that about 128 b.c. the famous Chinese traveler Chang K'ien spent a year in that part of Bactria which lay east of the Oxus, territory then in possession of the Sacae. Sometime later the first Chinese embassy journeyed to the Parthian capital. The members of the mission, sent by Wu-ti (141–87 b.c.) of the Han dynasty, were received with great honor, and when they returned they were accompanied by a Parthian delegation which took with it ostrich eggs and conjurers.[1] Trade between Parthia and China probably preceded rather than followed these events, although the movements of the Sacae and the Yüeh-chi obviously made such ventures hazardous from 165 b.c. onward.
Credit for the discovery and use of the monsoon as an aid to navigation in the Indian Ocean is given to a
- ↑ Hirth, "Story of Chang K'ien," JAOS XXXVII (1917), 107; on the date see ibid., p. 135.
zur Kenntnis der Tiirkvolker und Scythen Zentralasiens (APAW, 1904, No. 1 [part translated into English in Indian Antiquary, XXXV (1906), 33–47]); Chavannes, "Les pays d'Occident d'après le Wei lio," T'oung pao, 2. sér., VI (1905), 519–71; Chavannes, "Trois généraux chinois de la dynastie des Han orientaux," ibid., VII (1906), 210–69; Chavannes, "Les pays d'Occident d'apres le Heou Han chou," ibid .y VIII (1907), 149–234; Friedrich Hirth, "The Story of Chang K'ien, China's Pioneer in Western Asia," JAOS, XXXVII (1917), 89–152; J. J. M. de Groot, Chinesische Urkunden zur Geschichte Asiens. I. Die Hunnen der vorchristlichen Zeit; II. Die Westlande Chinas in der vorchristlichen Zeit (Berlin, 1921–26); Léon Wieger, Textes historiques (2. ed.; Hien-Hien, 1922–23); O. Franke, Geschichte des chinesischen Reiches. I. Das Altertum und das Werden des Konfuzianischen Staates (Berlin, 1930); McGovern, Early Empires of Central Asia (in press). Of these, the works of Hirth, Franke, and de Groot and the translations of Chavannes are the most trustworthy.
