DOI Page / Citation link:
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726
APPEND] X.
career. At least, we learn from Cosinas Indicopleustes, writing seventy
years after this time, that the Huns were a powerful nation in the
north of India in his day, and we may infer, from what he says of
them, had been .settled there some time.1
On the Bhitari Lat, Bhau Daji reads—somewhat doubtfully, it
must be confessed—the fact that Skanda Gupta had fought, apparently
with success, against the Hunas.- But the great point is that it was
just about this time that the White Huns broke loose and extended
their incursions east and west, so that there is not only no improba-
bility of their being the " foreign invaders " alluded to, but every
likelihood they were so. No one, indeed, can, I believe, with the
knowledge we now possess, read De Guignes' chapter on the White
Huns,3 without perceiving that it contains the key to the. solution of
many mysterious passages in Indian history. It is true India is not
mentioned there ; but from the time of Bahrain Gaur in 420, till the
defeat of Feroze in 475, the Persians were waging an internecine
war with these Huns, and nothing can be more likely than that
the varying fortunes of that struggle should force them to seek the
alliance of the then powerful Guptas, to assist them against their
common foe.
Precisely the same impression is conveyed by what is said by
Ferishta and the Persian historians4 of the history of that time.
Nothing can now, however, be more easily intelligible than the visit
of Bahrain Gaur to India when first attacked by the White Huns.
His marriage with an Indian (? Gupta) princess of Canouge ; the tri-
bute or assistance claimed by Feroze and his successors on the Persian
throne, are all easily explicable, on the assumption that the two nations
were at that time engaged in a struggle against a-common enemy.
Ttis, too, explains the mention of the Shah in Shahi on Samudra
Gupta's Allahabad inscription.5 Hence, too, the decided Persian
influence on the gold coinage of the Canouge Guptas,0 and the innu-
merable Sassanian coins of that period found in all parts of the north
of India.7 In all this the Sassanians seem inseparably mixed with
the Guptas. The Persians, however, came eventually victorious out
of the war. The great Guptas were struck clown at some date between
465-70, or very shortly afterwards. The struggle, however, was
apparently continued for some time longer by a subordinate branch of
1 'Topographia Christiana,' lib. xi. p.
338, edit. Paris, 1707.
2 ' Journal Bombay Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. x. p. 60.
3 ' Histoire des Huns,' vol. i. part ii.
lib. iv. pp. 32o, et, seqq.
4 Malcolm's 'Persia,' vol. i. p. 118.
Briggs's translation of Ferishta. in trod. |
lxxvii. et seqq. ; Dow's translation, p. 13.
5 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal,' vol. vi. 1837, p. 963; also
Thomas's ' Prinsep,' vol. i. p. 234.
6 Ibid., vol. v. plates 36 and 37; also
Thomas's' Prinsep,'vol. i. p. 277, plate 23.
7 Thomas's 'Prinsep,' vol. i. p. 407, et
passim.
APPEND] X.
career. At least, we learn from Cosinas Indicopleustes, writing seventy
years after this time, that the Huns were a powerful nation in the
north of India in his day, and we may infer, from what he says of
them, had been .settled there some time.1
On the Bhitari Lat, Bhau Daji reads—somewhat doubtfully, it
must be confessed—the fact that Skanda Gupta had fought, apparently
with success, against the Hunas.- But the great point is that it was
just about this time that the White Huns broke loose and extended
their incursions east and west, so that there is not only no improba-
bility of their being the " foreign invaders " alluded to, but every
likelihood they were so. No one, indeed, can, I believe, with the
knowledge we now possess, read De Guignes' chapter on the White
Huns,3 without perceiving that it contains the key to the. solution of
many mysterious passages in Indian history. It is true India is not
mentioned there ; but from the time of Bahrain Gaur in 420, till the
defeat of Feroze in 475, the Persians were waging an internecine
war with these Huns, and nothing can be more likely than that
the varying fortunes of that struggle should force them to seek the
alliance of the then powerful Guptas, to assist them against their
common foe.
Precisely the same impression is conveyed by what is said by
Ferishta and the Persian historians4 of the history of that time.
Nothing can now, however, be more easily intelligible than the visit
of Bahrain Gaur to India when first attacked by the White Huns.
His marriage with an Indian (? Gupta) princess of Canouge ; the tri-
bute or assistance claimed by Feroze and his successors on the Persian
throne, are all easily explicable, on the assumption that the two nations
were at that time engaged in a struggle against a-common enemy.
Ttis, too, explains the mention of the Shah in Shahi on Samudra
Gupta's Allahabad inscription.5 Hence, too, the decided Persian
influence on the gold coinage of the Canouge Guptas,0 and the innu-
merable Sassanian coins of that period found in all parts of the north
of India.7 In all this the Sassanians seem inseparably mixed with
the Guptas. The Persians, however, came eventually victorious out
of the war. The great Guptas were struck clown at some date between
465-70, or very shortly afterwards. The struggle, however, was
apparently continued for some time longer by a subordinate branch of
1 'Topographia Christiana,' lib. xi. p.
338, edit. Paris, 1707.
2 ' Journal Bombay Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. x. p. 60.
3 ' Histoire des Huns,' vol. i. part ii.
lib. iv. pp. 32o, et, seqq.
4 Malcolm's 'Persia,' vol. i. p. 118.
Briggs's translation of Ferishta. in trod. |
lxxvii. et seqq. ; Dow's translation, p. 13.
5 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal,' vol. vi. 1837, p. 963; also
Thomas's ' Prinsep,' vol. i. p. 234.
6 Ibid., vol. v. plates 36 and 37; also
Thomas's' Prinsep,'vol. i. p. 277, plate 23.
7 Thomas's 'Prinsep,' vol. i. p. 407, et
passim.