GANDARAE
GANDARAE (
Γανδάραι,
Ptol. 7.1.4;
Steph. B. sub voce a widely extended people of Indian or Arianian origin, who occupied a district extending more or less from the upper part of the
Panjáb to the neighbourhood of
Kandahar, and variously called in ancient authors Gandaris (
Strab. xv. p.699) or Gandaritis (
Strab. xv. p.697).
The name is of Sanscrit origin, and is found in the
Mahábhárat under the form Gandháras, in which work these people are classed with the Bahlíkas and other tribes beyond the Indus; the country they inhabited being described as difficult of access, and famous then, as it still is, for its breed of horses. Owing the distinction which seems to be drawn, in the passages cited above from Strabo, between Gandaris and Gandaritis, some authors, as Groskurd and Mannert, have been led to assign different places for these districts; determining the latter to be the same as Peucelaotis, between
Attok and the Indus.
It is much more probable that one and the same country was intended, the boundaries of which varied according to the reports of the travellers from whom Strabo and others compiled their geographical notices of these remote regions. From Strabo (
l.c.) it may be inferred that he considered the country of the Gandarae to be to the W. of the Indus;. from Ptolemy, that it was somewhat more to the E., in the direction of Caspatyrus (
Kashmir?).
The latter view agrees with a notice of. Hecataeus preserved by Stephanus B. (
s. v. Caspapyrus), who calls that city
πολίς Γανδαρικὴ Σκυθῶν ἀκτή. Herodotus, like Ptolemy, calls it Caspatyrus (3.102, 4.44). In Herodotus these people are called Gandarii, and are included by him in the seventh satrapy of Dareius, along with the Aparytae, Dadicae, and Sattagydae (3.91): they are also found with the same name in the armament of Xerxes, in company with the Dadicae, under the same commander, and wearing the same arms, as the Bactrians.
Rennell (
Geogr. of Herod. vol. i. p. 390) has been induced to place them to the W. of Bactriana; but more minute examination leads to the belief that in this he is in error, and that east and south of Bactriana is really the more correct determination. (Wilson,
Ariana Antiqua, p. 131;
Asiatic Res. vol. xv. p. 103; Lassen,
Pentapot. Indica, p. 105; M. Troyer,
Raja-Tarangini, tom. ii. p. 319.)
Stephanus speaks of another Indian people whom he calls Gandri, who fought, according to him, against Bacchus; adding, however, that Hecataeus called them Gandarae.
There can be no doubt that the real and the mythical people are meant to be one and the same. Professor Wilson draws the general conclusion that Heeren and Rennell have both erred in placing most of these tribes to the N. of
Khorassan, and that they may be located with more accuracy in the vicinity of the Paropamisan mountains, being the predecessors, if not the ancestors, of the modern
Hazáras. [
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