The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c29.169

c29.169

India at this time was only one province of the Hun empire. The head-quarters of the horde were at Bāmyin in Bādhaghīs near Herāt, and the ancient city of Balkh served as a secondary capital.³ The Hun king, to whose court, whether at Bāmyin or Herāt cannot be determined, Song-Yun, the Chinese pilgrim-envoy, paid a visit in A. D. 519, was a powerful monarch levying tribute from forty countries, extending from the frontier of Persia, on the west, to Khotan on the borders of China in the east. This king was either Mihiragula himself, or his contemporary overlord, more probably the latter. The local Hun king of Gandhāra, to whom Song-Yun paid his respects in the following year, A. D. 520, must be identified with Mihiragula. He was then engaged in a war with the king of Kashmīr (Ki-pin), which had already lasted for three years.⁴