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This Minnagara may be identified with the Patala of Alexander’s expedition — the capital of the delta country. Vincent Smith locates it at Bahmanabad, 25° 50' N. , 68° 50' E., about six miles west of the modern Mansuriyah. The site was discovered by M. Bellasis in 1854, and includes extensive prehistoric remains. The Indus delta has grown greatly since our author’s time, and the courses of the Indus and all its tributaries have changed repeatedly. Vincent Smith says that the apex of the delta was probably about forty miles north of that place, approximately 26° 40' N., 68° 30' E. He cites numerous facts to prove that the coast-line has advanced anywhere from 20 to 40 miles since Alexander’s time. The Rann of Cutch (Eirinon), now a salt marsh, he thinks was a broad open arm of the sea running to 25° N., with the eastern branch of the Indus emptying into it. Silt brought down by the river and formed into great bars washed southward by the violent tides, has now closed the mouth of the Rann almost entirely. The coast-line he thinks may have averaged 25° N. from Karachi to the Rann of Cutch.
Reclus (Asia, III, 142-5) says the Rann was probably open sea until about the 4th century, when a series of violent earthquakes ele- vated this whole region considerably. He reports ruins at Nagar Parkar, at the northeast corner, indicating a large sea-port trade there.
These changes may have been one cause of the great migration from this region to Java in the 6th and 7th centuries A. D.
38. Parthian princes. — The reference to the rule of “Par- thian princes” over the “metropolis of Scythia” is very interesting. The first horde from Central Asia to overrun the Pamirs was the Saka, fleeing before the Yueh-chi. They settled in the Cabul valley, Seistan (Sakastene), and the lower Indus. By about 120 B. C. their leader Manes had established a kingdom at Cabul, subject to Parthia; his line was known as the “Indo-Parthian, ” but his race was, roughly speaking, “Scythian.” Gradually the Yueh-chi pursued the Saka, first conquering Greek Bactria (they are referred to in this text, §47, as the “very warlike nation of the Bactrians, ” living in the interior). Their king, Kadphises I, conquered Cashmere and the upper Indus; his son, Kadphises II, who acceded about 85 A. D., after a disastrous defeat at Kuche by the pursuer of the Yueh-chi, the Chinese con- quering general Pan-Chao — about 90 A. D. —directed his armies southward and rapidly overran the Panjab and the lower Indus, and then reached the upper Ganges and interior points like Indore.
Both races were called by the Sanscrit “Min” or Scyths; the Periplus shows the Indo-Parthians ruling in the ‘ metropolis of Scythia,” then at the apex of the Indus delta; showing their power
