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TIIE 
 
 EPOCH 
 
 OF 
 
 THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA, 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY THEIR COINS, 
 A Paper presented to the Royal Asiatic Society, 15 April, 1848. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD THOMAS, 
 
 BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE. 
 
 MEMBER OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETIES OF LONDON AND PARIS. 
 MEM* NUMISMATIC SOCIETY. 
 
 
 
 
 . . . 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 
 v ••' 
 
 • « « * » i 
 
 LONDON 
 
 
 - ■ ... 
 
 ED BY 
 
 T. 
 
 R. 
 
 IIARRISON, 
 
 ST. 
 
 martin's lane. 
 
 M.DCCC.XLVIII. 
 
■&$ 
 
 • • • 
 
 • • • • 
 
ON 
 THE DYNASTY 
 
 OP 
 
 THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 
 
 Among the many objects of Indian antiquarian research which possess 
 general claims upon the attention of the Royal Asiatic Society, none 
 perhaps can be cited as more peculiarly entitled to its fostering care 
 than the History of the Surashtran Kings, as illustrated by their 
 Coins. The pages of the Journal of this Society contain the earliest 
 systematic notice of these beautiful medals 1 ; and though much has 
 been written, and much additional information gained in other places, 
 little or nothing has since been done by our Association to forward this 
 particular enquiry. Having presided over the first introduction of 
 this investigation into the world of literature, it is but fit the Society 
 should watch over its accepted offspring; and if as yet unable to con- 
 duct it to a safe and satisfactory resting-place, it may at the least 
 prove useful in advancing it some stages on its way. 
 
 The subject itself, at the present moment, is invested with some slight 
 additional interest consequent upon a recent discovery of a consider- 
 able number of Surashtran coins at Junir 2 , which has contributed two 
 
 » Journ. R. As. Soc, No. XII. 
 
 2 The Junir Ji-nd (August, 1846) consisted of some four hundred coins, com- 
 prising specimens of the mintages of most of the early monarchs of the list at 
 present adopted, the series concluding with those of Viswa, the son of Atri, the 
 twelfth king. Of the entire number of medals thus brought to light, a selection of 
 ton has been forwarded by the Bombay Government to the Court of Directors of 
 the East India Company. These have been unreservedly placed at my disposal 
 lor publication. About a moiety of the whole Junir collection, in the possession of 
 Dr. Bird, has been brought to England since the body of the present paper was 
 presented to the Royal Asiatic Society; I am indebted to the owner's kindness for 
 an opportunity of inspecting many of these specimens, and am permitted to cite 
 the extra dates inserted — each duly acknowledged — at the close of the detail of 
 these records, to be found under the description of the obverse surface of the 
 medals of the several kings. As Dr. Bird proposes, at some future period, to 
 
 B 
 
 432109 
 
2 V- : :/: : ,.: •* « *; ;on- the ]>ynasty of 
 
 new names to the list of the previously-known Sah Kings. A review 
 of the entire question is likewise specially called for on other grounds, 
 inasmuch as it yet remains no slight reproach to Indian archaeologists 
 that their best authorities differ in respect to the sera to which it is pro- 
 posed to assign these medals, to the strange extent of many centuries'. 
 Fortunately there is less doubt regarding the locality whence these coins 
 chiefly come, and it is a most important point in the enquiry, freely 
 conceded by all, that Surashtra — of which the peninsula of Guzerat 
 may be taken as the metropolitan province — is the nidus to which 
 their origin must be traced. It does not often occur in Numismatic 
 investigations that this point is so clearly and unexceptionably made 
 out, and emphasis is laid upon the fact thus early in the present 
 notice, as the singularly local character attaching to these coins affords 
 a sure light amid the somewhat misty atmosphere in which the general 
 subject is enveloped. Other salutary checks are indeed offered to any 
 
 give to the world his ideas of the history of the series — for which, indeed, he 
 has for some time past been making preparation — I am the more particular in 
 thus expressing my obligation to him for the amount of courtesy just noticed. To 
 this I have now to add, that, since the foregoing sentence has been in type, I 
 have been favoured by Dr. Bird himself not only with a close verification of the 
 dates to which I at first proposed to limit my quotations, but also with a very full 
 detail of many incidental peculiarities attaching to his collection, which, in my 
 own very cursory examination, fairly escaped observation. Most important 
 among these is to be noted the first recognition of the name of Dama Sah (the 3rd 
 king) on his own proper coins, and the information attendant upon the discovery 
 that he also was the son of Rudra Sah, he having hitherto been known only as 
 being named on the coins of the 5th, 6th, and 7th kings as their common father. 
 To Colonel Sykes I have to tender my thanks for the liberal way in which the 
 whole of his extensive collection of Guzerat coins — chiefly found at Kaira — was 
 made over, to add to the materials already at command, and to test the value of 
 the information previously made patent through the numismatic contributions of 
 Steuart and Prinsep. 
 
 It will be seen that the Cabinets of the Royal Asiatic Society and that of my 
 friend Dr. Swiney have each furnished their quota to the general illustrations. 
 
 A few valuable coins, part of a hoard of some hundreds found at Kamptf 
 (Nagpur), for the communication of which I am indebted to Lieut. -Colonel 
 Wynch, Madras Artillery, have afforded important additional data. 
 
 I have also to add my recognition of the obliging manner in which access to 
 the Prinsep Collection has at all times been accorded by the officers of the Medal 
 Room in the British Museum. And, lastly, I must acknowledge the free refer- 
 ence conceded by C. Steuart, Esq., to the cabinet of his late brother, when neces- 
 sary to decide any doubts left by the imperfection of the outlines of the Italian 
 engraver who executed the original plates published in No. XII. J. R. A. S. 
 
 > "Anterior to the fourth century, a.d." Wilson, Ariana Antiqua, p. 410. 
 " Fourth" or " seventh" century, a.d. Sykes, J. R. A. S., No. XII. 477. 
 About " 153 b.c." Prinsep, Journ. As. Soc. Beng., vii. 354. 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 3 
 
 extensive wandering from the truth, in the co-existence of three dis- 
 tinct collateral channels through which the examination of the details 
 of this question may be conducted; and though it must be conceded 
 that the insufficient, and at times inaccurate, evidence supplied by one 
 species of testimony, may be difficult to be reconciled with the ap- 
 parent facts, yet, on the other hand, anything like combined attesta- 
 tion derived from such diverse sources must bear a proportionately 
 conclusive weight, and carry conviction in defiance of isolated obsta- 
 cles. The tests to which these observations refer consist of, — 1st, 
 Coins; 2nd, Inscriptions; and 3rd, Written History, or rather the 
 incidental contributions of Eastern and Western Authors 1 , which must 
 here supply its place. It is not proposed to enter into the unneces- 
 sary detail involved in the invariable application of these tests under 
 their separate heads; it will be sufficient that they be severally kept 
 in view throughout the examination of the various branches into 
 which the entire subject divides itself. They have been brought thus 
 prominently into notice, in order to show explicitly the whole means 
 available for arriving at a correct judgment on a somewhat intricate 
 question; as it will be seen hereafter that the present paper is illus- 
 trated by little if any new materiel, and that its value must depend 
 solely upon the correct combination of previously known facts. 
 
 As the subject, in its different bearings and ramifications, is spread 
 over some centuries, and refers to many distinct races, it may simplify 
 its due demonstration to premise the various heads into which it seems 
 divisible, subsequently examiniug these in detail. It is to be noted, 
 in introducing this preliminary outline, that it has been found advis- 
 able, for the more satisfactory exposition of the whole case, to reverse 
 the usual course of tracing successions downwards in the order of time, 
 and, in lieu thereof, to work upwards from almost the only given and 
 admitted local date we possess, the Valabhi iEra. 
 
 The following are the different divisions of the enquiry, placed in 
 the order in which it is proposed to advert to them : — 
 I. The Valabhi iEra. 
 
 II. The Local supercession of the Guptas by the Valabhi Family. 
 III. The identity between the Guzerat Guptas and the Guptas of the 
 Allahabad Pillar Inscription. 
 
 1 The last ground has been so thoroughly explored by fully competent scholars 
 that it would be almost impertinent to attempt to add to what has already been 
 cited on the subjects embraced, by modern writers both English and Conti- 
 nental ; hence I have limited my task in this respect to the simple adoption of 
 materials ready prepared to my hand, without any needless question of the accu- 
 racy of the translations or tedious reproduction of original texts. 
 
 B 2 
 
+ 
 
 4 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 I V". The verification of these Guptas as the immediate successors of 
 
 the Indo-Scythians. 
 V. The interval between the rule of the Guptas and that of the Sah 
 
 Kings, and the traces of the intermediate possessors of the 
 
 peninsula of Guzerat. 
 VI. The inherent title of the Sah Kings to date in and before the 
 
 century before Christ. 
 I. The Valabhi sera is fixed by undoubted evidence to have com- 
 menced in 319 a.d. 1 The exact epoch, however, in the lengthened 
 sway of the dynasty whence the cycle takes its name, to which the 
 initial date is to be referred, still remains undetermined. Mr. 
 Wathen supposes that the reign of Sri Dhara Sena I. (the seventh 
 in the Valabhi list 2 ,) witnessed the introduction of the new &ra 3 , but 
 from the prominent manner in which (his father) Griha Sena's name 
 is recorded in Dr. Burns' 4 No. I. Kaira Copper-plate Grant, it would 
 seem that his accession, or some striking event of his reign, might well 
 contest the honour of having originated the family cycle. This, how- 
 ever, is a matter which demands but slight discussion in this place, as 
 it is sufficient for the purposes of the present enquiry to say that the 
 sera of the Valabhis begins 319 a.d. s , and that — as is now to be shown 
 — the Gupta rule preceded it. 
 
 1 Albiruni, Reinaud, 142, 143; Tod's Annals, i. 801; Inscription at Puttun 
 Somnath, dated in corresponding epochs of different seras, 662 a.h., Vikraraa 1320, 
 Balabhi 945; consequently, An. Valabhi 1 = 318-19 a.d. 
 
 2 The following is Wathen's list of the early members of the Valabhi Family : — 
 
 I. Sendpati Bhatarca; 144 or 190 a.d. 
 
 II. Senapati Dhara Sena. 
 
 III. Mahdrdja Drona Sinha. 
 
 IV. Maharaja Dhruva Sena I. 
 
 V. Maharaja Dharapattah. 
 
 VI. Maharaja Griha Sena. 
 
 VII. Maharaja Sri Dhara Sena I. 3.. 
 
 VIII. Maharaja Siladitya I. 
 
 IX. Maharaja Charagriha I., or 
 Iswara Guha (Burns). 
 X. Maharaja Sri Dhara Sena II. 
 XI. Maharaja Dhruva Sena II. 
 XII. Maharaja Sri Dhara Sena III. 
 Maharaja Dhruva Sena III. 
 (Burns' Grant). 
 XIII. Maharaja Siladitya II. 
 
 The order of succession in Burns' plate passes directly from No. I. to No. VI., 
 omitting the intermediate names. 
 
 3 J. A. S. B.,iv. 481. 
 
 4 J. A. S. B., vii. 966. 
 
 5 Mr. Wathen, at the time of the first publication of his Valabhi Tamba patra 
 decipherments (J. A. S. B., iv. 481), was disposed to render the date of the 
 earliest of these records as ^^ff £_ Samvat 9 of the Valabhi iEra: subse- 
 quently (J. A. S. B., vii. 963) he found reason to distrust this reading, and with- 
 out attempting to fix the value of the figures employed, to decide that the date 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTBA. 5 
 
 II. It must be admitted that the direct and independent evidence 
 to prove this point, is somewhat incomplete, being confined to a con- 
 inscribed referred to the Vikramaditva JErn. Prinsep, in one of his latest papers 
 on these subjects (J. A. S. B., vii. 354), had also expressed his conviction that, 
 whatever cycle might be understood as applicable to certain other dates then under 
 consideration, the Vikram&ditya -#2ra alone " must" be held to have been in use in 
 the Valabhi Copper-plate Grants. 
 
 A reference to the numerous Indian Inscriptions published in Vols. IV. and V. 
 J. R. A. S., by Messrs. Wathen and Elliot, shows most distinctly the general pre- 
 valence of the official use of the Salivahana or Saka iEra (79 a.d.), and amid 
 the ample series of the grants thus made known, some are dated as early 
 as Saka 411 = 490 a.d. (iv. 5, v. 343), and an inscription is quoted, bearing date 
 Saka 488= 567 a.d. (iv. 9). The extensive diffusion of the practice of expressing 
 dates in the years of this cycle is also confirmed by its repeated employment in 
 the Raja Taringini (Troyer, ii, 376, 378), by the frequent appearance of the 
 words Sal Saka among the epochal references in the Mackenzie MSS. ( Wilson, i. 
 163, 264, &c; Taylor, J. A. S. B., vii. 389, 469, 496, &c); and, finally, Tod 
 distinctly asserts that the sera of Salivahana " set aside that of the Tuar in the 
 Dekhan" — a practice which may well have extended westward as well as southward. 
 
 These facts are perhaps sufficient to authorize an inference that the Salivdhana 
 Cycle was used in many of the earlier instances wherein modern Commentators 
 have heretofore supposed that the Vikramdditya was the sera employed; and 
 hence, in the absence of any designation of the sera intended to be understood, it 
 may be held as more than probable that both the early Gupta and Valabhi In- 
 scriptions had their dates recorded in this cycle. 
 
 Adapting the Saka Cycle to the various dates referring to these families, the 
 several epochs recorded will correspond as follows with the years of our own sera: — 
 
 1st. The Chandra Gupta Inscription at Sanchf, No. 1 (J. A. S. B., vi. 455), 
 
 dated in figures lj© = or Saka San 93 = 172 a.d. 
 
 2nd. The No. 1 Valabhi Grant of Wathen (J. A. S. B., iv. 481), dated thus 
 ?J °^[ Three hundred and odd Saka, corresponds with the early part of our 
 fifth century. 
 
 3rd. The third Valabhi Copper-plate Grant (J. A. S. B., vii. 966) with the 
 figured date °J £J *t (Ibid., pi. XX.), assumed to refer to some period in the 
 second half of the fourth century Saka, falls in with the middle of the fifth century a.d. 
 
 It may be necessary to explain briefly the reasons which justify the supposi- 
 tion that the first Valabhi Grant should be held to precede the third by a period 
 of half a century, more or less ; and this may be most satisfactorily done by 
 quoting the independent evidence comprised in the following comments annexed 
 to the original translation of the latter document: — " But though there were six 
 successions to the Gadi [between the execution of the first and third Valabhi 
 Grants], these must have been of less than the ordinary duration, for the minister 
 who prepared the Grant in Sri Dhara Sena's reign was Skanna Bhatta ; whereas 
 the minister who prepared the present Grant is named as Madana Hila, son of 
 Skanna Bhatta; thirty or forty years will therefore be the probable interval occu- 
 pied by the reigns of all the princes named as having intervened between Sri 
 Dhara Sena I. and Dhruva Sena III." 
 
6 ON THE DYNASTY OP 
 
 jectural assertion of Albiruni's, to the effect that " apparently Balabha 
 followed immediately after the Guptas." Whatever value is to be 
 attached to this inference in itself, which however seems fully justified 
 by the facts, one most important item is derived from the preceding 
 part of the sentence, which introduces the deduction in question 1 , viz., 
 that a royal race of Guptas lived immediately prior to, and were 
 exterminated in 319 a.d. 
 
 One of the main difficulties heretofore experienced in any attempt 
 JL* at a satisfactory allocation of these Guptas, so far as their dominion 
 over the peninsula of Guzerat is concerned 2 , has arisen from a too im- 
 plicitly received dogma — based chiefly upon conclusions drawn from 
 the dubious context of the Vishnu Purana 3 — that the termination of 
 the Gupta sway should be referred generally to the seventh or eighth 
 century; and consequently any effort to locate the earlier portion of 
 the dynasty — which is supposed to have been closely limited in the 
 number of its members— in Guzerat at or about a correspondingly 
 
 1 " Quant au Goupta kala (ere des Gouptas), on entend par le root goupta des 
 gens qui, dit on, dtaient me'chants et puissants; et Pere qui porte leur nom est 
 Pepoque de leur extermination. Apparemment Ballaba suivit imme'diatement les 
 Gouptas; car Pere des Gouptas commence aussi Pan 241 de Pere de Saca." Albf- 
 runi, Reinaud, 143. Annexed is the Arabic text of the original. 
 
 ite s\&\ \/ij&\ up ^s ur u& jk cutj Lei, 
 
 r^r/^' W ^ rfy^ 1 u* v^i i^j? r&? £/ s y*j& 
 
 2 Wilson, Ariana Antiqua, 409 ; Prinsep, J. A. S. B., vii. 354. 
 
 ._ 3 Mill (J. A. S. B., vi. 11), referring to the passage whence his inference 
 regarding the age of the Guptas is drawn, designates it as an "enumeration, 
 strongly indicative of the disturbed and semi-barbarous condition of affairs which 
 caused the suspension of all the ancient records, and in which synchronous 
 dynasties might easily be mis-stated as successive ones, and the sum of years 
 readily palmed on the Hindu reader, to enhance the antiquity of the classical and 
 heroic ages of the country" [yet he trusts this text sufficiently to add the enume- 
 ration] " is succeeded, in the last period immediately preceding the rise of the Gup- 
 tas, by something more resembling the records of earlier time." The result of his 
 examination of the whole question is thus stated : — "It is scarcely possible to fix the 
 subjects of our present inquiry, the Guptas, higher than the age of Charlemagne in 
 Europe, i/we suppose them identical with the Guptas of the Purana." Page 12, idem. 
 
 So also Wilson (Ar. Ant., 419): — " These considerations harmonize with the 
 inference afforded by the coins, and restrict the most modern period of the Gupta 
 Kings of Magadha to the seventh or eighth century." 
 
 Prinsep hesitated in his entire acquiescence in Mill's conclusions, and would 
 have moved up the date of the Purana itself " a few centuries," with a view to 
 placing the Guptas in the very age it is now proposed to assign them to. 
 J. A.S.B.,v. 644. 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 7 
 
 anterior epoch, has been met by the insuperable obstacle of the ad- 
 mitted local domination of other races of kings, of whose independent 
 rule there could be little doubt. 
 
 This perplexity is uow removed, as we have direct authority for 
 placing a family of Guptas, evidently extensively paramount as sove- 
 reigns of India, at an yera closely antecedent to the rise of the Valabhi 
 monarches' ; a period in which neither history nor inscriptions claim for 
 other sovereigns either local or suzerain supremacy over the peninsula 
 of Surashtra. 
 
 1 The Arabic word Balhara, as used in reference to the Valabhis (Reinaud, 
 Relation des Voyages, i. 24, 26, ii. 26; Masaudi, O. T. F., i. 175, 193, 389; 
 Gildemeister, Script. Arab., pp. 13, 145, &c), has been the subject of much and 
 various speculation, in the hope of tracing through its derivative identification a 
 connecting indication of the origin of those who, in later times, are seen to have 
 borne it (Wilford, As. Res., ix. 179). Tod (Annals, i. 801) endeavoured to 
 show that as " Balnath, the deity worshipped in Puttun Somn£th, the City of the 
 Lord of the Moon, was the Sun-God Bdl, hence" came " the title of the dynasties 
 which ruled this region, Bal-ca-Rae*, the Princes of Bdl, and hence the capital 
 Balicupur, the City of the Sun" was " familiarly written Balabhf," and the word 
 " Balicarae" eventually "corrupted by Renaudot's Arabian Travellers into Bal- 
 hara." Wathen (J. A. S. B., iv. 481) was disposed to consider the term either as 
 
 a corruption of Bhatarca \\ £ (eft* Cherishing Sun (a royal title), or as a titular 
 
 distinction locally derived from the name of a district near " Ballabhipura," called 
 " Bhala" which, with the addition of Rai, would have furnished the Arabs with 
 the designation in question. More lately an attempt has been made to prove the 
 connexion of the word with the supposed Palahra on the coins of Vonones (Prin- 
 sep, J. A. S. B., vii. 650). Of all these, perhaps the only derivation upon which 
 complete reliance can be placed is Tod's concluding identification, and that 
 adopted by Gildemeister, whose notice on the subject may be best given in his 
 
 own words: — "Nomen quod \j\j vel & Aj scribitur, Indopleusta et Masudio 
 
 auctoribus commune erat omnibus ejus familise regibus; secundum Hauqaliden 
 desumptum est de regionis, quam tenebant, nomine. Utraque sententia recte se 
 habet. Quinam Indicus rex Balhara ille fuerit, diu latuit, nunc autem certo dici 
 potest, postquam ea dynastia turn ex inscriptionibus, turn ex indigenarum anna- 
 libus, turn ex Sinensium relationibus nobis innotuit. Ea in urbe Valabhi, Guze- 
 ratoe peninsulse olim capite, hodie Balbhi vocata, decern milliaria Anglica septen- 
 trionem versus et occidentem a Bhownnugger sita, inde a quarto sseculo exstitit, 
 et ab urbe vel regione Valabhi denominata est. Itaque vocabulum \ »\j ortum 
 
 est ex prakrita forma «T<!1 I^HJ^ pro cfWft^FSF • Quum eorum regnum 
 
 Gurg'arum et Saurasht'ram complecteretur, omnino recte Arabes ejus finium 
 descriptionem tradiderunt ; postea tamen multa in Balharam transtulerunt, quae in 
 alios Indise reges valent. * * Posteriores deinde omnia conturbarunt, et 
 Balharae ascribunt Kauog'ie regnum vel alia." Scriptorum Arabum de Rebus 
 Indicis, pp. 42, 43, 44. 
 
8 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 Moreover, an intimation of scarcely less importance is conveyed in 
 the general tenor of Albiruni's expressions 1 , which almost necessitate 
 the conclusion that this particular race of Guptas were the last of the 
 name who held any prominent place among the monarchs of India 
 prior to the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni 2 . Beyond this it is dis- 
 tinctly to be borne in mind that, with the exception of the deceptive 
 epoch assumed from the Puranas, there is no date of any kind 3 to 
 interfere with the free decision of the question at issue, on the evi- 
 dence here adduced. 
 
 From the various inscriptions left by the Valabhi monarchs, some 
 casual indications might have been anticipated as throwing light upon 
 the history of the race they succeeded. To speak generally, this 
 expectation is not realized; the information on this head, to be gained 
 from these sources, being confined to the not altogether unimportant 
 fact that the immediate predecessors of the Valabhis were of the 
 Hindu faith 4 . Allusion is indeed made in one place to the suzerain 
 under whom the family first rose into notice, and from whom the title 
 of Maharaja was first received by the third Senapati; nothing, how- 
 ever, is to be gathered from this reference beyond the proof of the 
 widely-spread paramount power of the sovereign thus alluded to 5 . 
 
 It would also be satisfactory, as affording an important connecting 
 link between these races, to have been able to trace the possible 
 
 1 " Leur extermination," &c., note, p. 6. 
 
 2 It may be necessary to remind the reader that Albiruni lived under this 
 monarch. 
 
 3 The date of the Gupta Alphabet seems to have been ruled from the 
 assumed date of the dynasty ; and to show how little reliance can be placed on the 
 inference, in itself, by which the use of the characters of the Gupta Lat Inscrip- 
 tion is held to have originated at so modern a period as is claimed for it by some, 
 it is to be remarked that James Prinsep himself, although he entered this alphabet 
 in his comparative Palseographic Table as dating from the fifth century, had 
 already admitted that its employment would apply equally well to the third 
 century a.d. (J. A. S. B., vi. 556), an opinion indirectly confirmed by his own 
 expressions at the moment of the publication of the Table itself (vii. 275), and 
 distinctly repeated afterwards (vii. 348). In like manner, those who would follow 
 the erroneous identification of the Phi che li (Vaisali) of Fa Hian with the ancient 
 Prayaga, the modern Allahabad (J. R. A.S., vi. 301), are to be warned against 
 indulging in any inference, regarding the antiquity of the Guptas, based upon Fa 
 Hian's omission to mention the Asoka and Gupta Lat, which he might possibly have 
 seen had he visited the true Prayaga, (See Foe Koue Ki, p. 242 ; J. R. A. S., 
 v. 128, &c.) 
 
