to the Kabul and the Oxus rivers.

[Illustration: Fig. 57. Coin--obverse and reverse of Menander.]

Up to the middle of the first century of our era it was first under
Graeco-Bactrian, and later under Graeco-Parthian, rule directly, or
indirectly through local rulers with Greek names or Saka Satraps. The
Sakas, one of the central Asian shepherd hordes, were pushed out of
their pastures on the upper Jaxartes by another horde, the Yuechi.
Shadowy Hellenist Princes have left ~us~ only their names on coins; one
Menander, who ruled about 150 B.C., is an exception. He anticipated the
feats of later rulers of Kabul by a temporary conquest of North-Western
India, westwards to the Jamna and southwards to the sea.

~The Kushan Dynasty.~--The Yuechi in turn were driven southward to the
Oxus and the Kabul valley and under the Kushan dynasty established their
authority in the Panjab about the middle of the first century. The most
famous name is that of Kanishka, who wrested from China Kashgar,
Yarkand, and Khotan, and assembled ~a~ notable council of sages of the law
in Kashmir. His reign may be dated from 120 to 150 A.D. His capital was
at Purushapura (Peshawar), near which he built the famous relic tower of
Buddha, 400 feet high. Beside the tower was a large monastery still
renowned in the ninth and tenth centuries as a home of sacred learning.
The rule of Kushan kings in the Panjab lasted till the end of the first
quarter of the third century. To their time belong the Buddhist
sculptures found in the tracts near their Peshawar capital (see also
page 204).

~The Gupta Empire.~--Of the century preceding the establishment in 320
B.C. of the Gupta dynasty at Patna we know nothing. The Panjab probably
again fell under the sway of petty rajas and tribal confederacies,
though the Kushan rule was maintained in Peshawar till 465 A.D., when it
was finally blotted out by the White Huns. These savage invaders soon
after defeated Skanda Gupta, and from this blow the Gupta Empire never
recovered. At the height of its power in 400 A.D. under Chandra Gupta
II, known as Vikramaditya, who is probably the original of the
Bikramajit of Indian legends, it may have reached as far west as the
Chenab.

~The White Huns or Ephthalites.~--In the beginning of the sixth century
the White Hun, Mahirakula, ruled the Panjab from Sakala, the modern
Sialkot. He was a worshipper of Siva, and a deadly foe of the
Buddhist cult, and has been described as a mons