The Mauryan Polity c5.s2.t1.3

c5.s2.t1.3

The identification of Cīna with China is indeed incongruous. Many a country in the Himālayan tracts is mentioned among the flourishing Jānapadas in ancient Indian epic and Purāṇic literature. In the Vāyu Purāṇa² the Cīna country is located in the Himālayan regions. The suggestion³ that the term refers to Shīna, the Gilgit tribe which still retains the word as well as the silk industry is probable. The reference, then, is possibly to the Shin race which must have been famous for silk manufacture in those days. Again in interpreting this term we must take into account the circumstances under which it is used by the author. The Arthaśāstra in its reference to the silk of the Shin country distinguishes it from other kinds by calling it the Cīnapaṭṭa and this shows that the ancient Cīnas spoke a language related to Sanskrit. It is stretching the argument too far to say that these words have any kind of affinity to the Chinese language. What is more reasonable is that these were Himālayan peoples and indigenous tribes perhaps of Kṣatriya origin. From the chapter in which the term occurs it can be gathered⁴ that the empire had to import furs and skins from the neighbouring country called Bālhava. Bālhavi, according to the commentator Bhaṭṭasvāmin, is again Himālayan deśa.⁵ Added to this is the fact that Ch and Sh (Shin, Chin) can be interchanged in Shin, *e.g.*, push—puch.¹ Thus this will be no argument for pushing down the date of the Kauṭalīya. Above all the derivation of the name Cīna from the Dynasty of Thsin rests on doubtful premises.²