Preface

V
106 to show how art historians have attempted to relate the origin of the
Scythian art to the period of Scythian campaigns in Asia Minor, and how
we have traced examples of the pre-Scythian and Scythian art found
from Siberia which are earlier than those from Ziwiyeh (belonging to the
seventh century B.C.) and are also decorated with animal style.
The classical authors refer to the Sakas as Scythians, but not all
Scythians were Sakas. The Sakai or the Sakas of the classical sources
have been universally identified with the people called by the name Saka
(also spelt as Saka) in Indian sources. It is apparent, therefore, that the
Scythians were not wholly identical with the Sakas of the Indian sources.
The Persian inscriptions use the term Sakā. Chapter I of our work
delineates the scope, sources and method of study. The geographical
location of Scythia and the connotations of Scythia and Saka territories
are described in Chapter II. The advent of the Sakas and the Saka-
Pahlavas and their rule in the Indian subcontinent are discussed in
Chapter III. An elaborate description of Saka/Scythian art of the Western
and Eastern sections, also, drawing attention to the differences between
them, is given in Chapter IV of the present study with an intention to
help determining the essential elements of the Saka/Scythian art, and
then examining in the subsequent chapters (V and VI), how much they
are reflected in early Indian art. The description in the three Chapters