India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c12.s6.24

c12.s6.24

been the same as Hyrcania lying to the north of Parthia and on the eastern corner of the Caspian (mod. Persian *Gurgan*, from *vṛika*=*gurg*, in the valley of the river of that name in the fertile district of Astarabad (*Sanjana Studies*, p. 251; *Enc. Br.*, 17. 566). The Persians distinguished the Varkas and in fact all the northern warlike equestrian people as Sacas (Persepolis Tomb Insc., *Sakā para-daraia*). The name *Vṛika* was known throughout the north-west as shown by its derivatives found in the several languages near Pāṇini's homeland, e.g. Ishkashmī *werk*, Yidghā *wurk*, *wurg*, etc. The title Bakanapati or Barkanapati, the chief of Varkaṇas, is applied to a Śaka governor of Mathurā who was associated with the foundation and repair of the Devakula of Wima Kadphises (*J.R.A.S.*, 1924, p. 402; *J.B.O.R.S.*, XVI, p. 258), whom Jayaswal identified as a Hyrcanian Saka. Pāṇini's acquaintance with a branch of the Śakas is not surprising, since he uses the Śaka word *kanthā* meaning 'town' in six *sūtras*. The Śakas were a very ancient race referred to in the Old-Persian inscriptions of Darius and settled both in Śakasthāna and on the borders of Parthia which were connected with Bāhlīka and Gandhāra. Kātyāyana also has the expression *Śaka-Parthava* in a *vārttika* showing that in the fourth century B.C. he knew of the Śakas and the Parthians, probably by way of commerce, previous to their political invasions. The Virks are also a section of the Jāts in the Punjab, who originally seem to have been Scythians.