Talk:Sakas in the Mahabharata

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Merge[edit]

The article Indo-Scythians covers exactly the topic of this unreferenced article in better detail, so the article Indo-Scythians can be merged into this article. Khestwol (talk) 18:48, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to merge proposal[edit]

There are several problems here - not only with the merge proposal - but also with the article itself.

1. First, "Saka" is a term used to refer to many different peoples who shared certain cultural affinities to some degree. Most - but not all - scholars believe they spoke Iranic languages (but others suggest some of them spoke Turkic languages). They were spread out over a very large area of Central Asia and established a number of kingdoms (such as the kingdoms of Khotan and Yarkand, amongst others), so this article is wrong in referring to a single "Saka kingdom."

2. Even within India there were more than one kingdom of "Sakas." For example, the family of the Lord Buddha himself were said to be Sakas ("Shakya") and his father's kingdom was centered in Kapilavastu in the middle Ganges Valley. The article should, perhaps, be expanded to include other Saka kingdoms and headed something like "Saka kingdoms in India."

3. This article does not contain a single footnote and only one general reference to the Mahabharata. It, therefore, needs a lot of work on it before there can be any thought of merging it with any other.

5. "Indo-Scythian" is a term first used in 1841 (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) by M. Elphinstone. Unfortunately, the term has become very loosely used - not only for a number of clearly "Saka" peoples, but also for the Kushans who were at least partially descended from the Da Yuezhi people who invaded the Oxus River (Amu Darya) in the late 2nd century BCE. The Chinese histories clearly distinguish the Da Yuezhi from various groups of Sakas and they even chased at least one tribe of Sakas south into the northwest of the subcontinent. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 22:33, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unprecise title[edit]

While the title of this article is Saka Kingdom, the content doesn't concern a Saka Kingdom at all, but is on the other hand about references to the Saka (Scythians) in the Mahabharata. The title thus fails WP:PRECISION. It should be moved to something more precise like Scythians in the Mahabharata or something similar. Krakkos (talk) 20:09, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]