The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c24.144

v1.c24.144

Precisely as was noted above (p. 321), in considering the Vedic material as sources for the historian's review of the distant past, there are likewise a number of Avestan names of places located south of the Hindu Kush in the territory that once at least was common in part to the Indians and the Irānians and has had, as a natural borderland, an important influence upon India's history in later ages. A portion of these domains corresponds to a considerable section of Afghānistān and possibly to a part of Baluchistān, realms now under direct British influence or included politically as a part of the Indian Empire. One of the proofs of this community of interest is the fact that the territory of Arachosia (Av. Harahvaitī, O.P. Hara(h)uvati), which corresponds to the modern province of Kandahār, was known, at least in later Parthian times, as 'White India' (Ἰνδικὴ Λευκή). This we have on the authority of the geographer Isidor of Charax (first cent. A.D.), who, when mentioning Arachosia as the last in his list of Parthian provinces, adds (*Mans. Parth.* 19), 'the Parthians call it "White India".' As a supplement to this statement, in its historic aspect, may be quoted a pertinent observation made by the French savant James Darmesteter in touching upon the realms of Kābul and Seistān. He regards the language of Vd. I as indicating that ‘Hindu civilization prevailed in those parts, which in fact in the two centuries before and after Christ were known as White India, and remained more Indian than Iranian till the Musulman conquest’.¹