balochracehistor00damerich

28 THE BALOCH RACE
to receive the ambassador of the Khaqan of Chin. On
another occasion we find that the King's friends and freemen
marched towards Adhar-badagan (Adharbaijan) with
a force made up of contingents from Gilan, Dailaman, the
mountains of the Baloch, the plain of Saroch, and the
swordsmen of Koch. Then, in some texts, but not in the
best MS., follows a passage to the effect that up till that
time, since the world was the world, there had never been
a single Koch who did not pillage and burn the towns. 1
The narrative, after relating the conquest of the Baloches
by Naushirvan, continues to give an account of his war
against the men of Gil and Dailam—that is to say, of
Gilan and Adharbaijan. This association of the Baloch
with the races near the Caspian Sea seems to make it
probable that they were then located in a more northerly
province than Karman, where they are next heard of.
Firdausi must have drawn this description from the
traditions. Had he been describing the Baloch simply as
they were in his own time, he would certainly have shown
them as occupying Karman and the Lut, and plundering
the routes leading towards Sistan and Khurasan ; there
would not have been any especial association with the
Gllanis.
The fact that the names of Baloch and Koch are
frequently coupled by Firdausi is not necessarily a proof
that this was anything more than a method of speaking
prevalent in his day. In the oldest MS. of the poem
the name * Koch ' occurs very seldom, and not at all in the
passage describing the conquest of the Baloch by Nau-
shirvan. It is probable that in many passages later
copyists introduced the name, as the phrase ' Koch and
Baloch ' had become customary in their time ; and this
association of names was due simply to the fact that the
two races had settled near each other in Karman, although
1 It is worth noting that all the passages in which the name Koch
appears are subject to great variation in the MSS., while the name
Baloch appears throughout without variation.