Recent investigation has thrown much new light on the origin of the Rājputs. A wide gulf lies between the Vedic Kshatriya and the Rājput of medieval times which it is now impossible to bridge. Some clans, with the help of an accommodating bard, may be able to trace their lineage to the Kshatriyas of Buddhist times, who were recognized as one of the leading elements in Hindu society, and, in their own estimation, stood even higher than the Brāhmans.[i.5] But it is now certain that the origin of many clans dates from the Saka or Kushān invasion, which began about the middle of the second century B.C., or more certainly, from that of the White Huns who destroyed the Gupta empire about A.D. 480. The Gurjara tribe connected with the latter people adopted Hinduism, and their leaders formed the main stock from which the higher Rājput families sprang. When these new claimants to princely honours accepted the faith and institutions of Brahmanism, the attempt would naturally be made to affiliate themselves to the mythical heroes whose exploits are recorded in the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyana. Hence arose the body of legend recorded in _The Annals_ by which a fabulous origin from the Sun or Moon is ascribed to two great Rājput branches, a genealogy claimed by other princely families, like the Incas of Peru or the Mikado of Japan. Or, as in the case of the Rāthors of Mārwār, an equally fabulous story was invented to link them with the royal house of Kanauj, one of the genuine old Hindu ruling families. The same feeling lies at the root of the _Aeneid_ of Virgil, the court poet of the new empire. The clan of the emperor Augustus, the Iulii, a patrician family of Alban origin, was represented as the heirs of Iulus, the supposed son of Aeneas and founder of Alba Longa, thus linking the new Augustan house with the heroes of the _Iliad_. One of the merits of Tod’s work is that, though his knowledge of ethnology was imperfect, and he was unable to reject the local chronicles of the Rājputs, he advocated, in anticipation of the conclusions of later scholars, the so-called “Scythic” origin of the race. To make up for the lack of direct evidence of Scythian manners and sociology to support this position, he was forced to rely on certain superficial resemblances of custom and belief, not between Rājputs, Scythians and Huns, but between Rājputs, Getae or Thracians, or the Germans of Tacitus. In the same way a supposed identity of name led him to identify the Jāts of northern India with the Getae or with the Goths, and finally to bring them with the Jutes into Kent.