DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27191#0062
3°
HISTORY OF INDIA ARCHITECTURE.
It also appears certain that the power of these Kushan
kings spread over the whole of the Panjab, and extended as
far at least as Mathura on the Jumna, before the commence-
ment of the Christian Era. Apparently the last of thern was
Vasudeva, who ruled at least till A.D. 42. Soon after him we
meet with the name of a king Guduphara or Gondophernes,
which appears also in the legend of the Apostle Thomas:
an inscription of the 26th year of his reign is dated in the
103rd of the era, or A.D. 471—when his rule must have
extended into the north of the Panjab. Next there followed
two (if not three) kings named Kadphises, who may have
ruled till the end of the century, after which northern India
was divided into separate kingdoms and tribal governments
till the rise of the Guptas in the 4th century.
Before the end of the first century another horde, known
to us only from coins and inscriptions in which they call
themselves Kshaharatas or Kshatrapas, occupied the whole of
the province of Gujarat; one of the first of them—Nahapana,
for whom we have dates about A.D. 119 and in 124—extended
his power over part of Malwa and the Nasik district. He was
overthrown by the Andhra king, Gautamiputra Natakami, and
deprived of the districts south of the Narbada. Soon after,
we find another Kshatrapa, named Chashtana, ruling in Malwa,
and his successors founded a kingdom of their own. They date
their coins and inscriptions from the Naka Era, A.D. 78, and the
series extends from about 140 to 388 A.D. It thus happens
that this dynasty of Kshatrapas wrere only finally disposed of
by the rise of the Guptas.
The whole external history of northern India, from the time
of Kanishka to that of Ahmad Shah Durani (1761) is a narrative
of a continuous succession of tribes of Skythian origin, pouring
across the Upper Indus into India, each more Turanian than
the one that preceded it, till the whole culminated in the Mughal
conquest of India, in the 15th century, by 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 distinguished from the Turanians. They were not 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. The
Kambojas seem to have been a people inhabiting the countrv
between Kandahar and Kabul, who, when the tide was setting
1 Griinwedcl, ‘ Buddhist Art in India.’ English ed. p. 84.
HISTORY OF INDIA ARCHITECTURE.
It also appears certain that the power of these Kushan
kings spread over the whole of the Panjab, and extended as
far at least as Mathura on the Jumna, before the commence-
ment of the Christian Era. Apparently the last of thern was
Vasudeva, who ruled at least till A.D. 42. Soon after him we
meet with the name of a king Guduphara or Gondophernes,
which appears also in the legend of the Apostle Thomas:
an inscription of the 26th year of his reign is dated in the
103rd of the era, or A.D. 471—when his rule must have
extended into the north of the Panjab. Next there followed
two (if not three) kings named Kadphises, who may have
ruled till the end of the century, after which northern India
was divided into separate kingdoms and tribal governments
till the rise of the Guptas in the 4th century.
Before the end of the first century another horde, known
to us only from coins and inscriptions in which they call
themselves Kshaharatas or Kshatrapas, occupied the whole of
the province of Gujarat; one of the first of them—Nahapana,
for whom we have dates about A.D. 119 and in 124—extended
his power over part of Malwa and the Nasik district. He was
overthrown by the Andhra king, Gautamiputra Natakami, and
deprived of the districts south of the Narbada. Soon after,
we find another Kshatrapa, named Chashtana, ruling in Malwa,
and his successors founded a kingdom of their own. They date
their coins and inscriptions from the Naka Era, A.D. 78, and the
series extends from about 140 to 388 A.D. It thus happens
that this dynasty of Kshatrapas wrere only finally disposed of
by the rise of the Guptas.
The whole external history of northern India, from the time
of Kanishka to that of Ahmad Shah Durani (1761) is a narrative
of a continuous succession of tribes of Skythian origin, pouring
across the Upper Indus into India, each more Turanian than
the one that preceded it, till the whole culminated in the Mughal
conquest of India, in the 15th century, by 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 distinguished from the Turanians. They were not 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. The
Kambojas seem to have been a people inhabiting the countrv
between Kandahar and Kabul, who, when the tide was setting
1 Griinwedcl, ‘ Buddhist Art in India.’ English ed. p. 84.