Fig. 2. Greek Script on Coin of Hippostratos. Cf. Pl. II, 5.
We have seen in the last chapter how foreign influences gradually began to make themselves felt in the fabric and design of the purely native coins of the North-West. These influences gradually widened until the whole of Northern, Western and parts of Central India were affected. Through eight centuries these foreign types were reproduced on the coins of those territories; and we can observe the gradual debasement of the original models as they become less and less intelligible to successive strikers, until they disappear in the general cataclasm that succeeded the terrible inroads of the Huns in the sixth century. In the secluded kingdom of Kashmīr one type did indeed survive as late as the fifteenth century, a mere shadow of a shade, from which all form and feature had vanished. The coins included in this chapter and the next are those of the invaders who brought about this important change.
But a further and a greater importance attaches to them. Since the important discovery, in 1824, by Colonel Tod, that Greek coins had once been struck in India, the names of thirty-three Greek and twenty-six [11] Indo-Scythia nor Śaka and Indo-Parthian or Pahlava princes, ruling territories round the Indian frontier, have gradually been recovered from coin legends, and not more than half-a-dozen of these are known from other sources. Even the names of the later Kushāṇa kings were first deciphered from their coins. Thus coins alone have been responsible for the recovery of a whole period of Indian history.
Probably no class of Indian coins has attracted more attention or been subjected to more patient examination than these, which mark the first intermingling of Eastern and Western culture in India; yet, as the relationship of the different kings and dynasties who minted them, their dates, and the territories over which they ruled are still largely matters of conjecture, it will be well to sketch in outline the probable course which events took in Northern India and the adjacent countries from the time of Alexander to the first century of our era.
In October, 326 B.C., Alexander began his retreat from the Panjāb. To commemorate his victories he struck a medal;[12] about the same time an Indian prince, Sophytes (Saubhūti), struck a silver coin (Pl. II, 1) in the Greek style; with these two exceptions scarcely a mark or lasting trace of his invasion remained. Eleven years after Alexander’s death his general, Seleucos, founded the Seleucid kingdom of Syria. Between the years 250-248 B.C. two of the chief Syrian provinces revolted and became independent kingdoms, Bactria under Diodotos and Parthia under Arsakes, both events fraught with important consequences for India and her coinage. The fourth Bactrian king, Demetrios (c. 190-150 B.C.), son of Euthydemos, as the Mauryan Empire fell into decay, was able to extend his kingdom as far as the Panjāb, and assumed the title of “King of the Indians.” But about the same time he was confronted with a rival, Eukratides (c. 175-155 B.C.), who deprived him of his Bactrian dominions, and even of a portion of Gandhāra (the present districts of Peshāwar and Rawalpindi). Henceforward there were two rival Greek dynasties, the house of Eukratides, including the princes Heliokles, Antialkidas and Hermaios, ruling in Kābul, Kandahār and Gandhāra, and the house of Euthydemos, of whom the principal rulers were Apollodotos, Menander, Strato I, Zoilos and Hippostratos, in East Gandhāra and the Panjāb. Pantaleon, Agathokles and Antimachos, of the latter family, appear to have been petty princes ruling north of Kābul (c. 155-140 B.C.), and there must have been similar small principalities elsewhere, whose rulers were contemporary. About the year 135 B.C. Heliokles, the last king of Bactria, was driven out of that country by a Scythian tribe, the Śakas, and fixed the headquarters of his rule at Kābul, and here his descendants continued to reign till some time after 40 B.C., when the last of them, Hermaios, was driven out by the Pahlavas. Meanwhile, in about the year 126 B.C., the Śakas, pressed in their turn by another nomadic tribe from Central Asia, the Yueh-chi, were driven out of Bactria, and invaded India by way of Ariāna (Herāt) and Drangiāna (Seistān), fixing their headquarters in Sind (Śakadvīpa). Moving thence up the Indus valley, about the year 75 B.C., their chief, Maues, captured Pushkalāvatī (Peshāwar), and thus drove a wedge in between the dominions of the two Greek houses. His successor, Azes I, the possible founder of the Vikrama era in 58 B.C., finally crushed the house of Euthydemos, in the person of Hippostratos, in the Eastern Panjāb, some time after 40 B.C. Closely related to the Śakas were the Pahlavas. The earlier Pahlava princes, Vonones, Spalahores, and Spalirises ruled in Drangiāna and Arachosia (Kandahār), whence, as already related, they overran Kābul. Later on, in the first century A.D., probably through a family alliance, they succeeded the Śakas in northern India and we find the great king Gondopharnes (A.D. 19-45) ruling in Taxila. Associated with the Śaka and Pahlava kings were a number of military governors, such as Aspavarma and Sasas, whose names appear on coins with those of their suzerains. Other rulers like Miaos are more difficult to place.
