Vol. IX, No. 10.] India in the Avesta of the Parsis. 429 
[V.S.] 
tion another instance of the constant struggle oe the al 
and the Persians for the su upremacy in the Kas The coins 
of the Pahlavas were found in the dominions of Kan ‘ahha, a 
Buddhist king, because they lived in his extensive dominions. 
These coins had the name of Avesta deities on them 
Radjatarangini, the History of Cashmir,? si to some 
Gandhara Brahamins (ara s@qa) of the Mlechha dynasty 
(Wade aw) in the reign of a king Mihira Cula, the Mirkhul of 
the Ain-i-Akbari. This Mihira Cula is depicted by the author 
of the Radjatarangini as a wicked king in whose reign the 
Mlechhas had an ascendancy. He had founded a temple of 
Mihiréswara and cos city of Mihirapur ‘‘ in which the Gandhar 
Brahmans, a low race.............- were permitted to seize 
upon the endowments of the more respectable order of the 
priesthoo 
While t teil in Cashmere some years ago, a learned 
Pandit of Shrinagar told me, that the Gandharva Brahmans 
referred to in the Radjatarangini were Zoroastrian Mobads or 
priests. Some other statements in the Radjatarangini* about 
them seem to confirm this identification. These references to 
the Zoroastrians of Persia show that India knew Iran from 
very old times. Similarly, we nes from the Avesta te 
Tran knew India from very remote tim 
o the Iranians of the times of se. Avesta, the then asin 
world consisted of five countries. These are mentioned in the 
Farvardin Yasht which is, as it were, the canon of the ancient 
Zoroastrians. It contains the names of the ancient Iranian 
saints whose Farohars or good spirits are invoked in prayers. 
In it, the saints of the following five countries are invoked :— 
1. Airyanim dakhyundm, i.e. the country of the Airyas. 
2. Tuiryanim dakhyundm, i.e. the country of the Turani- 
ans. 
3. Sairimanim dakhyunam, i.e. the country given to 
elam by king hala tea country of Rum, or 
Asia Mi nor and Eastern Europe. 
Saniniam dakhyunam, i.e. the country of China. 
D&hinam dakhyunam, i.e. the country of the Dahe, a 
people of Central Asia. 
or 
dian Anti- 
1 Vide ** Zoroastrian Deities on Indo-Scythian Coins. (In 
quary, Vol. XVI Part CCVII). Vide Mon. E. Druin’s aie hegre 
‘*Le Nimbe et les Signues de 1’ Apothéose sur les Monn. ora es ego 
Scythes’’ (Revue Nummismatique. Quatriémme Série, Tome 
wees Pele 190). r ‘Cashmere and the ancient Persians,’’ 
arc 
* Bk. I, slokas 306-309. 
5 Farvardin Yasht (Yasht XIII, 144). 
