320 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



Both the Parthians and the Massageta have been identified 

 with the Yue-chi) who figure so largely in the annals 

 and ^55? f tne Han dynasties, and are above mentioned 

 as having been driven west to Zungaria by the 

 Hiung-nu after the erection of the Great Wall. It has been said 

 that, could we follow the peregrinations of the Yue-chi bands 

 from their early seats at the foot of the Kinghan mountains to 

 their disappearance amid the snows of the Western Himalayas, 

 we should hold the key to the solution of the obscure problems 

 associated with the migrations of the Mongolo-Turki hordes since 

 the torrent of invasion was diverted westwards by Shih Hwang Ti's 

 mighty barrier. One point, however, seems clear enough, that 

 the Yue-chi were a different people both from the Parthians who 

 had already occupied Hyrcania (Khorasan) at least in the third 

 century B.C., if not earlier, and from the Massagetae. For the latter 

 were seated on the Yaxartes (Sir-darya) in the time of Cyrus (6th 

 century B.C.), whereas the Yue-chi still dwelt east of Lake Lob 

 (Tarim basin) in the third century. After their defeat by the 

 Hiung-nu and the Usuns (201 and 165 B.C.), they withdrew to 

 Sogdiana (Transoxiana), reduced the Ta-Hia of Baktria, and in 

 126 B.C. overthrew the Graeco-Baktrian kingdom, 

 Scythians and which had been founded after the death of Alex- 

 Graeco- ander towards the close of the 4th century. But 



Baktrians. 



in the Kabul valley, south of the Hmdu-Kush, the 

 Greeks still held their ground for over 100 years, until Kadphises I., 

 king of the Kushans a branch of the Yue-chi after uniting the 

 whole nation in a single Indo-Scythian state, extended his con- 

 quests to Kabul and succeeded Hermaeus, last of the Greek 

 dynasty (40-20 B.C.?). Kadphises' son Kadaphes (10 A.D.) added 

 to his empire a great part of North India, where his successors of 

 the Yue-chi dynasty reigned from the middle of the first to the 

 end of the fourth century A.D. Here they are supposed by some 

 Dahae Tat authorities to be still represented by the Jdts and 

 and Rajput Rajputs, and even Prichard allows that the suppo- 



Origins. . . , , ,, 



sition ' does not appear altogether preposterous, 

 although " the physical characters of the Jats are very different 



d'un Slave vende qu'on cite dans les manuels d'anthropologie" (Th. Volkov, 

 V Anthropologie^ 1897, pp. 355~57)- 



