MR. JAMES PRINSEP’S NOTES.
Considering the short space of time allowed to a traveller, in his rapid passage through a foreign country, for the pursuit of objects not immediately connected with his errand, and the disadvantages which his own disguise and the suspicions of the natives oppose to his search after the very rare relics of antiquity, which may have escaped destruction for twenty centuries in their country; considering, too, that the inhabitants are unable to appreciate the value of such objects, and mostly ignorant of the demand for them among inquisitive natives of the West, Lieut. Burnes may be deemed very successful in the store of coins he has brought back from the Punjab, and from the valley of the Oxus.
Of pure Bactrian coins he will be able to add at least three to the cabinets of Europe, upon one of which the name of Euthydemus is quite distinct; while of the Indo-Scythic, or subsequent dynasties, his store is so ample as to afford ten to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, besides those he takes to Europe; and among the latter is one coin of the dynasty which supplanted the Macedonian princes of Bactria, calculated to excite much curiosity among antiquarians.
I shall note the observations that occur to me regarding the whole of this collection of coins.
Plate III. Figs. 1. to 6.—These silver coins, tetradrachms, are known at once to be of Bactrian origin from the sitting figure of Hercules holding his club, on the reverse, much in the same posture as that of Jupiter on the Syro-Macedonian coins. The epigraphe on fig. 1., a valuable coin and in fine preservation, is ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΕΥΘΥΔΗΜ, or, “of king Euthydemus,” the third king of Bactria. The only coin of this monarch hitherto known in Europe, is described in Mionnet’s Description de Medailles Antiques. Pinkerton says it is a gold coin, having “two horsemen with Bactrian tiaras, palms, and long spears,” on the reverse; it is therefore quite different from the unique specimen before us.
Fig. 2. has the features of a different prince; the reverse is, however, similar to the last, and the three final letters of ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ are visible; as are ΗΜ, which can only form part either of ΕυθυδΗΜος, or of δΗΜητριος, his son.
Fig. 3., of which there is a duplicate, is of a similar nature; the features corresponding with No. 1. or Euthydemus. There are two others of still ruder fabrication, distinguished by a more projecting forehead, (Nos. 4. and 5.); they are illegible on the reverse.
Fig. 6. One of two silver tetradrachms. These are more like Arsacidan coins, the stool on which the figure on the reverse sits having the form of those depicted in Vaillant: although the connection with the foregoing coins is very strong, the headdress and formal curls appertain to the Persian monarchs. The inscription is in the Pehlevi character, some of the letters resembling badly executed Greek.
Fig. 8. This is a coin of Antiochus, probably struck in Parthia, from the figure of the javelin-thrower.
Fig. 9. One of twenty small Sassanian copper coins. They have a good head on the obverse, and a very rudely executed fire altar on the reverse.
Fig. 10. A gold coin of one of the Sassanian kings of Persia, supposed to be Sapor (Shapûr). The name and titles are very distinct, in the Pehlevi character. It is remarkable that the usual supporters of the fire altar, two priests or kings, are omitted; unless, indeed, the rude ornaments on each side are intended to represent human figures holding swords. A silver Sassanian coin, delineated in Hyde’s Religio Veterum Persarum, has similar supporters.
All these coins are from Khoju oban, the ruins of an ancient city, thirty miles N.W. of Bokhara, where numerous gems and antiques, some of which are engraved, were also procured.[41]
Fig. 7. This is a square copper coin, from Shorkoth, a fortress twenty miles from the junction of the Jelum and the Chenab (the Hydaspes and Acesines), where Alexander lost his fleet in a storm. It is by some thought to be the fortress of the Malli, in the assault of which he was wounded. All that can be read of the inscription is ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ. On the other side the inscription is Pehlevi. This coin may be ascribed with tolerable certainty to Menander, both because it resembles in shape the coin of that prince, in Col. Tod’s plate, and because the first three letters of the word which follows ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ, have much the appearance of ΝΙΚ, or ΝΙΚΑΤΟΡΟΣ, the epithet applied to Menander, according to Schlegel, Journal Asiatique, Nov. 1828. The standing figure, however, on the obverse, and the curious emblem on the reverse, supposed by Col. Tod to be a portable altar, agree rather with his coin of Apollodotus.
