The date of the Kidârites is generally attributed to the latter half of the 4th century according to the opinion of Mr. M. F. C. Martin. However, Mr. Martin’s opinion, being based on a misinterpretation and misunderstanding of Chinese sources, can not be accepted as true. Mr. Martin takes a statement of Fa-hsien who describes the conquest of Gandhâra by Kanishka as describing the invasion of the Hephthalites of Gandhâra, which, according to him, took place about A. D. 400 and resulted in the destruction of the Kidârites. He also believes that the information about the Kidârites, as is recorded in the Pei-shih and the Wei-shu, was brought by merchants from the Kidârites during the reign of Emperor Tao-wu (398~490) and that it tells the Kidârites were still in existence at the end of the 4th century. But here he mistakes Emperor T’ai-wu (423~452) for Emperor Tao-wu, grandfather of the former, probably because of similarity of names. So one many claim that the Kidârites existed in the second quarter of the 5th century, but he can not say they were destroyed at the end of the 4th century. The author of the present article concludes as follows mainly on the basis of Chinese sources: (1) The information about the Kidârites was brought to the Northern Wei in 437 when Tung Yüan and Kao Ming returned from Central Asia. (2) The unification by the Kidârites of Gandhâra and Tokhârestân was compreted sometime between 412, when Kumârajîva finished the translation of the Ta-chih-tu-lun, and 437. (3) It was at the middle of the 5th century when the Kidârites were deprived of Tokhârestân by the invasion of the Hephthalites, from Balkh to Gandhâra. (4) The Kidârites in Gandhâra were destroyed by the Hephthalites between 477 and 520. In this connection, the author is of the opinion that the so-called Hûṇa who invaded India under Skanda-gupta can not have been the Hephthalites, but the Kidârites in Gandhâra and that Yeh-po-lo 業波羅, which is described by Sung-yün as an appellation of Gandhâra before it was occupied by the Hephthalites, is to be looked upon as a scribal error of some Chinese characters transliterating “Kidâra”.
