226 SCYTHIC INROADS AND NAG A RACES.
(I) TheJats.
Council 1 in 40 a.d., soon made its way down to the plains ofHindustan, and during the next six centuries competed withthe earlier Buddhism of Asoka. The Chinese Pilgrim in629-645 a.d. found both the Northern or Scythic and theSouthern forms of Buddhism in full vigour in India . Hespent fourteen months at China-pati , where Kanishka is said tohave kept his Chinese hostages in the Punjab ; and he recordsthe debates between the Northern and Southern sects ofBuddhists in various places. The town of China -pati, tenmiles west of the Beas river , 2 bore witness to later ages of thepolitical connection of Northern India with the Trans-Hima-layan races of Central and Eastern Asia . The Scythic influ-ence in India was a dynastic as well as a religious one. Theevidence of coins and the names of Indian tribes or reigningfamilies, such as the Sakas, Huns, and Nagas, point to Scythian settlements as far south as the Central Provinces. 3
Some scholars believe that the Scythians poured down uponIndia in such masses as to supplant the previous population.The Jats or Jats, 4 who now number 4^ millions, and form one-fifth of the inhabitants of the Punjab , are identified with theGette; and their great sub-division the Dhe with the Dahte,whom Strabo places on the shores of the Caspian. Thisview has received the support of eminent investigators, fromProfessor H. H. Wilson to General Cunningham , the lateDirector-General of the Archaeological Survey of India . 5 Theexisting division between the Jats and the Dhe has, indeed,been traced back to the contiguity of the Massa-getae or GreatGetae, 6 and the Dahae, who dwelt side by side in Central Asia ,and who may have advanced together during the Scythian movements towards India on the decline of the Grseco-BactrianEmpire. Without pressing such identifications too closely inthe service of particular theories, the weight of authority is infavour of a Scythian origin for the Jats, the most numerousand valuable section of the agricultural population of the
1 Numismata Orientalia (Ceylon fasc.), p. 54.
2 General Cunningham’s Anc. Geog. of India , p. 200.
3 Muir’s Sanskrit Texts, chap. v. vol. i. (1868); Sir C. Grant’s Gazetteerof the Central Provinces, lxx., etc. (Nagpur , 1870); Reports of the Archceo-logical Survey of India and of Western India ; Professor H. II. Wilson (and Dr. F. Hall), Vishnu Purana, ii. 134.
4 The word occurs as Jats and Jats ; but the identity of the two formshas been established by reference to the Ain-i-Akbari. Some are nowHindus, others Muhammadans.
5 See among other places, part iv. of his Archczological Reports, p. 19.
6 Massa means 1 great ’ in Pehlevi.