Note 17 — INDEX (continued 2)

Mr. Fleet (Epigraphia Indica, III. 327 and note 12) would identify Mihirakula’s tribe with the Maitrakas. More recent evidence shows that his and his father Toramáṇa’s tribe was the Jáuvlas. That the White Húṇas or other associated tribes were sun-worshippers appears from a reference in one of Mihirakula’s inscriptions (Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, III. 161) to the building of a specially fine temple of the sun; and from the fact that in Kashmír Mihirakula founded a city Mihirapura and a temple to Mihireshwar. (Darmsteter in Journal Asiatique, X. 70: Fleet in Indian Antiquary, XV. 242–252.) Mihirakula’s (a.d. 508–530) sun-worship may have been the continuance of the Kushán (a.d. 50–150) worship of Mithro or Helios (Wilson’s Ariana Antiqua, 357). At the same time the fact that Mihirakula uses the more modern form Mihir makes it probable (Compare Rawlinson’s Seventh Monarchy, 284) that Mihirakula’s sun-worship was more directly the result of the spread of sun-worship in Central Asia under the fiercely propagandist Sassanians Varahan V. or Behram Gor (a.d. 420–440), and his successors Izdigerd II. (a.d. 440–457), and Perozes (a.d. 457–483). The extent to which Zoroastrian influence pervaded the White Húṇas is shown by the Persian name not only of Mihirakula but of Kushnawaz (a.d. 470–490) the great emperor of the White Húṇas the overthrower of Perozes. That this Indian sun-worship, which, at latest, from the seventh to the tenth century made Multán so famous was not of local origin is shown by the absence of reference to sun-worship in Multán in the accounts of Alexander the Great. Its foreign origin is further shown by the fact that in the time of Beruni (a.d. 1020 Sachau’s Edition, I. 119) the priests were called Maghas and the image of the sun was clad in a northern dress falling to the ankles. It is remarkable as illustrating the Hindu readiness to adopt priests of conquering tribes into the ranks of Bráhmans that the surname Magha survives (Cutch Gazetteer, 52 note 2) among Shrimáli Bráhmans. These Maghas are said to have married Bhoja or Rájput girls and to have become the Bráhman Bhojaks of Dwárka. Even the Mands who had Śaka wives, whose descendants were named Mandagas, obtained a share in the temple ceremonies. Reinaud’s Mémoire Sur l’Inde, 393. ↑