IX.] THE NORTHERN MONGOLS. 323 



avowed foes of the true Aryans, that is, the Brahman or theo- 

 cratic (priestly) caste. Thus also is explained the intimate 

 association of the Rajputs and the Jats from the first. The 

 Rajputs were the Turki leaders of the invasions ; the Jats were 

 their peaceful Baktrian subjects following in their wake. 



The statement, therefore, that the Jats may be ethnologically 

 identical with the Rajputs 1 ," is perhaps too strong, and even 

 somewhat misguiding. It might be more correct to say the two 

 races were not originally one, but have become largely assimilated 

 one to the other through close contact during the last 1600 years. 

 The theory that the haughty Rajputs are of unsullied "Aryan 

 blood " is scarcely any longer held even by the Rajputs them- 

 selves. Alliances with Jats and others of much lower caste have, 

 one might say, been always the normal condition, and in many 

 septs two classes of different social rank are recognised : "one the 

 offspring of wives of legitimate descent, married in the orthodox 

 way ; the other the descendants of irregular connections with low- 



caste women.' 



Nearly related to the White Huns were the Uigitrs, the 

 Kao-che of the Chinese annals, who may claim to 

 be the first Turki nation that founded a relatively 

 civilised State in Central Asia. Before the general commotion 

 caused by the westward pressure of the Hiung-nu, they appear to 

 have dwelt in eastern Turkestan (Kashgaria) between the Usuns 

 and the Sacae, and here they had already made considerable 

 progress under Buddhist influences about the fourth or fifth 

 century of the new era. Later, the Buddhist missionaries from 

 Tibet were replaced by Christian (Nestorian) evangelists from 

 western Asia, who in the seventh century reduced the Uigur 

 language to written form, adapting for the purpose the Syriac 

 alphabet, which was afterwards borrowed by the Mongols and the 

 Manchus. 



This Syriac script which, as shown by the authentic inscription 

 of Si-ngan-fu, was introduced into China in 635 A.D. is not to 

 be confused with that of the Orkhon inscriptions 2 dating from 



1 Ibid. p. 220. 



! Discovered in 1889 by N. M. Vadrintseff in the Orkhon valley, which 

 drains to the Selenga affluent of Lake Baikal. The inscriptions, one in Chinese 



21 2 



