748 Lassen on the History traced [No. 104. 



time are Turks ; for I think I may venture the conjecture, that 

 this name in the Perso-Indian languages denoted the inhabitants 

 of the cold snowy table land of the Belurtag ; this nation may 

 therefore have had the name of Yuetchis, or a similar one, and 

 yet have been called Tochares, by the Bactrians, as they arrived 

 from those snowy districts.* 



Following the farther fate of the Yuetchis in Bactria, there 

 afterwards appears a king named Khieout-Sieouhi, who uniting 

 the other hordes, makes war on the Parthians, takes Kaofu 

 from them, then also conquers Kipin, and Hantha ; but he 

 more likely took Kipin and Kaofu from the Szus. Klaproth 

 places this event in the year 80 b. c. ; Remusat in the first 

 century of our era ; De Guignes 100 years after their first settle- 

 ment in Bactria, therefore 26 years b. c. ; so likewise does an 

 anonymous translation of Chinese history. f The Chinese ac- 

 counts certainly correspond, and we owe this pleasing incertitude 

 only to our European chronicles. We hope to be excused 

 ascribing the greatest negligence to our countryman, Klaproth. 

 But we must continue; Khieout-Sieouhi is said to have died 

 aged 80 years. His son Yenkaotching (the commencement 

 of whose reign, would therefore have been about 30 a. d.) 

 conquered India, advancing far to the south and to the east. 

 The Yuetchis having become powerful, waged a war even 

 against the Chinese under their governor Pantchao^ in the 



* Titshara, and with the pronunciation kh for sh, tukhara, denotes in 

 Sanscrit snow^ ice, frost, and so is named in the old Indian geography 

 a people in the north of the Hindookush. A king of Kashmir, of the 

 family of the Thuholos, 600 years after Buddha, (therefore 56 a. d.) 

 is mentioned by the Chinese Buddhists ; this was long before the Chinese 

 knew Thuholo, and a proof, that the Yuetchis, to whom this king 

 must have belonged, were named Tukhara in India. The Yuetchis however, 

 or a neighbouring people of them in India, are also called TiirusMa, since 

 Kanishka is said to have belonged to this nation, 500 years after Buddha. 



t De Guign. p. 27, who read Tata instead of Hantha, Klaproth. p. 133, 

 has Pouta ; R6m. p. 83. Hantha. As. Trans, vi. p. 63. "the Chinese general 

 Chang-keen (Tcham-kao) was sent as ambassador to the Yuetchi 

 by the emperor Woote (b. c. 126.) And about a 100 years after, a prince of 

 this nation subjected the Getes in Kophene (Szu in Kipin) and India was 

 again subjugated by the Yuetchis." 



