Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c9.53

c9.53

The war which recalled Menander was probably a Śaka invasion. The Śaka tribes, pushed steadily southwards by the advance of the Yueh-chi, and hemmed in on the west by the Parthians, overflowed Baktria and crossed the Helmand river into the country still known as Sakastene or Seistān. Here they were joined by allied Parthian or Pahlava tribes, and made their way into India through the Bolān Pass. Entering the Panjāb, they quickly superseded the now decaying power of the Baktrian Greeks, excepting a small principality ruled over by members of the house of Eukratides, which still held out in the Kābul valley. The invaders set up two allied kingdoms. At Mathurā reigned the Śaka line which was founded by Moga or Maues, who was apparently reigning in 93 B.C. Among his successors was Azes, whose coins indicate that he ruled over a wide area. Under him were the satraps Liaka Kusūlaka and Pātika at Taxila, and Rājavula and Śodāsa at Mathurā¹. These rulers restrike the coins of Demetrius, Eukratides, and Strato, whose territories they doubtless conquered. Meanwhile, a Parthian prince named Vonones set up a dynasty in Baluchistān and Khandahār, and the two families were finally united under the rule of the Parthian prince Gondophares in the first century A.D. Gondophares is interesting, as, according to a widely-spread legend, he and his followers were converted to Christianity by the Apostle Thomas. At the same time, a Śaka chief of the Kshaharāta clan named Nahapāna gained some temporary successes against the Andhra monarchs in the Northern Deccan, and struck some creditable imitations of Indo-Greek coins.