HUN. HIND. A gold coin of S. India, worth 31i rupees, called pagoda by the British. It is about 50 grains weight.
HUN, a race who have secured for themselves a niche with the 36 races of India. D'Anville, quoting Csoma de Koros, informs us that the White Hun occupied the north of India ; and it is on the eastern bank of the Chambal, at the ancient Barolli, that tradition assigns a residence to the Ilun ; and one of the celebrated temples at that place, called the Sengar Chaori, is the marriage ball of the Hun prince, who is also declared to have been possessed of a lordship on the opposite bank, occupying the site of the present town of Bhynaror. In the 12th century the Hun must have possessed consequence, to occupy the place they hold in the chronicle of the princes of Gujerat. The race is not extinct. One of the bards pointed out to Colonel Tod the residence of some in a village on the estuary of the Myhie, though degraded and mixed with other classes. There arc also two tribes in the Himalaya who have preserved this designation,—the one in Gnari Khorsum, who call themselves Hunia ; the other being the Limbu in Nepal and Sikkim, a large division of whom are called Hung. Arrian, Strabo, and Ptolemy state that a race known as the White Hun were established in the Panjab and along the Indus about the beginning of the Christian era. They are mentioned in the Maha bharata and Markandea Purana ; Dr. Fergusson says (p. 39) the White Hun or Ephthalites are the Jat.
The Hun are known in Chinese history as Heung noo, meaning boisterous slaves. The Hiatilla or White Hun issued from the plains near the north wall of China, made themselves masters of the country of Transoxiana and Khorasan, and antici pated the irruption of those Turkish tribes who afterwards expelled the Hiatilla from the lands that they had taken from the Sam or Scythians.
There is every ground to conclude that it was an army of the Hiatilla that invaded Persia in the reign of Bahram-Gor, A.D. 420, and that it was to one of their kings that Firoz fled, A.D. 475.
The Hun who appeared in the west, dated their empire from one of the princes of the Hia (Hya) dynasty. Their country was of great extent, situated on the west of Shensi, of which they possessed the western parts ; and their posterity still inhabit a part of that territory, the present Ele or Ili. They were one of those extensive tribes which the ancients comprised under the name of Scythians.
It was from Ili valley and town in Central Asia that Lassen supposes the Szu Tartars were expelled by the Yue-tchi or White Huns, B.C. 150. The Szu Tartars he supposed to be the Sac, and the Yue-tchi to be the Tochari. After occupying Tahia or Sogdiana for a time, they are stated by the Chinese to have been driven thence by the Yenger some years afterwards, and to have estab lished themselves in Kipen, in which name Lassen recognises the Kophen valley in the Kobistan. The great Kirghiz horde is adjacent to Ili and Tarbagatai. It is under the dominion of China, and exchanges large quantities of cattle on the frontier for silk goods.