Sakan.adj.

1601 P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World I. vi. xvii. 123 Beyond the realme Sogdiana, inhabit the nations of the Scythians. The Persians were wont to call them in generall Sacas, of a people adjoining unto them, so named.

1795 J. Nott tr. Catullus Poems I. xi. 35 Whether he treads Hircanian ground; Or seeks the gentle Arab's home; The Parthians, for the dart renown'd; Or mid the Sacæ's doom'd to roam.]

1880 H. W. Bellew Races of Afghanistan ii. 18 The province itself derived its name of Sákistán..from the Sáka, who were probably the same people as the Sáká Hámuvarga mentioned in the tables of Darius.

1934 J. Ahmad & M. A. Aziz Afghanistan vii. 45 Driven from their home in central Asia the Sakas migrated into Kashmir.

1961 H. W. Bailey 18 It will be possible for the historian of India to speak with more intimate knowledge of the Sakas, whom we call also the Indo-Scyths, the rulers of north India for some four hundred years.

1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropædia I. 173/1 Iranian tribes of nomadic Śaka..seem, before 130 BC, to have made a pact with the Parthians and to have settled in Sīstān whence they spread eastward..into India.

1966 G. S. Lane in H. Birnbaum & J. Puhvel Anc. Indo-European Dial. 223 Of the fifty-one words submitted as possible borrowings from Iranian, twenty-one are attested in Saca (Khotanese), or on various grounds appear to be for the most part of Saca origin.

1972 W. B. Lockwood Panorama Indo-European Lang. 237 The Persians are said by Herodotus to have called the various Scythian tribes Saka... Rich manuscript remains of Saka came to light in Turkestan... The language of Khotan is called Khotanese Saka or simply Khotanese... Saka appears to survive in the mountains to the west.

1883 F. M. Müller India iii. 87 The Northern conquerors..seem to have made a kind of compromise with Buddhism, and it is probably due to that compromise, or to an amalgamation of Saka legends with Buddhist doctrines, that we owe the so-called Mahâyâna form of Buddhism.

1932 W. L. Graff Lang. & Langs. 371 Other Middle Iranian documents, especially known through recent discoveries, represent the Sogdian and Saka dialects.

1958 O. Caroe Pathans iv. 63 Greek or Macedonian soldiers were needed to guard the frontier marches against the Saka nomads.

1886 Encycl. Brit. XXI. 854/1 The ancient Aryan inscriptions usually employ the Saka (Salivahana) era, dating from 79 a.d.

1923 Cambr. Hist. India I. xxiii. 585 It was in consequence of its long use by the Çaka princes of western India that the era has become generally known in India as the Çaka era—a name which effectually disguises its origin, and one which has in no small degree perplexed modern scholars in their endeavours to unravel the secret of Kamishka!

1956 R. Pieris Sinhalese Social Organization ii. 92 The Śaka era was made use of in all legal instruments... It is said to date from a king Saka.

1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropædia IV. 574/2 The Śaka, or Salivāhana, era ( ad 78), now used throughout India, is the most important of all. It has been used not only in many Indian inscriptions but also in ancient Sanskrit inscriptions in Indochina and Indonesia. The reformed calendar promulgated by the Indian government from 1957 is reckoned by this era. It is variously alleged to have been founded by King Kaniṣka or by the Hindu king Salivāhana or by the satrap Nahapāna.

1933 L. Bloomfield Lang. iv. 63 Other medieval Iranian languages, which have been identified as Parthian, Sogdian, and Sakian.

1939 L. H. Gray Found. Lang. 320 Besides Middle Persian proper, we have a fair amount of material in some other Middle Iranian dialects, notably Middle Parthian..and Khotanese or Middle Sakian..in the southern part of East Turkistān.