Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/369

 KINGDOM OF NEPAL 325 titles to the King of Tabaristan, south of the Caspian. In the latter year a Chinese army crossed the Pamirs, in spite of all difficulties, and reduced the King of Yasin to subjection. But, as in the seventh century, so in the eighth, the Chinese dominion over the western countries was short- lived, and was shattered by a disastrous defeat inflicted in 751 on the Chinese general Sien-chi by the Arabs, who were aided by the Karluk tribes. Indirectly this disaster had an important consequence for European civilization. The art of making paper, up to that time a monopoly of remote China, was introduced into Samarkand by Chinese prisoners, and so became known to Europe, with results familiar to all. From the middle of the eighth century, contact between the poli- tics of India and China ceased, and was not renewed until the English conquest of Upper Burma in 1885. In these latter days, Tibet, which has been a dependency of China since the close of the thirteenth century, has again come within the purview of the Indian govern- ment, and its affairs are again the subject of Indo-Chi- nese diplomacy. II NEPAL The kingdom of Nepal, the most valuable portion of which is the enclosed valley in which Kathmandu AN INDIAN SCENE.