Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c18.s1.1

c18.s1.1

In the second and first centuries B.C., Greek rule in parts of Kāfiristān, Gandhāra and possibly the Hazāra country, was supplanted by that of the Śakas. In the days of Darius, the Achaemenid king of Persia (B.C. 522-486), the Śakas lived beyond Sogdiana (*para-Sugdam*) in "the vast plains of the Syr Darya, of which the mordern capital is the town of Turkestan."¹ But already towards the end of the first century B.C. they were established at Sigal in modern Sīstān.² The story of their migration from central Asia has been recorded by Chinese historians. *The History of the First Han Dynasty* (*Ts'ien Han-Shu*) states "formerly when the Hiung-nū conquered the Ta-Yüe-tchi the latter emigrated to the west,³ and subjugated the Tahia; whereupon the *Sai-wang* went to the south, and ruled over Kipin."⁴ Sten Konow points out that the *Sai-wang* refer to the same people which are known in Indian tradition under the designation *Śaka-muruṇḍa*,⁵ *Muruṇḍa* being a later form of a Śaka word which has the same meaning as Chinese "*wang*," *i.e.*, king, master, lord. In Indian inscriptions and coins it has frequently been translated with the Indian word *Svāmin*.