 4 J. A.S. B., November, 1838. 
 
 5 "From the great Sovereign himself, the sole Monarch of the entire world." 
 (J. A. S. B., Wathen, iv. 485.) Mr. Wathen adds— " This evidently refers to 
 some one of the successors of Vikramaditya and Salivahana, the Pramara or 
 Powar Kings of Ujain or Kanouj." 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 9 
 
 affinity as existing in their respective coins, which the general prac- 
 tice of Indian monarchs more or less distinctly developes in the early 
 imitation by the succeeding family of the types of money found cur- 
 rent in the dominions of their predecessors. As yet, however, no 
 medals of the Valabhi dynasty have been definitively identified 1 , 
 though a certain shadowy connexion might possibly be based upon 
 the similitude between the device of the Valabhis, the Bull Nandi, 
 as seen on their seals and inscriptions, and the self-same symbol to be 
 found on the Surashtran coins of the great Skanda Gupta 2 . 
 
 It may be unnecessary to pursue further this branch of the inquiry 
 as, however imperfect in itself, as it now stands, the concession of 
 its most important bearing will be claimed hereafter under other 
 proofs, which do not properly belong to this portion of the inves- 
 tigation. 
 
 III. The demonstration of the identity between the heretofore 
 denominated Kanouj Guptas and the monarchs of the same name 
 who were supreme in Guzerat, is perhaps not so easy as might at 
 first sight be anticipated 1 , inasmuch as there is a necessary absence of 
 the infallible proof offered by an uniformity of coinage, arising from 
 the practice even then prevailing of retaining but slightly modified the 
 forms of the existing currency of each kingdom that fell to the arms 
 of a conqueror. Hence, though the Gupta Guzerat coins evince indu- 
 bitable signs of derivation from the types of the money of the earlier 
 Surashtran Kings, they naturally offer few points of coincidence with 
 the gold coins of the countries to the northward and eastward, whence the 
 power of the Gupta race — whose identity it is now sought to establish 
 — took its rise. Notwithstanding this, the number of miscellaneous 
 
 1 The Tateriah Dirhems £j UlLaJt £Lj\H noticed as current in the ninth 
 century, by Renaudot's Arabian Traveller, and subsequently adverted to by Ibn 
 Khordadbah, Ibn Haukal, and Masaudf, convey too recent a reference to furnish 
 any assistance in the recognition of the Valabhi currency; the money alluded to by 
 the first of these authors may possibly be identifiable with the silver " Gadhia ka 
 paisa," which must have been current about this time, and which agree sufficiently 
 with the weight indicated by the Arab authority, If dirhems (which is proved to 
 be equal to G7£ gr.; Marsden, xvii). Specimens of this Ass-money are extant, 
 weighing over GGgr., though the average weight of worn specimens is of course 
 somewhat less. (See Renaudot, Reinaud, i. 25; Script. Arab., pp. 28, 106; 
 Masaudi, O. T. F., p. .389; Prinsep, J. A. S. B., iv. 087; Wilson, Ar. Ant., 413.) 
 
 8 It may indeed be a question whether these and other types of the ample 
 Skanda Gupta coinage did not constitute the bulk of the entire currency under, if 
 many of them were not actually struck by, the earlier members of the Valabhi 
 Dynasty, while acting as local sovereigns, on behalf of the Gupta suzerain. 
 
 3 Prinsep, indeed, assumed the fact as a matter of course (J. A. S. B., vii. 37). 
 So also Wilson, in an uncertain way (Ar. Ant., 409). 
 
10 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 indications of connexion between the two races about to be noticed, 
 scarcely permit a doubt that the monarchs in question were of one 
 and the same house. 
 
 The various links in the chain of evidence, at present within reach, 
 tending to prove this connexion, may be briefly enumerated as fol- 
 lows: — lstly. The inference deducible from the knowledge gained by 
 Prinsep's revised decipherment of the Allahabad Inscription', that 
 the Gupta family therein chronicled possessed Guzerat. 2ndly. The 
 Third (undeciphered) Inscription on the Girnar Rock, in the peninsula 
 of Guzerat, records the name of Skanda Gupta. Prinsep, to whom 
 alone the secrets of this monumental writing were known, does not 
 hesitate to announce this prince as "one of the [then denominated 
 Kanouj] Guptas 2 ." 3rdly. The correspondence of the fact stated on 
 the Bhitari Lat, that Skanda was the immediate successor of Ku- 
 mara, with the evidence to the same effect afforded by the Guzerat 
 coins per se. 4thly. The identity of the title of Skanda Gupta 
 
 ^^TTT^OM Kramaditya — as found both on his gold coins of the so- 
 called Kanouj type 3 , and on his silver Surashtran pieces 4 . 5thly. 
 The curious coincidence noticeable in Skanda Gupta's alteration of 
 the reverse symbol of his own Surashtran coins, from the device 
 originally adopted from his immediate predecessor, Kumara 5 Gupta, to 
 the effigy of the Bull of Siva, Nandi, — which now appears for the first 
 time on these pieces, — and the prominent fact explicitly dwelt upon 
 in the Bhitari Lat inscription, that Skanda Gupta was a firm 
 adherent of the worshippers of Siva, as contradistinguished from 
 the Vaishnavi leaning of those he succeeded 6 . 6thly, and lastly, 
 
 1 " Magadha, Ujjayani, and Surasena are omitted ; these, therefore, in all proba- 
 bility, were under his [Samudra's] immediate rule." Prinsep, J. A. S. B., vi. 975. 
 
 8 J. A. S. B., vii. 348. " I may here so far satisfy curiosity as to state that 
 this third inscription, the longest and, in some respects, the best preserved, though, 
 from the smallness and rudeness of the letters, it is very difficult to decipher, is in 
 a more modern character— that allotted to the third century after Christ — or the 
 Gupta alphabet; and that in the opening lines I find an allusion to Skanda Gupta, 
 one of the Gupta family, whose name has also been found upon a new series of 
 the Surashtra coins." A facsimile of this inscription, taken with much care by 
 Messrs. Westergaard and Jacob, has been published in the Journal of the Bom- 
 bay Branch R. A. S. for April, 1842. No transcript or translation has been 
 attempted. 
 
 3 J. A. S. B., v. pi. 34, fig. 17. .,, 
 
 4 Idem, vii. 356, pL XII. figs. l«f 0. 
 
 s Annexed Plate II. figs. 3D, 40," 42. 
 
 6 Mill, J. A. S. B., vi. 9. It may be useful to annex a detailed reference to 
 the several Gupta Inscriptions at present known : — Allahabad, Mill, J. A. S. B., 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 11 
 
 is to be cited the important reference (which more peculiarly belongs 
 to the next division of the subject) conveyed in the superscription 
 of the Indo-Scythic NANO, or PAO NANO 1 , on the obverse surface 
 of the Surashtran coins of Kumara and Skanda Gupta, and the 
 appropriation of the exact types of the In do-Scythian gold coinage by 
 the earlier members of the Gupta family in their Eastern dominions, 
 which are also duly retained by both Kumara and Skanda. 
 
 IV. The next point in the general inquiry — the identification of 
 the Guptas as the immediate successors of the Indo-Scythians — has, in 
 so far as the numismatic coincidences extend, been fully and satisfac- 
 torily proved by Prinsep and Wilson : all that now remains to be done 
 is to apply the already prepared arguments to the altered bearings of 
 the question. So long ago as November, 1835, the first-named author 
 demonstrated by conclusive comparisons " the Indo-Scythic paternity 
 of the Kanouj [Gupta] coinage." In October, 1836, a paper by the 
 same writer appeared in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 
 which more distinctly and unequivocally developed " the transition 
 from the Mithraic or Indo-Scythic coinage to the Hindu series," at the 
 head of which stands the currency of the Guptas. Professor Wilson 
 also, in his Ariana Antiqua, in one place 2 , after enumerating other 
 more obvious resemblances between the two classes of medals, goes on 
 to notice the similarity which extends even to the monograms, which 
 
 iii. 257 ; Mill's Bhitarf Lat, vi. 1 ; revised by Prinsep, vi. 969 ; Skanda Gupta, 
 vii. 37; vii. 348; Chandra Gupta, at Sanchi, Bhopa), vi. 455; Budha Gupta, 
 Sagor, vii. 634. 
 
 The following is an authoritative list of the Gupta Kings, as extracted from 
 their Inscriptions : — 
 
 1. Gupta. 6. Kumara Gupta. 
 
 2. Ghatot Kacha. 
 
 3. Chandra Gupta I. (1st Maha- 
 
 raja Adhiraja). (tctn*- I 
 
 4. Samudra Gupta. 
 
 5. Chandra Gupta II. 
 
 7. Skanda Gupta. 
 
 8. Mahendra Gupta (noticed as a 
 minor only in the Inscriptions ; 
 the name is assumed from 
 Coins)." v u.Vrt.s* 
 
 Mill, J. A. S. B., vi. 8. /*& 
 1 See J. A. S. B., vii. 356. Prinsep, at the time he proposed this reading, did 
 so with but small confidence. A comparison of an extended series of this class of 
 Surashtran coins with the Indo-Scythic pieces of the Kanerki gold series, leaves 
 no doubt of the accuracy of the identification. Indeed, if any additional faith is to 
 be given to an independent though subsequent recognition of one and the same 
 fact, it may be mentioned that my first detection of the real meaning of the cor- 
 rupt Greek letters on the first-named coins was suggested by a transcript of the 
 legend of a Kanerki coin, to be found among Mionnet's fac-similes of Barbarous 
 Greek (viii. pi. iv. fig. 28), before I became aware that Prinsep had already 
 published a similar rendering. 
 * Page 418. 
 
12 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 were copied by the Hindu imitators from the Indo-Scythic prototype 1 , 
 all of which are mentioned as capable of being cited " as evidence that 
 the coins of the Gupta princes succeeded immediately to those of the 
 Mithraic princes, and that the former reigned from the second or third 
 to the seventh century" 
 
 Prinsep does not seem to have insisted sufficiently upon the full 
 force of the inference^, that the derivative which retained in such 
 freshness the impress of its model, was in all probability immediate, 
 and was extremely unlikely to be a deferred revival of a temporarily 
 disused coin. Professor Wilson's perception of the real value of the 
 evidence was more distinct, but his conclusion was deprived of much 
 of its just weight by the indecision of his closing observation, which 
 left a brief dynasty of eight kings 3 to find their own position in so 
 undefined a period as five centuries 4 . 
 
 But little, perhaps, need be added to such authoritative testimony, 
 further than again to point to the fact noted above, of the still more 
 distinct evidence of association — of what precise character is not so 
 clear — to be drawn from the discovery of the words PAO NANO — the 
 almost uniform titular prefix of the Kanerki Indo-Scythian gold series 
 — on the Surashtran coins of the Guptas. 
 
 The results deducible from the combined evidence of coins and 
 monumental inscriptions, regarding the progress of the power of the 
 Gupta dynasty, may be summed up in a few words. In the time of 
 the full supremacy of the family, their empire clearly extended from 
 
 1 See also the identity of reverses of Ghatot Kacha coin, J. A. S. B., v. 38, fig. 
 12 and of the Ardokro Indo-Scythic piece, J. A. S. B., 1845, p. 440, pi. 12, fig. 10. 
 
 2 J. A. S. B., v. 644. 
 
 3 Prinsep remarks, " It does not appear who succeeded him [Skanda Gupta], 
 or whether the Gupta Dynasty there terminated; but I think it is open to con- 
 jecture that the whole power was usurped by the Minister's family, because," &c. 
 J. A. S. B., vii. 38. 
 
 4 Since the above was read before the Royal Asiatic Society, Colonel Sykes 
 has communicated to me the following observations, conveyed in a late letter from 
 Captain Kittoe. The deductions in question, valuable in themselves, as derived 
 from entirely new sources, and as the result of independent inductive reasoning, 
 will be seen to corroborate in a remarkable manner the date of the rise of the 
 Guptas already pointed at in the text. 
 
 " I have had four valuable copper-plates, from Nagode, in Bundulkund, of 
 Sri Hastina, a cotemporary of Samudra Gupta, for he is named by the latter in 
 the Allahabad Inscription (see J. A. S. B.), translated by Mill. These plates fix 
 the number of years passed of the Gupta Dynasty at that time, viz., 163; this 
 will prove the correctness of the Vansavali, as given on the pillar, and will 
 prove, I think, that the Guptas reigned from the second to the fifth century 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 13 
 
 the foot of the hills of Nipal 1 on the north-east, to the extremity of 
 the peninsula of Guzenit on the south-west 2 ; its southern boundary is 
 not so well defined, but to the north-westward, suzerainty was claimed 
 over the Punjab to the banks of the Indus 3 . The same data seem t( 
 indicate that the possession of the more western portion of the empire 
 was not obtained till a period subsequent to the consolidation of the 
 kingdom on the Ganges. A possibly important point, also gained 
 from these sources, is that this paramount Hindu race, who in later 
 times, at all events, reigned over, if not at Ujein, is seen in two dis- 
 tinct instances to use the title of Vikramaditya 4 . 
 
 Having attained thus much of an apparent footing from informa- 
 tion gained through other channels, it is necessary to examine whether 
 the written testimony of the Hindus in any way corroborates the pre- 
 sent conclusions. Without conceding the least faith to either the in- 
 ductive or direct chronological data to be derived from the craftily- 
 imagined and most inextricably-jumbled post facta prophecies of the 
 Vishnu Purana, it may be sufficient to accept from its pages the bare 
 position, and the partially confirmatory geographical information con- 
 veyed in the pretended prediction 5 : — " After these various races will 
 reign" * * * "and the Guptas of Magadha along the Ganges to 
 Prayaga." 
 
 The Raja Tarangini, the "only' Sanskrit Indian History extant, 
 though avowedly local in its purpose, gives promise — could we but 
 rely on its chronology — of unexpected illustration of the present sub- 
 ject of enquiry, inasmuch as it notices a Vikramaditya of Ujein, speci- 
 fied particularly as Emperor of India 6 , who nominated Matri Gupta 
 (the only Gupta, be it remarked, in the list, within many centuries of 
 the possible time in question) to the throne of Kashmir; moreover, to 
 extend the coincidences, this Vikramaditya is cited as having previ- 
 ously expelled the Mlechchhas and destroyed the Sakas. The follow- 
 ing are the dates of accession of Matri Gupta, as given in the original, 
 and by the several commentators: Raja Tarangini, Wilson, 117 a.d.7; 
 
 i Bhitari Lat (Ghazipur District), " Kosala" (Oude) of Allahabad Inscrip- 
 tion, J. A. S. B., vi. 971. Nipal, idem, 973. 
 
 2 Skanda Gupta Inscription at Girnar, J. A. S. B., vii. 348. 
 8 Yaudheya, J. A. S. B., vi. 973. 
 
 4 Chandra Gupta, J. A. S. B., v. 650; Skanda Gupta, infra, PI. II. fig. 51. 
 
 5 Wilson's Vishnu Purana, 479. The date of this Purana is fixed by Wilson 
 about 954 a.d. Mill quotes the passage thus:— "And in Padmavatf, Kanti purf, 
 Mathura and on the Ganges from Prayaga, shall the Magadhas and the Guptas 
 rule over the people belonging to Magadha." J. A. S. B., vi. 10. 
 
 Histoire des Rois du Kachmir, ii. 76 (Troyer); Wilson, As. Res., xv. 38. 
 7 As. Res., xv. 81. 
 
14 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 Troyer, 118. 11 a.d. 1 : Adjusted dates, Wilson, 471 a.d.; Troyer, 
 123. 3 a.d.; Cunningham, 430 a.d. 2 As it is manifest that the chief 
 value of a determination of the identity of the individual, indicated 
 as Sri Harsha Vikramaditya of Ujein, in the Sanskrit text, with any 
 member of the family more immediately under consideration, would 
 consist only in a possibility of thereby fixing with more exactness the 
 epoch of the latter, it is useless to encumber the present essay with 
 extended observations based upon such uncertain data. Neither 
 under any circumstances should undue emphasis be laid on a catch 
 identification of any one of the many Vikramadityas 3 ; nor is much to 
 be gained from a recognition of the possessor of the second title of 
 Sakari, or even the more direct fact of a partial defeat of the Scy- 
 thians 4 , as proved to have been effected by any given individual. 
 The designation of Vikramaditya is shown, both by the Eastern and 
 Western series of the Gupta coinage, to have been already in esta- 
 blished use as a mere title, in contradistinction to its supposed reten- 
 tion as a distinct name 5 . As there were many Vikramadityas, so pro- 
 bably there were manySakaris; every frontier encounter with the 
 Scythians which did not result in absolute defeat of the Indian forces, 
 would, under the usual terms of Oriental hyperbole, entitle the 
 local monarch to the honorary appellation of " Foe of the Scythians ;" 
 and whatever may have been the real effect of the vaunted success 
 of Vikramaditya's arms against the Sakas — now conclusively dated — 
 in 78 a.d. 6 , it is clear that, in some divisions of Northern India, the 
 
 1 Histoire des Rois du Kachmir, ii. 365, 378. 
 
 2 Cunningham, Num. Chron., vi. 18. 3 Wilford, As. Res., ix. 117. 
 4 Taking the term Saka in its generic sense, as it was probably used, without en- 
 tering into the divisional distinctions of Tochari, &c, noticed in Ar. Ant., 138, 139. 
 
 , 5 PI. II. fig. 51 ; III. No. e ; and Appendix, PI. VII. fig. 7. 
 
 Oxx cU CctKa. 6 "L'ere de Saca, nominee par les Indiens Sacakala, est posterieure a celle 
 de Vikramaditya de 135 ans. Saca est le nom d'un prince qui a regne' sur les 
 contrees situees entre l'lndus et la mer. Sa residence e"tait placee au centre de 
 1'empire, dans la contree nominee Aryavartha. Les Indiens le font naitre dans 
 une classe autre que celle des Sakya : quelques-uns prdtendent qu'il dtait Soudra 
 et originaire de la ville de Mansoura. II y en a meme qui disent qu'il n'e'tait pas 
 de race indienne, et qu'il tirait son origine des regions occidentales. Les peuples 
 eurent beaucoup a souffrir de son despotisme, jusqu'a ce qu'il leur vint du secours 
 de l'Orient. Vikramaditya marcha contre lui, mit son armee en deroute, et le tua 
 sur le territoire de Korour, situe entre Moultan et le chateau de Louny. Cette 
 e*poque devint celebre, a cause de la joie que les peuples ressentirent de la mort de 
 Saca, et on la choisit pour ere, principalement chez les astronomes. D'un autre 
 cotd Vikramaditya re9ut le titre de sri (grand), a cause de l'honneur qu'il s'dtait 
 acquis. Du reste, l'intervalle qui s'est ecoule entre l'ere de Vikramaditya et la 
 mort de Saca, prouve que le vainqueur n'e'tait pas le celebre Vikramaditya, mais 
 un autre prince du meme nom." Albiruni, Reinaud, pp. 140, 141, 142. 
 
THE SAII KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 15 
 
 Tochari, or Yue-Chi, continued to furnish Scythic opponents for the 
 occasional display of heroism on the part of the indigenous monarchs 
 until at least the early portion of the third century of our aera 1 . The 
 complete decay of the Indo-Scythic empire, whether due on the one 
 hand to successive losses of frontier provinces, or to the less perceptible 
 fusion" of the races of conquerors and conquered on the other, was 
 manifestly a work of time, and apparent traces of the surviving 
 power of the race were to be detected west of the Indus so late as the 
 end of the fourth century 3 . 
 
 V. These considerations lead naturally to the next division of our 
 theme, the interval between the sway of the Guptas and that of the 
 Sah kings, and the question whether the succession of the Guptas was 
 immediate or deferred. In following out this enquiry, the principal 
 point to be determined is, whether the Indo-Scythians — the prede- 
 cessors of the Guptas in other parts — also possessed Surashtra; a con- 
 clusion which is apparently affirmed by the appearance of their 
 dynastic title on the local silver coinage issued by these Guptas. 
 
 1 Note upon Ma-twan-lin, J. A. S. B., vi. 63; also Pauthier, " Thian-tchu," 
 extract from the Journal Asiatique, 1839, note, p. 9. 
 
 8 M. Pauthier (Thian-tchu, Journal Asiatique, 1839) notices a curious enquiry, 
 suggested by the similarity of meaning existing between the words Youe chi and 
 Chandra Vansa: subjoined are M. Pauthier's translation of the Chinese text and 
 his own notes on this head : — 
 
 " Dans la Relation des contrees occidentales (Si-yu), le royaume du Thian-tchu 
 est nomine* par quelques-uns Chin-thou; et on le dit situe au sud-est des Youe-chi a 
 ou ' peuple de race lunaire' a la distance de quelque milliers de H. Les moeurs 
 de ses habitants sont les memes que celles des Youe-chi b ." Page 7» 
 
 a " Youe-chi, mots £thniques qui signifient de race lunaire, absolument comme le terme 
 Sanskrit Tj«J» c| ^1 tchandra vansa. Voy. la notice sur ce peuple c&ebre (que Ton croit etre 
 
 les Indo-Scythes des bistoriens occidentaux), que nous avons traduite du Pian-i-tian, liv. LII. 
 art. 2." 
 
 b " Souyu youe chi- thoung : mores cum (Tofr Youe-chi (moribus) iidem. Quelque extraor- 
 dinaire que cette assertion paraisse, elle confirmerait e soupcon que nousavonsdejadmisailleurs, 
 que les Youe Chi ou homnies de race lunaire pourraient bien avoir la meme origine que les rois 
 Indiens, aussi de race lunaire, tchandra- vansa." 
 
 May not these coincidences, conjoined to the curious verbal similarity to be 
 detected between NANAIA and NANO, suggest the possibility of the meaning of 
 the latter referring to the moon, and thus PAO NANO PAO being, the King, the 
 Lunar King, or King of the Lunar Race? 
 
 See also remarks bearing upon the general subject in J. A. S. B., iv. 677, 684; 
 and Tod, Trans. R. A. S., i. 207; also Annals of Rajpootana, i. 24, 563. 
 
 ' Wilson, quoting Foe kue ki, Ar. Ant., 307. See also Foe koue ki, 83 — 
 " Les rois des Yue ti continuerent d'exercer l'autorite' dans ces diverses contrees 
 j usque dans le II I e siecle. Au commencement du V e siecle, on parle encore de 
 leurs incursions dans I'Inde." M. Remusat. 
 
