of the civilisation on Masūdi, Les Prairies d'or,
ed. and tr. Barbier de Meynard, II, 79-82, Paris, 1863.
## p. 293 (#327) ############################################
XIV)
THE PERSIAN PROVINCES
293
>
possible to conjecture that the ridge of Band-i. Baiān, somewhat to the
west, may perpetuate the old Avestan name Bayana in the list of mountain
names enumerated in the Nineteenth Yasht (Yt. XIX, 3); while the chain
familiarly known from the classics as Paropanisus or Paropamisus appears
to be included under the Avestan designation Upā irisaēna, lit. 'Higher
than the eagle'l. To the north of these barriers lay Bactria (Av. Bākhdhi,
O. P. Bākhtri, Gk. Báktpol, Baktplaun, Mod. Balkh), a centre which was
destined to play an important part in India's history? .
Herāt, on the west, including the district watered by the Hari Rūd,
was known in the Avesta as Harõiva (O. P. Haraiva, Gk. 'Ape'lo). Kābul,
to the east and nearer the present Indian frontier, appears as Vaēkereta
answering to the western part of O. P.
The five dynasties just mentioned are, as usual, regarded as succes-
sive ; but this can only be true of the Nandas, Mauryas, and Çungas. The
Çungas, Kanvas, and Andhras were contemporary, although no doubt they
claimed the suzerainty of N. India successively. That the first two of
these were ruling at the same time may be inferred from the incidental
statement that the first Andhra king destroged the last of the Kanvas and
'what was left of the Çungas' power' (Kali Age, pp. 38, 71). But it is
certain that the Çungas were flourishing after the reign of the first Andhra
king. Both powers, Çunga and Andhra alike, arose on the ruins of the
Maurya empire- the former in the Midland Country and the latter in
Southern India. It was probably not until the reign of the third Andhra
king, Çāņakarni, that they came into collision ; and then their political
association appears to have been transient.
The Purāņas, however, state or imply that ten Çunga kings, reigning
for 112 years, were succeeded by four Kaņvas, who reigned for 45 years,
and that then the first of the Andhras, Simuka, having wrested the kingdom
from the last of the Kaņvas, Suçarman, became the founder of a dynasty
of thirty kings who ruled over Magadha during a period of 460 years.
This is manifestly incorrect. It is evident that by piecing together three
1 Vedic Index, 1, pp. 271-3; II, p. 289; Pargiter, J. R. A. S. , 1910, pp. 19, 27, 29;
Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, pp. 25-6, 40-1.
2 Pargiter, Mārk. Pur. , pp. 324-9, 334.
3 For the history of these dynasties, so far as it comes within the limits of the
present volume, see Chapters XVIII-XXI, and XXIV.
a
## p. 284 (#318) ############################################
284
[CH.
THE PURANAS
separate lists some editor has constructed an entirely false chronology and
has perverted history. The Andhras had probably no connexion with
Magadha. Their only possible claim to a place in its records must have
been founded on a conquest which transferred to them the suzerainty
previously held by Magadhal.
In order to understand the situation we must consider what the
consequences of a triumph of this kind must have been. Under the
Nandas and the Mauryas Magadha had established a suzerainty which
passed by conquest to the first Çunga king, Pushyamitra, and was solemnly
proclaimed by his performance of the 'horse-sacrifice' (açvamedha)? This
suzerainty, and with it the proud title of chakravartin, ‘universal monarch,'
was contested successfully by the Andhra king who, as is known from the
Nānāghāt inscription of his queen, Nāganikā, celebrated the Açvamedha
on two occasions ; and, as we have seen (p. 269), there is good reason for
believing that the genealogies preserved in the Purāṇas have their origin in
the proclamation of the king's lineage which accompanied the performance
of this sacrifice.
The rank of a chakravartin must, at this period, have conferred on his
family an hereditary distinction which entitled all his successors to be
commemorated in the records of Magadha. Imperial and royal dignities
of this kind, when once established, are not readily abandoned, however
shadowy and unreal they may have become. It must be remembered that
the sovereigns of our own country continued to use the title and the arms
of France until the beginning of the nineteenth century, nearly two
centuries and a balf after the loss of Calais, the last of their French posses-
sions. Regarded as historical documents, the British coin-legends of the
eighteenth century, with their purely hereditary titles, are as misleading as
the Purāņas, which, arranging all in one long series, ascribe to Magadha
both its own kings and the families of the suzerains of Northern India.
