Page:Chinese Religion through Hindu Eyes.djvu/198

162 under Tsin (B.C. 220) and Han Dynasties. And the third Empire was that of the Romans (1st century A.D.). It is interesting to note that the first empire to be dismembered was the Hindu, the second, the Chinese, and the third, the Roman. It is still more interesting to note that the fall of all the three empires was due ultimately to the invasions of the same barbarian hordes.

These were the Central Asian races known under diverse names, e.g., Tartar, Scythian, Yuechi, Kushan, Saka, Hiung-nu, Hun, White Hun, and so forth. We need not enter into the question of their blood-connexions or linguistic affiliations nor tarry to inquire as to which of these names represents the genus and which the species, branch or family. The most important thing for us to know is that the homeland of peoples who could be successfully withstood neither by the Asiatic nor by the European civilised nations was the terra incognita named Central Asia. Readers of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire are familiar with the story of "the barbarians of Scythia, * * * the rude ancestors of the most polished nations of the world."

Originally nomads, these Tartars had no culture of their own, but succeeded in swooping upon well-established civilisations through the vigour and virility characteristic of pusne races. And as always happened in history in such cases, "captive Greece captured Rome." The Tartars willingly allowed themselves to be captured by their slaves in India, China, as well as Europe, who were more enlightened than they. They took for their intellectual and spiritual masters those among whom they lived as conquerors, and thoroughly adapted themselves to the local conditions by matrimonial and other social connexions. In lieu of the refinements of culture they obtained they imparted the