The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s7.84

c10.s7.84

What India, whether Greek or Indian, did try to do was to get into touch with China through Khotan, independently of Bactria. We have seen that the Greeks were trying to do this in the reign of Hermaeus (p. 338); in the latter half of the first century B.C. Indian-speaking traders had got as far as the Chinese limes,⁴ and in the first three centuries of the Christian era there appear to have been settlements of Indian or Indian-speaking traders in Chinese Turkestan, more especially in the Khotan district,⁵ with a view to the Chinese trade; but the communications of that country with India, whether with Gandhāra or Kashmir, were across difficult passes, and it is not known how much it really means. The Greek words found in documents of this period from the Khotan country have already been considered (pp. 85 *sq.*); but to these settlements must belong the clay sealings found at Niya and other places near Khotan⁶ which occasionally show Greek or Graeco-Roman types, sometimes on the same documents as Chinese sealings; a number of clay sealings of the sort, once also attached to documents, have been found in India at Besnagar.⁷ Sir Aurel Stein said comprehensively in 1907 that all these classical seals from the Khotan country were Roman work,⁸ of the third or at earliest the second century A.D., and certainly most of them came from the Roman empire; some correspond to types on Roman Imperial coins, as the supposed Eros to the *Genius populi Romani* on coins of Diocletian,¹ or Ganymede feeding the eagle of Zeus to a similar type on coins of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus.² But it is also possible that this or that one might have come from Seleuceia, or those with a Kharoshthi legend, like the Athena Promachos,³ from India, or some might even be copies made locally; dating by seals is rather delusive work, for a signet ring might pass from father to son for generations. It is certain however that the Turkestan seals are essentially later than the period treated in this book, and I have only mentioned them to bring out that point, since they are rather famous.