1 Chapter XXIV.
2 Chapter XXI.
3. Bhüler, Arch. Sur. West. Ind. , V', pp. 60 ff.
## p. 285 (#319) ############################################
CHAPTER XIV
THE PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN NORTHERN INDIA DOWN TO
THE TIME OF ALEXANDER'S INVASION
The connexions between Persia and India date back to the
gray dawn
of the period of Indo-Irānian unity, when the Aryan ancestors of the
Hindus and Persians still formed an undivided branch of the Indo-
European stock. Though the separation of these two kindred peoples,
through their migrating into the respective countries they have occupied in
historic times, must have taken place more than three thousand years ago,
nevertheless there long remained a certain community of interest, which had
a bearing upon the early history of the north of India, where Persian
influence, and even dominion, was strongest. The aim of the present
chapter, therefore, is to bring out the main points of contact between
the two nations from the earliest times and to indicate the effect of the sway
exercised by Persia in Northern, or rather North-western, India prior to the
invasion of Alexander the Great and the fall of the Achaemenian Empire
of Irān in the latter part of the fourth century B. C.
To begin the sketch with the most remote ages, it may be assumed
that every student is familiar with the evidence that proves the historic re.
lationship between the Hindus and the Persians through ties of common
Āryan blood, close kinship in language and tradition, and through near
affinities in the matter of religious beliefs, ritual observances, manners and
customs.
An illustration or two may be chosen from the domain of religion
alone. The Veda and the Avesta, which are the earliest literary monu-
ments of India and Persia, contain sufficient evidence of the fact of
such connexion, even though each of these works may date from times long
after the period of Indo-Irānian separation. A certain relationship,
for example, is acknowledged to exist between the Vedic divinity Varuņa
and the Avestan deity Ahura Mazda, or Ormazd, the supreme god
of Zoroastrianism. Equally well known are the points of kinship between
the Indian Mitra and the Irānian Mithra, and, in less degree, between the
victorious Indra Vșitrahan of the Rigveda and the all-triumphant Vere-
thraghna of the Avestan Yashts. Nor need more than mention be made of
the parallels between Yama and Yima or of the cognate use made by
>
285
## p. 286 (#320) ############################################
286
[Ch.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
the Indians and the Persians of the sacred drink soma and haoma in their
religious rites. Scores more of likenesses and similarities might be adduced
to prove the long-established connexion between India and Irān, but they
are generally familiar. 1
Additional evidence, however, has comparatively recently been
furnished by certain cuneiform tablets which the German professor Hugo
Winckler discovered, in 1907, at Boghaz-köi in North-eastern Asia Minor.
These documents give, in their own special language, a record of treaties
between the kings of Mitāni and of the Hittites about 1400 B. C. Among the
gods called to witness are deities common in part to India and Persia, what-
ever the relation may be. The names involved in the tablets are Mi-it-ra,
U-rui-w-na, In-da-ra, and Na-sa-at-ti-ia, corresponding respectively to Mitra,
Varuņa, Indra, and Nāsatyā (the latter regularly a dual in the Veda, and re-
presenting the two Açvins) in the Indian pantheon. They answer likewise
in due order to the Persian Mithra and to those elements common between
the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda and the Vedic Varuņa, as explained
above ; but on the other hand Avestan Indra and Nāonhaithya (a singular
in Av. , Vd. x, 9 ; XIX, 43) appear as demons in the Zoroastrian scriptures.
It is not the place here to enter into a discussion of the question as
to whether the super-natural beings thus mentioned in the Boghaz-köi clay
tablets are to be interpreted as being 'proto-Irānian,' “Vedic,' 'Āryan,'
or even “Mitānian' alone, because the matter is still open to debate
by scholars. It is sufficient to draw attention to the general bearings of such
a discovery upon the subject of relationship between India and Persia, how-
ever direct or indirect the connexion may be. ?
1 A convenient summary of these now familiar facts will be found in F. Spiegel,
Die arische Periode, Leipzig, 1887. Throughout the present chapter the terms 'Irān’and
'Irānians' are to be taken broadly, so as to comprehend Persia and its people in
the widest significance—whether Medes, Persians, or Bactrians-as forming a special
division of the Indo-Irānian branch of the great Indo-European, or Indo-Gemanic,
stock. The designation ‘Āryan’ should really be restricted (as is done by scholars) to the
common bond represented historically by the Hindus and the Persians.
