The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c28.29

c28.29

³ In the time of Darius, son of Hystaspes (500 B. C.), the Sakai, with the Caspii, formed the fifteenth satrapy; and, in the army of Xerxes, they were associated with the Bactrians under the command of Hystaspes, the son of Darius and Atossa (*Herod.* iii. 93; vii, 64). Now that the position of the Wu-sun has been determined, and the line of the Yüe-chi migration thus fixed, the approximate location of the Sakai must be as stated in the text. Strabo clearly states that the Sakai and allied tribes came from the neighbourhood of the Jaxartes. Canon Rawlinson's opinion that they occupied the Kāshgar and Yarkand territory in the days of Darius (*Herod.* transl., vol. ii, 403; v, 170) is no longer tenable. The Śaka migration is discussed fully in my paper, 'The Śakas in Northern India', *Z. D. M. G.*, 1907, pp. 403–21; and by Dr. F. W. Thomas in his valuable article 'Sakastana' (*J. R. A. S.*, 1906, pp. 181–216, 460–4). He shows reasons for believing that Śakas had been settled in Sīstān from very early times, and for holding that an irruption of Śakas into that country in the second century B.C. is improbable. In my second edition I had assumed the reality of such an irruption, but now am disposed to agree with Dr. Thomas.