 ~TZfr *^>~t~ A^fe <^zV--/ O ~*jl • -^ j^7 
 
16 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 Previous to seeking other evidence, it may be as well to examine 
 the indications offered on this head by the respective coins of the Sah 
 and Gupta monarchs, in their simple relation to each other as a prior 
 and subsequent series, and hence to determine whether the silver cur- 
 rency of the latter was a directly consecutive adaptation of the circu- 
 lating medium of the former — a revival of a coinage whose issue had 
 been suspended, but whose previously-uttered pieces still remained 
 prevailingly current and unsuperseded — or, lastly, whether the model 
 of the Guzerat currency of the Guptas was taken from an intermediate 
 modification, which may possibly have formed the connecting link be- 
 tween the moneys of the two races. The more obvious mechanical 
 features displayed by the coins themselves go far to assist a definite 
 selection from among these theories. In the first place, the fidelity 
 with which the main characteristics of the Sah head are reproduced on 
 some of the earlier specimens of the Gupta coins, seems to negative 
 the idea of the latter having been copied from any inferior model, and 
 should suffice in itself to set aside the claims of the last-named secondary 
 transition. The Greek legend on the obverse, on the other hand, 
 shows signs of a material change from the unintelligible, though 
 squarely-outlined and very Greek-looking, letters of the Sah kings, to 
 the ill-formed and straggling Hellenic alphabet in use among the 
 Indo-Scythians, and points plainly to the occurrence of an interval — 
 indefinite perhaps — between the fabrication of the one class and of the 
 other. The variation also in the expression of the Sanskrit letters on 
 the reverse, evidences extensive modification, such as could only have 
 resulted from some considerable lapse of time 1 , and which it would 
 be impossible satisfactorily to explain by any notion that the Gupta 
 artists summarily introduced the form of writing current in the 
 countries whence their masters came, to the permanent supercession 
 of any characters in prevailing local use. The change from the old 
 reverse device is of no import in its bearings upon the present enquiry, 
 as it must have been effected from religious motives, entirely irre- 
 spective of any circumstances incident to direct or interrupted suc- 
 cession. The palpable modifications in both the Greek and Sanskrit 
 alphabets now noticed, may be held to prove that the transition from 
 one series of coins to the other was by no means immediate; an 
 inference which is strongly corroborated by the recognition of a 
 distinct group of medals also derived from the original Surashtran 
 
 1 Compare Nos. 1 to 12 with a, b, c, d, e, PL HI. Prinsep had already 
 remarked that " The Asoka alphabet (the Sanskrit one) agrees very closely with 
 that of our Surashtra coins, which may thence be pronounced to be anterior to 
 the Gupta Series." J. A. S. B., vii. 275. 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 17 
 
 stock, whose palseographic peculiarities, in associating tliem obviously 
 :iikI intimately with the Sah exemplars, contrast broadly with the 
 mutations observable in the Gupta series. (See 1st Sub-species, p. 
 56, PI. II., figs, 35, 36, 37, 38.) Reviewing all these facts, and giving 
 the requisite weight to the token of the intervening Scythic supre- 
 macy conveyed in the use of the title of their chiefs on the Gupta 
 Guzerati pieces, as well as to the valid presumption, hereafter to be 
 noticed, that the Indo-Scythians themselves did not generally coin sil- 
 ver money, it appears necessary to conclude that the Guptas, on their 
 conquest of the kingdom of Guzerat, contented themselves with re- 
 modelling the ancient Sah coinage, which, from the numbers in which 
 its representatives are still to be found, may reasonably be presumed 
 to have continued to constitute the bulk of the currency of the pro- 
 vince at that epoch. 
 
 Some objection might be taken to the apparent inconsistency of 
 claiming for the Guptas a direct succession to the Indo-Scythians on 
 the strength of similitude of coinage, when in a nearly parallel in- 
 stance of imitation by the Guptas of the Surashtran money, an inter- 
 val of somewhere about one, or one and a half centuries is admitted to 
 have occurred. If these several facts stood alone, and were to be 
 tried only on their own internal merits, this objection might indeed be 
 valid, but it is to be borne in mind that a very slow process of change 
 would apply to the coinage of a country so nearly isolated in its natu- 
 ral boundaries as the peninsula of Guzerat : as, from the very nature of 
 its geographical outline alone, it is probable that the purely local cur- 
 rency of the kingdom was, on the one hand, little liable to be exported, 
 and, on the other, was but slightly affected by the admixture of 
 foreign specie; so that any endeavour towards a revival of this indi- 
 genous currency would both find plentiful models of the old form of 
 coin ready at hand, and, supposing such pieces still to constitute the 
 bulk of the circulating medium, there would be a reasonable motive 
 for imitation — even though remotely delayed — in the desirability of 
 uniformity alone. 
 
 To the broad continent of Northern India a very different rule 
 would apply, and amid the diverse series of imitations derived from 
 the Indo-Scythic stock, now known to have existed in this region, the 
 Guptas, had they succeeded at any distant epoch to the countries once 
 belonging to the Indo-Scythians, and proposed to themselves to assi- 
 milate their own money to the later issues, would have been more 
 likely to have copied the already existing imitations, rather than, as 
 they arc seen to have done, the best originals. Or, had they to choose 
 a new mintage irrespective of successional associations, there must 
 
 C 
 
18 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 have been other and purer models in the land, in the very perfect 
 coins of the Bactrian Greeks, once largely concurrent, and necessarily 
 to a late date co-existent, with the money of the In do-Scythians, 
 upon which the new types of coinage might advantageously have been 
 based. 
 
 Again, in respect to the characters employed on the several series 
 — a change from one language, the Greek, to a totally distinct tongue, 
 the Sanskrit, in all medallic superscriptions emanating from the 
 Eastern mints — accounted for as it is by a reasonable probability of 
 the supercession of the former as a foreign tongue, in favour of the 
 official language of the new ruling power, which was at the same 
 time more assimilated to that of the people at large — would evidently 
 require no lapse of time to accomplish; but a very different expia- 
 tion is required for the numerous subsidiary modifications in the local 
 alphabetical characters seen on the Gupta Surashtran coins, as com- 
 pared with the more ancient letters of the same class on the original 
 money of the Sah kings. 
 
 These pervading alterations could under no circumstances have 
 been effected by any sudden process, or by any revolution which did 
 not admit of a considerable interval between the use of the one form 
 of writing and the other. 
 
 In the absence of either direct history or the more trustworthy 
 record of monumental inscriptions, the next source of information to 
 which it is requisite to apply, is the detached notices of classical 
 writers, who in any way refer to the land and the people more imme- 
 diately under review. Prominent among these is the reference to 
 Mambarus to be found in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea 1 . This, 
 however, when brought to the test of critical accuracy, is found to be 
 useless for any present purpose, inasmuch as, in addition to the 
 avowed difficulty attendant upon the satisfactory explanation of the 
 text itself, as it has been handed down to us, there remains a nearly 
 
 1 Vincent's Periplus, p. 98, and note on Mambarus at the conclusion. 
 
 Original Translation. Vincent's Proposed Emendation. 
 
 "Next to the bay of Barake sue- "Next to Barake immediately suc- 
 
 ceeds the gulf of Barugaza, and on this ceeds the gulf of Barugaza, and the 
 gulf is the commencement of the whole commencement of the province of La>, 
 [peninsula] of India, as well as the [which is] the kingdom of Mambarus, 
 kingdom of Mambarus, towards [the and the whole of this part of India has 
 confines of] Ariake." the same commencement." 
 
 " I have attributed the sovereignty of Ariake or Concan to Mambarus, and I 
 am now convinced that his dominion was Guzersit. * * I made the Parthian 
 power at Minnagar, on the Indus, extend over Guzerfit, whereas in reality it em- 
 braced only Scindi and Kutch." 
 
THE SAII KINGS OF SURAS1ITKA. 19 
 
 equal degree of incertitude regarding the precise epoch 1 to which the 
 amended textual reading — if received — should he held to apply. 
 Hence, even admitting to the full that the original allusion to Larike 
 and Mambarus is now correctly interpreted, the doubt still remains as 
 to when this condition of things is to be made applicable to the kingdom 
 more particularly in question. Thus the independence of Guzerat, at 
 the moment of the visit of the Author of the Periplus, if acknowledged 
 as :i fact, does not under these circumstances possess any great historic 
 value; nor would even the exact ascertainment of the epoch testified 
 to, do more than prove the temporary existence of the kingdom of 
 Mambarus, or by any means demonstrate that the Indo-Scythians did 
 not — either prior or subsequent to the given date — conquer the penin- 
 sula of Guzerat 2 . 
 
 Fortunately for the satisfactory decision of the present question, 
 we have the evidence of a nearly contemporaneous writer, whose state- 
 ment, though not in unison with the dubious reading of the text of the 
 Periplus proposed by Vincent, is in itself clear and distinct to the 
 point it is now sought to elucidate — the tenure of the peninsula of 
 Guzerat during a portion at least of the time during which the 
 Scythian monarchy at Minnagar was in effective force. From the 
 testimony of Ptolemy it is amply manifest that Guzerat once formed a 
 portion of the Indo-Scythian empire, the chief seat of which was on 
 the banks of the Indus 3 . 
 
 Having determined the main question of fact, it is requisite to pro- 
 
 1 Vincent, "about 63 a.d.," Commerce of the Ancients, ii. 57 and 685; 
 Heeren, " during the first, or, at latest, during the second century a.d." Asiatic 
 Nations, ii. 565, Lond., 1846. 
 
 * " Ozene" is noticed in the Periplus " as formerly the seat of government" (p. 
 102). This would be by no means an unimportant piece of information, as showing 
 that in the time of the second Arrian, Ujein was no longer an Imperial metropolis, 
 were it not that it is somewhat difficult to reconcile this statement with the asser- 
 tion of Ptolemy, who calls it " the capital of Tiastanus, and his royal residence." 
 Vincent, Commerce of the Ancients, ii. 406. 
 
 3 Lassen, quoting Ptolemy, J. A. S. B., 1840, pp. 756, 757. 
 
 In support of the conclusion arrived at above respecting the Scythian conquest 
 of Guzerat, it may be expedient to cite the decisive opinion expressed on this head 
 by so able a Numismatist as Capt. Alexander Cunningham, Bengal Engineers, an 
 Antiquary who has moreover devoted special attention to the subject of the geo- 
 graphical limits of the Bactrian and Indo-Scythian monarchies:—" In the most 
 flourishing period of their rule, the Indo-Scythians, under Kanerki and his imme- 
 diate successors, must have possessed not only Kashmir itself, but also the whole 
 of Gandhara on the Indus ; and from Kabul on the west, as far as the Ganges on 
 tin- east, down to Barygaza or Baroach on the south." Num. Chron., vi. 2, 
 Article, "The Ancient Coinage of Kashmir;" see also Num. Chron. viii. 175, 
 " Chronological and Geographical Table of Alexander's Successors in the East." 
 
 C2 
 
20 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 ceed to that of degree, and to consider what was the nature of the 
 tenure thus established. We learn from the Chinese, " That at the 
 period when all these kingdoms belonged to the Yue-Chi, the latter put 
 the local kings to death and substituted military chiefs 1 ." Hence it 
 is but reasonable to infer that Guzerat, on its subjection, was put upon 
 the same footing as the other countries which fell to the arms of the 
 Indo-Scythians, and that the form of government previously prevail- 
 ing in the peninsula was superseded by the usual military despotism 
 of the conquerors. The application of this system to Guzerat in itself 
 accounts for much that was inexplicable in the examination of the 
 numismatic portion of the question, when confined to the results de- 
 ducible from its own internal evidence, as developed solely by the 
 medals themselves. Under a general scheme of provincial govern- 
 ment by military chiefs, having in their own persons no pretence to 
 the privileges or dignities of even dependant kings, it is probable that 
 the local coinage was suspended in favour of one uniform imperial 
 issue. The monetary standard of the Indo-Scythians was, without 
 question, gold, as amid the multitude of their coins extant only one 
 genuine silver piece is known 2 . It has already been remarked by Pro- 
 fessor Wilson 3 that their silver currency consisted chiefly of the coins 
 of their Bactrian predecessors, so also we may infer that, in like man- 
 ner, in the province of Guzerat, the pre-existing silver currency was 
 held to be sufficient for the wants of the community, especially when 
 aided, as it now was, by the introduction of the more valuable and 
 heretofore probably unknown gold coinage, at that period peculiar to 
 these tribes. 
 
 If the data now cited, and the deductions drawn from them, are 
 correct, it appears that the Indo-Scythians of Minnagar ruled over 
 Guzerat— that during the time of their sway over this peninsula the 
 issue of local silver money was not sustained; hence, admitting the 
 obvious priority of date of the Sah silver coins over those of the 
 Guptas— for which indeed they are seen to have furnished the proto- 
 type — and rejecting all idea of the intervention between the Scythians 
 and the Guptas of a dynasty whose united reigns can scarcely have 
 
 1 Ma-twan-lin, Pauthier, Asiatic Journal, LXXIX. and LXXX., 1836; the 
 same, Stan. Julien, Journ. Asiatique, X. 95 (1847); so also Thian Tchu, Pauthier, 
 Journ. Asiatique, 1839. "A cette epoque [159 a.d.] tous ces royaumes (Kaboul 
 et les divers etats de l'Hindoustan) appartenaient aux You'd Chi, ou peuple de race 
 Lunaire. Les You'd Chi avaient fait mourir leurs rois, et e*tabli a leur place des 
 commandants militaires pour gouverner tous leurs sujets." 
 
 2 Ar. Ant., pi. xi. fig. 9. 
 
 a Ar. Ant., 348. See also Cunningham, Num. Chron. vi. 7 (1843). 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 21 
 
 spread over less than a century and a half, it results that the Sah 
 kings preceded the Indo-Scythians. 
 
 It is now pretty generally conceded that the Yue-Chi (Tochares) 
 conquest of Western India should be dated in or about 26 B.C. 1 It is, 
 therefore, anterior to this epoch that the domination of the Sah kings 
 must be placed. 
 
 Having attained this approximate date from comparatively exter- 
 nal and subsequent indications, the next step in advance leads to an 
 examination into the intrinsic claims of the coins themselves to date 
 prior to 26 B.C., as well as to a consideration of any testimony specifi- 
 cally applicable to the history of the Sah kings, whose names are 
 borne on the coins in question. 
 
 VI. It may be convenient to commence this section of the enquiry 
 with " The Sah Kings' " own account of themselves, as preserved in 
 their inscription engraved on the rock at Girnar 2 , — the monumental 
 record stone of three several dynasties. 
 
 The amount of information derivable from this inscription 3 is less 
 
 1 Ma-twan-lin, J.R. A. S., 1836; also Journ. Asiatique, 1839; Lassen, 
 J. A. S. B., 1840, p. 765 (40 B.C.); Cunningham, Num. Chron., viii. 175; Ar. 
 Ant., 301. 
 
 2 " The rock containing the inscriptions is about a mile to the eastward of 
 Junagad, and about four miles from the base of Girnar, which is in the same 
 direction." Rev. J. Wilson, J. A. S. B., vii. 337. See also a subsequent paper 
 in the same volume (p. 865), by Lieut. Postans, giving a full account of the ad- 
 jacent localities. 
 
 3 On first arranging the materials of the present paper, I was prepared to 
 rely implicitly upon Prinsep's translation of the Girnar Bridge Inscription; but 
 on its subsequently coming to my knowledge that a second more perfect facsimile 
 of the original record had been taken by Major Jacob and Mr. Westergaard, and 
 a lithograph copy of the same made public in the pages of the Journal of the 
 Bombay Branch Asiatic Society, I was induced to apply to this transcript, with a 
 view, at the least, of checking any possible errors in the more prominent names of 
 men and countries that might have crept into the less perfect copy of the inscrip- 
 tion furnished to Jas. Prinsep by Dr. Wilson, from which the original decipher- 
 ment was obtained. In the progress of my examination, I was startled to find 
 very extensive variation, both in the number and value of the letters as given in 
 the two copies; indeed, the mere discovery that the opening name, read by Prinsep 
 as Art Dama, was in the new transcript clearly and unquestionably Rudra Dama" — 
 the identical designation that occurs in the concluding portion of both copies of the 
 inscription — was enough to satisfy me that a complete revision of the entire docu- 
 ment was now absolutely requisite. Under these circumstances, I at once applied 
 to Professor Wilson, who readily undertook the task, permitting me, in the most 
 liberal manner, to make full use of his new translation, which I am gratified in 
 being able to announce will shortly be published in a separate form, illustrated 
 by the needful notes and remarks. Such being the case, I have confined my 
 notice of the inscription to such extracts and observations as were indispensable to 
 elucidate the special subject of the coins of the Sah kings. 
 
22 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 complete than might have been anticipated, owing chiefly to the muti- 
 lated state of the face of the stone whereon the writing is cut, having 
 created a succession of breaks in the context which it is at times 
 difficult to supply. We learn however, generally, that the repair of 
 the Girnar Bridge or Causeway, which the monumental writing is 
 designed to commemorate, took place during the reign, and under the 
 direct auspices of Raja Maha Kshatrapa Rudra Dama, the son of 
 Swami Chandana. The structure itself would seem to have been ori- 
 ginally undertaken by Pushpa Gupta [the son, or officer] of Chandra 
 Gupta Maurya, and subsequently completed under the direction of 
 Tushasya, the superintendent of Asoka Maurya. Thus erected, it 
 may be supposed to have stood until carried away by the flood of the 
 Palesini, which necessitated its reconstruction in the time of Rudra 
 Dama : what the extent of the interval between these given epochs 
 may have been there is no means of determining, nor is any assistance 
 in fixing the time of the later occurrences to be derived from what 
 still remains of the defaced passage, which must once have conveyed 
 the record of a date. However, from the separate mention of the 
 names of Chandra Gupta, Pushpa Gupta, Asoka, and his subordinate 
 Tushasya, as well as from the circumstantial reference to the progress 
 of the work, as first undertaken, which marks this portion of the inscrip- 
 tion, thus much may fairly be inferred, that the record itself cannot 
 well have been endorsed at any period distantly removed from the 
 time of the domination of the Maurya sovereigns therein alluded to. 
 
 Among the incidental notices of importance to be found in the 
 inscription is to be cited the reference to the lands ruled over by 
 Rudra Dama. Of these, the names of Surashtra and Anartta, as well 
 as the designations of the countries of the Parantas and the Nishadas, 
 are distinctly and unequivocally legible; and from among the doubt- 
 ful readings, upon which less reliance can be placed, may be quoted 
 Abhira, Khusmara 1 , Kukura, and the districts on the confines of 
 Avanti (Ujein). 
 
 The sentence, "Having (twice 1) conquered without deceit Sata- 
 
 karni, sovereign of the South" C^f^TJTPTO); likewise offers matter 
 
 for remark, as, from the distinct mention of the name and kingdom of 
 the monarch in question, a legitimate expectation might arise of the 
 
 1 This word is exceedingly doubtful in the Bombay facsimile, the initial letter 
 occurring after a lengthened break in the context caused by the nearly entire loss 
 of a number of letters on the edge of a fissure in the rock. The head lines of 
 both the first and second letters of the word suggested are also only imperfectly 
 visible. 
 
THE SAH KINGS OP SURASIIT1U. 23 
 
 possibility of checking the apparent date of the conqueror by the ap- 
 proximate identification of that of the individual conquered; in point 
 of fact, however, even were it possible to select the king alluded to 
 from among the rest of his race 1 , who are all supposed to have borne 
 the dynastic title of Satakarni*, but little could be gained from this 
 source, as the known history of the dynasty itself affords still less of 
 certain epochal data than that of the race whose sera we would test 
 by their contemporaneous existence. It has been remarked, both by 
 Prinsep and Wilson, that perhaps the most trustworthy information 
 we obtain of the probable date of these Southern kings is derived from 
 Pliny, who mentions that the Andhra monarchs were very powerful 
 in India in the beginning of the Christian sera. From the details 
 given of the extent of this power, as evidenced in the numerical 
 strength of their armies, &c. 3 , it might reasonably be concluded, in the 
 absence of any evidence to the contrary, that such extensive supre- 
 macy must have taken some time to consolidate 4 , and hence that 
 the family of the Satakarnis may well have been co-existent with our 
 Surashtran monarchs, at all events at some proximate period B.C. 
 
 For the purposes of chronological arrangement, it would also 
 be highly desirable to have been able definitively to determine the 
 position Rudra Dama. should occupy among the other members of 
 the Sah Dynasty. This might possibly have been done, but with the 
 necessary reservation in regard to the additional prefix of Swami, by 
 identifying the Raja Maha Kshatrapa Rudra Dama of the inscription 
 with the individual of the same title and name who figures on the 
 coins as the father of the last monarch of the present list. There is, 
 however, undoubtedly a difficulty 5 in the way of the unreserved ad- 
 
 1 la number 30 kings, supposed to spread over 435 odd years. Wilson, 
 Vishnu Purana. 
 
 » Prinsep, J. A. S. B., vii. 346; Wilson, Vishnu Purana, 474, note 63. 
 
 8 Validior deinde gens Andarae, plurimis vicis, xxx oppidis quae muris turri- 
 busque muniuntur, regi praebet peditum cm, equituni mm, elephantos m. Pliny, 
 Hist. Nat., vi. 19. 
 
 * Wilson, though he says, "According to the computation hazarded above from 
 our text, the race of Andhra kings should not commence till about twenty years 
 B.C., which would agree with Pliny's notice of them," adds the important admis- 
 sion, " but it is possible that they existed earlier in the south of India, although 
 they established their authority in Magadha only in the first centuries of the 
 Christian sera." Vishnu Purana, p. 47o. 
 
 5 This objection might certainly be overruled by supposing that Swami Rudra 
 Sah, the son of Swami Rudra Dama, upon whose coins alone the latter name 
 occurs, finding it advisable to distinguish, by sonic means or other, his own name 
 — already so common in the family from the analogous debignations of his pre- 
 decessors, adopted the expedient of carrying out this object by the introduction of 
 
24 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 mission of this identity in the use of the extra title of Swami on the 
 coins, for the insertion of which there was clearly no want of room on 
 the face of the rock whereon the inscription is engraved ; and without 
 such a convincing degree of certainty, it would of course be useless to 
 raise up any arguments founded upon what may eventually prove a 
 mere chance coincidence. 
 
 Tn concluding these summary observations on the Sah Inscription, 
 it will be useful to cite Prinsep's opinion of the internal evidence 
 of the antiquity of the record, as shown by the form of the writing 
 employed; an opinion, it is to be remarked, that possesses peculiar 
 value, as having been adopted at a period, in his successful career of 
 deciphering these monuments of antiquity, when his knowledge of the 
 subject had arrived at its fullest maturity. " The character is only 
 one remove from the Buddhist alphabet of Girndr. It has the same 
 mode of applying the vowel marks e, a, and o, in particular to those 
 excellent test letters n, n, and m. The vowel i is still formed of three 
 dots : but I need not more fully dilate upon its peculiarities, as I have 
 already inserted the whole alphabet as No. 3 of the comparative table," 
 to which has been assigned the date of the third century B.C. 1 
 
 Lastly, it remains to be quoted, as a fact of some importance in the 
 elucidation of the general subject of the comparative antiquity of 
 Asiatic tongues, that the inscription is written in the Sanskrit lan- 
 guage 2 . 
 
 It is now time to notice the more prominent characteristics of the 
 coins themselves — viewed as a series — reserving the more extended 
 examination of individual peculiarities for the Detail appended to this 
 Memoir. 
 
 the extra title of Swami, which, in appropriating to himself, he may have thought 
 necessary to apply to his father, though his father himself, in rejoicing in a deno- 
 mination hitherto unused by any monarch of the dynasty, found no occasion to 
 employ the same distinctive word. This title is seen from the inscription to have 
 pertained to Chandana, the father and grandfather of these Rudras (?) — a honorary 
 prefix by no means necessarily or invariably bestowed upon the fathers of kings. 
 (See Varsha, coin No. 1, Detail of Coins.) 
 
 1 " The Sanskrit character of the third century b.c. differs only so much from 
 the original form [the Buddhist alphabet of the fifth century B.C.] as the habits 
 of a class of writers, distinct in religion [?] and more refined in language, might 
 naturally introduce." Prinsep, J. A. S. B., vii. 275. 
 
