6_Glorious_Epochs_of_Indian_History

5TH GLORIOUS EPOCH 26;1
he of Some useto gQine future student of history who ipight
be attracted to it.
652. It is only pertinent here to write about the rela­
tions of India and Arabia during the seventh century when
the Arabs had already courted Islam. Islam was born after
the birth of Muhammad in A.D. 570, and it took at least
forty to fifty years for the Arabs to join it. They had civil
wars on the question of adopting this new faith. Yet the
Muslim history is believed to start from their Hizri era in
A.D. 622 and we might as well accept that belief for the
present discussion.
653. Even before these new Arabic Muslim aggressor^
crossed their borders and fell on their neighbouring Persian
empire, the Hindu states had practically spread once again
to the very distant borders of Chandragupta Maurya's empire
beyond the Indus. The Chinese traveller, Huen-tsang entered
India from the north-east about A.D. 629 and has left an
eye-witness account of whatever he saw here. According to
him the Hindu borders had stretched far beyond the Indus
to include what are now called Kabul, Ghazni, and Gandhar*.
Almost all the Chinese who came to India during those years
had to crose these Hindu states and the Indus before they
stepped into India.
THE CHINESE OF THAT ERA CALLED THE
HINDUS SHINTSU'
654. That is why they in China referred to India by its
most ancient name of Sindhu, and the Hindu people as
'Shintsu''. It is quite plain that this 'Shintsu' was a Chinese
corruption of Sindhu. This j is yet another proof on the
Chinese side that the word Hindu is derived originally from
the word Sindhu.
THE FIRST ARAB INVASION OF SINDH AND
THEIR DEFEAT
665. Most of the modern histories refer to the Arab
invasion on King Dahir as the first invasion wherein the