56 H. G. Raverty— The Invention of Chess and Backgammon. [No. 1, 
the Greeks, was at that period hut a tributary of the Mihran or Hakra 
and united with the Panj Ab or Five Rivers, giving name to the 
present territory so called, three days’ journey below, or to the south¬ 
ward of Multan. Sind had at a very early period, formed part of the 
empire of the Persians; and in the time of the Kaianian, or third 
Persian dynasty, in the reign of Gushtasif, Bahman, his grandson, and 
subsequent successor, led an army into Sind and Western India. He 
reduced Sind completely, and some portion of India adjoining it; and 
in the district of Sind known as Budah, he founded a city, which he 
named after himself, Bahman-Abad or Bahman-Nih, which the people 
of Sind, in their dialect, call Bahman-No, or Bahman’s City— abad and 
nili both meaning a city in the ancient Persian. The ruins of this 
city of Bahman still remain ; but English writers, under the erroneous 
idea that the name must refer to the Sanskrit word Brahman, and 
unacquainted with the past history of those parts, have turned it into 
Brahman-abad—a purely Sanskrit name with a purely Persian termina¬ 
tion, a wholly impossible combination. 
Bahman, known as “ Diraz Dast,” or “ the Long Armed,” is the 
Longimanus of the Greek writers. He is entitled Kai Ard-shir, who 
married Hadassah or Esther, the Isra’ili, a direct descendant of Talut 
• * * •• •• 
or Saul, king of Isra’il; and to Bahman, the Israelis owed their delivery 
from captivity. 1 
Thus in the time of Nuh-shirwan, the first monarch of the fifth or 
Akasira (the plural of Kisra) dynasty, known as “ The Just,” the 
territory of the rulers of Sind extended into the northern Panj Ab of 
the present day, to the then southern boundary of the Kash-mir king¬ 
dom, which then extended over the whole of the alpine Panj Ab and 
beyond; on the east it adjoined Hajput-anah ; northwest to the 
Khwajah Amaran range; and west over great part of Mukran. The 
then rulers of Sind were not under the direct control of the Persians ; 
but they acknowledged the supremacy of the Persian monarchs, and 
paid a small tribute in virtue thereof. 
Shortly after Nuh-shirwan had reached his capital, Istakhur of 
Fars or Persia proper, on his return from an expedition against the 
Khakan of the Turks, an envoy reached his court from the Rai of Sind 
bringing presents for the Kisra, Nuh-shirwan, including several 
elephants ; and among other curious things, a set of chess-men, and a 
cloth on which to play the game. The envoy also brought a message 
from his sovereign, the Rai of Sind, to the effect that, if the sages of 
the Kisra, Nuh-shirwan’s court could discover how this game was 
1 See my “ Mihran of Sind,” in the “ Journal,” Yol. LXI., Part III. for 1892, 
and “ Extra Number,” for 1895. 