The splendid series of portrait coins of the Greek kings of Bactria does not come within the scope of this work: their gold and silver pieces, struck on the Attic standard,[13] were never current in India proper, where they are rarely found, and they really belong to the history of Greek coinage. Nevertheless they are of the utmost importance for our subject, for in following these models the Indo-Greek kings introduced Greek types, and among them the portrait head, into the Indian coinage, and their example was followed for eight centuries. This word “type” needs some definition. Originally it meant the particular mark of authority on a coin as distinct from other marks, but it has come to imply a distinguishing device more or less artistic in character. Such devices appear on all Greek and Roman coins. In this sense the coins of the Muhammadans cannot properly be said to display “types,” for both obverse and reverse are usually occupied entirely by the inscription.
Demetrios was the first Bactrian king to strike square copper coins of the Indian type, with a legend in Greek on the obverse, and in Kharoshṭhī on the reverse. His rival, Eukratides, struck these bilingual square copper pieces in greater abundance, as well as a very rare silver coin with inscriptions in both languages. The Gandhāra copper coinage of Agathokles and Pantaleon (Pl. II, 2) has already been alluded to. After the removal of the seat of government to territory south of the Hindu Kush, we find the coinage undergoing a radical change. The rare gold staters and the splendid tetradrachms of Bactria disappear. The silver coins of the Indo-Greeks, as these later princes may conveniently be called, are the didrachm (Pl. II, 5) and the hemidrachm. With the exception of certain square hemidrachms of Apollodotos and Philoxenos (Pl. II, 7), they are all round, are struck to the Persian (or Indian) standard, and all have inscriptions in both Greek and Kharoshṭhī characters. Copper coins, square for the most part, are very numerous (Pl. II, 6). The devices are almost entirely Greek, and must have been engraved by Greeks, or Indians trained in the Greek traditions, yet “the engravers ... were no slavish copyists of Western models, but were giving free and spontaneous expression to their own ideas.”[14] On the reverse is ordinarily to be found some god or goddess—Herakles, Zeus, Pallas, or some symbol of their worship; the “two piloi” (caps) of the Dioskouroi are of frequent occurrence. A notable square copper coin of Eukratides has the figure of a seated Zeus, accompanied by the legend in Kharoshṭhī, “The city deity of Kāpiśī,” suggesting that others of these deities may stand as the patrons of cities.[15] Other reverse devices are the tripod, a king on horseback, and various animals, including the specially Indian elephant and humped bull. The portraits on the obverse, especially on the fine didrachms, are realistic and boldly drawn, and show us clearly what manner of men these early European rulers in India were. On most of these coins and those of the Śaka rulers are found a great variety of monograms (Fig. 3) formed of Greek letters, but the significance of these has never been satisfactorily explained. From a study of monograms and types, and particularly from observing the gradual debasement in style which takes place, experts have been able to arrange these kings in chronological order. Such tests are sometimes, however, delusive; the king, Zoilos, for example, minted two types of hemidrachm, one in comparatively fine style, the other very debased.
