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Art. IX.—Notes on Indian Coins and Seals. Part V.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

This coin belongs to Professor Gardner's class (γ), “Base silver; type, Śiva” (Brit. Mus. Oat., Greek and Scythic Kings, etc., p. 104), and to the latter of the two subdivisions into which the coins of this class naturally fall. The broad characteristics of these subdivisions are as follows:—(1) King on horseback 1.; name title trātārassa; rounded forms correct Greek: (2) king on horseback r.; name title maha(ṃ)tassa; square forms corrupted Greek. A further distinction is that, in the former, the name and all the titles of the Kharoṣṭhī inscription are in the genitive case; in the latter, the name only is in the genitive, and the titles are given in their undeclined base-form, as if they were the first part of a compound which the name was intended to complete. In the case of both, and wherever else it occurs on the coins of Gondophares, there can be no doubt that the correct title is devavrata, ‘devoted to the gods,’ and not devatrāta or devahada as hitherto read; that is to say, the third akṣara, on good specimens, seems to be undoubtedly intended for rather than for or .

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Original Communications
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1903

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References

page 285 note 1 As on B.M. Cat., p. 103, Gondophares, No. 1.

page 285 note 2 As on B.M. Cat., p. 104, Gondophares, No. 10.

page 286 note 1 The remaining traces, and a comparison with the similar coin quoted below, justify this restoration; v. note 2.

page 286 note 2 The second Kharoṣṭhī character in the field should be corrected to tu.

page 286 note 3 E.g., in the first two titles of the inscription, viz. mahārājassa rājātirājassa, the akṣra rā occurs three times. In the. first case it never has the angle; in the second and third always (cf. B.M. Cat., pl. xxiii, 8).

page 287 note 1 Z.D.M.G., 1896, p. 604, in the word [yav]ug[a]ssa. But is it not rather -sya?

page 288 note 2 For the coins of Ayodhyā, v. Cunningham, , Coins of Ancient India, p. 90Google Scholar.

page 287 note 3 Indian Coins, §§ 49, 52, 53.

page 287 note 4 v. Indian Coins, Taxila, § 56.

page 288 note 1 Ibid.

page 288 note 2 Cunningham: C.A.I., plates ii and viii.

page 288 note 3 C.A.I., pl. ix, 19.

page 289 note 1 J.R.A.S., 1894, p. 546.

page 289 note 2 E.g., Bühler, , Ep. Ind., ii, p. 199Google Scholar.

page 289 note 3 J.S.A.S., 1894, p. 547. The akṣara tra seems to be invariably found on these coins—not ta as previously read. On coins, whenever the name is legible, the first aksara seems to be Śo. The alternative forms Śů and Śaů, given by Bhagvānlāl and Cunningham respectively, cannot be certainly read on any of the specimens in the British Museum.

page 290 note 1 In the parallel instance Khatapāna Hagānaṣa Hagāmaṣasa, we have a gen. pl. m apposition to two genitive singulars. (Mr. Burn, referring to Cunningham's description in C.A.I., p. 87, first pointed out to me that the first name, as well as the second, was in the genitive. He also observed that on one of his own specimens the standing figure which usually appears on the coins of the Satraps of Mathurā is shown horizontally ahove the first line. This figure also appears on the specimen published by Cunningham, but in the plate (viii, 7) it is represented as upright, with the inscription in three vertical lines to the left of it. An examination of the actual coin also shows that on the other side of the inscription a tree is represented. It may be observed that the standing figure and the tree, here represented separately, occur together on the coins of Rājuvula, Śoḍāsa, and Hagāmaṣa.)

page 290 note 2 This tendency is shown, for instance, in the coins of Balabhūti. Cf. two specimens in the B.M.—Cunningham, 94: 5–7: 181 ( = C.A.I., pl. viii, 8, indistinctly photographed), and Major E. C. Temple, 92: 10–8: 195. Somewhat similar is the cluster of dots seen in the representation of the six-headed deity on certain coins of the Yaudheyas; v. Cunningham, C.A.I., pl. vi, 9, 11, 12.

page 291 note 1 C.A.I., p. 78, pl. vi, 9, 11–13.

page 291 note 2 Indian Coins, key to pl. iii, 15.

page 291 note 3 E.g., in the Bhūgavata Purātṇa, vii, x, 68.

page 291 note 4 C.M.I., p. 54, pl. vi, 22.

page 291 note 5 Ep. Ind., i, p. 155.

page 292 note 1 Cunningham, : N. Chr., 1894Google Scholar, pl. x, 4. Vṛṣadhvoja[ḥ] is, no doubt, to be taken as a bahuvrīhi compound = ‘He, whose banner is the bull’; cf. Makaradhvaja and Makaraketu, epithets of Kāmadeva. The legend of the bronze coins of Mihirakula, jayatu Vṛṣa[ḥ], is probably an abbreviation.

page 292 note 2 Loc. cit.

page 293 note 1 See the references given s.v. in P. W.

page 293 note 2 Gardner, : B.M. Cat., p. 104Google Scholar, Gondophares, No. 9.

page 295 note 1 E.g., Cunningham, C.M.I., pl. vi, 7.

page 295 note 2 Cf. Cunningham, , Later Indo-Scythians (Ephthalites or White Huns), Num. Chron., 1894Google Scholar, pl. x, particularly, perhaps, fig. 3, a silver coin of Mihirakula.

page 296 note 1 Coins of Southern India, p. 31, pl. ii, 41, 42.

page 296 note 2 Coins of Ancient India, p. 111.