2 This valuable find of the tablets by Winckler (who died April 19, 1913) was first
reported in his Vorlaufige Nachrichten uber die Ausgrabungen in Boghaz-koi im Sommer
1907, in Mittheilungen der deutschen Orientgesellschaft, No. 35 (1908). The importance of
the discovery was at once recognised by scholars and has since received wide attention;
compare, for example, Eduard Meyer, Zt. für vergleichende Sprachforschung, Neue Folge
(1908). XLII, 1-27 ; idem, Sitzb. d. kgl. preu88. Akad. d. Wiss. , 1908, pp. 14-19; also
H. G. Jacobi J. R. A S. , 1909, pp. 721-726 ; H. Oldenberg, ibid. pp. 1095. 1100; A, B.
Keith, ibid. pp. 1100 1106 ; A. H. Sayce, ibid. pp. 1106-1107; J. Kennedy, ibid.
pp. 1107-1119; H. G. Jacobi, ibid. 1910, pp. 456. 464 ; A. B. Keith, ibid. pp. 464-466 ;
H. Oldenberg, ibid. pp. 846-850; see also M. Winternitz, Globus (1909), xcv, 120 ;
Macdonell and Keith Vedic Index, I. p. viii; and most recently J. H, Moulton, Early
Zoroastranism, pp, 5-7, 45, 139, 235 ; Eduard Mayer, Geschichte des Altertums, 3rd ed. ,
vol. I, pt 2. ** 455, 585, 590.
3
## p. 287 (#321) ############################################
XIV]
COMMON INDO-IRĀNIAN DOMAINS
287
in a
The geographical connexion between India and Persia historically was
a matter of fact that must have been known to both countries in antiquity
through the contiguity of their territorial situation. The realms which
correspond to-day to the buffer states of Afghānistān and Baluchistān
formed always a point of contact and were concerned in antiquity with
Persia's advances into Northern and North-western India as well as,
far less degree, with any move of aggrandisement on the part of Hindustān
in the direction of Irān? . Evidence from the Veda and the Avesta alike
attest the general fact.
Vedic scholars, for example, will agree with Avestan students that the
partly common Indo-Irānian domains comprised in the river-system above
the Indus basin, and verging toward the north-western border adjacent to
Irān, are referred to in the Rigveda in certain allusions to the district
indicated by the rivers Kubhā (Kābul), Krumu (Kurram), and Gomatī
(Gumal). They will equally unite in emphasising the fact that there are
other incidental allusions in the Veda, such as those to Gandhāra and
Gandhari, which may certainly be interpreted as referring to the districts of
Peshāwar and Rāwalpindi S. E. from Kābulº. A part of these districts has
belonged rather to Irān than to India in historic times, but it is equally
impossible to deny or to minimise the role they have played in India's
development ever since the remote age when the tribal ancestors of the
present Hindus occupied them on their way into their later established
home'. For the earliest period, we may well agree with the opinion
expressed by Eduard Meyer in an encyclopaedia article on Persia : The
dividing line between Iranian and Indian is drawn by the Hindu-Kush and
the Soliman mountains of the Indus district. The valley of the Kabul
(Cophen) is already occupied by Indian tribes, especially the Gandharians ;
and the Satagydae (Pers. Thatagu) there resident were presumably also of
Indian stock". These facts, because of their importance in regard to this
1 Arrain, Indica, 9, 12, for example, may be cited in support of this statement ;
for he avers, on Indian authority, that ‘a sense of justice, they say, prevented any
Indian king from attempting conquest beyond the limits of India. The assertion
certainly seems true for the earliest times.
2 For references to passages in the texts and for bibliographical allusions con-
sult Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index, I, 162 (Kubhā), 199 (Krumu), 238 (Gomati),
and 218-219 (Gandhāra, Gandbāri). In regard to the territory to be located by the
Vedic river Sarasvati, the present tendency among Sanskrit specialists (most recently,
for example, Macdonell and Keith, op. cit. , II, 434-437) is to confine it to India itself
and not to follow the suggestions that have been made, on etymological grounds, to
connect the region thus watered by the Sarasvatſ directly with the region around the
Irānian river Harahvaitſ of the Avesta, or Hara(h)uvati of the Old Persian Inscriptions,
as a designation of the ancient land of Arachosia.
