turies. Another point is that Buddha is said to be the progenitor
of the whole Indu or lunar race. [465] It is obvious that Buddha
had no real connection with these Central Asian tribes, as he died
some centuries before their appearance in India. But the Yueh-chi or
Kushan kings of the Punjab in the first and second centuries A.D. were
fervent Buddhists and established that religion in the Punjab. Hence
we can easily understand how, if the Yadus or Jats and other lunar
clans were descended from the Saka and Yueh-chi immigrants, the
legend of their descent from Buddha, who was himself a Kshatriya,
might be devised for them by their bards when they were subsequently
converted from Buddhism to Hinduism. The Sakas of western India, on the
other hand, who it is suggested may be represented by the Yadavas,
were not Buddhists in the beginning, whether or not they became
so afterwards. But as has been seen, though Buddha was their first
progenitor, Krishna was also their king while they were in Gujarat,
so that at this time they must have been supposed to be Hindus. The
legend of descent from Buddha arising with the Yueh-chi or Kushans
might have been extended to them. Again, the four Agnikula or fire-born
clans, the Parihar, Chalukya or Solankhi, Panwar and Chauhan, are
considered to be the descendants of the White Hun and Gujar invaders
of the fifth and sixth centuries. These clans were said to have been
created by the gods from a firepit on the summit of Mount Abu for
the re-birth of the Kshatriya caste after it had been exterminated
by the slaughter of Parasurama the Brahman. And it has been suggested
that this legend refers to the cruel massacres of the Huns, by which
the bulk of the old aristocracy, then mainly Buddhist, was wiped out;
while the Huns and Gujars, one at least of whose leaders was a fervent
adherent of Brahmanism and slaughtered the Buddhists of the Punjab,
became the new fire-born clans on being absorbed into Hinduism. [466]
The name of the Huns is still retained in the Huna clan, now almost
extinct. There remain the clans descended from the sun through Rama,
and it would be tempting to suppose that these are the representatives
of the old Aryan Kshatriyas. But Mr. Bhandarkar has shown [467] that
the Sesodias, the premier clan of the solar race and of all Rajputs,
are probably sprung from Nagar Brahmans of Gujarat, and hence from the
Gujar tribes; and it must therefore be supposed that the story of solar
or