Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c17.s3.25

c17.s3.25

The **Sogdians** were the people of the region now known as Samarkand and Bukhārā. They were separated from Bactriana by the Oxus and from the Śakas by the Jaxartes or the Syr Daria.³ By the term Sogdian Justin probably refers not only to the Sogdiani proper but also to the well-known tribes which, according to Strabo,⁴ deprived the Greeks of Bactriana, *viz.*, the Asii, Pasiani, Tochari, Sacarauli and the Sacae or Śakas. The story of the Śaka occupation of the Indo-Greek possessions will be told in the next chapter. The Latin historian Pompeius Trogus describes how Diodotos had to fight Scythian tribes, the Saraucae (Saraucae) and Asiani, who finally conquered Sogdiana and Bactria. The occupation of Sogdiana probably entitled them to the designation Sogdian used by Justin. Sten Konow⁵ suggests the identification of the Tochari of the Classical writers with the Ta-hia of the Chinese historians. He further identifies the Asii, Asioi or Asiani with the Yüe-chi. We are inclined to identify the Tochari with the Tukhāras who formed an important element of the Bactrian population in the time of Ptolemy and are described by that author as a great people.¹ They are apparently "the war-like nation of the Bactrians" of the time of the Periplus.