3 The student of history, with an eye to the significance of territorial location,
will at once recall the part played in after ages by Kābul as a strategic centre, and
as the doorway into India from the north, in the annals of Hindustān.
4 Encyclop Brit. , 11th ed. XXI, 203, art. 'Persia,'
## p. 288 (#322) ############################################
288
[CH.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
>
>
>
bridge between India and Irān, will be touched upon again below
(pp. 303-4).
Regarding the interpretation of certain other references in the Rigveda
as containing allusions, direct or implied, to Persia in a broader sense,
there is a wide divergence of opinion among Sanskritists, even though the
Irānian investigator may feel assured of the truth of so explaining such
passages. Vedic specialists are at variance, for example, as to whether an
allusion to the Pārthavas in Rv. VI, 27,8, is to be understood as a reference
to the ancestors of the Parthians, and as to whether the Persians are really
referred to under the designation Parçavas (e. g. Rv. X, 33, 2), especially as
the difficulty is increased by the uncertainty in determining the real signi-
ficance historically of the names Prithu and Parçu from which the terms
Pārthavas and Parçavas are derived. The name Balhika (Atharvaveda, V,
22, 5, 7, 9) has been interpreted by some Indic scholars as containing an
allusion to the ancient Irānian tribe of the Bactrians, especially because it
is mentioned in connexion with the Mūjavants, a northern people ; but other
specialists oppose this view and deny an appeal to certain other Vedic
words that might be cited. Nevertheless, and in spite of the differences
among Sanskrit authorities, there is more than one Irānian investigator who
feels positive that some at least of Rigveda references in question
allude to Persia or to Persian connexions in by-gone days. The assump-
tion may reasonably be made that scholarship in the future will tend to
prove the correctness of the attempts (wide of the mark though some of
them may have been in the past) to show through the Veda the continuity
of contact between India and Persia during the period under consideration'.
From the Irānian side, if we made judge by the sources available, the
evidence seems to be much stronger in favour of Persian influence
upon India and modifying control over the northern part of the country
than it is for a reverse influence of India upon Irān. Throughout ancient
a
1 For complete references to the Vedic passages involved in the discussion,
including full bibliographical citations, see Macdonell and Keith, op. cit. I. 29 (Abhyā.
Virtin), 347-9 (Dasyu), 4. 0 (Ninditācva), and especially 501-5 (Parcu), 521-2
(Pārthava) ; JI, 63 (1. Balhika). Vacdonell and Keith join with those Sanskrit scholars
who oppose the attempt to find any allusions to Irān in the Veda. The extravagant en-
deavours of Brunnhofer, Crgeschichte der Arier; 3 vols. Leipzig, 1893, to identify erery
remote Vedic term that had a possible geographical content as an Irānian allusion are
bizarre in the extreme, even though there are grains of truth in the author's views when
he touches more conservatively on the domain bordering between India and Irān. The
writer of the present chapter sympathises strongly with certain of the pleas made by
the Vedic scholars Ludwig, Hillebrandt, and Weber to recognise Persian allusions in
the Rigveda ; the titles of the special articles on the subject by these scholars are
duly cited by Macdonell and Keith in the pages of their l'edic Index, referred to above.
It seems for sample, that some Avestan student may yet make more use than has
been done of the material collected by E. W. Hopkins, Prāgāthikāni, I, in J. A. 0. S. 1896
XVII. 84-92.
## p. 289 (#323) ############################################
XIV]
EVIDENCE OF VEDA AND AVESTA
289
on
a
history, as indicated above (p. 287), Persia was the more aggressive
power of the two. Yet it is uncertain how far the sphere of Irānian
knowledge and authority in India may have extended prior to the time of
the Achaemenian Empire at which era our information takes
more definite form. At no time, however, does the realm of Persian
activity in this direction appear to have extended much beyond the limit
of the Indus.
