DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0050
28
HTSTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.
pouring across the Upper Indus into India, eacli more Turanian than
the one that preceded it, till the whole culminated in the Mogul con-
quest of India, in the loth century, hy a people as distinct in blood
from the Aryans as any that exist.
Of the older races, it seems probable that the Yavanas must be dis-
tinguished from the Turanians. It will hardly now be contended
that they were pure Greeks, though their name may be merely a
mispronunciation of Ionian. The term seems to have been applied by
Indian authors to any foreign race coming from the westward who
did not belong to one of the acknowledged kingdoms known to them.
As such it would apply to any western adventurers, who during the
existence of the Bactrian kingdom sought to establish settlements in
any part of India, and would also apply to the expatriated Bactrians
themselves when driven from their homes by the Yuechi, 120 or 180
years b.C. It is only in this sense that we can explain their presence in
Orissa before and about the Christian Era, but in the west the term
may have been more loosely applied. The Cambojas seem to have been
a people inhabiting the country between Candahar and Cabul, who,
when the tide was setting eastward, joined the crowd, and sought
settlements in the more fertile countries within the Indus.
The Sakas were well known to classical authors as the Saca;, or
Scythians. They pressed on with the rest, and became apparently
most formidable during the first four centuries of the Christian Era.
It was apparently their defeat by the great Vicramaditya in the
battle at Korur, on the banks of the Indus, a.d. 524 or 544, that
raised the popularity of that monarch to its highest pitch, and
induced the Hindus at a subsequent age to institute the era known
by his name GOO years before his time, and another called by his
other name, Sri Harsha, 1000 years before the date of the battle
of Korur.1
Another important horde were the Ephthalites, or White Huns,
who came into India apparently in the 4th century, and one of whose
kings, if we may trust Gosmas Indicopleustes, was the head of a
powerful state in northern India, about the year 535. They, too,
seem to have been conquered about the same time by the Hindus, and,
as both the Sakas and Hunas were undoubtedly Buddhists, it may have
been their destruction that first weakened the cause of that religion,
and which led to its ultimate defeat a little more than a century
afterwards.
During the dark ages, 750 to 950, we do not know of any horde
passing the Indus. The Mahomedans were probably too strong on
1 The argument on which these asser-
tions are founded is stated at length in
the privately printed pamphlet alluded
to on preceding page. It is too long to
insert here, hut, if not published before
this work is complete, an abstract will he
inserted in the Appendix.
HTSTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.
pouring across the Upper Indus into India, eacli more Turanian than
the one that preceded it, till the whole culminated in the Mogul con-
quest of India, in the loth century, hy a people as distinct in blood
from the Aryans as any that exist.
Of the older races, it seems probable that the Yavanas must be dis-
tinguished from the Turanians. It will hardly now be contended
that they were pure Greeks, though their name may be merely a
mispronunciation of Ionian. The term seems to have been applied by
Indian authors to any foreign race coming from the westward who
did not belong to one of the acknowledged kingdoms known to them.
As such it would apply to any western adventurers, who during the
existence of the Bactrian kingdom sought to establish settlements in
any part of India, and would also apply to the expatriated Bactrians
themselves when driven from their homes by the Yuechi, 120 or 180
years b.C. It is only in this sense that we can explain their presence in
Orissa before and about the Christian Era, but in the west the term
may have been more loosely applied. The Cambojas seem to have been
a people inhabiting the country between Candahar and Cabul, who,
when the tide was setting eastward, joined the crowd, and sought
settlements in the more fertile countries within the Indus.
The Sakas were well known to classical authors as the Saca;, or
Scythians. They pressed on with the rest, and became apparently
most formidable during the first four centuries of the Christian Era.
It was apparently their defeat by the great Vicramaditya in the
battle at Korur, on the banks of the Indus, a.d. 524 or 544, that
raised the popularity of that monarch to its highest pitch, and
induced the Hindus at a subsequent age to institute the era known
by his name GOO years before his time, and another called by his
other name, Sri Harsha, 1000 years before the date of the battle
of Korur.1
Another important horde were the Ephthalites, or White Huns,
who came into India apparently in the 4th century, and one of whose
kings, if we may trust Gosmas Indicopleustes, was the head of a
powerful state in northern India, about the year 535. They, too,
seem to have been conquered about the same time by the Hindus, and,
as both the Sakas and Hunas were undoubtedly Buddhists, it may have
been their destruction that first weakened the cause of that religion,
and which led to its ultimate defeat a little more than a century
afterwards.
During the dark ages, 750 to 950, we do not know of any horde
passing the Indus. The Mahomedans were probably too strong on
1 The argument on which these asser-
tions are founded is stated at length in
the privately printed pamphlet alluded
to on preceding page. It is too long to
insert here, hut, if not published before
this work is complete, an abstract will he
inserted in the Appendix.