386 Legends of the Saurashtra group [Mat, 



be quite ground enough for his classing the ruling race under the 

 general term of Parthian*. 



At any rate, as our author says, the ruling power was not then 

 Hindu; and therefore the dynasty of the Sdhas, in which we find the 

 genuine Hindu names of Rudra, Viswa, Vira and Vijaya could not yet 

 have sprung up. Thus we have a limit on either side, between the 

 third and the seventh century to assign to them, and we have names 

 enough to occupy one half of that space. The family name of Sah, 

 or Sahu, is not Sanskritf, but it is very extensively used in the verna- 

 cular dialects. Half of the mahajans of Benares are named Sah\, and 

 the epithet evidently implies * merchants,' for we find the same root in 

 the sahukdr (soucar) agent ; souda, souddgar, trade, trader ; and perhaps 

 in the Persian word SGod, interest. One branch of this western tribe 

 Sdh§ has been elevated to royalty in the present occupants of the throne 

 of Nipal : the Garkhdlis, who overturned the Malla line in 1768, hav- 

 ing confessedly migrated from Udayapur close upon the borders of our 

 supposed Sindian kingdom, and settled in the hilly district of Kemaon 

 about two centuries anterior to their conquest of Nepal Proper. 



The learned memoir of Professor Lassen on the Pentapotamia 

 furnishes us with a proof that the Sdhs of Sinde and Guzerat were well 

 known at the time the seventh chapter of the M ahabharata was 

 written for, when describing with all the acrimony of those who had 

 suffered from their aggressions, the origin and habits of the Bahlics or 

 Bactrians of the Punjab or Panchanada, in the 44th verse we find 

 the following words put into the mouth of Carna : 



* By Parthians, according to Moses of Chorene, should be understood the 

 PaUiavis, or Balhavis, or people of Pahla, Balha or Balcha, the Balika or Bahika 

 of the Sanskrit, and the Bactria of the Greets : whence were derived the Pehlevi 

 dynasty and Pehlevi writing of Persia ; and the Palhawans of their more ancient 

 poetry. An explanation so comprehensive and simple, that it seems curious it 

 should ever have been disputed by the learned. Is it not also highly probable 

 that the Balabhi kings, and their capital the Balabhipura of Gujerat, should origi- 

 nally have referred to a Pahlavi dynasty holding or re-establishing their sway in 

 this province ? The Sanskrit name of the town according to Tod is Baiika-pura, 

 and of the kings, Balika-rai. We must find their coins and decipher their in- 

 scriptions ere we shall be competent to enter more fully on the subject. 



t TfJ^ or ^^^^ Saha deva is however the name of the youngest of the five 

 Pandava princes, and might be accepted by some etymologists as the original of 

 a patronymic, Sdhu. ^hj also signifies " increase, addition ;" but ^jt^ ' s 

 generally looked upon as the root of Sdhu the mercantile name. 



X GopalDas Sah, Goal Das Sah, &c. &c. 



§ I perceive also in a manuscript just received from Captain Sleeman, that 

 the Suhs frequently reigned at Garha Mandela. 