Plate IV. fig. 18. This is a copper coin, procured in the neighbourhood of the Tope of Manikyala.
Obverse—A king or warrior holding a spear in the left hand; and with the right sacrificing on a small altar. (?) Epigraphe, ΒΑϹΙΛΕΥϹ ΒΑϹ ... ΚΑΝΗΡΚΟΥ.
Reverse—A priest or sage standing, and holding a flower in his right hand; a glory encircles his head; on the left the letters ΝΑΝΛΙΔ; on the right the usual Bactrian monogram, with four prongs.
This coin is of great value, from the circumstance of its being the only one out of many discovered in the same neighbourhood, upon which the characters are sufficiently legible to afford a clue to the prince’s name. In the onset, however, we are disappointed to find, that none of the recorded names of the Bactrian kings at all resemble that before us[42]: yet there can be no doubt about any letter but that preceding ΚΟΥ, which may be either Θ, Ρ, or Ϲ. By assuming this latitude in the reading, I discovered a name which would agree, as nearly as it could be expressed in Greek, with ΚΑΝΗΘΚΟΥ or ΚΑΝΗϹΚΟΥ; and should my conjecture prove correct, the discovery of this coin will be hailed as of the greatest value by all who are engaged in the newly developed study of Bactrian antiquity. The coin was at first placed with the Society by Lieut. Burnes; but, seeing its value, I thought it but just, after taking impressions and drawings of it, to place it in the discoverer’s hands, for the personal satisfaction of numismatologists in Europe. I suppose it to be a coin of KANISHKA, a Tartar or Scythic conqueror of Bactria.
According to Mr. Csoma De Körös, the name of KANISKA occurs in the Tibetan works as a celebrated king in the north of India, who reigned at Kapila, which is supposed to have been in Rohilkhand, or near Hardwar. His reign dates above 400 years after Sakya, when the followers of the Buddha religion had become divided into eighteen sects (the Sakya tribes, or Sacæ), under four principal divisions, of which the names, both Sanscrit and Tibetan, are on record.[43]
In Mr. Wilson’s Chronological Table of the history of Kashmir (As. Res. xv. p. 81.), we find Hushca, Jushca, and Canishca, three Tartar princes, who succeeded Domodara in the kingdom of Kashmir, either reigning successively or synchronously. They introduced the Buddha religion, under a hierarch named Nagarjuna, and were, according to the Raja Taringini, of Turushca or Tatar origin. The Sanscrit MS. places their reign 150 years before Sacaysinha (or Sakya Singh); but the learned translator, in a note, proves that the text was at least misunderstood, and that the passage intended to express “150 years after the emancipation of the Lord Sakya Sinha.”
The epoch of Sakya (the fifth Buddha or Goutama) is determined by concurrent testimony of the Ceylonese, Siamese, Pegue, Burmese, and Chinese æras, which are all founded on the birth or death of the Buddha legislator; and, though all differing more or less, concur in placing him between the limits of 544 and 638 years B.C.: the Raj Gúrú of Asam, a pundit well versed in Buddha literature, fixes the Nirwan or emancipation of Sakya-Muni in 520 B.C.[44] Taking, then, from this epoch an interval of 400 years to the reign of Kaniska, the latter would fall near the end of the second century B.C. We know from other sources that the overthrow of the Bactrian dynasty by the Scythian or Sakyan tribes happened in 134 B.C. (125 by Schlegel). The present coin, therefore, confirms the fidelity of the Raja Taringini as an historical work, and leaves no doubt of the epoch of Sakya.
Mr. Wilson finds grounds for throwing back the termination of the reign of Abhimanya Canischa’s successor, from B.C. 118, as given in the Raja Taringini, to B.C. 388; because Kashmir became a Buddha country under Tartar princes, shortly after the death of Sakya; but from Mr. Csoma’s subsequent examination of the Tibetan sacred books, in which the three periods of their compilation are expressly stated; “first, under Sakya himself (520-638 B.C.), then under Ashoka, king of Pataliputra, 110 years after the decease of Sakya; and lastly by Kaniska, upwards of 400 years after Sakya,”—little doubt can remain that the epoch, as it stands in the Raja Taringini, is correct.
