Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c30.47

v2.c30.47

³ In this early portion of the annals there is a singular mixture of historical facts, and it appears that the Yadu scribes confound their connexions with the Syrian and Bactrian Greeks, and with the first Muslim conquerors. Imperfect as is this notice of Subahu, his son Rajh, and grandson Gaj, who were thus assailed by Farid of Khorasan (Bactria), and his auxiliary, the king of Rum (Syria), we have a powerful allusion to Antiochus the Great, who, two hundred and four years before Christ, invaded Bactria and India. Amongst the few facts of this expedition is his treaty with Sophagasenas, the Indian monarch, in which the Syrian king stipulated for a tribute in elephants. There are, even in this medley of incidents, grounds for imagining that Sophagasenas is the Yadu prince of Gajni. Whether, out of Subahu and Gaj, the Greeks manufactured their Sophagasenas, or whether prince Gaj could have been entitled Subhagsen, in compliment to his mother, Subhag-Sundari, of Malwa, must be left for the speculative to decide. It is not unlikely that the nature of the tribute, said to have been elephants, which the Indian agreed to furnish to the Greek prince, may have originated with the name of Gaj, which means ‘elephant.’ [Sophagasenas, mentioned by Polybius (xi. 34) was probably an Indian king, Subhāgasena, who ruled in the Kābul valley.]