Political History Of Ancient India

SR No.: 032292
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hemchandra Raychaudhari
Publisher: University of Calcutta
Publication Year: 1950
Total Pages: 714
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 458

PARTHIANS IN KABUL
2. Coins on which his name occurs on the obverse in the Greek legend, and those of Azes on the reverse in the Kharoshthi legend.
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The second variety proves that Spalirises had a colleague named Azes who governed a territory where the prevailing script was Kharoshṭhi. This Azes has been identified with king Azes of the Pañjab about whom we shall speak in the next chapter.
As regards the Indian enemies of the Bactrian Greeks we must refer in the first place to the prince of the house of Pushyamitra who is represented in Kalidasa's Malavikagnimitram as defeating the Yavanas on the Sindhu. An Indian named Bhadrayaśas seems to have had some share in the destruction of the Greek kingdom of the Eastern Panjab. The Nasik prasasti of Gautamiputra Satakarni represents that king as the destroyer of the Yavanas, apparently of Western India.
The final destruction of Greek rule was, as Justin says, the work of the Parthians. Marshall tells us1 that the last surviving Greek principality, that of Hermaios in the Kabul valley, was overthrown by the Parthian king Gondophernes. The Chinese historian Fan-ye also refers to the Parthian occupation of Kabul.* "Whenever any of the three kingdoms of Tien-tchou (India Proper), Ki-pin (Kapisa) or Ngansi (Parthia),
1 A Guide to Taxila, p. 14.
2 Among the latest Greek rulers of the Kabul Valley we have to include. Theodamas whose existence is disclosed by a Bajaur Seal Inscription (Corpus, II, i. xv, 6).
3 In ASI, AR, 1929-30 pp. 56 ff., however, Marshall modifies his earlier. views in regard to the conquest of the Greek kingdom of Kabul by the Parthians. He suggests that the Kabul Valley became a bone of contention between Parthians and Kushans and changed hands more than once before the final eclipse of the Parthian power.
4 JRAS., 1912, 676; Journal of the Department of Letters, Calcutta University, Vol. I, p. 81.