The extreme rarity of the money of a few kings, like Apollophanes, Polyxenos and Theophilos, leads us to suppose that they were pretenders. The most important kings, judging from the large number of their coin types, were Antialkidas, king of Taxila, circ. 155-130 B.C., Apollodotos, Menander and Strato I. Antialkidas appears on one of his numerous silver types wearing the striking flat cap, called “kausia” (Pl. II, 8). Apollodotos’ coinage is remarkable for the large variety of its copper types. Particularly noticeable are the large round pieces which he introduced (Pl. II, 3). Menander’s coins (Pl. II, 4) are found all over Northern India in great quantities, and his didrachms, with three distinct styles of portrait, are the finest of the series. The heads of two queens, Agathokleia and Kalliope, are found conjoined, the former with that of her son, Strato I, the latter with that of her husband, Hermaios (Pl. II, 9), on a few rare coins. The debasement which set in in Strato’s reign (Pl. II, 10) in the Eastern Kingdom, and is evidenced not only in the poorness of design but even in the striking of coins in lead, reached even a lower point in the coinage of Hermaios. On one type of copper, with the head of Hermaios on the obverse, the name of Kujūla Kadphises, the Kushāṇa, appears on the reverse (Pl. IV, 1).[16]
After the conquest of Bactria by the Śakas in 135 B.C. there must have been considerable intercourse, sometimes of a friendly, sometimes of a hostile character, between them and the Parthians, who occupied the neighbouring territory. This may account for the Parthian influence which appears in certain features on the coins of the Śakas, particularly in the title Basileōs Basileōn, “King of Kings,” which all these kings, following the example of the Arsacid dynasty, inscribed on the obverse of their coins.
Maues, whose coins are found only in the Panjāb, was the first king of what may be called the Azes group of princes. His silver is not plentiful; the finest type is that with a “biga” (two-horsed chariot) on the obverse, and to this type belongs a square hemidrachm, the only square Śaka silver coin known. His commonest copper coins, with an elephant’s head on the obverse and a “caduceus” (staff of the god Hermes) on the reverse (Pl. III, 4), are imitated from a round copper coin of Demetrios. On another copper square coin of Maues the king is represented on horseback. This striking device is characteristic both of the Śaka and Pahlava coinage (Pl. III, 7); it first appears in a slightly different form on coins of the Indo-Greek Hippostratos (Pl. II, 5); the Gupta kings adopted it for their “horseman” type, and it reappears in Mediæval India on the coins of numerous Hindu kingdoms, and was even employed by Muhammadan invaders until the fourteenth century.
Silver coins of Azes I and Azilises, especially of the former, are abundant. As on Maues’ coinage, Greek gods and goddesses, Zeus, Herakles, Pallas and Poseidon, appear on both silver and copper of these two kings, but now for the first time an Indian goddess, Lakshmī, is introduced. A favourite device on the silver of Azilises is the Dioskouroi (Pl. III, 9).[17] His copper coins are all square, whereas Azes’ commonest type is a large round coin with a bull on the observe and a lion on the reverse (Pl. III, 5), unquestionably copied from the large round coins of Apollodotos; for some of Azes I’s coins are restruck on those of Apollodotos and Hippostratos. Another copper coin shows the king Azes sitting cross-legged in the Indian fashion. On the reverse of another copper coin, of the common “king on horseback” type, appears the name of the Indian general, Aspavarma, which is also found on some coins of the Pahlava Gondopharnes: this is a most important piece of evidence, as it shows a connection between the two dynasties. The earlier Pahlava kings, which we may call the Vonones group, were evidently far less powerful than the Śaka rulers; their coins are scarcer, didrachms particularly so, and are found only west of the Indus valley. On no coins has the name of Vonones been found alone, but always associated either with Spalahores, his brother, or his nephew, Spalagadames; the names of the two latter are conjoined on another coin (Pl. III, 10). A fourth prince, Spalirises, strikes coins of his own and also in conjunction with Azes II.[18] All the silver coins of this group are of the usual “king on horseback” type; their copper coins are with one exception square.
Like the Indo-Greeks, the Śakas use Greek for the obverse and Kharoshṭhī for the reverse legend.
