The coins, of which delineations are now offered to the public, form an extensive and important contribution to a branch of numismatic enquiry which has been, within a few years, successfully prosecuted in India. To Colonel Tod belongs the merit of having introduced it to notice by his paper on Greek, Parthian and Hindu medals, in the first volume of the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society: further information was published in the 17th volume of the Researches of the Asiatic Society of Bengal; and the Journal of the same Society contains several interesting communications on the same subject, many of these relate to the present collection, which, for the variety, number, and description of the coins that it comprises, and the authentication of the sites in which they were found, is of the highest interest and value.
The coins in question may be classed under four divisions, exclusive of the Macedonian and Syrian medals, which sometimes occur. These are—1. Bactrian, 2. Indo-Grecian, 3. Indo-Scythian, and 4. Hindu. In the former there have been discovered by Colonel Tod and Dr. Swiney: coins of Apollodotus and Menander, one such coin has been found by Lieutenant Burnes, and one of Euthydemus, besides several which cannot be ascribed to any individual prince, although unquestionably Bactrian coins. The Indo-Grecian coins are comparatively rare, and the series is not very extensive: one specimen is in the present collection. The Indo-Scythian coins are more numerous, and offer a number of interesting specimens: some of them are the same as those described by Colonel Tod, Mr. Prinsep, and myself; but there are some which are new, and there is one (pl. iv. fig. 18.) which is in better preservation than any that has hitherto been found.
The coins of the last class, or Hindu are less numerous in this than in other collections, but such as it comprises are new.
Besides these coins, which are the subjects of more special attention, as little known and calculated to throw light on Indian history, the collection includes a gold and several copper coins of the Sassanian kings of Persia, and a number of Mahommedan coins, for the verification of which there has not yet been an opportunity: from their late date, however, and the fulness of the information derivable from Mahommedan writers with regard to the history of this part of Turan, less interest attaches to them than to the Greek and Indian coins, and it was less necessary to have them delineated. The following are brief notices of the coins which are engraved.
Plate III. No. 1. A coin of Euthydemus, who has been hitherto regarded as the third Bactrian king. Obverse: a head with the Bactrian diadem. Reverse: Hercules sitting on a seat over which the lion’s hide is spread: he holds his club in his right hand, resting it on his right knee. Legend, ΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΕΥΘΥΔΗΜ.
Until recently, the only coin known of this prince was a gold coin, originally published by Pellerin, and described by Mionnet and Visconti. In 1831 the abbé Sestini published a catalogue of the collection of Baron Chaudoir, and has there given a description and plate of a silver coin of Euthydemus, exactly similar to the one in our plate. These are the only two perfect specimens yet described: No. 2. agrees in general character and appearance with No. 1.; but it presents on the obverse a very dissimilar portrait; and the attitude of the sitting Hercules is something different. The letters also vary, and offer only ΛΕΩΣ and ΗΜ. It is possibly, therefore, rather the coin of Demetrius, the son of Euthydemus, than of the latter; but, if so, it differs still more widely from the coin of Demetrius described by Sestini in the collection of the Baron Chaudoir, in which the obverse presents a king, very unlike the individual in our coin, and having on his head an elephant’s hide by way of a crest: on the reverse is a standing figure of Hercules.
The succeeding figures, Nos. 3. to 5., express evidently Bactrian coins, as the device of the sitting Hercules, and the general character of the portraits, sufficiently establish. Some are much worn, and they are more or less of inferior execution, and present no legible inscriptions: such traces of letters as are visible appear to be intended for Greek, although very rude. In the catalogue of Sestini, above referred to, are three coins of a similar description, all Bactrian, evidently having the same sort of profile on one side, and the sitting Hercules on the other. The difference that prevails in the features of the kings whose portraits we have on these coins, sufficiently proves them to belong to different individuals. If these were all Greek kings of Bactria, as is probable, they also show that our series of those kings is much more imperfect than has been hitherto suspected, and that it undoubtedly omits several names, whilst it probably includes others who never ruled over Bactria.
Fig. 6. This coin is identified with the preceding by the reverse, the sitting Hercules; but the execution is much more rude, and the disposition of the hair peculiar. There are characters on the reverse, but undecipherable: they seem designed for Greek. This coin may, perhaps, be referred to one of the first barbaric princes who subdued Sogdiana, if not Bactria Proper, and adopted the device of the Bactrian coins.
7. A copper coin, much worn: on the obverse a standing figure, something like the Apollo on Colonel Tod’s coin of Apollodotus. (Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, pl. 12. fig. 1.) On the reverse, also, is the same figure, a tripod, with similar characters. The letters on the other face are Greek: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ is legible, the others are less distinct; but they appear to be ΝΙΚ. ΜΕΝΑΝΔΡΟΥ, making this a coin of Menander, not of Apollodotus.