As already intimated, the Avesta is in general the oldest source
showing Persia's interest in India, although the greatest uncertainty
still prevails among specialists in regard to assigning any precise date
or dates. The present writer shares the opinion of those scholars who
believe that, however late may be some of its portions, the Avesta in
the main is pre-Achaemenian in content ; in other words, even though it is
possible to recognise Achaemenian, Parthian, and, perhaps, Sassanian
elements in the collection, the general tenor of the work and the material
on which it is based represent a period antedating the fifth century B. C. , or
the era when the Persian Empire reached its height? . For that reason (and
with due emphasis on the broad latitude that is to be allowed in the
matter of dates) it is appropriate to cite the Avestan references to India,
or the region of the Indian Frontier, directly after the possible allusions to
Persia in the Veda already given.
The name for India in the Avesta is Hindu, which, like the Old
Persian Hi(n)du, is derived from the river Indus, Sanskrit Sindhu, –
the designation of the stream being transferred to the territory adjacent to
it and to its tributaries.
The first chapter of the Avestan Vendidād
(whatever may be the age of the chapter) contains an allusion to a portion
of Northern India in a list which it gives of sixteen lands or regions,
created by Ahura Mazda and apparently regarded as under Irānian
sway? . The fifteenth of these domains, according to Vd. I, 18 was Hapta
1 For a convenient presentation of the various views regarding the date of
Zoroaster and the age of the Avestan Gāthās as well as concerning the relative antiquity
of other portions of the sacred canon, see J. H. Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, London,
1913. Dr. Moulton summarises his opinion as follows, on p. viii : The traditional date
[of Zoroaster] (660-583 B. C. ) is a minimum, but there are strong reasons for placing
Zarathushtra and his Gathas some generations earlier still. The Yasths may be
placed in the later Achaemenian age, and the prose Avesta, in particular the ritual of
the Vendidād, probably after Alexander. Ho elaboratos this view further on pp. 8-22,
78, 87, 103, 193, 204, 240. It is important throughout to bear in mind the fact that
the material may sometimes be very old even though the form is late, and that different
chapters as well as sections of the Yashts, vendidād, and Yasna may vary considerably
:
in age
2 One might be inclined (as the writer has been led, especially through a study of
the Pahlavi commentary and other Sassanian sources) to regard Vd. I, though late in
form, as containing older material that might antedate in substance the division which
[P. T. O
## p. 290 (#324) ############################################
290
(ch.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
Hindu, Seven Rivers,' a region of “abnormal heat', probably identical
with the territory of Sapta Sindhavas, 'Seren Rivers', in the Veda (sce
especially Rv. VIII, 24,27)? The district in question, which was more
comprehensive than the modern Punjab, or 'Five Rivers', must have
included the lands watered in the north and north-west of Hindustān
by the river Indus and its affluents - answering, apparently, to the Vedic
Vitastā (now Jhelum), Asikni (Chenāb), Parushni (later named Irāvati,
whence its present designation Rāvi), Vipaç (Beā-), and Çutūdri (Sutlej),
the latter being the easternmost stream”.
In connexion with this Avestan passage (Vd. 1, 18), moreover, in
its bearing on Persian domains in Northern India, it is worthwhile to call
attention to the Pahlavi gloss of the Middle Persian rendering of the
paragraph in Sassanian times. Whatever may be the full import of
this difficult gloss, the passage may be literally translated as follows :
“The Seven Hindukān; the expression "Seven Hindukān" is due to
'
this fact, that the orer-lordship (sar-xūtāi) is seven ; ard therefore I
do not say “Seven Rivers,” for that is manifest from the Avesta (passage]
"From the Eastern Indus (or, India) to the Western Indus (Irdia)"},"
In partial support of the scholast's interpretation as 'the over-lordship is
seven' it has been further pointed out that a tradition as to the dominions
involved may have lingered down to Firadausi's time, inasmuch he
mentions in one passage seven princes of India, namely the lords of
Kābul, Sindh, Hindh, Sandal, Chandal, Kashmir, and Multān; but
too much stress need not be laid on the point. *
The Avestan fragment above cited from the gloss Vd. I, 18-
'from the Eastern Indus (India) to the Western Indus (India)' — is best
interpreted as alluding to the extreme ends of the Iraniān world for Spiegel
has clearly shown by sufficient references that, at least in Sassanian times
Contd. from p. 289.
