1837.] of Coins deciphered. 385 



punctually performed) with the great monarch of Persia, the chief ene- 

 my capable of doing it injury. The antiquity assigned to this Sindian, 

 or early Indian kingdom, further agrees with the tradition of Ikswaku's 

 residence, and the migration of his sons eastward, and with all we have 

 remarked (in a previous paper) regarding the origin of the commercial 

 classes throughout modern India. 



But, if the dynasty of the Sdha or Sasee rajas, of which we may 

 now fix the termination towards the close of the sixth century, extended 

 backwards for two thousand years or even a quarter of that period, we 

 should find some mention of it by Alexander's historian, or by his 

 namesake the commercial Akrian, who visited this very kingdom in 

 the second century of our era. The elder Arrian affords but little to aid 

 us. In the descent of the Indus, some petty chiefs, as Musicanus, 

 Oxykanus and Sambus are encountered and overthrown ; but we hear 

 of no paramount sovereign in Patalene. Indeed from the pains taken in 

 rendering Pattala more habitable by digging wells, and inviting back 

 the fleeing population, it might be argued that it could not have been a 

 place of much importance prior to Alexander's visit. 



The capital of the province had changed in the second Arrian' s 

 time, to Mindgara, " the residence of a sovereign, whose power extended 

 as far as Barugdza in Guzerat. The government was in the hands of a 

 tribe of Parthians divided into two parties ; each party as it prevailed 

 chose a king out of its own body, and drove out the king of the 

 opposite faction : o-wex&s aWykovs £k$ik6vto>i>* ." 



Dr. Vincent, the learned commentator on the Periplus, seems to 

 hesitate in believing this assertion of Arrian that the government of 

 the Sindh, Cutch and Guzerat province, was in the hands of a tribe of 

 the Parthians, " Baatxiverai 8 e virb UapOwf — " " If," says this author, " the 

 governing power were Parthians, the distance is very great for them 

 to arrive at the Indus ; may we not, by the assistance of imagination, 

 suppose them to have been Affghans, whose inroads into India have been 

 frequent in all ages. That the government was not Hindu is manifest, 

 and any tribe from the west might be confounded with Parthians. If we 

 suppose them to be Affghans, this is a primary conquest of that nation, 

 extending from the Indus to Guzerat, very similar to the invasions 

 of Mahmu'd the Ghaznavidef." — " If" (we may here continue) for 

 Affghans in this passage, we substitute the Mithraic races of Seistdn 

 and Ghazni, by whatever name they were known at the time, we find 

 confirmation of such a line of invasion both in Mr. Masson's remarks — 

 in our Indo-Sassanian coins, and in Arrian ; for the fire worship would 

 * Vincent, P eriplus of the Erythrean sea, II. 385. f Periplus, II. 585. 



