APPENDIX B. 
697 
hills, passes to the westward of St'hdnu-sar or Thann-sar , at some distance from which the water 
is absorbed by the sands; yet the vestiges of its ancient bed may be traced as far as Bacar on 
the Indus. The report of my native surveyor, concerning this river, is also confirmed by the 
report of General Thomas, in his Memoirs (p. 164). There were Bhats, or Bhattis, in that 
country long before the arrival of Manes; for Ptolemy, in the beginning of the third century 
takes notice, in that country, of two considerable towns, obviously denominated after them. 
The first is Bata-nagra , or Bhat-nagara , the town of the Bhats, B Hat-neve is the vulgar pro- 
nunciation of it ; but the present town of Bhat-nere is not the same with the Bhat-nagara of 
Ptolemy, which was to the westward of the river Bey ah, and is probably the town called Bhat 
tyaleh. The other place mentioned by Ptolemy is Batan-cai-sera, a compound [215] name; 
and in the true idiom of the Hindi language, Bhatton-ki-sava , or Bhatton-ca-sara , the pool of the 
Bhats.... From the situation assigned to it by Ptolemy, I suppose it to be the same place 
which is called Bliattinda , to the N.-N.-E. of Bhat-nere. The Bhattis are shepherds, and various 
tribes of them are found in the Panjab; and they also inhabit the high grounds to the East of 
the Indus, from the sea to Uch. These tribes are called Ashamhhetty in the Ayin-Acbavi ; but 
several well-informed men, who had long resided in that country, say, that the true pronuncia- 
tion is Acsham-Bhatti ; which implies the many troops, or bands, of the Bhattis-, because they go 
by troops, selected from various tribes or families. 
Manes gave himself out as the Christ, and had also twelve disciples; and, in the character 
of Christ, he became Salivahana in India. He had three disciples, exalted above the rest, and 
their names were Budda or Addas, Hermas or Hermias, and Thomas, which I conceive to be 
the same with Bhat, Maya or Mo ye, and Thaimaz or Thamaz, the supposed sons, or rather 
disciples, of SalivAhana. In the seventh century, there were Christians at Serinda, or Ser-Hind, 
with a monastery; and two monks from that place, at the command of the Emperor Justinian 
carried silk-worms, or rather their eggs, to Constantinople A 
[216]. The compiler of the list, brought from Assam by the late Dr. Wade, was well in- 
formed, with regard to the last blow given to this dynasty of Manicheans, by Amir-Timur, in the 
remains of a feeble tribe of them, at Toglock-poor. But it is much more reasonable, I think, to 
place the overthrow of that dynasty in the latter end of the twelfth century. 1 2 
1 Wells Williams (The Middle Kingdom, 4th edn., New York, 1871, II. 290), thinks that the two monks, 
probably Nestorians, who brought eggs of silk worms to Constantinople in 552, came from China, where they 
had resided and which they were not the first nor the only ones to have evangelized. According to Priaulx, Indian 
Embassies to Rome, 126, an embassy, said to be Indian, and bringing gifts to the Emperor Justinian, reached 
Constantinople in 530. Cf. C. Mabeb Duff, The Chronology of India, Westminster, Constable, 1899, p. 40. Pr. Felix 
(Catholic Calendar and Directory for the Archdiocese of Agra .... for the year 1908, App., p. 24) writes in the same 
way as Wilford. “ [The existence of Christians in Northern India] is moreover corroborated by what we read 
in Zonare, Life of Justinian, that there was in Serhinda or Serinda (Punjab), in the sixth century a.d., a semi, 
nary for the Christians, and that two monks from that place, at the command of the Emperor Justinian, brought 
silk-worms and eggs to Constantinople ” He refers to Recherches historiques sur les peuples anciens par L'Abbe Des- 
ROCHES, p. 835. 
2 This discussion on Manes and the Manicheans runs on till p. 219. It occupies also a large part of F. Wilford : s 
Origin and Decline of the Christian Religion in India in Asiatick Researches , X (1808), pp. 69 sqq. , especially p. 71. 
At p. 218, As. Res., IX, p. 218, there is question again of the list brought by the “late” Dr. Wade from Assam, 
according to which there appeared towards the latter end of the 9th century another S’alivahana in the country 
about Delhi. 
Wilford, a man whose erudition was beyond question, is bewildering in his accumulation of facts and names, 
and the lack of proper references makes it almost impossible to check his utterances. The impression produced 
on most of his readers is that he is extravagant in his theories. I do not speak here of his earlier studies, 
when he was imposed upon by some native Pandits, but of the later ones, such as those referred to here, and I 
am often inclined to think that in many matters Wilford is ahead even of our own times. The pity is that no 
