1S37.J Chinese Account of India. 63 



the people of this country likewise are very long-lived. Their kings 

 commonlv reign a hundred years, and the bullocks live as long as the 

 men. This kingdom is a dependency of India."] 



The royal residence overlooks the river Hang or Gang (Ganges)* which 

 some call Kea-pih-le. Here is situated the mountain Ling-tseaou ; called 

 in the language of the Hoo-yu country, Ke-too-keu : it is a green rock, 

 the head (or summit) of which resembles that of the bird tseuou. 



Note of the Chinese Editor. 



[Choo-fa-wei says, in his Fiih-kwo-ke, that this mountain is situated to 

 the south of Mo-kee-tet, which is also a kingdom dependent on India.") 



At the period^ when all these kingdoms belonged to the Yue-che, the 

 latter put their kings to death and substituted military chiefs. They en- 

 joined all their people to practise the doctrine of Fuh-too (Buddha) ; not 

 to kill living creatures ; to abstain from wine ; and to conform entirely to 

 the manners and customs of the inhabitants of the country, which is low 

 and damp, and the temperature very hot. This kingdom is traversed by 

 large rivers ; the people fight upon elephants; they are of a feeble con- 

 stitution compared with the Yue-che. 



The emperor Woo-te, of the Hans (B. C. 142 to 87), sent an expedition 

 of about ten persons, by the west and south, in search of Shin-too. All 

 information having been refused to the persons composing this expedition, 

 they could not reach the country§. Under Ho-te (A. D. 89 to 106), seve- 

 ral ambassadors from that country came to offer tribute ||. The western 



* In Sanscrit jr^pf Gangd ; this river, in sacred writings, bears also the name of 

 jjj-ftf^ Kapila, and more commonly ^ffij^si^JT^T Kupiladhdra. 

 "t* TfH^ Magadha, the southern portion of the modern Bahar. 



% This important epoch in the history of India may be fixed with precision by 

 means of Chinese historians ; and it is not one of the least advantages derivable 

 from the study of the writers of this nation. Ma-twan-lin, in his account of the 

 Great Yue-che, or Indo-Scythians (book 338, fol. 2), states that the Chinese gene- 

 ral Chang-keen was sent as an ambassador to the Yue-che, by the emperor Woo-te 

 (B. C. 126), and that, about 100 years after, a prince of this nation, who possessed 

 one of the five governments of the couutry of the Dahse, subjected the Getes in Co- 

 phenes, and that Teen-choo, or India, was again subjugated by the Yue-che. This 

 other conquest of India by the Scythians must be placed, therefore, about the year 

 B. C. 26. Ma-twan-lin adds, that these TfuS-che, having become rich and powerful 

 (by these conquests), remained in this state till the time of the latter Hans, who 

 began to reign A. D. 222. It results from hence that the Scythians (or Yue-che) 

 must have been masters of Western India from about B. C. 56 till A. D. 222, that is, 

 for a space of 248 years. The first invasion of Ii dia by the Yue-che, or Scythians, 

 must have taken place before the reign of Vicramaditya, whose celebrated era, which 

 begins fifty-six years before ours, originated from the complete defeat of the Scy- 

 thian armies by this Indian prince ; an event which deserved to be thus immorta- 

 lized. See Indian Algebra, by Mr. Colebrooke, (Preface, p. 43,) and Lassen, De 

 Pentapotamid Indicd Commentatio, p. 56. The first of these learned Indianists, 

 from whom we are sure of deriviug information, whenever we are engaged in the 

 investigation of a great philological, scientific, and philosophical question respecting 

 India, cites an ancient scholiast on Varaha Mihira, who thus explains the word 

 " saka" employed by this astronomer to denote the Samvat era: " epocli when the 

 barbarian kings named Saka (the Sacee) were defeated by Vicrama'ditya." 



§ This same emperor gained some trifling particulars respecting Shin-too, or 

 India, by his genera) Chang-keen, whom he had sent to the Yue-che, which are 

 preserved by tlie historian Sze-ma-tseen, in his Sze-ke (book 123, fols. 6 and 7). 

 where it is stated that Shin-too is situated to the east of Ta-hea, the capital of 

 which was the city of Lan-she. 



|| At this period, China was still considered as the paramount state of all the 

 half-civilized nations inhabiting Central Asia. It is not, therefore, surprising, that 

 the chiefs of India subject to the Yue-che, or Scythians, should have thought of 

 sending ambassadors to China, in search of means of delivering their country from 



