The Greeks in Bactria and India c33.2

c33.2

Apollodorus, c. 100 B.C., has Τόχαροι (Tocharoi);¹ this form was popularised by Strabo and has passed into common use as this people’s name. Ptolemy, VI, 11, 6, has this form in connection with Bactria, and also, VI, 12, 4, a form Τάχοροι (Tachoroi), with metathesis of the vowels, in connection with Sogdiana. In this form the aspirate comes in the second syllable, not the first. This placing of the aspirate is also found in the Sanscrit Tukhāra, and again in the name of Bactria (in various languages) from the fourth to the eighth century A.D., Tocharistan (presumably taken from Τόχαροι), and in forms derived from Tocharistan, like toxrï (toxarï or toyari) which is found later in Central Asian documents as the name of the Saca speech of the Kushans of Tocharistan (p. 290), and Hsüan Tsiang’s Tu-ho-lo (Tuoxuâlâ, Bailey) in the seventh century A.D.²