The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c31.24

v1.c31.24

The summary records the complete annihilation of Çaka rule in Bactria. The king himself becomes king in Ki-pin—a geographical term which is used in various senses by Chinese writers, but which, in this case, would most naturally mean Kāpiça (Kāfiristān); and the tribes formerly under his command are dispersed. There is no indication that any considerable body of Çakas accompanied their king to Ki-pin. The main movement, impeded by the Yavana power in Kābul, would naturally be westwards in the direction of Herāt and thence southwards to Seistān. The tide of Scythian invasion had no doubt been flowing in these directions since the time when the Çakas were first expelled from their territory beyond the Jaxartes by the Yueh-chi; for there is good evidence to show that the earlier Scythian settlements in Irān were reinforced about the time when the Çakas first occupied Bactria. The kings of Parthia who now held eastern Irān were engaged during two reigns (Phraates II, 138–128 B.C., and Artabanus I, 128–123) in unsuccessful struggles with their Scythian subjects; and the contest was only decided in favour of Parthia in the reign of the next monarch, Mithradates II the Great (123–88). Parthia had now taken the place of Bactria as the barrier which impeded the westward course of migrations from upper Asia. But the stream of invasion was only diverted into another channel: checked in Ariāna, it forced its way along the line of least resistance into the country of the lower Indus (Indo-Scythia). The Çaka invasion of India, like the invasion of the Huns (Hūņas) between five and six centuries later, was but an episode in one of those great movements of peoples which have so profoundly influenced the history not only of India, but also of Western Asia and Europe.