Darius made of his empire into twenty satrapies ; but Darmesteter warns against the
attempts that have been made to discover much antique history in the chapter. His
rather strorg statement (Vendidad Translated, 2nd ed. , S. B. E. IV, 1) is : We hare here
nothing more than a geographical description of Iran, seen from the religious
point of view. '
1 See Bari holomae, Altiranisches Worterbuch, col. 1814 ; Macdonell and Keith,
Vedic Inder, II 424 ; Hopkins, J. A. OS, XVI,278 ; XVII, 86-88.
2 Cf. Spiegel, Die arische Periode, pp. 112-118 ; Macdonell, History of Sanskrit
Literature, p. 140 ; see also above, p. 287, n. 2, (on the question of Sarasvati=Harah-
vaiti).
3 For the Pallavi text of the passage, and especially the variant readings,
see the addition by D. D. P. Sanjana, The Pahalvi Vendidad, p. 9, Bombay, 1895 ; and the
earlier edition by F. Spiegel, A resta sammt der Huzvāresch Übersetzung, vol. I pt 2, p. 7,
Leipzig, 1851.
4 The passage Firdausi, Shāhnāmah, ed. Macan, p. 1579, was pointed out by W'.
Geiger, Die Pehleviversion des ersten Capitels des Vendidūd (1887), p. 62, and likewise by
Spiegel, Die arische Periode, p. 117.
## p. 291 (#325) ############################################
XIV)
THE EASTERN AND WESTERN INDUS
291
>
and doubtless earlier, there prevailed an idea of an India in the west as
well as an India in the east'. This is borne out by a passage in Yasht x, 104,
in which the divine power of Mithra, the personification of the sun, light,
and truth, is extolled as destroying his adversaries in every quarter. The
passage (Yt. 8, 104), which is metrical and therefore relatively old, runs
thus : 'The long arms of Mithra seize upon those who deceive Mithra : even
when in Eastern India he catches him even when in Western [India] he
smites him down ; even when he is at the mouth of the Ranhā (river), [and]
even when he is in the middle of the earth? '. The same statement is
repeated in part in Yasna LVII, 29, regarding the power of Sraosha, the
guardian genius of mankind, as extending over the wide domain from India
on the east to the extreme west : 'even when in Eastern India he catches
(his adversary), even when in Western [India] he smites him down. '
There is still another Avestan allusion which may possibly be
interpreted as referring in a general way to Indian connexions ; it is the
mention, in Yt. VIII, 32 of a mountain called Us-Hindava, which stands in
the midst of the partly mythical sea Vouru-kasha and is the gathering
place of fog and clouds. The name Us-Hindava mean 'Beyond (or, Above)
India,' according to one way of translating ; but another rendering
makes it simply 'the mountain from which the rivers rise. ' Owing to this
uncertainty, and to a general vagueness in three passages in which the
mountain is referred to as Usind and Usindam in the Pahlavi, or Middle
Persian, texts of Sassanian times (Būndabishn, XII, 6 ; XUT, 5; Zātsparam,
XXII, 3), it seems wiser for the present to postpone an attempt to decide
whether the allusion is to the Hindu Kush or possibly the Himālaya, or
even some other ranges.
1 Spiegel, op. cit. p. 118. Compare also the remarks made below, p. 305, n. 2 on
Esther, I, I.
2 The Av. word niyne, here translated ‘smites down,' is best so taken as a verbal
form ; so also by Bartholomae, Air. Wb. coll, 492, 1814, followed by F. Wolff, Avesta
übersetzt, pp. 79, 214. J. Darmesteter, Le Zend Avesta, I, 366, also n. 52 (and of. II,
469) has 'il abat a la riviore du Couchant'. Others have taken nirne as
thus F. Justi, Handbuch der Zendsprache (1864), p. 171, renders ‘im westlichen Niniveh';
F. Spiegel, Die ar. Per. p. 119, 'im westlichen Nighna' (i. e. the Nile). Opposed to the
explanation as a proper name is C. de Harlez, Avesta traduit (1881), p. 461 who gives
dans les profondeurs de l'occident,' with a footnote dans l'enforcement nocturne';
cf. also ibid. p. 377, n. 4.
