272 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. IV. 



yasuki, the peaceful, in the form Dharmasoka. He seems to have been 

 recognized by all the Hittite rulers of northern India, and even of 

 countries to the west of it, as an emperor or king of kings. One of his 

 inscriptions enumerates the Tsutemame or Sushmins, the Wata, Futa, or 

 Bakhdi, that is the Bactrians, the people of Marwar, and the Fushiyama, 

 or ancient Kambojas to the north-west of Cashmere, as his subjects. 

 The Bactrians, however, were under the sway of Diodotus, as were the 

 Sibir or people of Cabul, so that Diodotus must have been tributary to 

 Asoka. 



Several inscriptions of great interest illustrate the intervals between 

 Tsurami and Kafutaki on the one hand, and between him and Vicrama- 

 ditya on the other. These are set forth with ample comment in the 

 Hittite Track in the East. Vicraniaditya, who on his inscription calls 

 himself simply Bicram, sets himself forth as a Tsutaruki or Gupta king, 

 by making Afumi, the Abhimanya of the Raja Tarangini, his heir to the 

 throne.-'^ The overthrow of the Sakas by this monarch is one of the 

 best attested facts in ancient Indian history. If, as seems most pro- 

 bable, the date of Buddha's attainment of nirvana was 477 B.C., this 

 event must be placed at or near the year 3 AD. If he re-established 

 Brahmanism, or rather the heathen worship of his own race, which con- 

 tributed to modern Brahmanism its chief elements, as is very probable, 

 seeing that several of his predecessors apostatized, his change of faith 

 did not affect his successor Afumi, who appears to have remained a 

 Buddhist. The kings of the Sakas belonged to the Varma dynasty, and, 

 on another inscription mentioning Vicram and Afumi, are also called 

 Kitan. No inscription so far read by me makes any mention of a 

 Brahman. When idolatry is referred to, it is called the worship of the 

 old gods, in other words, the Sintoism of Japan. There is not the least 

 evidence for an ancient Brahman kingdom in India, but it will be very 

 hard to convince a Hindoo that none such existed. However, the 

 missing materials for the ancient history of India are now in the world's 

 possession, and a little labour on the part of epigraphers, who are also 

 Japanese scholars, will soon bring a flood of light to bear upon one of th^ 

 most interesting but, until now, most obscure chapters of the history of 

 the past. 



NOTES. 



^Lenormant and Chevalier, Manual of the Ancient History of the East, Vol. XL, preface. 



*Max Miiller, a Sanskrit Grammar for Beginners, p. i. 



8 Journal, Asiatic Soc'y of Bengal, March, 1838, pp. 219 seq. 



