The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s5.41

c10.s5.41

The defeated Sai-wang, who are supposed to have been Sacas of some sort, are said in the Ch'ien-han-shu to have moved southward to Ki-pin,⁶ or ‘over the Hanging Pass’ to Ki-pin.⁷ It has been sufficiently shown that no horde with its flocks and herds could ever have crossed the Hanging Pass;¹ this is a mistake of Pan-ku’s own, who knew that it became later the most direct route for Chinese envoys and traders. Also, in the middle of the second century B.C., there was no such place or thing as Ki-pin (see App. 9): it was Pan-ku’s usual term for the later Saca realm in India, which did not come into existence on the Indus till somewhere about 110 B.C. and did not extend to northern India till somewhere about 80 B.C.² The statement, then, that at some date prior to 160 the Sai-wang went southward to Ki-pin is exactly like the parallel statement that in 160 the Yueh-chi went westward to the Ta-hia: it is two separate statements, of which the second represents the culmination of a long and a lost chain of events: the Sai-wang are, to us, lost to view for at least two generations, but some of them ultimately ended up in Ki-pin, which means that among the Sacas who subsequently invaded India were Sai-wang elements.