3 The interpretation as Hindu Kush is given by Geldner, Grundriss d. iran. Philol.
II, the rendering of Bartholomae, Air. Wb. col. 409, is 'jenseits von Indien gelegen';
Darmesteter, Le Z. -A. , II, 423, n. 70, remarks : ‘Le mot us-hindu signifie litteralement
"d'où se lovent les rivieres. " Il est douteux que ce soit une montagne reelle; Ushiñdu est
le representant de la classe. ' For translations of the Pahlavi passages in which Usind,
or Usindam, is mentioned, see E. W. West, S. B. E. v. 35, 42 ; XLVII, 160 (and cf. v. 67,
n. 3). It may be noted incidentally that an attempt has been made to connect the
meteorological phenomena described in the myth of the Tishtar Yasht (Yt. VIII)
[P. T. O.
;
9
a loc. sg. ;
38 ;
:
## p. 292 (#326) ############################################
292
(CH.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
.
Precisely as was noted above (p. 287), in considering the ‘Vedic
material as sources for the historian's review of the distant past, there are
likewise a number of Avestan names of places located south of the Hindu
Kush in the territory that once at least was common in part to the Indians
and the Irānians and has had, as a natural borderland, an important
influence upon India's history in later ages. A portion of these domains
corresponds to a considerable section of Afghānistān and possibly to a part
of Baluchistān, realms now under direct British influence or included
politically as a part of the Indian Empire. One of the proofs of this
community of interest is the fact that the territory of Arachosia (Av.
Harahvaitī, O. P. Hara(h)uvati), which corresponds to the modern province
of Kandahār, was known, at least in later Parthian times, os 'White India'
('Ivoikn' Asvkr'). This we have on the authority of the geographer Isidor of
Charax (first cent. A. D. ), who, when mentioning Arachosia as the last in his
list of Parthian provinces, adds (Mans, Parth. 19), 'the Parthians call it
"White India". ' As a supplement to this statement, in its historic aspects,
may be quoted a pertinent observation made by the French savant James
Darmesteter in touching upon the realms of Kābul and Seistān. He regards
the language of Vd. I as indicating that 'Hindu civilization prevailed
in those parts, which in fact in the two centuries before and after Christ
were known as White India, and remained more Indian than Iranian till
the Musulman conquest? '
All of the realms concerned in the next Avestan references to be cited
have their historical and political bearing, important for the statesman as
well as for the historian of India ; and they can be identified with the pro-
vinces under the imperial sway of Darius I of Persia, as mentioned in his
cuneiform inscriptions. The dominions are equally included in the account
of the ancient Persian satrapies given by Herodotus and are comprised in
the geographical descriptions of Irān by his successors. For that reason, in
the following enumeration, the Old Persian, Greek, and modern designations
are recorded in every case together with the Avestan.
To confine attention first to the land that is now Afghānistān, it may
be noted that the Hindu Kush range may possibly be referred to in the
Avestan allusion to Us-Hindava, mentioned above (p. 291). It is likewise
Contd. from p. 291.
in which this allusion occurs with the breaking of the monsoon. See the articles by
Mrs. E. W. Mounder, The Zoroastrian Star-Champions, in The Observatory Nov. and
Dec. 1912, March 1913 ; and the similar view by Mr. E. W. Maunder, of the Royal
Observatory, Greenwich, quoted by Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, pp. 25, 26 n. 2,
436. 7.
1 Darmesteter, S. B. E. (2nd od. ), IV. 2 ; and cf. Le 2. -A. II, 13, n. 33, where he
bases his statement about the character of the civilisation on Masūdi, Les Prairies d'or,
ed. and tr. Barbier de Meynard, II, 79-82, Paris, 1863.
## p. 293 (#327) ############################################
XIV)
THE PERSIAN PROVINCES
293
>
possible to conjecture that the ridge of Band-i. Baiān, somewhat to the
west, may perpetuate the old Avestan name Bayana in the list of mountain
names enumerated in the Nineteenth Yasht (Yt. XIX, 3); while the chain
familiarly known from the classics as Paropanisus or Paropamisus appears
to be included under the Avestan designation Upā irisaēna, lit. 'Higher
than the eagle'l. To the north of these barriers lay Bactria (Av. Bākhdhi,
O. P. Bākhtri, Gk. Báktpol, Baktplaun, Mod. Balkh), a centre which was
destined to play an important part in India's history? .
Herāt, on the west, including the district watered by the Hari Rūd,
was known in the Avesta as Harõiva (O. P. Haraiva, Gk. 'Ape'lo). Kābul,
to the east and nearer the present Indian frontier, appears as Vaēkereta
answering to the western part of O. P.