 8 " All doubt as to the pre-existence of the Sanskrit in its purest state being 
 set aside by the simultaneous production of a monument of Asoka's time, I need 
 not trouble myself to prove the necessity of the existence of a higher and more 
 remote model to account for the marked difference between the dialect of Guzerat 
 and that of Cuttack. * * The dialect of Girnar, then [of the Buddhist Edict], 
 is intermediate between Sanskrit and Pali." J. A. S. B., vii. 277. 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 25 
 
 As most readily to be disposed of, it may be convenient to com- 
 mence with a description of the Reverse. The centre symbol of this 
 surface of the coins uniformly consists of a base line surmounted by 
 three semicircles, arranged in the form of a pyramid. This emblem 
 is held — according to the circumstances under which it is employed — 
 to typify indifferently the Buddhist Chaitya or the Mithraic flame'. 
 Below this is to be seen a wavy line, which has been supposed to repre- 
 sent a bow*, but which more probably appears as the ancient type of 
 water — a precisely similar line expressing that element in the hiero- 
 glyphics of Egypt. Above the apex of the centre device is a crescent, 
 generally carefully separated from the lines of the principal figure. 
 On the right side of the upper surface of the field is to be noticed a 
 seeming constellation, usually numbering seven stars, one of which 
 performs the part of centre of the system; but at times this symbol 
 takes the form of a single sun or star, the attendant satellites being 
 transformed into rays 3 . On the corresponding space to the left there 
 is a repetition of the half-moon which crowns the centre ornament. 
 Around these, in finely cut and mostly uniformly fashioned Devan- 
 agari letters, are inscribed the name, title, and paternity of the sove- 
 reign who struck the piece. These letters assimilate in all needful 
 respects with the corresponding alphabet of the Sah Inscription at 
 Girnar, though the general coincidence is less striking in consequence 
 of the <iie-characters being so disposed as to make the head-line of the 
 legend nearly touch the circle that forms the margin of the coin, 
 which has led to a very constant omission of all those vowels which 
 should be written above their associate consonants. 
 
 The necessity of compressing a lengthened inscription into a 
 limited space has also tended to vary the apparent forms of some of 
 the letters themselves, consequent upon an effort to give the requisite 
 definition in less than the needful breadth. This will be seen to have 
 
 been more particularly the case with the letter ^, which is at first 
 
 1 This symbol " occurs on the Pantaleon Greek coins— on the Indo-Scythic 
 group— on the Behat Buddhist group — on similar coins dug up in Ceylon— and 
 here at the extremity of India. It is the Buddhist Chaitya, the Mithraic flame- 
 Mount Meru, Mount Aboo!" Prinsep, J. A. S. B., vi. 389. 
 
 " In the centre of the reverse is the so-called Chaitya symbol ^ ; which, 
 had it only occurred on these descendants of a Mithraic coin, I should now be 
 inclined to designate a symbol of the holy flame, trilingual and pyramidical, of the 
 Sassanian fire-worship." Prinsep, J. A. S. B., iv. 686. 
 
 8 Steuart, J. R. A. S., xviii. 274. 
 
 s Ar. Ant., pi. xv. fig. 14; also J. A. S. B., vii. pi. xii. fig. 12; infra, pi. i. 
 fig. 19. 
 
26 ON THE DYNASTY OP 
 
 sight scarcely recognisable as the possible equivalent of the ^ of the 
 Lapidary alphabet. Another notable difference existing between the 
 two systems of writing is, that whereas the Inscription alphabet has 
 no tops to the letters, except such as are incidentally added to express 
 an annexed vowel, the coin characters, on the contrary, have inva- 
 riably a head line, which, though it adds to the uniform appearance 
 of the whole, debars the free definition of these useful distinctive 
 signs. 
 
 Reviewing the whole of the symbolic indications to be found on 
 the reverse of the medals of the Surashtran kings, it is to be noticed 
 that, taking the central emblem as neutral ground, common both to 
 Buddhists and Mithraists, there is, with the single exception of the 
 wavy line, a remarkable absence of other purely Buddhist signs, in the 
 presence, too, of strange symbols, which have hitherto been seen on no 
 acknowledged Buddhist coin: moreover, these identical devices 1 , the 
 crescents, and, at times, a completely analogous form 2 of the star, figure 
 as favourite devices on the avowed fire-worship coins of the Sassanians. 
 
 These considerations seem to authorise a supposition that — though 
 already largely tinctured with the prevailing and lately dominant 
 religion of Buddha — the Sah kings avowedly followed the ancient 
 faith of "Sun Worshippers," a creed of which their country to this 
 day bears traces, not only in its name 3 , but in the still surviving 
 temples 4 once devoted to the service of the Solar Deity. 
 
 1 See Ar. Ant., pi. xvi. figs, 4, 6, 16, 17; pi. xvii. 1, 2, 3, 4, &c, and espe- 
 cially No. 7- 
 
 2 Longperier, Me'dailles Sassanides, obverse figs. 3, 4, pi. I. ; reverse figs. 2, 3, 
 PI. IX.; see also X., XI., &c. 
 
 8 " Saurashtra, or the region of the worshippers of the sun, comprised the whole 
 of the peninsula at present called Kathiawar." Wathen, J. A. S. B., iv. 482. 
 
 4 " The earliest objects of adoration in these regions (Mewar, &c.) were the 
 sun and moon," Tod, ii. 301. " The only temples of the sun I have met with 
 are in Saurashtra," idem. 
 
 It is a prominent fact connected with the survival of this form of religion that 
 Dharapattah, the fifth Valabhi, is noticed in the text of Wathen's first Copper-plate 
 Grant as " the great adorer of the sun." J. A. S. B., iv. 485. In corroboration 
 of this also, we learn from Tod that " in the mythology of the Rajpoots, of which 
 we have a better idea from their heroic poetry than from the legends of the Brah- 
 mins, the Sun-god is the deity they are most anxious to propitiate ; and in his 
 honour they fearlessly expend their blood in battle. * * Their highest heaven 
 is accordingly the Bhan-t'han or Bhanuloca, the region of the sun ; and like the 
 Indu-Scythic Gete, the Rajpoot warrior of the early ages sacrificed the horse in 
 his honour, and dedicated to him the first day of the week." (Annals, i. 563.) 
 Iliuen-thsang found a temple of the sun at Multan in the seventh century, 
 which was still in existence when the Arabs first entered India. (Reinaud, 
 Analyse d'un Memoire Geographique, 14.) 
 
T11K BAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 27 
 
 Prinsep's conjecture regarding the Buddhist faith of these monarchs 
 was based upon three separate indications. 1st. The absence of all 
 allusion to recognized Hindu mythology in the Girnar Inscription ; 
 2nd, the reading of one of the names on the coins, as Jina Dama 
 ("Wearing Buddha as a necklace"); and, 3rd, the Buddhistic leaning 
 to be detected in the abstinence from destruction of life, laudatorily 
 attributed to Rudra Dama in the Bridge Inscription 1 . 
 
 The following observations are also illustrative of the general subject : — 
 
 " Nous en citons quelques traits dans une traduction fidele, pour amener le 
 tableau que nous devons faire des elements qui ont constitue a l'origine le pantheon 
 indien : — 
 
 " ' Le culte dtait simple [dit Goerres] : point de temples ou d'iniages. Les 
 regards s'elevaient de la terre vers le ciel ; la etait ve'ritablement Pempire du feu ; 
 la brulait perpetuellement le soleil ; la etincelaient les etoiles et les planetes comme 
 autant de flammes au sein de l'obscurite; la resplendissaient dans leurs sources 
 intarissables les feux, qui ne projetaient sur la terre que des clartes affaiblies. Le 
 culte du feu est devenu l'adoration du soleil ; le soleil, Parmee des cieux, les Cle- 
 mens qui leur obeissent, telies sent les puissances immortelles, et tels sont tout 
 a-la-fois les pretres du ciel ; le monde est un reflet de la divinite" ; il existe par 
 lui-meme, il n'est limitC par rien ; en ce sens, la religion de cette epoque est un 
 pantheism.' 
 
 " Ces aper9us, qui sont pour Phistoire religieuse de l'lnde de la plus grande 
 justesse, sont confirmes par les recherches entreprises dans les derniers temps sur 
 les cultes dominans de PAsie moyenne et anterieure; les debris des fables et des 
 legendes populaires que les sources anciennes rapportent aux Chaldeens, aux Phe'- 
 niciens, aux Babyloniens, aux Armeniens, aux Phrygiens, ont des caracteres ana- 
 logues et un fonds commun : ' Tout semble se rapporter au culte des astres ou au 
 sabelsme, dans son sens le plus materiel. Le soleil, la lune, quelques planetes, 
 certaines constellations, dans leurs mutuels rapports avec la terre, tels paraissent 
 etre les principaux objets d'adoration. * * La Perse, PEgypte, la Grece, et 
 PItalie meme n'offreut dans leurs souvenirs antiques aucun fait qui contredise la 
 portee de cette appreciation.' " M. Neve, Mythe des Ribhavas, p. 5. 
 
 " Les hommages des indigenes, a cette epoque reculee, s'adressaient au soleil, 
 a la lune, au feu, et a ce qui ordinairement frappe le plus vivement les sens et 
 Pimagination. Tel est le culte qui parait avoir domine' jadis, non-seulement dans 
 PInde, mais dans la Perse." Reinaud, Analyse d'un Memoire Geographique, 13 
 (1846). 
 
 See also the Vedic faith, as shown by Sir William Jones' Essays ; Colebrooke, 
 As. Res., ix. 273 ; Wilson, Introd. Vishnu Purana, ii. 
 
 1 " It is remarkable that, in the long string of epithets applied even to Rudra 
 Dama, the chosen Satrap, there is none which bears the slightest allusion to Hindu 
 mythology; while, on the other hand, the coins of the whole dynasty bear an em- 
 blem we have hitherto considered either of Mithraic or of Buddhist import. The 
 name of Jina Dama (' Wearing Buddha as a necklace') is decidedly Buddhistic; and 
 the epithet applied in the inscription to Rudra Ddraa —who from right persuasion 
 Deter put any living creature to death — proves that Rudra's opinions were at any 
 rate influenced by the proximity of the important Buddhist establishment at 
 Girnar." 
 
28 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 As it is not proposed to show that the Sahs wero Brahmanical 
 Hindus, the first point requires neither comment nor answer: in 
 respect to the second, as the word Jina can now be proved to have 
 been incorrectly read in the place of Jiwa, the argument founded on 
 the previous interpretation at once falls to the ground : and for the 
 third position, it also is equally based on error, arising from an inac- 
 curate rendering of the original passage in the inscription ; notwith- 
 standing all this, there is some reason to concur in the idea itself, that 
 the Sah kings were " influenced" by the opinions of the Buddhists, 
 though this by no means implies a complete desertion of the old faith. 
 
 This is scarcely the place to enter into any speculations on the 
 connexion between these religions; but as illustrative of the subject 
 more immediately under consideration, it may be mentioned that there 
 are numerous instances of a strange association of Buddhistic invo- 
 cations with the expression of the usual homage to the sun and moon, 
 to be found in many of the Cave Inscriptions in Western India 1 . 
 
 Reverting to the Obverse of these medals, two prominent defi- 
 ciencies have combined to obstruct any conclusive elucidation of the 
 questions involved in the decipherment of the marginal legends — the 
 one resulting from the use of a relatively broader die for this surface of 
 the coin ; the other, from the ignorance of the engravers of the lan- 
 guage they endeavoured to imitate. The first of these causes has left 
 us without a single complete obverse stamp, the latter has rendered 
 that which has received a due impression — so to speak— illegible. 
 
 Before examining the legends, however, the more distinct and 
 simple main device claims a passing notice. The head, which is seen 
 to occupy nearly the entire surface of the coin, is remarkable in itself 
 for a degree of perfection of outline and execution seldom attained by 
 Indian die-cutters; and this superiority alone has been held to evi- 
 dence either direct instruction in, or close imitation of, Grecian art; 
 though the features of the face, the thin moustache, the ear-rings, and 
 the head-dress, each and all bespeak the hand of a native artist, 
 whose ideal of the form and apparel of a man (for whomsoever in- 
 tended) was drawn from local associations. There does not seem to 
 
 1 Sykes' Inscription, J. R. A. S., No. VIII., interpreted by Prinsep, J. A. S. B., 
 vii. 566. See also the same, with additional Inscriptions collected by Bird, (His- 
 torical Researches, &c, pp. 51, 52, Bombay, 1847); also his notice of the deri- 
 vation of the Buddhist religion itself, from the old form of Sabean idolatry, Bom- 
 bay Branch J. A. S., May, 1844, p. 440; and Hist. Res., p. 63, where he 
 states, " I refer them rather to solar and elemental worship, out of which arose 
 Buddhism, and with which it seems to have been intimately associated on its first 
 propagation as a creed." t 
 
THE BAH KINGS OF SUBA8HTBA. 29 
 
 have been any intentional attempt to vary the profiles, such as under 
 a higher style of art might have been aimed at, with a design of 
 portraying each succeeding king; indeed, the original head is impli- 
 citly reproduced throughout, with the exception, of course, of occa- 
 sional deterioration consequent upon inferiority of workmanship, 
 which extends to the rest of the coin. The same remark applies 
 generally to the entire execution of the die-arrangements, and it is a 
 fact of perhaps more import than has as yet been assigned to it, that 
 the coins of twelve kings should thus continue — throughout the 
 period implied in the natural duration of so many reigns — to run so 
 little changed in aught but the purport of the legends. The inscrip- 
 tion that nearly surrounds the head, consists of two diverse, though 
 undivided, legends, the more lengthened one being expressed in a sin- 
 gular imitation of Greek letters; the more brief record of three cha- 
 racters, which occupies the most roomy portion of the field, behind 
 the neck of the figure, being understood to have an Indian origin. It 
 will simplify the examination of these, to consider them each under 
 their separate heads. 
 
 As introductory to the former, a few words seem called for on the 
 form of the characters themselves: these have from the first been 
 recognised as imperfect representations of Greek letters 1 , and each 
 succeeding 2 observer has concurred in this attribution. Late acquisi- 
 tions of more perfect materials fully confirm these early impressions ; 
 and though up to the present time we are still far removed from any 
 definite and satisfactory solution of the purport the legends may have 
 been intended to convey, nevertheless a few items may be cited as 
 showing progress made towards the elucidation of the enigma. 
 
 Not the least in order among these is the fact of the specimens of 
 the earlier coins displaying far more correctly formed Greek letters 
 than the pieces which succeed them, justifying thereby, not only the 
 inference that the higher we advance in point of antiquity, the nearer 
 we approach the level of the intelligible alphabet in which the 
 earliest legends must needs have been written; but also the more im- 
 portant deduction therefrom, that the errors of later copyists were 
 beyond the reach of authoritative correction, and hence, that subse- 
 quent to the establishment of the Sah dynasty, there was, in the one 
 case, either a general absence of Greek interference with the provinces 
 wherein these coins were current, and that the crude imitations of 
 their characters were considered as evincing in themselves sufficient 
 
 1 Steuart, J. R. A. S., Feb. 1837, p. 273; also Trinsep, May, 1837, J. A.S. B. 
 ■ Wilson, J. R. A. S., 1837, p. 398; also Ar. Ant., 411; Stevenson, Bombay 
 Asiatic Journal, 1847. 
 
30 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 compliance with the demands implied in the recognition of Greek 
 supremacy; or, on the other hand — supposing the complete inde- 
 pendence of the Sahs of Guzerat — we must conclude that a mere 
 mechanical semblance of the original inscription was sufficient for the 
 purposes of the later members of the family, who perpetuated it for 
 uniformity sake, without thinking it necessary to render intelligible a 
 record couched in a language at best but in partial use. 
 
 That these obverse legends were mainly the work of Indian 
 artists might be held to be sufficiently established by the simple cir- 
 cumstance of the Devanagari alphabet on the reverse retaining its 
 fixed identity throughout the series, in the presence of a progressive 
 debasement of the associate Greek characters on the opposite surface ; 
 but beyond this, the inference in question is strikingly confirmed by 
 the detection — at an early period — of a tendency on the part of the 
 engraver unduly to assimilate the general features of certain Greek 
 letters to Devanagari characters possessed of a somewhat analogous 
 outline. This leaning towards the local model occurs in an unusually 
 marked degree on certain specimens of the money of the second 
 monarch of our list, many of his coins, at the same time, showing the 
 Greek alphabet in its initial transition state between the more cor- 
 rectly shaped letters of his predecessor Iswara-datta's coins, and the 
 less and less distinctly expressed characters to be found on the pieces 
 of his successors. Aided by the hint derived from the latter fact, the 
 former seems in itself to furnish a satisfactory clue to the explanation 
 of the real history of the deteriorating process whereby the obverse 
 legends of the major portion of the entire group of these medals have 
 reached a state of imperfection amounting to a complete loss of the 
 distinctive character of the Hellenic alphabet. A native die-sinker, 
 who might happen to discover the similarity that may really be said 
 
 to have existed between the occasional form of his own J{ and the 
 
 Greek Y ', would naturally — were the idea of their correspondence 
 once adopted, and he himself left unchecked by needful correction — 
 go on to endue each succeeding Y with more and more of the identity 
 of his own Devanagari letter, and less and less of the required features 
 of the — to him — foreign character; the same course applied to the 
 A, A, and A, each of which might be made to coincide with an in- 
 verted T{, would readily account for the number of such outlines to 
 be found in these inscriptions. Erroneous forms once introduced, and 
 subsequent imitators possessing in turn less and less knowledge of 
 
 1 See PI. I. figs. 3 and 5. 
 
THE BAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 31 
 
 the alphabet to be engraved, may well have produced the curious 
 characters which now defy decipherment. 
 
 This may be a fit place to remark, that the earliest specimen of 
 the coins of the Sah kings at present known has one uniform Greek 
 legend from beginning to end, and is entirely wanting in the Indian 
 figures which are found on the pieces of the succeeding kings. The 
 innovation of introducing Sanskrit numerals into the body of a Greek 
 inscription seems to have originated with Rudra Sah, the son of Swami 
 Jiwa Dama\ Another position is also gained from our latest numis- 
 matic contributions, resulting from the discovery, on a coin of Iswara 
 datta, of a well-cut Greek sigma (2) of the old form, which began to 
 be locally barbarized in India, towards the commencement of the cen- 
 tury before Christ 1 , and which is found in permanent use in its new 
 shape (C) on the coins of Kadphises" and Kanerki. This, it is true, 
 is but a small matter, but it should be sufficient to prove, even if there 
 were no other evidence to the point, that the Sah kings preceded the 
 Kanerkis (Yue Chi). 
 
 Regarding the intent and meaning of the legends, it is worse than 
 useless to speculate upon probabilities founded upon such utterly in- 
 sufficient materials as those now available 1 . It may be as well, there- 
 fore, to avoid all conjecture on the subject, confining the present 
 remarks to what may be fairly affirmed as capable of obvious demon- 
 stration. Even the mutilated and clumsy attempts at Greek letters 
 on these coins suffice to prove not only that the legends are not 
 uniform, but that they vary irregularly ; and allowing, even to the 
 full, for incapacity and want of knowledge on the part of designers 
 and engravers, this variation is marked, and apparently purposed. 
 Thus, on the one hand, we find a certain given series of Greek letters 
 reproduced on the coins of two different kings — as in the case of 
 Vijaya Sah, the son of Dama Sah, and Rudra Sah, son of Vira Dama 4 ; 
 on the other hand, again, are to be seen dissimilar Greek legends on 
 different coins of one and the same Sah king 3 . These facts may be 
 held to establish two distinct points: — 1st. That the obverse inscrip- 
 tion is not a Grecianized equivalent of the Indian name on the reverse, 
 
 1 Wilson, Ar. Ant., p. 316, 318, &c. 
 
 2 First century A.n.: Lassen, J. A. S. B., 1840, p. 705; Ar. Ant., 353; Cun- 
 ningham, Num. Chron. viii. 175. 
 
 8 As it may possibly contribute something towards the eventual elucidation of 
 the purport of these legends, it will be useful to mention that the only coin I have 
 yet seen with the Greek legend perfect at the termination has the concluding 
 letters distinctly .... ITO [Rudra, son of Vira, 8th king (Sykes)]. 
 
 * See Detail of Coins. 
 
 * Rudra Sah, son of Jiwa Dama. PI. I. fig?. 3, 5. 
 
32 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 otherwise two kings of different Sanskrit appellations would not use 
 the same Greek denomination 1 : 2nd. That a given set of Grecian cha- 
 racters being interchangeable for a different assortment on the coins of 
 one king, and another set remaining unchanged on the coins of two kings 
 in succession, it is clear that, supposing the Greek legends to purport 
 the name of any existing being, the life of the individual so named 
 must have been independent of the duration of the lives or reigns of 
 the Sah princes; and hence, that the name, if name it be — and its 
 constituent letters do not designate a Greek equivalent of the title of 
 any of the members of the Local Pantheon — should, under each altera- 
 tion, refer to some one of a succession of potentates whom it was neces- 
 sary or useful for the local princes of Guzerat to acknowledge. 
 
 It remains to notice the last and most important indication 
 afforded by these coins, namely, the dates inserted near the com- 
 mencement of the Greek legend. James Prinsep was indebted, for the 
 original discovery of the fact of the characters in question being sus- 
 ceptible of interpretation as dates, to the identification of certain 
 numerals similar to many of the figures of the coins, detected on some 
 Guzerat Copper-plate Grants of the fourth century [Saka?], whereon 
 the dates were written at length in words, and repeated in figures. 
 
 Km 
 
 The ciphers supplied by these inscriptions were 
 
 = 394— IV V CO = 380— jp< = 15, and ^tiD ^ 
 
 = 385*. Prinsep had, therefore, as he supposed, the decimal num- 
 
 1 Dr. Stevenson, in his account of the late discovery of Surashtran coins at 
 Junfr (Punah Collectorate), published in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of 
 the Asiatic Society, July, 1847, acting upon the supposition that the Greek in- 
 scription might be a mere translate adaptation of the native name on the reverse 
 surface of the coin, has endeavoured to show that' the obverse legend on a piece 
 (infra, PI. I. 5) of Rudra Sah, the son of Swami Jiwa Dam£, is to be read as 
 Aio\v7ris for Deva Rudra. Setting aside the unsatisfactory nature of both 
 reading and rendering in this particular case, the rule itself is shown to be entirely 
 inapplicable in its details to the later coins, and equnlly inconsistent with th e 
 facts developed by the change of inscription on Rudra Sah's own coins as above 
 noticed. I transcribe Dr. S.'s words: — "The first eight of these letters I 
 read KiqKvTns. The last with two fragments I suppose to belong to a new word? 
 of which too little remains to found any conjecture upon. If I am right in 
 reference to the first word, it will be a tolerable translation into Greek of Rudra, 
 or even of Rudra Saha, supposing Dio, as in Dionysius, &c, to be the name of 
 Jupiter, and the other element meaning, like Rudra, the causer of grief." 
 
 2 The first, second, and fourth of these sets of numerals are facsimiles taken 
 from the original copper-plates now in the Library of the Royal Asiatic Society. 
 
THE SAII KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 133 
 
 bers 1, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9 represented by their equivalent figures. In 
 the progress of his enquiry, he was enabled to collect no less than 
 fifteen different symbols; the superfluous five, which remained over 
 and above the requisite set of decimals, were imagined to be merely 
 modifications of the correct form of the original ciphers. This excess, 
 however, was felt and acknowledged to be a difficulty, for the solution 
 of which it was imagined ' there existed no sufficient data. 
 
 An extended collation of the old 2 and many newly acquired spe- 
 cimens 3 of the Sah coins has now distinctly proved that there were a 
 separate set of symbols used to denote units, tens, and hundreds, and 
 hence that the figures employed were incapable of acquiring local 
 value, or attaining any accession of power from relative position ; so 
 that each by itself expressed in full its own corresponding number, 
 independent of any numerals that might precede or follow it. Of 
 the hundreds, the coins show but one example **£ as 300. Of the 
 tens they disclose the QQ as 80, and QQ or = 90, whose values are 
 verified by the copper-plates, and the unidentified forms of Q 4 or 
 Q also OC, M, J or J also J, H or ^, and *£. The ^ = 10 has 
 been found solely on the copper-plates. 
 
