1 CONQUEST BY THE PERSIANS. 57
2 the Panjab, and, indeed, into the whole of India as far as Bengal and Behar,
3 had its effect both dynastic and religious. A Scythic monarchy had been
4 established in the Panjéb by Kanishka, who held the fourth Buddhist Coun-
5 cil, in 40 4 D., and established the Northern or Thibetan form of Buddhism
6 in the country, as distinguished from the Buddhism of Asoka, which was in
7 full vigour in Southern India. But Scythian influence and civilization had
8 been gaining ground long previously, and the establishment of Buddhist
9 sovereignty in the Panjab, in the first century of the Christian era, of which
10 Chinese travellers give further proof, was the result of a contest which had
11 raged between Hinduism and Northern Buddhism for a long series of years
12 before.
13 PERSIAN CONQUEST OF THE PANJAB.
14 According to the Persian historian, Mir Khond, quoted by Sir William
15 Jones, in his History of Persia, the first recorded invasion of India by the
16 Persians was under Faridun, son of the great Jamshed,* the founder of Is-
17 thikar, or Persepolis, and the fifth monarch of the Pashadadian dynasty, who
18 flourished about 7508.c, Feeling the weight of years upon him, he
19 divided his vast empire among his three sons, to the eldest of whom, Lalun,
20 he allotted Syria, while to the second, called Tar, he gave the country lying
21 between the Oxus and the Jaxartes, and to the youngest, Irage, the district
22 of Khordsan.° The countries now known as Iran and Tiran derived their
23 names from Tir and Irage, the sons of Fariddn.
24 No details are given as to how far the empire of Faridtin extended in
25 India, but‘it certainly included the Panjab, as, according to the Mahabharata,
26 India was, for a long time before Cyrus, who died in 529B.c, subject to
27 the king of Persia. Xenophon, in his work entitled Cyropedia, informs us
28 that Cyrus made the Indus the eastern boundary of his empire. Other
29 ‘writers treat of the whole of the Panjab as a conquered country of the Per-
30 sians, and make its most eastern river the boundary.
31 The Indians, from the time of Fariduin, were accustomed to pay tribute
32 to the Persian monarchs Shangal, their Raja, called by Ferishta Shinkol, who
33 reigned at Kanaaj, refused to pay tribute, whereupon Afrasiab, king of
34 Persia, being enraged, sent his general, Pieran, at the head of fifty thousand
35 chosen horse, to chastise the Indian monarch, Being routed by the Indians,
36 this general shut himself up in the hills, and the Persian monarch, hearing
37 of this disaster, hastened to his relief, at the head of a hundred thousand
38 horse. <A great battle was fought between the Persians and the Indians, in
39 which the latter sustained a severe defeat, and Afrasiab, pursuing the enemy,
40 put thousands of them to the sword. Shinkol fled to Bengal and from
41 thence to the mountains of ‘Tirhut. Soon afterwards Shinkol sent his agents
42 to Afrasiab, praying that “he might have the honour of kissing the feet of the
43 lord of nations,” His request having been granted, Shinkol was admitted
44 into the audience of his Persian majesty, with a sword and a coffin, which he
45 carried. Afrasiab placed Rhoat, the son of Shinkol, on the throne of India,
46 and took the defeated king with him to Turan as a State prisoner. Rhoat
47 remitted the fixed tribute, including a large amount of money for the use of
48 his father in Persia.
49 Darius I, the son of Hystaspes, who was elected king of Persia in 521
50 B.C., 1s mentioned as the next Persian sovereign who attempted the con-
51 quest of India. Having fitted out a great naval armament, he put it under
52 the command of Scylax, of Caryandria, a city of Caria, in Greece, the
53 _*Jamshed first introduced among the Persians the use of the solar year, in honour of
54 which he instituted the celebrated festival of Nawroz, when the sun enters Aries.
55 ©
56 A Scythic dynasty
57 established in the
58 Panjab.
59 Faridin,
60 The empire of Farf-
61 dun included the
62 Panjab.
63 The empire of Cyrus
64 extended to the Indus.
65 Afrasiab invades
66 India.
67 Sri Satguru J agjit Singh J i eLibrary NamdhariElibrary@ gmail.com