[96]. Many of the inhabitants of the south and west of India cannot pronounce the ch, and invariably substitute the s. Thus the noted Pindari leader Chitu was always called Situ by the Deccanis. Again, with many of the tribes of the desert, the s is alike a stumbling-block, which causes many singular mistakes, when Jaisalmer, the ‘hill of Jaisal,’ becomes Jahlmer, ‘the hill of fools.’
[97]. [The Balhara of Arab travellers of the tenth century were the Rashtrakūta dynasty of Mālkhed, Balhara being a corruption of Vallabharāja, Vallabha being the royal title (BG, i. Part ii. 209).]
[98]. [Vanarāja reigned from A.D. 765 to 780, and the dynasty is said to have lasted 196 years, but the evidence is still incomplete. The name of Bhojrāj does not appear in the most recent lists (BG, i. Part i. 152 ff.).]
[99]. Rélations anciennes des Voyageurs, par Renaudot.
[100]. [The true form of this puzzling term seems to be Dābshalīm, whose story is told in Elliot-Dowson (ii. 500 ff., iv. 183). Much of the account is mere tradition, but it has been plausibly suggested that when Bhīma I., the Chaulukya king of Anhilwāra was defeated by Mahmūd of Ghazni in A.D. 1024, the latter may have appointed Durlabha, uncle of Bhīma, to keep order in Gujarāt, and that the two Dābshalīms may be identified with Durlabha and his son (BG, i. Part i. 168). Also see Ferishta i. 76; Bayley, Muhammadan Dynasties of Gujarāt, 32 ff.]
[101]. Abulghazi [Hist. of the Turks, Moguls, and Tartars, 1730, i. 5 f.] says, when Noah left the ark he divided the earth amongst his three sons: Shem had Iran: Japhet, the country of ‘Kuttup Shamach,’ the name of the regions between the Caspian Sea and India. There he lived two hundred and fifty years. He left eight sons, of whom Turk was the elder and the seventh Camari, supposed the Gomer of Scripture. Turk had four sons; the eldest of whom was Taunak, the fourth from whom was Mogul, a corruption of Mongol, signifying sad, whose successors made the Jaxartes their winter abode. [The word means ‘brave’ (Howorth, Hist. of the Mongols, i. 27).] Under his reign no trace of the true religion remained: idolatry reigned everywhere. Aghuz Khan succeeded. The ancient Cimbri, who went west with Odin’s horde of Jats, Chattis, and Su, were probably the tribes descended from Camari, the son of Turk.
[102]. Tacash continued to be a proper name with the great Khans of Khārizm (Chorasmia) until they adopted the faith of Muhammad. The father of Jalal, the foe of Jenghiz Khan, was named Tacash. Tashkent on the Jaxartes, the capital of Turkistan, may be derived from the name of the race. Bayer says, “Tocharistan was the region of the Tochari, who were the ancient Τώχαροι (Tochari), or Τάχαροι (Tacharoi).” Ammianus Marcellinus says, “many nations obey the Bactrians, whom the Tochari surpass” (Hist. Reg. Bact. p. 7).
[103]. This singular race, the Tajiks, are repeatedly mentioned by Mr. Elphinstone in his admirable account of the kingdom of Kabul. They are also particularly noticed as monopolising the commercial transactions of the kingdom of Bokhara, in that interesting work, Voyage d’Orenbourg à Bokhara, the map accompanying which, for the first time, lays down authentically the sources and course of the Oxus and Jaxartes. [The term Tājik means the settled population, as opposed to the Turks or tent-dwellers. It is the same word as Tāzi, ‘Arab,’ still surviving in the name of the Persian greyhound, which was apparently introduced by the Arabs. Sykes (Hist. of Persia, ii. 153, note) and Skrine-Ross (The Heart of Asia, 3, 364 note) state that the Tājiks represent the Iranian branch of the Aryans.]
[104]. The Mahabharata describes this warfare against the snakes literally: of which, in one attack, he seized and made a burnt-offering (hom) of twenty thousand. It is surprising that the Hindu will accept these things literally. It might be said he had but a choice of difficulties, and that it would be as impossible for any human being to make the barbarous sacrifice of twenty thousand of his species, as it would be difficult to find twenty thousand snakes for the purpose. The author’s knowledge of what barbarity will inflict leaves the fact of the human sacrifice, though not perhaps to this extent, not even improbable. In 1811 his duties called him to a survey amidst the ravines of the Chambal, the tract called Gujargarh, a district inhabited by the Gujar tribe. Turbulent and independent, like the sons of Esau, their hand against every man and every man’s hand against them, their nominal prince, Surajmall, the Jāt chief of Bharatpur, pursued exactly the same plan towards the population of these villages, whom they captured in a night attack, that Janamejaya did to the Takshaks: he threw them into pits with combustibles, and actually thus consumed them! This occurred not three-quarters of a century ago.
[105]. Arrian says that his name was Omphis [Āmbhi], and that his father dying at this time, he did homage to Alexander, who invested him with the title and estates of his father Taxiles. Hence, perhaps (from Tak), the name of the Indus, Attak; [?] not Atak, or ‘forbidden,’ according to modern signification, and which has only been given since the Muhammadan religion for a time made it the boundary between the two faiths. [All these speculations are valueless.]