 1 Prinsep's suspicions as to the possibility of these figures being independent 
 symbolical numerals — each representing in itself a given number, irrespective of 
 their relative collocation — were naturally excited at finding a character, differing 
 obviously from his own assumed figure one, used— in combination with a distinct 
 unit, possessing its own separate power — to represent the value of ten (J. A. S. 13., 
 vii. 353). Had he seen the original Copper-plate Grant dated 380, he would 
 probably have been confirmed in the opinion that the series of figures in question 
 must be wanting in local value, as the symbol which expresses 80 is here seen to 
 stand without the succeeding dot, reproduced — we must infer — from the inaccurate 
 facsimile furnished by Dr. Burns, as No. 2, PI. XX., Vol. VII. If the symbol 
 CO stood merely for 8, and not for 80, and the "J in like manner represented 3 
 instead of 300, the want of this dot in the figured date would obviously have made 
 the combined ciphers equivalent to 38, instead of the sum of 380, as required by 
 the context of the written date. 
 
 An error that must also have seriously tended to mislead Prinsep's decision of 
 the debated question, was his mistaken reading of the figured date on one of his own 
 coins (J. A. S. B., vii. 350, and fig. 12, pi. xii. re-engraved in the accompanying 
 plate I. as fig. 19), wherein the symbol °HL which is in effect never found exct-pt 
 in the third or hundred place of the date, has been quoted as occupying the 
 second or decimal place of the date, leading naturally to the supposition that the 
 figure was moveable, and therefore, inferentially, that the other numerals were 
 in like manner transferable, and, as such, capable of acquiring relative value. 
 
 2 Steuart's collection, James Prinsep's Cabinet, British Museum, &c. 
 
 3 Colonel Sykes, Colonel Wynch, Baron de Bcrh, &c. 
 
 * See also Watheu's Guzerat Copper-plate, figured date er ^ Q. J. A. S. B., 
 iv. pi. XL. 
 
 D 
 
34 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 The unit numerals to be traced on the coins are nine in number — 
 ->=,=, H or ^ also J! = 4, ^ = 5, £, y or <{ , t: or <J , 
 and J, or f. 
 
 As it will be seen that there is no conclusive evidence whereby 
 to determine the correct order of succession 1 of the several princes 
 of the Sah family, and as it is upon such data alone that the principal 
 conclusions regarding the numerical value of the different figures 
 would have to depend, it may be as well to reserve any attempt at 
 a detail verification of the import of the more doubtful symbols, and to 
 rest content with certain palpable general inferences, which, how- 
 ever, will be found fully sufficient for all purposes of Dynastical 
 emplacement. An additional difficulty in the way of a comprehensive 
 assignment of the order and powers of this series of figures is found 
 in the circumstance, that, inasmuch as they are now shown to be 
 symbolic numerals, not only is it incumbent to determine the value 
 of the larger number of nineteen figures, at the least, instead of 
 the anticipated ten ; but in the recognition of the fact that a separate 
 set of numerals stood for units, tens, and hundreds respectively, we 
 are deprived of much of the advantage which might otherwise have 
 been derived from the identification of the ancient as compared with 
 the possibly assimilate modern form of the same ciphers, had the 
 
 1 For instance, although the several kings are placed in a certain order, and 
 nnmbered for facility of reference, there is but little authority for the distribution, 
 which has been adopted simply as Prinsep's final arrangement (J. A. S. B., vii. 
 358), without any critical examination of the value of the arrangement itself, with 
 the means of testing which we are still unprovided, as there exists neither any 
 written list whereby to determine the relative precedence of each monarch, nor 
 any scale completely applicable to the decision of the question of individual 
 priority in the possibly imperfect order of succession conveyed by the coins them- 
 selves. 
 
 To show how arbitrary the collocation hitherto received may perchance prove 
 to be, it may be noticed that, in addition to the uncertainty attendant upon the 
 position each head of a family ought to hold in the general list, there is not only 
 the difficulty attaching to the succession of several brothers, but the still greater 
 obstruction existing in the fact that our list contains the names of no less than five 
 individuals designated as sons of Rudra Sah, and this last denomination recurs no 
 less than three times as indicating a reigning king, each having a different pro- 
 genitor. The information to be gathered from the Sanskrit superscriptions on the 
 medals does not suffice to show to which of the three Rudras any one of the five 
 sons of Rudra Sah owed his birth. 
 
 It is true there are certain minor and incidental items which tend to satisfy us 
 with portions of the entire distribution, such as the coincidence of the use of a 
 given date on the money of father and son ; but far more definite data are requi- 
 site before it would be safe to take the serial order of the monarchs as a basis for 
 the determination of a complicated numerical system. 
 
THE SAII KINGS OF SURASHTItA. 35 
 
 number of the former been confined to the ten decimal figures at 
 present in use. 
 
 If these symbols are admitted to be figures importing dates — and 
 in truth there is but little reason to say they are not — thirteen kings 
 out of the entire fourteen in the present list reigned in the fourth 
 century of a given era 1 . This assertion may be considered as some- 
 
 1 A consideration that undoubtedly tends to cause distrust in the conclusive- 
 ness of the decision, which assigns the value of 300 to all the known forms of the 
 symbol °H[ , arises from the circumstance of its appearing as the unvarying repre- 
 sentative of the hundreds on both the coins and inscriptions [the Multye plates, 
 J. A. S. B., vi. 370, may possibly prove an exception to this rule J, and the singular 
 coincidence which results from the facts that, among the many dated coins now 
 capable of citation, and the fair proportion of figure-dated copper-plate grants at 
 present known, not only must each and all, under this view of the case, be dated 
 in 300 and odd ; but likewise, strange to say, the same identical hundreds as found 
 on these different monuments must of necessity be referred to totally distinct 
 cycles, whose initial epochs are removed from each other by an interval of some 
 centuries at the very least. 
 
 These observations lead naturally to the inquiry, whether, in the early stages 
 of progressive improvement in notation, it may not have been possible that, 
 whereas we find a striking want of variety in the outlines, and a marked absence 
 of ingenuity in the expression of the distinctive forms, of the decimal ciphers, that 
 so, in like manner, the changes in the definition of the different hundreds may have 
 been in part effected by minor and subsidiary additions to a fixed symbol, as is still 
 practised in the entire Tibetan numerical system. It will be seen that there is 
 a palpable variation in the form and numbers of the side spur strokes in different 
 examples of the figure cr \ > passing from the occasional entire omission of the 
 
 mark to the use of one or two of these lines, and in some instances (No. 6, PI. 
 XX., Vol. VII., J. A. S. B.) the simple lower stroke is changed into a complete 
 subjunctive curve, making in itself a second character, similar to the body of the 
 old alphabetical letter & N. But, on the other hand, it will not fail to be 
 remarked that there is much latitude discoverable in the expression of many of 
 the unit figures, whose complete identity of value there is but little reason to dis- 
 credit, and hence that it would be unsafe to assume a difference of power to be 
 conveyed in the one case, by what is possibly a mere flourish, which could not bo 
 similarly claimed for a like modification in another. 
 
 In continuation of these remarks, this may be a fit place to examine — some- 
 what more at large than the patience of the general reader would probably have 
 submitted to in the text — the various coincidencies tending to throw light upon 
 the powers of the different symbols we are at present in possession of. 
 
 Passing on from the single hundred as yet found, the decimal numbers next 
 claim attention. 
 
 The W is a fixed quantity, whose value is determined by its use in two dis- 
 tinct instances in the context of the Guzerat Copper-plate Inscriptions as the 
 corresponding equivalent of the written number ten (Dr. Burns' Copper-plates, 
 Nos. 2 and 3, J. A. S. B., vii. 349): no such complicated form, or any sign at all 
 
 D 2 
 
36 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 what startling in referring to the well ascertained average of the 
 length of Indian reigns 1 , thirteen of which should, under ordinary 
 
 approaching a Sanskrit double "«J tt or *T dd, with a vowel attached, has as yet 
 
 been discovered among the series of numerals developed by the coins. 
 
 QQ © The power of the sign QQ = 80 has also been settled definitively by the 
 Copper-plates, on which it is seen to undergo certain alterations of outline (p. 32, 
 supra), though its integral character is subjected to no change sufficiently decided 
 to authorize a supposition that the many similar, though slightly varied, symbols to 
 be found on the medals, are only modifications of the regular form of the original 
 numeral : hence, though it may be necessary to admit the sign as possibly a 
 cursive delineation of the more formal QQ, yet the figures Q and oC clearly 
 claim a separate identity: it is a singular fact in regard to the shapes of the two 
 former symbols, that on the leaden coins (27, 28, 30, 31) the sign almost inva- 
 riably (29) takes the same squarely-based outline which it assumes on the Copper- 
 plates, whereas, on the silver money, it never appears except as Q). 
 yy To dispose of the proved numerals, before proceeding to the consideration of 
 
 those whose value is as yet unascertained, it remains to refer to the form 
 (jy = 90, which, when analyzed, seems to offer nothing more than a duplication 
 of the crude symbol used for the QQ = 80 ; in like manner, the improved ® is 
 readily convertible into the higher number by the simple addition of a central 
 cross-stroke. 
 
 OC What the values of Q and OC, supposing them to be independent numbers, 
 
 may chance to be, there are no present means of deciding. The former, as most 
 clearly developed on the better preserved coins, assumes the appearance of a 
 Greek 9 ; on some of the less perfect specimens, however, it takes the form of the 
 
 old "ff ** of the fifth century B.C., and at times that of the modern Tibetan Q 
 one. Again, on Wathen's Guzer£t Plate (J. A. S. B., iv. 481), what may be 
 assumed to be an identical cipher also displays much of the likeness of a cursive 
 Tg—a. letter which will be seen to have undergone but little change during the 
 interval which elapsed between the epoch of the Sahs and that of the Valabhis. 
 
 Were the sign OC written perpendicularly, instead of horizontally, there 
 would be little hesitation in pointing to its identity with the oldest known form 
 of the letter 1% : the fact of the ""Ff of the more modern legends on the coins 
 themselves appearing in a different shape to that retained by the figure letter, 
 would offer no obstacle to the admission of the original derivation of the symbol 
 from the alphabets of earlier times, as this may well have kept its fixed integrity of 
 
 1 Tod, i. 52, "Average rate of reigns of the chief dynasties of Rajast'han," 
 extending over 119 kings, gives "an average of 22 years for each reign;" see also 
 Wathen, J. R. A. S.. v. 346', whose original documents show rather more than 25 
 years for the average reign of each prince during a period of 535 years; and 
 Elliot's Inscriptions, J. R. A. S., iv. 5, prove an average length of reign of each 
 sovereign, during the rule of two dynasties, numbering in all 21 kings, as 17*7 
 years. 
 
THE 8AH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 37 
 
 circumstances, be represented by a sum of more than two centuries 
 (13 x 17 = 221), instead of being compressed into less than one; but 
 there are other circumstances that lend support to the deduction 
 necessitated by the admission of the proposed purport of the coin 
 dates. Among these may be classed the consideration — to which 
 attention has already been drawn — of the almost unvarying similitude 
 that pervades the entire suite of the Sah coins, which, in its simple 
 
 outline quite independent of any progressive modifications the general Devan£gari 
 alphabet may in the mean time have undergone. 
 
 JA Prinsep was inclined to consider this letter — the ancient ?J s— as the repre- 
 
 sentative of the modern figure "O 7, the idea being advanced simply on the 
 strength of the letter in question constituting the initial consonant of the word sapta 
 (seven). The attribution is, however, clearly inadmissible, as the figure never 
 appears in the unit place in the dates, the several series of figures composing 
 which are now clearly seen to be wanting in local value. Its identification as the 
 representative of 70 would be satisfactory enough were there any more certain 
 grounds whereon to base a decisive assignment of this kind ; but a degree of diffi- 
 culty exists in the apparently anomalous position held by the J*\ on certain coins 
 (No. 7 3 &c.), as compared with its seeming import on the copper-plates. If the 
 relative priority of the coins, inter se, as at present arranged, is correct, and the 
 T is in all cases to be held to express 300, the symbol ^J, as it appears on these 
 medals, must needs refer to some of the decimal numbers of the first half — if not to 
 the earlier part of that moiety — of the century ; whereas, when tested by the com- 
 parative dates on the two Guzer£t Valabhi Plates (J. A. S. B., iv. 481, and vii. 
 JJO'O, and ante note, p. 5), and the period which it seems necessary to suppose to 
 have elapsed between the execution of the one and the other, there is great reason 
 to conclude that the ^ in the later of these documents represents some of the 
 higher decimals, or at least one of those that should fall into the second half of a 
 century. Looking to these facts, I am induced to distrust the entire arrangement 
 of the list of kings as heretofore adopted, though in the present insufficiency of 
 materials to justify any new collocation, I hesitate to propose any alteration in 
 the order of succession hitherto received, further than drawing attention to the 
 principle involved in the explanation of the difficulties of the case, suggested in 
 the text at p. 39. 
 
 The figure <\| , as seen on the less perfect coins, frequently assumes the 
 
 appearance of the lower portion of a modern rf t. At first sight, this might pos- 
 sibly be looked upon as a different sign ; but it will be seen that the mode of 
 writing the \j in use on the coins occasionally admitted of the complete omission 
 of the first down-stroke of the letter, though its place was in a measure supplied 
 by the due expression of the mark which should otherwise have formed the head 
 line of the missing stroke (See fig. 3, reverse). There is a single instance of an 
 addition to the original type of the figure, in the continuation of the second perpen- 
 dicular hue of the oj in the shape of the lower limb of an X , similar to that 
 
38 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 mechanical indication, implies a comparatively speedy sequence of 
 fabrication, as well as the fact, also confirmatory of an inference 
 admitting the brief duration of the series of reigns made known by our 
 medals, developed in the occurrence, amid so limited a list of kings, of 
 two distinct instances of a succession of three brothers. Moreover, in 
 adverting to this last point, it is to be remembered that coins alone, 
 in the absence of any full list of sovereigns, only prove their own case, 
 and the medals now available by no means show that in this given 
 
 already noticed as occurring on the C J. Subjoined is a copy of the date con- 
 taining this symbol, taken from a mutilated coin of one of the sons of Dama" 
 
 J This symbol is seen to occupy the second place in the figured date on the 
 
 leaden coins Nos. 33, 34 ; it occurs on the silver money of Dama Sail, and 
 has also been found, in a slightly varied shape, in the same relative position, 
 on the Bhilsa Inscription (J. A. S. B., vi. pi. XXVI.). In neither case, 
 however, is any collateral assistance afforded in the ascertainment of the nu- 
 merical value of the cipher itself. In one case, the figure may be likened to 
 
 an inverted "C 8 ; in the other, it partakes more of the character of the ^f / of the 
 
 Gupta alphabet. 
 
 *J The accompanying figure is put forward without any degree of confidence in 
 
 the accuracy of the form, owing to the imperfection of the date on the coins (fig. 
 9, and a coin of the E. I. C), from whence the outline has had to be copied ; the 
 more perfect medals of Dr. Bird's, whence the extra references are cited, not being 
 at hand to aid in correcting the type now adopted. On one of Dr. Bird's speci- 
 mens this figure has the extra subjunctive curve already remarked upon as occa- 
 sionally seen on the ^J and J^J . It will be seen that this is the only figure in 
 the series of tens that could by any possibility be confounded with any of the 
 unit ciphers, which fact in itself adds to the already expressed distrust in the com- 
 pleteness of the prefixed facsimile. 
 
 ^P I have also some misgivings as to the normal shape of the symbol represented 
 
 as closely as circumstances will admit of in the type figure at the commencement 
 of this sentence. The form occurs but seldom, and, when found, has hitherto hap- 
 pened to prove unusually indistinct. As now given, the outline closely approxi- 
 mates to the curious character employed in modern Guzerati to represent the 
 number six. 
 !~— i Having thus cursorily referred to the decimal numerals, it is time to detail the 
 unit ciphers. It will be convenient to commence with the s or jt* (coins 33, 34, 
 &c. ; see also copper-plate date quoted p. 4), which, amid a set of seven, if not 
 eight, symbols already known out of the required nine, and as the only figure of 
 
 the series that displays any identity with the probably purely original form of a 3, 
 
 can scarcely be objected to as the equivalent of that number, especially as the three 
 simple lines thus arranged to thia day constitute the regular representative of f . 
 To give consistency to this attribution, it would be necessary to prove that the same 
 system of equivalent numbers of simple lines, applied equally well to the definition of 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTKA. 39 
 
 interval there were not many Kshatrapa kings over and above those 
 whose names have been handed down by these metallic records. 
 
 The most obvious method of explaining the difficulty, as it now 
 presents itself, would be to suppose the existence of a republican form 
 of government as that under which the Sah family held sway; and 
 that in the history of the nation, there were, on certain occasions, 
 either two or more rajas simultaneously invested with a share in the 
 conduct of the state, or, if elected as sole rulers for the time being, the 
 
 the one and the two. This may probably be shown to have been the fact, inasmuch 
 as there is one decided instance of the use of an isolated dot or short square line 
 after the CT\ on one of the leaden coins, and there are several apparent examples 
 of the occurrence of double lines in the requisite position on the silver coins, 
 though these are not definitively quoted, as it is possible they may either be the 
 remaining lines of a three, or the imperfectly defined representatives of the Greek 
 I, or that portion of any initial letter of the succeeding legend. With all this 
 evidence in favour of the proposed value of the double lines, it is to be noted, on the 
 other hand, that they are frequently prefixed to the entire date, as in fig. 80, where, 
 to all appearance, they could otherwise serve no possible purpose but that of an 
 ornamental filling in of vacant space, unless, indeed, they are here to be understood 
 as an imperfect rendering of the corresponding opening mark, which invariably 
 precedes the date in the form of a Greek I on the silver coins, and that intro- 
 duced originally upon the leaden pieces, in uniformity with the practice on the 
 silver series, they were arbitrarily supplied or omitted at the will of the die-sinkers. 
 There are no less than five very clear examples of the use of these prefix dots, and 
 were it not for the knowledge gained from fig. 30, where it is impossible the sign 
 could import two, a supposition might have arisen that, in the case of the very 
 legible date Z^CQ on a leaden coin of Colonel Sykes', the figures employed 
 might be intended to convey the number 382; but it will be seen in this, as in 
 every other example of the use of these symbols, that, although wanting in local 
 value, they are uniformly placed in the order in which they should be read. 
 
 Weighing the whole evidence on the subject, and the fact of the one and the 
 three having been found in the needfully corresponding forms, there can be but 
 little objection to adopting the two as designed by the two lines, when clearly 
 defined, which succeed any decimal figure, notwithstanding the occasional appear - 
 ance of a similar form as an, at present, inexplicable prefix to dates counting by 
 hundreds. 
 
 The Hj Jj 9" of the coins, or *5 = 4 of the copper-plates, may be fairly 
 admitted to a common identity, and, as such, may each and all be invested with 
 the value assigned to the last by the formal testimony of the Copper-plate Grantt 
 in the body of which it occurs. 
 
 The coin characters are seen to vary in some of the subsidiary and minor 
 details, such as has already formed the subject of remark in the cases of the °T[ 
 and J^ . In tie present instance, the additions would seem to have been fanciful 
 in the extreme, and to have been added or withheld in the most arbitrary and 
 undetermined manner. 
 
 The $\ Jive of the copper-plates, which themselves prove its value, may 
 
40 
 
 ON THE DYNASTY OP 
 
 ji 
 
 J.F 
 
 periods of retention of authority were limited directly and definitively 
 by law, or terminable irregularly at the will of the majority : in either 
 case it will be necessary to allow for the influence of a degree of 
 prestige or direct power attaching to the particular family for the 
 moment most prominent, which has led to the election of so many sons 
 of rajas. 
 
 possibly be the more modern correspondent of the |fr~ of the coins : the latter sym- 
 bol occurs but rarely, and the accuracy of its form, as at present given, cannot be 
 altogether relied upon, as the only examples of its use within reach (two coins of 
 Atri Dama", severally the property of Colonel Sykes and Dr. Swiney) offer the 
 figure in its probably incomplete shape, deprived of any upper line that may 
 perchance have constituted an important portion of the integral form. The 
 Guzer&ti four of the present day bears a close resemblance to the coin figure ; but 
 as the Guzerati modern numeral series does not tally with any possible assimilate 
 system as applicable to the units of the more ancient epoch, it is but little use 
 citing these coincidences, though as it is possible that literal identities may be of 
 more import in their bearings upon the general inquiry, it may be noted that the 
 
 same character as that now found on the coins is in current use as the "^ 
 of the modern Sindhi alphabet. 
 
 This sign offers an accurate model of the Bengali Tg 1 d. Among the earlier 
 
 alphabets it might answer for a Gupta ^. The Tibetan 6 corresponds in many 
 
 respects with the outline of this figure. 
 
 These two symbols — the one from a silver, the other from a leaden coin — have 
 been classed together for the present, owing to the uncertainty which of necessity 
 remains of the true form of the single example that presents itself on the silver 
 money, from its being apparently deficient in the upper part of the character. 
 
 This symbol is an exact counterpart of the ^ ng of the Sah Inscriptions ; 
 whether from its striking similitude to the common modern Sanskrit "C 8, it may 
 
 be judged to have any claim to be considered as the ancient equivalent of that 
 number must for the present remain an open question. 
 
 This cipher may be likened to a 3" /, or possibly to a ^ dh. There is but 
 
 one instance of its use (fig. 31, pi. II.), and this occurs on an extensively oxydised 
 leaden coin ; so that there may be some doubt about its correct outline, as well as 
 whether it may not be a variety of the preceding symbol. 
 
 There is no question as to the accuracy of these forms per se, as they are found 
 clearly defined on several well-preserved coins. Whether they are correctly 
 classed as varieties of the same figure may be permitted for the present to remain 
 an open question, as the correct ascertainment of their shape can scarcely be said 
 to assist in the identification of their value and import. The figure placed first 
 
 in order is a very close counterpart of a Sanskrit ^ ru of the type in use in the 
 
 Sdh alphabet; the second figure is also fairly recognisable as a crudely-shaped 
 compound of similar value. 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 41 
 
 It must bo admitted, however, that though there are numerous 
 instances capable of citation ' as proving generally the prevalence of 
 republican systems of government among the people of India in these 
 ancient days, there is at this moment but insufficient evidence 2 to 
 authorise the application of any theory, implying popular government, 
 to the peninsula of Guzerat during the time of the Sahs. 
 
 It is now necessary to determine to what eara these dates should 
 be held to refer. J. Prinsep, in his latest paper on the subject, after 
 discussing the claims of several possible seras 3 , goes on to say — "If, 
 
 i There is evidence sufficient to the fact of the existence of republics in India 
 in early times, though but few distinct details are extant as to their exact forms 
 of constitution. The republic of which most frequent mention is made is that of 
 Vais'ali, which is repeatedly referred to in the Dulva, and casual indications are 
 afforded of the powers possessed by the citizens in the time of Shakya (Csoma de 
 Koros, As. Res., xx. 66, 72). Some curious information on the general subject 
 is also conveyed in the following passage from Csoma de Koros' Analysis of this 
 work (As. Res., xx. 69): — 
 
 "The story of Dumbu, a Minister (of State), and his King, Hphags-skyes-po, 
 in Lus-Hp'hags {Sanskrit Videha). Dumbu escapes to Yangs-pa-chan [Vaisali], 
 and settles there. He first declines to give his advice in the assembly of the 
 people there, but afterwards renders them great service by his prudent counsel." 
 * * * " The before mentioned Dumbu is made chief tribune there, and after 
 his death his second son. His elder son retires to Rajagriha, in Magadha." 
 
