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.