There are other circumstances connected with the Bactrian coins, which tend to confirm the supposition of a Buddhist succession to the Greek princes. In the first place, the reverse ceases to bear the formerly national emblem of the Bactrian horseman, with the Macedonian spear; and in its place a sage appears, holding a flower, and invariably having a glory round his head, proving him to be a sacred personage.[45] Secondly, although upon the first coins of the dynasty, we find the inscription in Greek characters (a custom which prevailed under the Arsacidæ also, and continued under the first Sassanian princes); still, upon coins of the same device, but probably of later fabric, we find the same kind of character which appears upon the Delhi and Allahabad pillars; the same which is found at Ellora and in many ancient caves and temples of Central India, and is held in abhorrence by the Brahmans, as belonging to the Buddhist religion.[46]
I need not repeat Mr. Wilson’s opinion, drawn from other grounds, that the Tope of Manikyála, in the neighbourhood of which these coins are found, is a Buddhist monument, but it receives much confirmation from the discovery of this coin of the Sakyan hero, Kanishka.
Having thus far endeavoured to reconcile the coin before us, and others of the same class to the Sakyan dynasty, to which the term Indo-Scythic very aptly applies, we may reasonably follow up the same train by ascribing the next series, which exhibit, on the reverse, a Brahmani bull, accompanied by a priest in the common Indian dhoti, as the coins of the Brahmanical dynasty, which in its turn overcame the Buddhist line. Colonel Tod includes these coins in the same class as the last, and adduces his reasons for referring them to Mithridates, or his successors, of Arsacidan dynasty, whose dominions extended from the Indus to the Ganges, and to whom Bactria was latterly tributary. Greek legends “of the King of kings,” &c. are visible on some; and what he supposes to be Pehlevi characters on the reverse; but I incline to think these characters of the Delhi type, and the Bactrian monogram should decide their locality. Mr. Wilson and Schlegel, both call them Indo-Scythic; and the latter, with Colonel Tod, names the figure “Siva, with his bull, Nandi.”[47]
Mr. Schlegel thinks it curious, that such marks of the Hindú faith should appear on these Tartar coins; but, considering the Indian origin of the Sacæ, does not this rather prove the same of their successors, instead of their Tartar descent. It is more curious that the fire altar should continue on all of the devices; but the fact of its being a fire altar at all, is still matter of great uncertainty.
Figs. 19, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. The series of small copper coins found near Manikyála, and generally throughout Upper India, which have a head on the obverse, and a Bactrian horseman on the reverse, may be referred to the reign of Eucratides I., since the gold coin from the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, described by Bayer as having the same device on the reverse, bears, in legible characters, the epigraphe “of the great king Eucratides.” Our coins of this type have never shown us more than the words, “King of kings;” and in most of them (as fig. 19. ΒΑϹΙΛΕΥ, ΒΑϹΙΛΕΥ) the Greek is so corrupted as to give the idea of a later epoch. The type of the horse seems to have prevailed long afterwards.
Fig. 24. Copper coins of this device are met with throughout Upper Hindostan: they constitute the third series of Colonel Tod’s plate; and some in his possession have decided Greek characters upon them. On the obverse is the same warrior, with spear and altar. On the reverse is what he supposes to be a priest about to sacrifice the bull; but in the coin before us the dhoti is so precisely the costume of the Brahmans, that it inclines rather to look upon the animal (especially as he has the hump) as the sacred bull of this country, denoting the prevalence or predominance of the Brahmanical faith in the Indian dependencies of Menander’s or Eucratides’ dominion.
Fig. 25. This type of coin is, if any thing, more common than the last; and the inscriptions are no longer Greek; but either of the unknown character of the Delhi column, or genuine Hindi. The figure astride upon the elephant is always much out of proportion, and the Raja with the altar more rudely executed. The elephant is, like the horse, preserved in subsequent coins of the Hindus; thus:—
Fig. 31. This same device is still common in Southern India. The form of the Nagni characters on this and fig. 14. agrees with those on copper grants of land, 700 or 800 years old.
Figs. 20, 21. These coins were found at Balkh, and resemble those of Manikyála.
Calcutta, June, 1833.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
London:
Printed by A. Spottiswoode,
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