The most important of the later Pahlava kings was Gondophares, or Gondopharnes, famous as the King of India mentioned in the traditional stories connected with the Apostle St. Thomas. In the British Museum there is a silver coin of his struck in the pure Parthian style, but the rest of his didrachms—no smaller coins are known—are of billon (Pl. III, 8). Several types of these are known, but all have the usual “king on horseback” obverse. On the reverse of one type the god Śiva appears. His copper coins, all of them round, have a bust of the king in the Parthian style, with either a figure of Nike or Pallas on the reverse. The coins of his successors or contemporaries, Abdagases, Orthagnes and Pakores, closely follow in type those of Gondopharnes.
Connected with these later Pahlavas are a few princes who call themselves “Satrap”—among these the most prominent is Zeionises, who minted some rather striking didrachms in pure silver. His not uncommon copper coins imitate the bull and lion type of Azes. Lastly, there are a number of miscellaneous rulers, such as Miaos and Hyrcordes, whose coins present features so heterogeneous that it has been impossible hitherto to assign them ancestry, nationality or even an approximate date. The most important of these is the “nameless king,” whose superscription consists of the titles, “King of Kings, the great Saviour,” written in Greek only. His coins, all of copper, are well struck, especially the commonest type, which shows a diademed head of the king on the obverse and a horseman on the reverse (Pl. III, 6). On all appears his special symbol, a three-pronged fork (Fig. 3, v).[19]
Key to Plate III
Plate III
Plate IV
Key to Plate IV
The coinage of the Indo-Greek kings made a deep impression upon their successors and neighbours, just as the coinage of Bactria had impressed the conquering Śakas, who copied it extensively in that country. The crude coins of Miaos (or Heraos) and of Sapeleizes, two very obscure rulers, are evidently modelled on the issues of Heliokles and Eukratides. Śaka princes, like Maues, as we have seen, while adopting many Greek features, employed a characteristic coinage of their own. On the other hand, we find Rājuvula, one of the Śaka satraps who replaced the Hindu kings of Mathurā in the first century A.D., slavishly copying the billon hemidrachms of Strato II (Pl. I, 8). Nahapāna, a great Śaka conqueror who founded a kingdom in the Western Ghats at about the same period, also reproduced the Greek hemidrachm (Pl. II, 11), as did the Andhra king, Śrī Yajña Gotamīputra (Pl. III, 1). Another Śaka chieftain, Chashṭana, about A.D. 115, founded a kingdom in Mālwā, striking hemidrachms like those of Nahapāna on the Greek model, and resembling most nearly the coins of Apollodotos. The coins of both these princes preserve the remains of Greek characters on the obverse, and on the reverse are inscriptions in both Nāgarī[22] and Kharoshṭhī, but after the death of Chashṭana the Kharoshṭhī inscription disappears. His successors, known as the Western Satraps, extended his dominions by conquests from the Andhras until they embraced all the flourishing ports on the west coast with their valuable sea-borne trade. Their hemidrachms are found in great abundance throughout Western India: on the reverse of all appears the Buddhist chaitya copied from the Andhra coinage; the portraits on the obverse are distinctly Scythian in appearance. These coins are of special historical importance; for in the reign of the fifth satrap, Jīvadāman, dates in the so-called Śaka era,[23] recording the year of issue, were added to the inscription (Pl. III, 2); and these are of the greatest service in helping to date events here and elsewhere in India down to the year A.D. 395, when the Guptas conquered the country, and the long and monotonous series of Western Satrap coins came to an end. The Guptas in their turn struck silver of the same type; and these degenerate descendants of the Greek hemidrachm had a further lease of life, when, imported by the Guptas from their western (Pl. VI, 1) to their central dominions (Pl. VI, 2), they were adopted by several minor dynasties, including the Maukharīs, and were even struck by the invading Huns (Pl. VI, 7).
Imitation of both Greek and Śaka models is noticeable in the coins of the Hindu state of Odumbara. (Pl. III, 3), the modern Pathānkot; both these and the earlier silver coins of the Kuṇindas, who occupied hilly districts near the river Satlej, have legends in Brāhmī and Kharoshṭhī; both may be assigned to the first century B.C.
Fig. 3a. Kharoshṭhī Script on Coin of Hippostratos. Cf. Pl. II, 5.