page 297 note 1 Cunningham read the name as (1) Mula-, or Mudra-nanda, and (2) Vadalananda respectively. He gives the legend of No. 1 as Rājña Mudra-nandasa. It should probably be corrected to Raña Muḷana(ṃ)dasa. About the cerebral ḷ in the second akṣara of the name there seems to be no doubt, but its vowel may perhaps be i or ī. The legend of No. 2 may, perhaps, be Raño Vaṭu[ ga]nu(ṃ)dasa. The third akṣara of the name is quite doubtful, but it seems to be one which opens at the bottom—ga, ta, or bha. The name may, perhaps, be the Sanskrit Vaṭuka, a name of Śiva (see the quotations from Purāṇas given in the Śabdakalpadruma, s.v.).

page 298 note 1 Cf. Fleet, , Topographical List of the Bṛhat-Saṃhitā, Ind. Ant., 1893, pp. 171, 173, 179Google Scholar.

page 299 note 1 No. 2, in Cave-Temple Inscriptions, p. 24.

page 300 note 1 Hist. Dek., p. 12, note 2.

page 302 note 1 Gleanings, No. 1, pl. iii.

page 302 note 2 Hist. Dek. (2nd ed.), p. 35.

page 303 note 1 Ar. Sur. W. Ind., v, p. 79, pl. li, 14.

page 303 note 2 Hist. Dek. (2nd ed.), p. 36.

page 303 note 3 Cf. the forms of ka and ra not curved at the bottom.

page 303 note 4 218 to 250 grs.

page 303 note 5 The first akṣara appears sometimes as sa- and sometimes as sā-.

page 304 note 1 Arch. Surr. South. Ind., vi = Arch. Surv. Ind. (New Imperial Series), xv.

page 304 note 2 Babelon, , Traité des monnaies grecques et romaines, tome i, p. 371Google Scholar: “En numismatique, le potin est au bronze ce que le billon est à l'argent; c'est un métal impur, composé de cuivre jaune et rouge, d'étain, de plomb et de lavures on scories diverses.” It is probably to these and similar coins that Elliot refers when he says (C.S.I., p. 22), “One class of coins was found to consist of a kind of speculum of an alloy of lead and tin, and another of an impure lead ore, which gave them the appearance of a coarse alloy.”

page 305 note 1 Bhandarkar, : Early History of the Dekkan (2nd ed.), p. 32Google Scholar.

page 306 note 1 Arch. Surv. West. India, iv, p. 98, pl. li, Nasik No. 1.

page 306 note 2 Arch. Surv. W. Ind., v, p. 73.

page 308 note 1 Balabhūti is included by Cunningham among the princes of Mathura, probably because his coins were found there; but they more nearly resemble the coins of Kosambi.

page 308 note 2 It may be noticed that this symbol appears as a counter-mark on certain coins of Bahasatimita, e.g., Cunningham, C.A.I., pl. v, 12. Unfortunately, it is not possible to determine from the specimens in the British Museum whether this counter-mark is found on coins which already have the symbol in their reversetype, or whether it is always a real addition to the symbols originally represented on the coin. If the latter could be shown to be the case we should have another piece of evidence in support of the theory that these symbols on Indian coins have a very real historical significance. For this question v. Tufnell, , Hints to Coin-Collectors m S. India, p. 10Google Scholar, and Rapson, Indian Coins, § 124; also J.R.A.S., 1900, p. 101, where another counter-mark on coins of Bahasatimita is described.

page 308 note 3 It is not always easy to determine whether an Indian coin is cast or struck; r. J.R.A.S., 1900, p. 109.

page 309 note 1 J.S.A.S., 1900, p. 98, Pl. 1; Cunningham, , C.A.I., p. 97Google Scholar, pl. x, 9, 15; p. 101, pl. xi, passim.

page 310 note 1 Amidst all the difficulties of South Indian chronology, it is impossible to be very precise as to the date of this change in the Pāṇḍyan coinage, or of the ‘conquest’ which is supposed to have produced it. Provisionally, it may be held that the prototype of all South Indian coins, Cola, Pāṇḍyan, or Singhalese, which have for their types the “rude human figure, standing on the obverse, and seated on the reverse,” are those with the inscription Śrī-Rājarāja, and that this is the Cola monarch who appears in the list quoted by Elliot (p. 135) from an article by DrBurgess, in the Indian Antiquary (vol. xiii, p. 58)Google Scholar as Rājarāja II or Narendra Cola, a.d. 1022–1063. But a glance at ProfessorKielhorn's, article on Dates of Chola Kings (Ep. Ind., iv, p. 216)Google Scholar, or the dynastic list given by DrHultzsch, (Ar. Sur. S. Ind., iii, p. 112Google Scholar; also MrsRickmers, , Chronology of India, p. 283)Google Scholar, will show how very uncertain the chronology of the period is at present.

page 310 note 2 Cf. Hultzsch, , Ep. Ind., iii, p. 8Google Scholar.

page 310 note 3 This design is given by Burnell, , South Indian Palaeography, pl. xxxiii (p. 106)Google Scholar, as that of a Pāṇḍyan seal, dated c. 1600 a.d.; but it is far more probable that it is of the same date as the coin.

page 310 note 4 Kothanda Rāman, a name not hitherto identified.

page 310 note 5 Mr. Tracy holds that the coins of Ceylon were the prototypes and those of Southern India the copies. The view more generally held is that expressed above in note 1; v. Davids, Rhys, Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon, pp. 31, 32Google Scholar.

page 311 note 1 Coins of S. Ind., p. 35, pl. i, 31–38; ii, 49–58.

page 311 note 2 The reference in Indian Coins should be corrected. The coin is described by Dr. Hultzsch, but not illustrated in his plate.

page 311 note 3 They are of the same metal—copper or some alloy of copper. They have types of similar character; and the ‘rayed margin’ is characteristic of both