Innermost Asia : vol.2 / 425 ページ（カラー画像）

0425	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

who rules from where lies the *Zrayō Kāçaoya* ', i. e. the lake of Sīstān.⁴ Thus from the earliest
period down to the great national epos of Firdausī, tradition has located the original home of the
great legendary dynasty of Irān, the Kavi or Kayanian kings, in Sīstān, and there to this day one
of the old indigenous families, calling itself *Kayānī*, still proudly claims descent from them.⁵ It
is from the ' lake Kāçaoya ' of Sīstān that according to early Zoroastrian belief, as attested already
in the Avesta, Astvat-ereta, the victorious Saviour *(çaoshyant)*, is to arise in the future to vanquish
Āhriman, the spirit of evil, and to set free the world.⁶ Equally significant is the fame which Sīstān
claims in the epic lore of Irān as the home of its most popular heroes, Zāl and Rustam, and as the
chief scene of their great deeds.⁷

There is a striking contrast between this comparative wealth and antiquity of Sīstān's tradi-
tional associations and the scantiness of the reliable historical data that have come down to us con-
cerning the pre-Muhammadan period of its history. This is illustrated by the absence of any
definite information about that important ethnic movement, the conquest of the Sakas or Scythians
to which the territory owes its designation as Sakastanē or ' land of the Sakas ' first recorded by
Isidoros of Charax in the time of Augustus.⁸ All the more must we welcome the survival of abundant
archaeological remains in this territory and the close knowledge of its geography and economic and
ethnographic conditions that has been secured during recent times. This knowledge is chiefly
the result of the prolonged and detailed investigations which the Perso-Afghān Boundary Com-
mission sent to Sīstān by the Indian Government under Colonel Sir Henry McMahon carried out
in the Helmand delta during 1903–5. Of the abundant materials then collected only a portion has
as yet been published in a form accessible to the public. But the accurate large-scale surveys
then made under the direction of Mr. G. P. Tate, of the Survey of India, and the accounts of the
country and its people recorded by Sir Henry McMahon and his staff have provided the geo-
graphical student of Sīstān with materials more ample perhaps than those at present available for
any other part of Eastern Irān.⁹

With regard to archaeological remains, it deserves to be noted that the abundance of ruined
sites to be found in the different parts of the Helmand delta is the direct result of physical conditions
strikingly similar to those exhibited by the Tārim basin on a much larger scale. Great aridity of
the climate has favoured the preservation of remains wherever the soil has at one time or another
ceased to be cultivated or occupied. Changes in the main river-course, such as are inseparable
from deltaic conditions, have at different periods greatly affected the position and extent of the
cultivated area, wholly dependent as this is on irrigation from canals of the Helmand. Such

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