8. Is the coin of an Antiochus; apparently, from the countenance, Antiochus the Great. On the reverse is a standing figure casting a javelin with the right hand, and bearing the lion’s hide by way of shield on the left arm: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ. The device on the reverse is unusual, if it occurs at all amongst the coins of the Antiochi.
9. One of a number of small copper coins, the impression on which is in most effaced. Those that are perfect present a head on one side with a figure on the reverse, intended for a rude fire altar: there are Pehlevi characters; and these coins, there can be little doubt, are of Sassanian origin.
10. A gold coin, evidently of one of the Sassanian kings.
11. These are very doubtful. The other engravings are antiques found at Khojuoban, near Bokhara.
Plate IV. fig. 18. This coin is of singular interest and value: it belongs to the class which is considered Indo-Scythian, and of which representations have been published in the third volume of the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, by Colonel Tod, and, in the seventeenth volume of the Asiatic Researches, by myself. In all these coins Greek letters are traceable, but the inscriptions are imperfect or indistinct: that of Colonel Tod’s coin has been read by Professor Schlegel ΒΑΣΙΛΕVϹ ΒΑϹΙΛΕΩΝ ... ΙΕΡΝΙϹΛΕΙϹ ... ΕΔΟΒΙΓΡΙϹ; but the legend is interrupted, and the final letters of the latter word indistinct. In this coin the inscription on both sides is entire and distinct. On the obverse is plainly ΒΑϹΙΛΕΥϹ ΒΛΕΙ Λ-ΩΝ ΚΑΝΗΡΚΟΥ, and on the reverse ΝΑΝΑΙΔ.
It has been conjectured by Mr. Prinsep that the name on the obverse Kanírkos, or, perhaps, Kaníthkos,—for the letter is rather undetermined,—is intended for Kanishka, a Turk or Tartar sovereign of Kashmir, who reigned about 120 B.C. according to the “Raja Tarangini” a history of Cashmir. Mr. Csoma Körösy also informs us that Kanishka is well known in the Tibetan annals as a king of Kapila; near Hurdwar, about the date already mentioned, who was a patron of the Bauddha doctrines; name, date, and locality are therefore in favour of the verification, and it must be admitted, until, at least, something more satisfactory can be proposed. It is not possible to offer an equally plausible conjecture with regard to the inscription on the reverse. If it could be read Tanaid, it might be imagined to refer to the original seat of the Scythian tribes, who conquered Bactria, according to Des Guignes, about 134 years before Christ, and extended their power to the delta of the Indus. In this coin the figure on the obverse is the same that prevails on these Indo-Scythian coins: a man in a high cap and a long tunic, holding a spear in his left hand, and extending his right either to grasp a trophy, a buckler or coat of mail, or, as supposed by Colonel Tod, to drop incense on an altar: on the reverse is a figure in a long robe, holding, apparently, a flower. There is also the monogram which is found on all the coins of this class, and on a series of coin apparently Hindu. This monogram is figured by Mionnet No. 1222, and referred by him to an unknown coin (vol. 6. p. 715); the description of which shows it to be a coin not yet observed amongst those recently found in India, but belonging, probably, to the class.
19. A coin belonging, possibly, to the Indo-Grecian series: on one face is a helmeted head, on the other a single horseman with his right arm extended. The specimens found in this instance are much worn; but on several, with this device, Greek inscriptions have been read: this is particularly the case with two delineated in the Journals of the Asiatic Society for August 1833, on one of which is plainly ΣΩΤΗΡ ΜΕΓΑ; and on the other, ΜΕΓΑ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ. On one of Colonel Tod’s is ΤΡΩ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ, and there can be no doubt, therefore, that these are coins of Greek princes either of India or Bactria.
20. Is an Indo-Scythian coin, figured by Colonel Tod: the man on the obverse is the same as in No. 18.; but on the reverse is an Indian bull and a figure in front.
21. Has the same reverse as the preceding; but the costume is more distinct, and is that of a Brahman; the figure on the obverse appears to be clad in mail. These two coins were found at Balkh.
22-30. These coins all belong to the same series as the foregoing, some bearing the same devices; whilst on some the reverse is varied. Detached Greek letters are observable on one or two.
31. This is one of several coins which are unquestionably Hindu: they mostly bear an elephant on one face, and a horse, or a nondescript animal, on the other; above the elephant are Devana gari letters, the most legible specimen of which appears to read Srí Mahá deva, the common title of the god Siva.
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.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.