 Further notices of the republic of Vaisali are to be found in " Foe Koue Ki," 
 from which the following may be cited as throwing light on the interesting ques- 
 tion of the government of these bodies — " II s'agit ici des habitants de la ville de 
 Phi che li (Vais'ali), lesquels formaient une republique, et s'appelaient en Sanscrit 
 Litchtchiwi, ou Litchhe dans la transcription Chinoise. Tchu Li tchhe signifie 
 done tous les Litchtchiwi, ou la reunion des Li tchhe" (Klaproth, p. 240). Again 
 (Klaproth, note 8, Les deux rois, p. 251), " II parait que quoique les habitants de 
 Vais'ali eussent une forme de gouvernement re"publicaine, ils avaient pourtant 
 aussi un roi. Les deux rois de notre texte sont done A tche chi de Magadha, et 
 celui qui dtait le chef de l'dtat des Li tchhe ou Litchtchiwi de Vais'ali." 
 
 Arrian may likewise be quoted to show that self-government was by no means 
 unusual in India in his day, as the Episcopi are mentioned as bound to report " to 
 the king in those places where the Indians are under regal rule; or to the Magis- 
 trates, where they govern themselves." (Indica), cap. xii., cited by Prinsep, 
 J. A. S. B., vii. 449). 
 
 8 It may be requisite perhaps to notice that the following passage in Prinsep's 
 Translation of the Bridge Inscription is not borne out by the more perfect copy 
 of the original in the Bombay Journal: — " * * * by him [Swami Rudra 
 d.una] who, being predestined from the womb to the unceasing and increasing pos- 
 sessions of the fortunes of royaky, was invited by all classes waiting upon him 
 for the security of their property — to be their king.'''' 
 
 3 The claims of the Seleucidan Mta (1st Sept., 312 B.C.) to be considered as 
 the cycle in use under the government of the Sail kings, are by no means to be 
 lightly passed over, if we bear in mind on the one hand the possible subjection to 
 Greek supremacy implied by the superscription of that language on the local coins, 
 
42 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 lastly, out of deference to Asoka's temporary supremacy in the Gu- 
 
 and on the other the care with which the recognition of this sera was enforced in 
 the provinces more directly subject to the Seleucidan rule, as we learn that it was 
 " used all over the East by the Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans. The Jews 
 still style it the JEra of Contracts, because they were obliged, when subject to the 
 Syro-Macedonian princes, to express it in all their contracts and civil writings," 
 Gough, Seleu., 3. "In Maccabees, i. 10, it is called the JEra of the Kingdom 
 of the Greeks," Gough, 4. 
 
 In connexion with this subject, some further items suggest themselves, bear- 
 ing upon the interesting question, as to how much of the Indian system of cipher 
 notation was derived from, or improved by communication with the Greeks. 
 Although so debatable a point requires more examination and argument to serve 
 to justify a definite opinion, than either the materials or the space at command 
 will at present afford, still the subjoined remarks may not be inappropriate as 
 introducing the matter to the attention of others. 
 
 In the first place, it has already been noticed as singular that these Indian dates 
 should be found on the coins in direct conjunction with, perhaps absolute insertion 
 in a Greek legend, instead of taking their place in their more natural position, among 
 the Sanskrit legends and local devices, on the reverse surface of the pieces. 
 
 Next is to be observed the complete absence of any previous example of the 
 use of figures to express numbers on any known Indian inscription, or on any 
 coins of that country which there is reason to assign to an earlier epoch. 
 
 And, lastly, there is the less negative argument, against the probability of any 
 general anterior use of ciphers, in the fact, only lately brought to light, that 
 whatever means of representing quantities by symbols may have been in associate 
 use with the Indian Pali alphabet, the Bactrian Pali of Asoka's time, as seen 
 on the Kapur di Giri Rock Inscription, possessed no figure equivalents of num- 
 bers, but the required sum was first written, and then numerically expressed by 
 a corresponding succession of simple perpendicular strokes. It is true that this 
 position may have to be somewhat qualified, inasmuch as up to this time we are 
 able to cite only the early number four; and it is possible that the higher nume- 
 rical equivalents may, in the necessity of the case, have been subjected to a more 
 perfect system, as is seen to have occurred in the Cuneiform Inscriptions, where 
 the low numbers were often defined by little more than rude combinations of 
 the equivalent number of simple strokes, while the decimals and hundreds were 
 far less crudely rendered. Rawlinson, J. R. A. S., x. 172; Hincks, idem, ix. 
 423. 
 
 In addition to this, were any faith to be placed in similarity of characters, 
 many of the numerical symbols might be identified as possibly of Greek derivation; 
 for instance, the © is the exact form of the Greek of the Sigean (500 and odd 
 B.c.) and Apollonian (a few years b.c.) alphabets; but so also is the Indian cipher 
 recognizable as a Greek 0, as indeed the Pali © th itself is absolutely identical 
 with the of the Nemean and Athenian forms of the same letter. The Indian 
 S approaches closely to the outline of the Greek 3 of Cadmus, and of the Sigean 
 characters. The coin figure QQ is likewise a perfect rendering of the Attic Q 
 (400 B.C.). (See Fry's Pantographia.) 
 
 Amid all this, on the other hand it is amply manifest that whatever of enlarged 
 ideas of arrangement and distribution of numerals the Indians may perchance 
 have owed to the Greeks, they did not generally adopt their letters, or even their 
 literal equivalent system, as modified to suit their own alphabet; and judging 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 43 
 
 zerdt peninsula, we take the Buddhist rora, then 543 — 390' will 
 leave 153 B.C., about a century after Asoka, and in every respect the 
 period I should like to adopt, were it possible to establish any more 
 certain grounds for its preference 2 ." In addition to the limited con- 
 fidence in the value of his theory expressed by the proposer himself, 
 there are further objections to its reception that appear to have es- 
 caped his observation. In the first place, as regards any probable 
 deference to Asoka's supremacy, Prinsep himself had already re- 
 marked, in his comments upon the Sah Inscription, which formed the 
 main subject of the article, whence the above extract is taken, that 
 "the brahmanical population of the distant province of Surashtra 
 probably had but little affection for the Buddhist monarch, who is not 
 even honoured in the inscription with tl^e title of raja — being simply 
 styled Asoka the MaurycfH This passage in itself seems to refute 
 sufficiently any notion which would imply needless adoption or con- 
 tinued use of a strange sera, introduced, as assumed, in the first 
 instance, by a monarch whose memory is here seen to be treated with 
 such scant respect. In the second place, whatever may have been the 
 amount of actual currency of the Buddhist iEra itself, the probability 
 of its monumental employment on the coins of the Sah king is weightily 
 controverted by the fact, that it was not so used on the monuments of 
 the Buddhist kings themselves — (Piyadasi*) Asoka's own inscriptions 
 being invariably dated in the years of his reign 5 (or " after his con- 
 secration"). 
 
 The a?ra it is now proposed to apply to the coin dates, in super- 
 cession of the Buddhist cycle, is entitled the Sri Harsha., the very 
 existence of which, as a cycle, has only lately been made known to 
 Orientalists, through the medium of the publication of a portion 
 
 from the strictly Indian forms retained by some of the literal figures, now 
 seen to have been in use under the Sahs of Guzerat, it is almost necessary to infer 
 that the original outlines of the figures themselves were either drawn from an 
 anterior Sanskrit or else from a more purely Pali alphabet than that concurrently 
 employed in ordinary writing, the admission of which fact in itself goes far to 
 demand a consequent concession that the Indians were not indebted to the Greeks 
 for any assistance in the matter. 
 
 1 Date on a coin of Swami Rudra Sail, the 14th prince in the present list. 
 
 ■ J. A. S. B., vii. 354. 
 
 8 J. A. S. B., vii. 343. 
 
 * It is necessary to state that the identity of Piyadasi and Asoka has not 
 remained unquestioned (see Wilson, J. R. A. S., viii. 309; Troyer, Radja Taran- 
 gini, ii. 313), though the arguments as yet adduced to shake faith in the fact are 
 scarcely sufficient to meet the various concurring proofs to which they are 
 opposed (see, on the other hand, Lassen, J. A. S. B., 1840, p. 751 )• 
 
 5 J. A. S. B., vii. 220. 
 
44 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 of the valuable works of Albiruni relating to India. The extracts 
 appended below 1 sufficiently detail the history of the Sri Harsha 
 iEra; all that need be said in this place is, that as its commencement 
 dates 457 B.C., the epoch of the Sabs at present constituting our list, 
 
 1 " On emploie ordinairement les eres de Sri Harscha, de Vikramaditya, de 
 Saca, de Ballaba, et des Gouptas." 
 
 " Les Indiens croirent que Sri-Harscha faisait fouiller la terre, et cherchait ce 
 qui pouvait se trouver dans le sol, en fait d'anciens tre'sors et de richesses 
 enfouies; il faisait enlever ces richesses, et pouvait, par ce moyen, s'abstenir de 
 fouler ses sujets. Son ere est mise en usage a Mahourah, et dans la province de 
 Canoge. J'ai entendu dire a un homme du pays que, de cette ere a celle de 
 Vikramaditya, on comptait quatre cents ans; mais j'ai vu, dans l'almanach de 
 Cacheinire, cette ere recule'e apres celle de Vikramaditya de 664 ans. II m'est 
 done venu des doutes que je n'ai pas trouve moyen de resoudre * • ." Albi- 
 runi, Reinaud, p. 139. 
 
 Again — " L'ere des astronomes commence Tan 587 de Pere de Saca (665 a.d.). 
 C'est a cette ere qu'ont e'te rapportees les tables Kanda khataca, de Brahmagupta. 
 Cet ouvrage porte chez nous le titre de Arcand. D 'apres cela, en s'en tenant a 
 l'an 400 de Pere de Yezderdjed, on se trouve sous Pannee 1488 de Pere de Sri- 
 Harscha" [457 B.c.]. Ibid, 143, 144. 
 
 The difficulty noticed in the first of these extracts seems capable of explanation 
 by the fact that in the year 607 a.d., or 664 Vikramaditya, an important revolu- 
 tion occurred on the occasion of the death of Harsha Vardhana, of Kanouj, winch 
 may possibly have given rise to the second Sri Harsha ^Era of the Kashmir 
 Almanack. M. Reinaud has the following remarks upon the changes which took 
 place on the decease of Harsha Vardhana: — 
 
 " L'an 607 de notre ere, une revolution fit dechoir la ville de Canoge du haut 
 rang qu'elle occupait. Cette revolution eut lieu a la mort du roi Harcha-Vard- 
 hana, dont le pere se nommait Prakara- Vardhana, et dont on avait jusqu'ici fait 
 descendre le regne jusqu'au XI- siecle. La population de PHindostan actuel se 
 partageait en brahmanistes et bouddhistes. Harcha, partisan zdle" des boud- 
 dhistes, suscita des embarras aux brahmanistes; en meme temps il fut force", par 
 suite de ses profusions, d'augmenter les irnpots, ce qui mecontenta le reste de ses 
 sujets. Harcha, Ctant mort, son fils aine, Karadj a- Vardhana, fut attaque par un 
 prince ami des brahmanistes, et tud par trahison. Le frere de Karadja, nommd 
 Siladitya, eut beaucoup de peine a, se mettre en possession du trone de ses 
 ancetres; les princes feudataires se souleverent; Siladitya fut oblige de renoncer 
 au titre de maha-radja ou grand-radja, et Punite politique fut a. jamais rompue." 
 Analyse d'un Mem. Geog., p. 20; also Ge'og. d'Aboulfeda (Traduction), 
 i. 337. 
 
 This solution of the difficulty— in making a second Sri Harsha JEra,— also 
 removes an important objection to the application of the first Sri Harsha Cycle — 
 as confounded in Albiruni's observations — to Guzer at dates: inasmuch as the local 
 use of the sera noticed in the Arabic text must now be held to refer to the epoch 
 derived from that one of the two Harshas who lived nearest to Albiruni's own 
 time. This latter cycle would moreover possess peculiar claims to local currency 
 in Kanouj, &c, which could hardly have been demanded for an sera, even then so 
 much a matter of antiquity, and so little known its details, as the original Sri 
 Harsha, commencing 457 b.c. 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 45 
 
 reduced by this test, may be broadly stated to fall from about 180 
 or 170 to 60 or 50 B.C. 1 
 
 Beyond this evidence, there is little left but conjecture, though it 
 is satisfactory to find that there is no direct testimony or admitted 
 inference in any way adverse to the reception of the epoch now 
 assigned to the Sah princes. 
 
 It is known that Asoka's empire of Magadha did not survive in 
 its pristine glory any very lengthened period beyond his decease 3 ; 
 and the tenor of the Sah Inscription, while it clearly recognises Asoka's 
 bygone supremacy in the province of Guzerat, claims for its own kings 
 no very remote succession to this local power — with the requirements 
 of this portion of the question the coin dates, explained as referring 
 to Anno Harshse, in all respects coincide. 
 
 It is generally held that Demetrius 3 invaded India some time 
 closely anterior to, if not contemporaneously with, the date above sug- 
 gested as that of the establishment of the Sah Dynasty in Guzerat; 
 but it is nowhere shown to what limit either his arms or his permanent 
 dominion extended: the fact of his possession of supremacy on tho 
 lower Indus, if decided upon, would lead readily to the suspicion that 
 the Greek upon the Sah coins might in some measure be due to this 
 influence, and that in attaining their leading position in the Western 
 Peninsula, these princes affected a Greek alliance, and perhaps accepted 
 subjection, nominal or real, as a set-off against the still considerable 
 power of their former Indian masters. Be this as it may, the his- 
 torical evidence bearing upon the point in question, if it will not 
 explain any of our present difficulties, can in no way be said to aug- 
 ment them. 
 
 The trenching upon the limits of the sovereignty assigned to 
 Menander 4 — who must now be viewed as contemporary with the 
 earlier Sahs — is perhaps more open to objection, as Prinsep and Lassen 
 both determine that he possessed Surashtra 5 ; the appropriation, how- 
 
 i Dated coins of eleven princes, proving the existence of thirteen kings all 
 within 300 to 400 Ann. Harshse (= 157 to 57 b.c), and one, if not more than one 
 king preceding them. 
 
 2 219 B.C., Buddhist Annals; Lassen, J. A.S. B., 1840, 752; 232 b.c, Cun- 
 ningham, Num. Chr., viii. 175. 
 
 3 Lassen, 185 b.c, J. A. S. B., 1840; Wilson, 190 b.c, Ar. Ant., 227; H. T. 
 Prinsep, 190 B.C., Historical Results, p. 54. 
 
 4 Lassen, 160 b.c, J. A. S. B.,'1840, p. 765; Wilson, 126 b.c, Ar. Ant., 280; 
 Cunningham, 160 b.c to 136 b.c, Num. Chr., viii. 175. 
 
 » J. A. S. B., vi. 290; Lassen, J. A. S. B., 1840, p. 733. Cunningham, (Num. 
 Chr., viii. 193,) has the following observations on the subject of Apollodotus' 
 possessions in these parts. It is to be premised that Capt. Cunningham places 
 
46 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 ever, rests upon a doubtful text and an amended reading, and the 
 inference has not been altogether concurred in by Professor Wilson'. 
 The supposition of a recognition of Greek suzerainty by the local rulers 
 of Guzerat perhaps sufficiently meets the wants of either one case or 
 the other; but if we are to admit to the full the claims to Indian 
 sovereignty advanced by Rudra Dama, in his Girnar Inscription, and 
 to hold him to have reigned towards the conclusion of the third 
 century Anno Harshae, he, or some of the preceding members of the 
 Sah family, must have shared with the Su Sakas* the succession to the 
 dominions heretofore assigned to Menander, to an extent much beyond 
 the bounds of the bare peninsula of Guzerat. 
 
 More importance than seems justly its due has been attributed to 
 the fact of Menander's coins having been found current at Baroach 3 on 
 the occasion of the visit of the second Arrian. Had the epoch spoken 
 to been nearer the date of the rule of the Greek king, the locality, to 
 which the observation refers, less remote from the seat 4 of his govern- 
 ment, Baroach less important as the western emporium of the trade of 
 Central India, or the produce of Menander's prolific mints less abun- 
 dant in other quarters, more credit might have been conceded to the 
 deduction attempted to be established from the circumstance. As it 
 is, it proves nothing as to the local sovereignty of Guzerat of two 
 centuries before 5 , more especially as its real origin has now been ex- 
 
 Apollodotus' accession in 165 B.C., and makes Menander succeed to certain por- 
 tions of his dominions in 160 b.c. 
 
 " This monogram •£ I have found only upon a single coin of Apollodotus. It 
 forms the syllable OYZ, possibly OYZHNH, the city of Ujain, which we know has 
 existed from a very early period. I believe that Patalene and Syrastrene formed 
 part of the dominions of Demetrius, which were wrested from him by Eucratides 
 during his Indian campaign. It is possible also that some part of the province of 
 Larike" was subdued by the Greeks; and I should certainly not be surprised to 
 find this monogram on the coins of Demetrius and Eucratides. Apollodotus may 
 very probably have succeeded to the possession of these southern conquests, but he 
 could only have held them for a very short time." 
 
 1 " Upon examining the coins, however, of this prince, we have every reason to 
 believe that he never was king of Bactria, but that he reigned over an extensive 
 tract, from the foot of the Paropamisan Mountains to the sea. How far he held 
 sovereignty on the east of the Indus, or even in the delta of that river, is some- 
 what doubtful, as his coins have not been found in those directions." Ar. Ant., 281. 
 
 8 Cunningham, Num. Chr., viii. (Table); Ar. Ant., 313; Lassen, J. A. S. B., 
 1840, 765. 
 
 3 Lassen, J. A. S. B., 1840, p. 733 ; Wilson, Ar. Ant., 280. 
 
 4 " Kabul, and here was in all probability the royal capital of Menander." 
 Ar. Ant., 281. 
 
 5 Vincent had already shown the real value of the fact in his observations to 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 47 
 
 plained by Professor Wilson ', viz., that the Greek silver money was 
 [intentionally] retained in circulation by the Indo-Scythians, in con- 
 current association with their own gold coinage. 
 
 In bringing these observations to a close, it may be expedient to 
 recapitulate in a tabular summary the principal dates proposed for 
 adoption; and, while quoting definitively the more prominent fixed 
 epochs, to avoid any aim at exactitude of subordinate detail, and rest 
 content with indicating generally the relative position the various 
 races, dominant in Guzerat during the several intervals, are supposed 
 to have occupied. 
 
 the following effect : — " That the coins of these princes should pass current at 
 Barugaza is no more uncommon than that the Venetian sequin and the Imperial 
 dollar should be at this day current in Arabia, or that the Spanish piastre should 
 p;iss in every part of India and the East ; that is, round the world, from Mexico 
 to Manilla, and in some instances, perhaps from Manilla to Mexico again." Vin- 
 cent, Commerce, &c, ii. 204. 
 1 Ar. Ant., p. 348. 
 
48 
 
 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 LIST of DATES referring to GUZERAT, 
 
 WITH THE DYNASTIES INTERVENING BETWEEN THE SEVERAL FIXED EPOCHS. 
 
 CHANDRA GUPTA MAURYA . 
 ASOKA 
 
 315 b.c.' 
 247 b.c. 2 
 
 One or more SAH KINGS. 
 
 Thirteen SAH KINGS. AlO 
 date in the fourth century of 
 what may be assumed to re- 
 fer to the Sri Harsha ^ra, 
 457 b.c. 
 
 from 
 
 to 
 
 57 B.C. 
 
 >7 B.C. 
 
 INDO-SCYTHIC CONQUEST 
 
 GUPTAS. 
 
 VALABHI JERA commences . 
 
 26 b.c. 
 
 319 A.D. 
 
 1 Wilson, Vishnu Purana, pp. 468, 469, note 21 ; see also Introd., Hindu 
 Theatre, iii. 
 
 2 Tumour, "Mahawanso;" but taking Wilson's fixed date of 315 b.c. for 
 Chandra Gupta's accession, and accepting the Puranic evidence of the length of 
 Chandra Gupta's and Vindusara's reigns at 24 and 25 years respectively, Asoka's 
 accession will fall in 266 b,c. : the Puranas give him a reign of 36 years. 
 
THE SAII KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 49 
 
 LIST OF KINGS. 
 
 1 ISWARA DATTA, Son of Varsha. 
 
 2 RUDRA SAH (SINHA?) I., Son of Swami Jiwa Dama. 
 
 3 ASA DAMA, Son of Rudra Sah. (No. 2.) 
 
 4 DAMA SAH, Ditto. 
 
 5 VIJAYA SAH, Son of Dama Sah. 
 
 6 VIRA DAMA, Ditto. 
 
 7 DAMA JATA SRIYAH, Ditto. 
 
 8 RUDRA SAH II., Son of Vira DamS. (No. 6.) 
 
 9 VISWA SINHA, Son of Rudra Sah. (No. 8.) 
 
 10 RUDRA SAH III., Ditto. 
 
 11 ATRI DAMA, Ditto. 
 
 12 VISWA SAH, Son of Atri Daraa. (No. 11.) 
 
 13 Swami RUDRA DAMA. (No Coins.) 
 
 14 Swami RUDRA SAH IV., Son of Swami Rudra Dama. 
 
I/. |/Cj&£ i,, r*«tvf ft*U«£«vo4 
 
 DETAIL OF THE COINS. 
 T 
 
 1st King. 
 
 ISWARA-DATTA. 
 
 Figures-1 (E. I. C.), 2 (Wynch), Plate I. ; and No. 1, Plate 112 
 
 Obv. i?ws£ of a man, facing to the right, with a flat cap or hel- 
 met 2 ; the hair is arranged in flowing curls oyer the back of the neck, 
 a long thin mustache decorates the upper lip, and a curiously-formed 
 ornament depends from the ear; around the neck is seen the border 
 of the robe, and towards the margin of the piece, encircling the entire 
 head, is inscribed a legend, which in the coins of this prince is exclu- 
 sively composed of Greek letters. Prominent among those on fig. 1 
 is to be noticed the lower portion of a clear well-cut sigma. 
 
 It will be seen, from the specimens of the coins of the succeeding 
 rulers, that an innovation was almost immediately effected in the 
 contents and arrangement of the obverse legend, as found on the 
 money of Iswaradatta, inasmuch as towards the commencement of the 
 Greek legend a set of three ciphers are hereafter invariably inserted, 
 which are supposed to convey the record of an Indian date. 
 
 Rev. The central symbol consists of a series of three semicircles 
 arranged in the form of a pyramid ; this emblem is recognisable either 
 as the Buddhist Chaitya, or the Mithraic flame; below is a wavy line, 
 which it is not unreasonable to identify with a similar Egyptian hiero- 
 glyphic symbol employed to denote water; above the central device is a 
 figure, in the shape of a half moon, which is repeated on the left of the 
 field, and in the corresponding space to the right is found a cluster 
 of stars, usually seven in number, one of which occupies the centre 
 of the constellation ; at times this stellar assemblage is resolved into 
 a single rayed star or sun. Nearly touching the marginal line, which 
 forms the outer circle of the field — expressed in admirably designed 
 Devanagari letters — is inscribed the following legend — 
 
 Rdjno Mahd Kshatrapasa Iswara-dattasa Varsha putha* 
 
 1 The average weight obtained from forty-seven specimens of these silver 
 coins, taken at random from the entire series, gives a return of 30*4 grains. 
 There are several examples of a full weight of 35 grains. 
 
 8 Possibly a native adaptation of the Macedonian Kausia, which is seen to 
 have been a favourite head-dress among the Bactrian Greeks; but judging from 
 the rest of the subsidiary indications, it is likely to have had a more local origin. 
 
