The Greeks in Bactria and India c22.2

c22.2

The Greek occupation of Ta-yuan¹ (Ferghana) has not always been accepted,² and one must consider the evidence. Certain things may be ruled out at once. Naturally I agree with those who have said that Ta-yuan does not mean ‘the great land of the Yavanas’; it is enough that the Ch’ien-han-shu knows of a ‘little Yuan’, Siao-yuan, in the Tarim basin, which had nothing to do with Greeks.³ The vine and the alfalfa grew in Ta-yuan, and a considerable number of scholars have believed that the Chinese terms for these plants, p’u-t’ao and muk-tuk, were respectively βότρυς and Μηδικὴ (πόα), but I do not see how this belief can survive Professor Laufer’s analysis.⁴ Certainly, though Laufer said that the vine was native all over Iran and was not brought to Ferghana by Greeks,⁵ he could produce no evidence for it in Ferghana itself earlier than the Annals of the Ts’in dynasty, fourth century A.D.,⁶ which is not in point. But his evidence for the vine in Margiane and Bactria (the nearest countries) is from Strabo, who never mentions Ferghana; so, for all we know, the vine may have been native there or may have been introduced by Greeks or by anybody else; it is no evidence for anything. The habit of keeping wine in jars for years was of course a Greek custom; but unless it be proved that it was not a native custom in Iran also (as to which I know nothing) it cannot be asserted that Greeks introduced it.⁷