Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/257

CHAPTER X THE KUSHAN OR INDO - SCYTHIAN DYNASTY FROM 66 TO 225 A. D. migrations of the nomad nations of the Mon- golian steppes, briefly noticed in the preceding chapter, produced on the political fortunes of India effects so momentous that they deserve and demand fuller treatment. A tribe of Turki nomads, known to Chinese authors as the Hiung-nu, succeeded in inflicting upon a neigh- bouring and rival horde of the same stock a decisive defeat about the middle of the second century B. c. The date of this event is fixed as 165 B. c. by most scholars, but M. Chavannes puts it some twenty or twenty-five years later. The Yueh-chi were compelled to quit the lands which they occupied in the province of Kan-suh in Northwestern China, and to migrate westwards in search of fresh pasture-grounds. The moving horde mustered a force of bowmen, estimated to number from one hundred to two hundred thousand, and the whole multitude must have comprised at least from half a million to a million persons of all ages and both sexes. 210