THE SA1I KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 51 
 
 Dr. Stevenson proposed to read the name of the father of this 
 prince as Bala — a guess that was hardly justified by the characters 
 remaining on the piece he quotes in support of his assumption (fig. 2) ; 
 but the clear letters on Colonel Wynch's coin completely set the 
 question at rest that the true designation is Varsha. 
 
 Among the peculiarities to be noted in the legend is the use of the 
 
 long vowel ^ in the initial or complete form of the letter; the 
 
 initial long ^ J. has not been found on the associate Girnar Rock 
 
 Inscription, or among any of the anterior Pali alphabets; but a letter 
 identical with the coin character is seen in full currency both on the 
 Gupta Girnar monument, and on the succeeding Guzerat dated plates ; 
 it would perhaps be inferred from these data, that a more modern 
 epoch should be assigned to the coins bearing this letter than to the 
 Bridge Inscription, which has hitherto been assumed as nearly con- 
 temporary. It would not, however, be safe to rely upon this argu- 
 ment, except as auxiliary to more distinct proofs, as at best it is but 
 based on a negative fact, which may merely imply absence of occa- 
 sion to use such a character in the Rock Records ; moreover, there has 
 already been reason to notice the general superiority and at times 
 important changes that mark the mint letters in reference to their La- 
 pidary equivalents — a distinction that has also been the subject of 
 remark in respect to a sister alphabet — the Bactrian Pali 1 — wherein 
 much greater perfection of outline was attained in the monumental 
 writing in use on medals than in the corresponding engraving on Rocks. 
 
 But as the sovereign, by whose command the Girnar Bridge In- 
 scription was executed, is still unidentified with any individual of 
 whom we possess money, any detailed discussion of this subject would 
 be comparatively useless, until it is determined whether it is desirable 
 to place the king named in the inscription before, among, or after the 
 series of princes known only from coins. 
 
 It will be observed that the word Putha differs from the term 
 employed on the coins of the other monarchs, in the use of the Zend 
 th instead of the usual Sanskrit tr. 
 
 1 Lassen, J. A. S. B., 1840, 368; Cunningham, J. A. S. B., 1840, 430. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 2nd King. 
 RUDRA SAH, son of JIWA DAMA. 
 Figures— 3 (Prinsep), 4 (R. A. S.), 5 (E. I. C), Plate I.; No. 2, Plate III. 
 Obv. Head as usual. No. 3, figures < J(J?j imperfect legend 
 iAYOYAi.. No. 4, °3JJ _y. No. 5, figures illegible; imperfect 
 Greek legend AIOAYKIYIn^ (a possible corruption of AIONY2IOY 1 ). 
 Rev. Symbols as usual. Legend — 
 
 Rdjnah Kshatrapasa Rudra sahasa Swdmi Jiwa Ddmd putrasa. 
 
 The initial letter of Swami is sometimes written "^j instead of ^$f, 
 and the short ^ is used in both Swami and Jiwa in place of the long 
 one, ^. This last name has hitherto been read as Jina f^|*f, but 
 the more perfect coins now engraved prove clearly that the word is 
 Jiwa sffa. 
 
 On one coin of this king (Prinsep) is to be seen a very distinct ^ 
 inscribed over the first ^J, of what has hitherto been read as tj|^ 
 Saha, but which should probably now be received as f%% Sinha. 
 
 3rd King. 
 
 ASA DAMA. 
 
 Figures— -6 (E. I. C), 7 (Steuart), 8 (Steuart), Plate I. ; No. 3, Plate III. 
 
 Obv. Head as usual. Fig. 6, legend illegible. Fig. 7, *J ?J . 
 Dr. Bird has three of this king's coins with the decimal JJ after the °J . 
 Rev. Symbols as usual. Legend— 
 
 Tra: ^^^ ^rnn ^re: Tra: w^re ^ *rs *pn? 
 
 Rdjnah Kshatrapasa Asa Ddmnah Rajnah Kshatrapasa Rudra Sdha 
 
 1 There is a king of this name among the Bactrian Greeks, made known to us 
 by his coins, which in their types seem to connect him with Apollodotus. 
 
THE 8AH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 53 
 
 The name of this monarch has heretofore been rendered a3 
 ^5f*T <rm Aga Dama, the small central stroke in the second letter 
 of the king's name having escaped the eye of Mr. Steuart's Italian 
 engraver, from whose plates alone Prinsep deciphered the legends on 
 the coins of this prince. The reading now proposed- 'involving the 
 acceptance of the character J""^ as the equivalent of the modern "3J * 
 — may be readily justified by a reference to the current forms of the 
 old letter, either on the coins, or on inscriptions of a closely subsequent 
 date, though it is freely to be admitted that the outline of the letter 
 itself was by no means fixed or immutable, inasmuch as it is seen to 
 occur as (!) (coins of 1st and 7th kings), ^ (figs. 15, 16, and 23), and 
 as r~^ (fig. 22, &c.) in the different combinations it enters into on the 
 coins; and as fl& (Sah Inscription), J""^ (Gupta Girnar Inscription, 
 Jour. Bombay Branch As. Soc), and [Z\ (Guzerat Plates) on the 
 various inscriptions of a proximate rora. 
 
 4th King. 
 
 DAMA SAH. 
 
 (Communicated by Dr. Bird.) 
 
 Obv. Head as usual. Legends and date I ^ J J\. This date 
 recurs on several coins of this prince. 
 
 Rev. Symbols as usual. Legend — 
 
 TTsft *TfT ^r^^ JTKT WT&S JtH *TO ^TO¥ 
 
 Rdjno Mahd Kshatrapasa Ddmd Sdhasa Rdjno Mahd Eskatrapasa 
 Rudra Sdhasa putrasa. 
 
54 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 5th King. 
 VIJAYA SAH, son of DAMA SAH. 
 
 Figures— 9 (R. A. S.) } 10 (Prinsep), Plate I. ; No. 4, Plate III. 
 
 Obv. Head as usual. Fig. 9, legend illegible, date *][ *j Otter 
 dates : East India Company's coin, *3 *j Y ; Dr. Bird's, ^ § *3 1 Z 
 and °J *| %y Imperfect legend from a coin of Colonel Wynch's, com- 
 mencing after the date, ilYlIOUCi^. 
 
 Rev. Symbols as usual. Legend — 
 
 ttwt *t^t w^ws f^sre *rrs* ttwt w%i ^to 
 
 °%TW[ wr%^ xpTO 
 
 Rdjno Mahd Kshatrapasa Vijaya Sdhasa Rdjno Mahd Kshatrapasa 
 JDdmd Sdhasa putrasa. 
 
 In the coin No. 9, and uniformly in those of the 6th and 
 10th kings of the present list, is to be noticed the use of the 
 superfluous genitive termination ^J affixed to the penultimate word 
 
 "trn[ 5 making «$|^*j TT^f instead of ^THC T^L as it is expressed 
 in the generality of instances. The name fif^f is usually, though not 
 invariably written with the long ^ instead of the short "^ required 
 by correct orthography. It will be seen, on a reference to the various 
 Sanskrit legends arranged in Plate III., that much license was ad- 
 mitted among the Surashtran die-cutters in the interchange of the 
 long and short superscribed vowels ^ "^ (see ^"pfft and ^rffa 
 
 PL III. fig. 2; f^q III. 8, 11; and f%^ III. 8, &c, &c). Any 
 rectification of these and such like errors will be accepted with the 
 more confidence when it is borne in mind that the particular inac- 
 curacy now noted has, in effect, been set right by the mint engravers 
 themselves, in their occasional employment of the regular form of the 
 short "^ in the same word fif5|TE|. 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 55 
 
 6th Kino. 
 VIRA DAMA, son of DAMA SAH. 
 
 Figures— 11 (Steuart), 12 (Steuart), Plate L; No. 5, Plate III. 
 Obv. Head as usual. No. 1 1, legend illegible ; date, doubtful, 
 
 n : H 
 
 Rev. Symbols as usual. 
 
 Rdjnali Kshatrapasa Vira Ddmnah Rdjno Mahd Kshatrapasa Ddmd 
 Sdhasa putrasa. 
 
 7th King. 
 
 DAMA JATA SRIYAH, son op DAMA SAH. 
 
 Figures— 13 (E. I. C), Plate I.; No. 6, Plate III. 
 
 Obv. Head as usual; date, illegible; imperfect legend . . YIIOII . . 
 Colonel Sykes's coin has the imperfect date *JJ*!f (the second figure 
 is probably a J ), and the following portion of the legend, IYIOIC . . . 
 
 Rev. Symbols as usual. Legend — 
 
 Rdjno Mahd Kshatrapasa Ddmd Jata Sriyah Rdjno Mahd Kshatra- 
 pasa Dcimd Sdha putrasa. 
 
 The facsimile of the reverse inscription, from whence the litho- 
 graphed legend in Plate III. has been copied, was taken from the 
 imperfect coin in the Library at the India House engraved as fig. 13, 
 PI. I. Dr. Stevenson had already given the above reading of the 
 king's name from a second better-preserved coin also found at Junir, 
 which did not form part of the collection sent to the Court of Directors. 
 This interpretation has since received a degree of confirmation from a 
 
56 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 coin of Colonel Sykes', which was placed in my hands after the com- 
 pletion of the plates which accompany this Memoir. 
 
 Subjoined is a correct copy of the letters of the king's name taken 
 from the coin in question. 
 
 nrnrfop 
 
 8th King. 
 
 RUDRA SAH, son of VIRA DAMA. 
 
 Figure— 14 (E. I. C), Plate I. ; No. 7, Plate III. 
 
 Obv. Head as usual. Fig. 14, date "J ©£; commencement of 
 
 legend HYll There are no less than three clear examples of this 
 
 same date on different coins of Rudra, the son of Vira. Imperfect 
 legend, after the date, i I Y 1 1 1 It ( Wynch). 
 
 Rev. Symbols as usual. Legend — 
 
 TTrft w& ^^nre trf tjtts Tra: w^m fk 
 
 Rdjno Mahd Kshatrapasa Rudra Sdhasa Rdjndh Kshatrapasa Vira 
 
 Ddmd putrasa. 
 
 9th King. 
 VISWA SINHA, son op RUDRA SAH. 
 
 Figures— 15 (R. A. S.), 16 (Dr. Swiney), 17 (Prinsep), Plate I.; No. 8, Plate II. 
 
 Obv. Head as usual. Fig. 16, date "JO !, possibly °J©. 
 Fig. 17, date "J Q f . Legends illegible. Other dates — coin in 
 British Museum, °J Q =. Prinsep (J.A.S.B., vii. 351), "JQc;. 
 
 Rev. Symbols as usual. Legend — 
 
 Rdjnah Kshatrapasa Viswa Sinhasa Rdjno Mahd Kshatrapasa Rudra 
 
 Sdha putrasa. 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 57 
 
 The second name of this Raja has hitherto been supposed to be the 
 familiar Saha; but the clear impressions of the legend on many of the 
 coins now available disclose obviously the vowel l ^ (possibly used 
 
 for i \) above the first down-stroke of the initial s J$, and conclusively 
 determine that Sinha is the proper reading of the word. The inscrip- 
 
 iw » % \ is 
 
 I T 
 
 M ^ l*? f^- (sL^>^ 
 
 fel 0^ tor- jA^~2^~ v^fc). 
 
 a^z/>l 
 
 _ :hd Kshatrapasa Rudra 
 
 Sdhasa putrasa. 
 
58 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 Prinsep (J. A. S. B., vii. 355) proposed — with but a doubtful degree 
 of confidence in his own suggestion — to read from the coin (J. A. S. B., 
 PI. XII. 1 2) the name of this prince's father as Rudra Ddmd Sah, the 
 appellation of the Repairer of the Girnar Bridge, as then supposed 
 to be recorded on the Rock Inscription near Junagarh. Prinsep's 
 own coin, now in the British Museum (reproduced in PI. I. as 
 fig. 19), does not by any means bear out the identification in ques- 
 tion; indeed, it definitively proves that it was erroneous, as the 
 
 father's name is here distinctly seen to stand as ^£jT 4j(^4J, without 
 any appearance of the additional name of Dama. 
 
 11th King. 
 
 ATRI DAMA. 
 
 Figures— 20 (Sykes), 21 (Sykes), Plate I.; No. 10, Plate III. 
 
 Obv. Head as usual ; date and inscription entirely wanting. Dr. 
 Bird's coin, °J 
 
 Rev. The usual symbols, but imperfectly executed. Legend — 
 TTSTt *TfT *W*m ^f^ TTO: TTWt W%T W3W ^ 
 
 Rdjno Mahd Kshatrapasa Atri Ddmnah Bdjno Mahd Kshatrapasa 
 Rudra Sdha putrasa. 
 
 Dr. Stevenson has ventured to alter the old reading of the name 
 of this prince, by substituting a 3J for the initial ^5J, making the word 
 Bhatri instead of Atri; in this he is merely following Prinsep, who 
 had already applied a similar emendation to the same name, as found 
 on the coins of the son, Viswa Sah, the 12th of our list. (J. A. S. B., 
 vii. 355.) 
 
 A collation of a number of specimens of the coins of both father 
 and son, with a special view to the verification of the initial letter of 
 the doubtful name — even allowing for a slight variation to be seen in 
 the form of the present letter "^J, distinguishing it from the earlier ^ 
 on the coins of Asa Dama— leaves no doubt but that Atri is the correct 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 59 
 
 interpretation. Dr. Stevenson has apparently been misled — as pro- 
 bably was Prinsep himself — by the imperfect expression given to the 
 upper part of the first perpendicular line of the old form of the letter 
 ^ as seen on many of the coins. Now, as this additional upper 
 stroke constitutes the only difference between the due form of the 
 letter ^Sf of the Sah alphabet, and one of the accepted representatives 
 
 of the "JJ on the Gupta Surashtran coins, the mistake may be said to 
 have been very natural, though, subjected to a critical examination, 
 there were from the very first, decided palatographs objections to the 
 new reading, in the facts that the ^f of the corresponding Sah In- 
 scription was obviously a very differently formed character, and the 
 Gupta li{, which was to be assumed as a fixed exemplar of its prede- 
 cessors, was in itself of a very unsettled and undetermined shape 
 (PI. III., a, b, c, d, e). In regard to Dr. Stevenson's case, in the 
 very coin he publishes — it is to be supposed to prove his position — the 
 upper stroke of the old ^5f , though certainly not so prominent as the 
 other lines of the letter, is palpable enough to have decided the real 
 value of the character in question. (Bombay Journal, 1847, PI. XXIV. 
 fig. 9.) 
 
 In the legends of the coins of Atri Dama, the visarga is occa- 
 sionally inserted after the < [*%. 
 
 12th King. 
 
 VISWA SAH, son op ATRI DAMA. 
 
 Figures— 22 (Sykes), 23 (Steuart), Plate I.; No. 11, Plate III. 
 
 Obv. Head as usual; fig. 22, *J Q fig. 23, "J Q T, YOI 
 
 Dr. Bird's coins, *% Q and ^oC 
 
 Rev. Symbols as usual. Legend— 
 
 Rdjnah Kshatrapasa Viswa Sdhasa Rdjno Mahd Kshatrapasa Atri 
 
 Ddmd putrasa. 
 
60 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 The legends on these coins call for no remark beyond a reference 
 to the irregular use of the visarga after the opening ^j-jj. It will 
 be seen that the visarga has been uniformly added in these modern 
 transcripts of the legends, according to the requirements of the lan- 
 guage, without reference to its omission in the original superscriptions 
 on the coins. A similar liberty has been taken in the rejection of the 
 final vowel o ( J ) in the same word, where it appears to have been 
 unduly inserted. 
 
 13th King. 
 SWAMI RUDRA DAMA. 
 
 (No Coins.) 
 
 14th King. 
 
 SWAMI RUDRA SAH, Son of SWAMI RUDRA DAMA. 
 
 Figures— 24 (Prinsep), 25 (Prinsep), Plate I. ; No. 12, Plate III. 
 
 Obv. Head as usual. Fig. 24, date *1 Q) *-| Fig. 25, date 
 *! 00 Other dates : — two coins in the British Museum, and one of 
 Dr. Bird's, «$% 
 
 Rev. Symbols as usual, but imperfectly expressed. Legend — 
 
 Rdjno Mahd Kshatrapasa Swami Rudra Sdhasa Rdjno Mahd Kshatra- 
 pasa Swdmi Rudra Ddmd putrasa. 
 
 The legends on the coins of this prince, which are usually ex- 
 pressed in very imperfect letters, vary in the occasional omission of 
 the final ^ of ^HlpS 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 61 
 
 Figure 26 (Prinsep) is the obverse of an unidentified coin, the 
 monarch's name on the reverse being completely obliterated, though 
 the portion of the legend, which affirms that the king in question was 
 the Son of Budra Sah, still remains. 
 
 The sketch of this piece has been introduced into the plate for the 
 purpose of showing the curious form of the second numerical symbol 
 OC, which occurs on no other coin in such entire distinctness of out- 
 line. Prinsep (J. A. S. B., vii. 351) gave this piece to Atri Dama, 
 but the remaining letters of the legend scarcely authorize this or any 
 definite assignment, though otherwise I am inclined to concur in the 
 attribution itself, in consequence of the detection of traces of a similar 
 figure, similarly placed, on an undoubted coin of Atri Dama, and the 
 confirmatory fact of such a symbol appearing in full distinctness on 
 the money of the son [and successor?], Viswa, the 12th king. 
 
 Square LEADEN COINS. 
 
 The series of square leaden coins delineated in the commencement 
 of Plate II. may be supposed, from identity of the principal emblems 
 of the reverse device, and the general coincidence of the accompanying 
 ciphers, to have formed the lower circulating medium, concurrently 
 with the more valuable silver money just described. The obverse face 
 of these coins displays the standing figure of the humped Bull, facing 
 to the right, above which is seen a curiously elongated star, or diamond- 
 shaped double arrow-head. The reverse bears the usual pyramidical 
 emblem, surmounted, as in the associate series of silver money, by the 
 crescents and stars. The accustomed wavy line is here, however, 
 opened out towards the centre, and below this occur the figures it is 
 proposed to accept as representing dates. 
 
 These pieces possess value, in the elucidation of the general in- 
 quiry, beyond the useful affirmation of the correct and complete out- 
 lines of many of the numerical symbols imperfectly retained by the 
 silver coins, in the fact that the occurrence of the different sets of 
 figures, as isolated impressions — here also varying in themselves irre- 
 gularly as dates would do — lends support to the previous identification 
 of the intention attending the use of the like figures as found in ano- 
 malous juxtaposition with the Greek legend on the obverse of the 
 silver coins. 
 
62 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 Fig. 27, PI. II., date "J QQ Fig. 31, *J QQ £ 
 
 Fig. 28, ^OQU : Fig. 32 is a reversed die, 
 
 Fie- 29 "*l ffl^ which should properly 
 
 Fig.' 30,' -am^ri e X pre SS «iee>4. 
 
 Extra dates from other coins — [*[{] QQ . "J CD E 
 
 Round LEADEN COINS. 
 
 Obv. An elephant, facing to the right. 
 
 Rev. The usual pyramidical symbol, crescents, and stars. Figs. 
 33, 34, date "J J = 
 
 These leaden coins are all from the Cabinet of Colonel Sykes. 
 
 Prinsep has published one of these coins (which he, however, 
 notices as composed of copper), dated *J J^ See No. 22, PI. XII., 
 Vol. VII., J. A. S. B. 
 
 Before taking leave of the pure Sah Surashtran coins, it is neces- 
 sary to mention that there are certain specimens of a copper coinage 
 completely analogous with the silver series, and apparently running 
 much about the same size and shape. (See Fig. 27, PI. XII., 
 J. A. S. B. vii.; the original coin weighs 22jgr.) 
 
 But beyond this is to be noticed the unique copper coin engraved 
 as No. 14, PI. XII., Vol. VII., J. A. S. B. 1 , which is remarkable— 
 though assimilating in many respects with the silver money — in the 
 rejection of the obverse Sah head, which is replaced by a figure of a 
 Bull, nearly identical with the animal on the square leaden pieces, 
 around which is traced an unintelligible succession of the usual 
 Greek-looking letters. The reverse legend appears, from the intervals 
 between the letters, to have been more brief than the inscriptions on 
 the silver coins, and the characters themselves are perhaps of a slightly 
 
 modernized form. Of the entire legend, the words "^TIjY W^T ^T^ 
 alone are visible. 
 
 1 Prinsep (J. A. S. B., vii. 356) mentions that this coin had been presented to 
 him by Lieutenant Conolly, who had obtained it at Ujein. I have not been able 
 to find the piece in question in the Prinsep Cabinet in the British Museum. 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 63 
 
 1st Sub-Species. (Silver.) 
 
 This group of coins — as yet unattributed — has been placed imme- 
 diately after the identified Sah series, on the strength chiefly of the 
 forms of the Devanagari letters, which will be seen in the few legible 
 characters traceable on the two best specimens (Figs. 35, 36), to 
 approximate closely to the most correct outlines of the letters of the 
 assumed prototypes, especially in the expression given to those ad- 
 mirable test letters which serve to form the word 4JtsJY. lixdjy^c 
 
 Looking to the limited supply and the imperfect condition of the 
 originally well-executed coins, the utter barbarization of the more 
 plentiful imitations, as well as to the want of definite data for fixing 
 the locale of their fabrication and circulation, it would be hazardous to 
 speculate on the detail history of the series ; and though their derivation 
 from the Surashtran stock may be admitted as palpably obvious, the 
 general mechanical indications disclosed are insufficient to justify any 
 decision either in the one case, as to their issue contemporaneously with 
 their exemplars as money of a once subject but momentarily disjoined 
 and independent monarchy ; or, on the other hand, when viewed as 
 the sequent imitation of the Sah currency constituting the coinage of 
 a distinct dynasty, it would be difficult to say whether that dynasty 
 reigned in Guzerat or some proximate country once in subordination 
 to or in intimate correspondence with the Surashtran peninsula. 
 
 The obverse surface of these medals offers but little to remark 
 upon beyond the general coincidence of the form of the head with the 
 more perfectly executed representations to be seen in the preceding 
 series. In the better finished specimens of the present class 1 , this face 
 of the coin has suffered so much from the action of time and from 
 oxidation, that the more exact details, which might have served the 
 purposes of a close comparison, are altogether wanting; and in the 
 later examples of the coinage — as has been before observed — there is 
 such a striking absence of the artist's hand, that but slender faith can 
 be placed in the evidences conveyed by the work. One single item 
 seems safely deducible from the unoccupied margin, to be found around 
 the bust in the broader coins, viz., that the use of Greek or its 
 attempted representation was here discontinued. 
 
 » Figures 35, 36. 
 
64 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 The reverse face displays a Sanskrit marginal legend, at first very 
 similarly outlined to the inscriptions on the Sah coins, and occupying, 
 as of old, a considerable portion of the entire field; the central symbol 
 is, however, altogether changed, and in place of the pyramid and 
 stars, we have the unquestioned Buddhist device, the figure of a man 
 — the appropriate sign of the Buddhist layman 1 , the counterpart of 
 which is found on the Behat, and many other classes of early Buddhist 
 Coins 2 . 
 
 Plate II. Figure — 35 (Prinsep collection, to which it was contributed by the 
 late Captain Conolly; found at Ujein), weight 28*5 gr. 
 
 Obv. Head, similar in character to those found on the Sah series 
 of coins, but apparently unaccompanied by any legend. 
 
 Rev. The lower portion of a crude outline figure of a man. More 
 entire specimens show that it usually has the right arm upraised. 
 (See also engravings of a similar but less finely-finished coin, delineated 
 as fig. 21, PL XVIII., Vol. III., and fig. 9, PI. XLIX., Vol. IV., 
 J. A. S. B.) 
 
 The major part of the legend is illegible, though many isolated 
 letters are readily identifiable, and the entire word ^I'jJT is plainly 7c»*)in 
 discernible, to which may fairly be added, on the confirmation afforded 
 by other analogous coins, the highly important words *i^[ "W^iVm 3 > 
 which establish still more conclusively the connexion existing between 
 this and the preceding class of pure Sah money. 
 
 Plate II. Figures— 36, weight 23 gr. ; 37, weight 28 gr. ; and 38, weight 
 31 gr. (Sykes). 
 
 Coins of similar type to the last, but of imperfect execution, 
 arranged in the order of their comparative deterioration. 
 
 i Csoma De Koros, " Dulva," xx., As. Res., p. 86 f sec. 11. 
 8 Ar. Ant., PI. XV. figs. 23, 24, 25; also J. A. S. B., iv., PI. X., fig. 1C; PI. 
 XXXV., figs. 45, 47; and vii., PI. XXXII., figs. 12, 13, 14, &c, &c. 
 8 J. A. S. B., iv. PI. XLIX., fig. 8. 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 65 
 
 COINS OF KUMARA GUPTA. 
 
 Plate II. Figures— 3fl (R. A. S.), weight 33 gr. ; 40 (Prinsep), weight 33 gr. ; 
 41 (Prinsep), weight 33*3 gr.; 42 (Prinsep), weight 32 gr. Legend, PI. iii., a. 
 
 Obv. Head but little changed from the Sah type; legend, at the 
 hack of the head, NANO, and at times §AO NANo. On some speci- 
 mens of this class of coins the legend is placed in front of the profile. 
 
 Rev. A symbol, the meaning of which has not been hitherto 
 decided on by modern numismatists; it is not impossible that it may 
 be intended for a peacock : the legends are at times doubtful in the 
 second word, which has been also read ^TT*T«ffaC Bhanuvira 1 ; but 
 the generality of specimens disclose the following inscription : — 
 
 Parama Bhagavata Kdjddhirdja Sri Kumar a Gupta Maliendrasya. 
 
 N.B. The facsimile legend, given as a, PI. iii., has been taken from 
 the original coins engraved as figs. 40, 41. The coins under notice 
 are not always complete in the Sanskrit legends; as instances, an 
 otherwise very perfect piece in the cabinet of the Royal Asiatic Society 
 has the word ^T^IlfVTT^J abbreviated into 4j;j|l^; and No. 39 
 has the same word contracted to ^T^Trf^RT- 
 
 COINS OF SKANDA GUPTA. 
 
 1st. Money having for the reverse device the same symbol as is found 
 on the coins of Kumdra Gupta. 
 
 Figures — 43 (R. A. S.), weight 27 gr. ; 44 (Prinsep), weight 23 gr. 
 
 Onv. Head very much barbarized, but still retaining sufficient 
 character to make it readily identifiable as a derivative from the old 
 Sah type. On some specimens is to be seen the word NANO to the 
 front of the profile. 
 
 1 Prinsep, J. A. S. B., vii. 35G. See also variant a, PI. III. 
 
 F 
 
66 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 Rev. A very debased imitation of the (Peacock?) symbol which 
 characterises the silver coins of Skanda's predecessor, Kumara Gupta. 
 Restored legend — 
 
 Paramo, Bhagavata Sri Shanda Gupta Kramdditya. 
 
 Prinsep, in his collated reading of the legends on these coins 
 (J. A. S. B., vii. 356), adopted the letter J{ (for T{%[) as occurring 
 after the word 3fJfc((i (or ?T?T??? as he made it), which he found to 
 be followed by the title of JJv[, which precedes the name of the 
 monarch. This rendering he would seem to have drawn from fig. 29, 
 PI. II., Steuart (J. R. A. S., 1837); but as the like letters do not 
 generally recur, I have marked this as the exception rather than the 
 rule. Other specimens of this class of coin will be found engraved as 
 figs. 18, 19, 20, and 21, pi. xii., Vol. VII., J. A. S. B. 
 
 2nd. Coins with the reverse device of a Bull. 
 Figures— 45 (R. A. S.), weight 30 gr.; 46 (R. A. S.), weight 21 gr. 
 
 Obv. Coarsely designed head, with traces of the word NANO in 
 front of the profile. 
 
 Rev. Figure of a Bull (Nandi) recumbent, identical in every 
 respect with the seal symbol of the Valabhi family, as found on their 
 Copper-plate Grants. (See J. A. S. B., iv. pi. xl., and p. 487.) Re- 
 stored legend — 
 
 ijt*t *nmrF ^t w^ tot ^*rrfrw 
 
 Parama Bhagavata Sri Skanda Gupta Kramdditya. 
 
 These legends are often imperfect, and very constantly of unequal 
 length, an irregularity resulting apparently from the amount of room 
 the die-sinker happened to find himself possessed of as he proceeded 
 with his engraving. Thus in one coin (Wilson, Ar. Ant., pi. XV. 
 fig. 19) the second word appears to have been contracted into its 
 initial letter, and the three letters that should have succeeded are 
 replaced by the two letters serving to express the word fjtf|. In 
 
THE SAII KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 07 
 
 other instances, where there has been a superabundance of space, an 
 "^ in one case, and an "^of in another, have been inserted over and 
 above the words and letters adopted in the detail above. 
 
 Plate II. Figures— 47 (Mihi), weight 23 gr. ; 47 (Mihi), weight 29 gr. 
 Found in the Doab of the Ganges and Jumna. 
 
 Obv. Crudely executed head. 
 Rev. Bull couchant. 
 
 The inscriptions on these coins, though partially legible, do not 
 afford any trustworthy reading of the purport designed to be con- 
 veyed, as the letters of the legends, though clear at different points, 
 are in general much abraided, and have originally been but imper- 
 fectly defined. These sister coins have been placed in their present 
 position as palpably connected with the Bull series of Skanda Gupta, 
 and though the name inscribed may be for the present unrecognisable, 
 enough remains of the different characters of the inscriptions to prove 
 that they do not bear the name of that monarch : as such, they raise 
 an important historical question as to who their producer, this imitator 
 of Skanda Gupta, was. Their insertion among the present engravings 
 may serve to introduce their claims to the notice of possessors of more 
 perfect specimens of the same class of coins, through whose means 
 light may possibly be thrown on this branch of the enquiry. 
 
 3rd. Coins having the Tulsi device. 
 
 Plate III. Figures— 49 (Prinsep), weight 22*5 gr.; 50 (Prinsep), weight 28 gr. ; 
 51 (Prinsep), weight 33 gr.; and legends d 3 e, PI. III. 
 
 Obv. The usual head, generally ill defined, but still identical 
 in many respects with the original type on the obverse of the Sah 
 medals, occasionally accompanied also by distinct traces of the word 
 NANO. 
 
 Rev. Central symbol in the form of an altar, which is taken to 
 represent the common altar-shaped receptacle of the sacred Tulsi tree 
 of the Hindus. Legends restored — 
 
 Fig. 49, II., and d, III. 
 
 Parama Bhagavata Sri Skanda Gupta Kramddiiya. 
 
 F 2 
 
6§ ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 Fig. 50, II., and d, variant, III. 
 
 P aroma Bhagavata Sri Skanda Gupta Paramdditya. 
 Fig. 51, II., and e, III. 
 
 Parama Bhagavata Sri Vikramdditya Skanda Gupta. 
 
 There are between seventy and eighty specimens of these various 
 Tulsi device Skanda Gupta coins in the Prinsep collection. They are 
 commonly but carelessly fashioned, and unevenly struck. The letters 
 of the legends, however, are in high relief, and unusually well pre- 
 served, though there is at the same time a decided absence of uni- 
 formity in the expression of many characters of analogous value, and 
 their general outline is remarkable for a degree of rudeness, similar to 
 that already noticed by Prinsep 1 as existing in the coeval alphabet of 
 the 3rd or Skanda Gupta Inscription on the Girnar Rock. 
 
 The irregularity in the completion of the legend cited as occurring 
 on Skanda Gupta's coins with the Bull reverse, appears in a still 
 greater degree in those of the present class. 
 
 PEACOCK COINS. 
 
 Plate II. Figures— .52 (Mihi), weight 30 gr.; 53 (Swiney), weight 36 gr. ; 54 
 (Swiney), weight 32 gr. ; 55 (Swiney), weight 32 gr. ; 56 (Prinsep), weight 
 35*8 gr. ; 57, engraved from the cast of a coin — the original in the possession 
 of Mr. Vincent Tregear— communicated by Dr. Swiney. 
 
 The facsimiles of these coins have been added to the engravings of 
 the different series of medals which illustrate the more especial 
 subject of the present memoir, with a view to show another — perhaps 
 the final — ramification of the imitations of the old Sah model. It is to 
 be remarked that, judging from the localities in which they are now 
 chiefly discovered, the point of their original issue should be referred 
 
 1 See remarks quoted in note 2, page 10, supra, and the facsimile of the in- 
 scription itself in the Journal Bombay Branch Asiatic Society for April, 1812. 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 69 
 
 to some spot in Central 1 rather than in Western India. This attribu- 
 tion — though claiming for these pieces a site somewhat removed from 
 the more immediate locale of the circulation of their prototypes — does 
 not in any way militate against the probabilities resulting from the 
 previous history of the series, whence the standard of this money is 
 supposed to have been derived. The possession of both the country 
 upon the Ganges, and the entire land up to and including the penin- 
 sula of Guzerat, by one and the same supreme ruler — as is seen to 
 have been the case under Kumara and Skanda, if not under others 
 of the family of the Guptas — would naturally induce a more than 
 usually free inter-circulation of the local currencies of each. The 
 Eastern provinces being deficient — as the Indo-Scythic and Gupta 
 coinages severally teach us — in any sustained silver currency, would 
 unhesitatingly adopt the useful intermediate circulating medium of a 
 Western state, which bore the impress of their mutual paramount 
 sovereign. Having thus found its way into the bazars of the upper 
 Gangetic districts, there would be little hesitation in a succeeding 
 dynasty — even of so far purely Eastern origin — adopting it as its 
 model type for a new coinage, in preference to the Greek silver pieces 
 supposed to have been, to a certain extent, in associate circulation 
 with the Indo-Scythic and Gupta gold, or the more crude specimens 
 of the ancient local mintages that may still have kept their place 
 among their more modern substitutes. 
 
 In regard to the superscriptions on the reverse of these coins, it 
 will be seen that it is somewhat difficult to discriminate satisfactorily 
 the true value of many of the letters, as there is not only a general 
 want of due definition in the better outlined characters, and a confused 
 agglomeration of the distinctive lines of each, but there is likewise, in 
 the majority of instances, a palpable bungling and incomplete forma- 
 tion of the letters which leads to a necessary distrust in any mere 
 tentative reading, unsupported by such leading hints or collateral 
 evidence as might suggest or confirm any reasonably admissible deci- 
 pherment. 
 
 A collation of the inscriptions on the best specimens at present 
 procurable, leads to thus much of a definite conclusion, that the super- 
 scriptions vary on different coins, which may be taken to prove that 
 the entire class represents the mintages of various members of a 
 dynasty, in contradistinction to the coinage of a single king. 
 
 I "Figures 10, 11, 12 [PI. xLix., Vol. IV., J. A. S. B.] are of a different type, 
 though nearly allied to the former [the Surashtrans] : they are found not only in 
 Gajerat, but at Kanouj, Ujjain, and generally in Upper India." Prinsep. 
 
70 ON THE DYNASTY OF 
 
 It will be seen that the average weight of the specimens cited is 
 slightly over the usual weight of the Sah and Gupta pieces; the differ- 
 ence is, however, by no means sufficient to invalidate the supposition 
 of a derivation from the last named source. 
 
 The coins themselves demand but brief notice. The Head on the 
 obverse will be found to have attained much of the marked character 
 of Indian art, especially in the execution of the eye, which may almost 
 be traced, in the accompanying engravings, step by step through its 
 successive stages of Indianization, from the classical form communi- 
 cated by the Surashtran artists to the barbarous full front optic on the 
 side face, which so disfigures the heads on these coins. The other 
 details in the execution of the bust have pretty well kept pace in the 
 general degradation of style ; but among the minor objects, the atten- 
 tion is attracted to the retention, or rather reproduction, of the exact 
 Sdh collar. In front of the profile are three letters, superposed after 
 the manner of the legends on the Eastern Gupta medals. 
 
 The Indian designers make a better display on the reverse than 
 the crudities that disgrace the opposite surface would have led us to 
 anticipate. The central device — the Peacock — is here boldly con- 
 ceived and creditably executed. The letters, too, to judge from the 
 coin engraved as No. 52, must at times have been well modelled, 
 though there is a failure in the working out of the details, and a con- 
 fusedness of the inner lines of the characters, even while the external 
 form appears to have been accurately rendered; and to do the en- 
 gravers full justice, they seem to have proposed to themselves uni- 
 formly to express the requisite superscribed vowels, though these have 
 naturally suffered from their exposed position on the edge of the 
 piece, in addition to any faults they may have derived from the im- 
 perfection of the dies. 
 
 The style of writing employed appears to follow, at but a moderate 
 distance, the alphabet of the Guptas, as in use in their Eastern states, 
 
 and among the rest, the letters 3\ , 7T'5J , &ircr^'Tf'3' , ?[' and «f 
 may be cited as nearly identical with the corresponding characters on 
 the Gupta Lats. The ^ and 7f — and occasionally the w[ — on the 
 
 coins are at times easily confounded, as they are often wanting in the 
 several openings which should give each its distinctive value. 
 
 Without attempting to analyse the legends in detail, or to propose 
 any reading for the introductory laudatory titles, supposed to precede 
 the name, I may notice — though distrusting my materials — that the 
 names on Nos. 55, 57, allowing for the obvious malformation of the 
 
 letters, may readily be taken for zgj\ "Sf^ 1\J{ Sri Budha Gupta, the 
 
THE SAH KINGS OF SURASHTRA. 71 
 
 very name that is found on the inscription on Bhim Sen's Pillar at 
 Erun, near Sagor. Assuming this designation to be correctly read, 
 the collateral evidence derived from the inscription coincides suffi- 
 ciently with the indications offered by the coins themselves. From 
 the former we gather that Budha Gupta held the country lying 
 between the Nerbudda and a river it has been proposed to identify as 
 the Jumna 1 ; no information is however afforded as to the whereabouts 
 of his seat of government, nor can the geographical boundaries, thus 
 defined, be said to convey any very definite knqwledge of the real 
 extent of the dominions adverted to. Prinsep considered that Su- 
 rashtra should be held to have constituted a portion of this king's 
 possessions, but the expressions in his own translation of the inscrip- 
 tion — even admitting it to be an accurate rendering — are far from 
 implying any such condition ; the occupation of land touching these 
 two rivers, taking Sagor as anything like its centre, would encircle 
 comparatively narrow limits, and would not by any means of necessity 
 embrace the whole land to the western coast. 
 
 If Budha Gupta is to be looked upon as a scion of the ancient 
 family of the Guptas, whose might is chronicled on the Lats of Alla- 
 habad and Bhitari, and on the Rock of Junagarh, it is clear by his 
 subjects' own showing, that he possessed a sovereignty much reduced 
 in extent from the empire originally ruled over by his predecessors 
 in the palmy days of the race. 
 
 In addition to the Pillar record, there is also an inscription on the 
 temple at Erun, near which the Pillar itself was erected. From the 
 incidental notices to be found in these monumental writings, it would 
 appear that their execution must have been very nearly contempora- 
 neous j the one work having been undertaken " by," the other at the 
 " cost of," a certain Dhanya Vishnu. In the temple inscription, which 
 
 1 Prinsep's translation of this inscription runs — " On Thursday, the 13th 
 lunar day of the month of A'shadha of the year 165, when the King, Budha 
 Gupta * * governed the beautiful country situated between the KaUindi 
 (Jumna) and the Narmada * * in the aforesaid year of his dynasty." 
 J. A. S. B., vii. 634. 
 
 The word transcribed as cRTl<^ «rdli when tested by the facsimile of the 
 inscription itself (PI. XXXI., Vol. VII.), is by no means a satisfactory 
 rendering, each letter of the entire word— with the single exception of the "^ 
 
 — being open to objection, besides which the very legible "T" over the concluding 
 
 compound letter in the original remains altogether unaccounted for in the modern 
 transcript. 
 
72 ON THE SAH DYNASTY. 
 
 is probably the earliest of the two, it is stated that the edifice itself 
 was built in the first year of the reign of Tarapani, the suzerain then 
 acknowledged in this part of the country 1 . The writing on the pillar, 
 on the other hand, informs us, as has been already stated, that, at the 
 time of its endorsement, Budha Gupta was the lord paramount. 
 
 This change in the Suzerainete, at all events, suffices to show that 
 Budha Gupta, though he may have obtained, or even regained, pos- 
 session of the country about Sagor, was far from being sole unopposed 
 inheritor of the lands once acknowledging Gupta sway; and as such, 
 his title to the nearly entire north-west of India may well be ques- 
 tioned, and his dominions reduced to much more moderate bounds than 
 Prinsep was inclined to award him. 
 
 It need scarcely be noticed that in the present incomplete state of 
 our information on the subject, the date of 163, as avowedly a dynas- 
 tical date, adds nothing to our knowledge or power of determining the 
 real corresponding epoch. 
 
 1 " When the great raja Tarapani, the very famous and beautiful, the King 
 of Kings, governed the earth; in the first year of his reign," &c., &c, J. A. S. B., 
 
Plate!. 
 
 SiW 
 
 JBasirc. deletsc. 
 
 COINS OF THE SAH KINGS OT' SURASHTRA. 
 
PlateH. 
 
 J.£asirril-i,t.:r 
 
 M1SCELLANE01TS COINS OF SURASHTRA &c. 
 
t a* 
 
 ■ ,/\^ 
 
 t/HWt>-»v9 J 
 
 ID . 
 
 7H<W i 
 
 SA H S 
 
 ^♦UX ^1*^^ 
 
 9 
 
 1 I tl ^^ SWtfTVJ \vi\ * V ¥IY¥I¥U*¥ 
 
 , jfij in, ^ ,ir Il ir, M v, JJ ¥, lB 1 ^ w 
 
 jii5 v * , ;j* ,r Ji Y1 ir i, ir j * ,, )5 v 
 
 GUPTA S 
 
 UJVJ* J* J EO J Eg|¥J o^ vr J 2 l **««* *' •■* 
 
 u T y *r 
 
 J 
 
 3^W YC £ 
 
 ^j¥fln«j55nifjYi5 
 
 V-,ri*nl ^JXi *£ 
 
 Thomas, del J.Basire,Zv&v- 
 
 LEGENDS FROM THE SURASHTRAN COINS. 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 With a view to illustrate more fully and satisfactorily, by a direct 
 reference to facsimiles of the medals themselves, the important con- 
 nection existing between the Indo-Scythians and the Guptas, which 
 forms a prominent point in the general question of the dates of Indian 
 Dynasties, and in itself constitutes a subject of special reference in 
 the above paper, advantage has been taken of the ready permission 
 accorded by Mr. H. T. Prinsep to republish in this place the admirable 
 engravings, prepared by the late Jas. Prinsep in the express design of 
 establishing this particular fact, and originally inserted in the Fourth 
 and Fifth Volumes of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 
 
 Were these engravings less perfect in themselves, less exact in 
 their rendering of the nice distinguishing shades in the forms of the 
 old Devandgari, Bactrian Pali, and corrupt Greek letters, or less aptly 
 conceived to prove the precise link upon which much of the argument 
 of the preceding memoir has been based, more apology might be due 
 for their republication in the pages of the Journal of the Royal 
 Asiatic Society; but, in addition to the value now claimed for them, 
 the limited European circulation of the Bengal Journal renders it 
 probable that they may still prove new to a large majority of Western 
 Orientalists; and their intrinsic merits and ample comprehensive- 
 ness will doubtless overrule any remaining objection to their reap- 
 pearance. 
 
 It is not proposed to enter into any lengthened description of the 
 coins depicted in these plates ; at the same time it may be necessary to 
 indicate generally the class to which they severally belong, and to note 
 the legends deciphered on the more important specimens. 
 
74 [Plate IV. 
 
 No. 1. KADPHISES. 
 
 Obv. BACIAEYC OOHMO KAA$ICHL. 
 
 Rev. Ariano-Pali legend, incomplete : the general legends on these coins have 
 been given by Prinsep (J. A. S. B., vii. 646) as Maharajasa rajadhirajasa saba* 
 trahca ihacha Mahi harasa dhi Mokadphisasa Nandata, " Of the great sovereign, 
 the king of kings both here and everywhere seizing the earth, &c, Mokadphises 
 the saviour.'* Cunningham's reading is an improvement upon this ; it is as fol- 
 lows — Maharajasa Rajadhirajasa Sabatugahi-Surasa Mahi-Surasa Hima Kaphisasa 
 Tatasa, " (Coin; of the great king, the king of kings, the everywhere-destroying- 
 hero, the hero-of-the- world (of the tribe of) Hieu-mi Kadphises, the preserver." 
 J. A. S.B., 1845, p. 434. 
 
 Nos. 2, 3. Ofiv. Greek legends, as No. 1. 
 
 Rev. Ariano-Pali legends, imperfect. 
 
 Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Specimens of the Indo-Scythic Kanerki group, 
 having usually the legend PAO KANO PAO OHPKI KOPANO on the Obverse, 
 with various Reverse devices, and the several words OKPO, APAOKPO, MAO, 
 
 Figs. 11, 12, 14 offer slightly-changed devices, and show considerable deterio- 
 ration in execution, which increases in a marked degree on Figs. 13 and 15. 
 
 Fig. 16. A coin of Samudra Gupta, having on the Obverse margin the San- 
 skrit legend Sri Parajita davaja? (Prinsep), and below the left arm, in a line with 
 the spear, the letters being super-posed, as is usual in this series of coins, is to be 
 seen the name Samudra. Reverse, Parakrama. 
 
 Fig. 17. Obv. Marginal legend doubtful, * * samaragatapa ? Below 
 the arm, Samudra. 
 Rev. As in No. 16. 
 
 _/.'">. f -,Ju- \ a*- ?w. *tt^^*<> Jc^ A so Ha. hyy . 
 
FlaXxJP. 
 
 
 Hindu ('<>ins. Ca,itouj Scriei 
 
(Joivk As. Soc) 
 
 riajt^v 
 
Plate V.] 75 
 
 Fig. 18. Obv. Margin illegible. Under the arm, Chandra. 
 Rev. Sri Vikrama. 
 
 Fig. 19. Obv. Samudra? 
 
 Rbv. Apratiratha, '* The unsurpassed warrior." 
 
 Fig. 20. Legends doubtful. 
 
 Fig. 21. Marginal writing illegible. Under the arm, Kra. 
 
 Fig. 22. Obv. Skanda ? 
 
 Rev. Kramaditya. 
 
 Fig. 23. Obv. Margin, Kragipta paragu ja? Under the arm, Samudra. 
 
 Rev. Kragipta paragu ? This reading is very doubtful, the gu of 
 the second word being invariably written $n in the best 
 specimens. 
 
 Fig. 24. Obv. No letters visible. 
 Rev. Sri Skanda Gupta. 
 
 Fig. 25. Obv. Maha Rdjddhiraja Sri. 
 Rev. Sri Sinha Vikrama. 
 
 Fig. 26. Obv. Maha rdjddhiraja Sri Samudra Gupta. 
 Rev. Samudra Gupta. 
 
 Fig. 27. Obv. Vikrama Narama ? 
 Rev. Sinha Vikrama. 
 
 Fig. 28. Obv. Legend doubtful. 
 Rev. Kumara Gupta. 
 
 Fig. 29. Obv. ) T11 ... 
 
 Fig. 30. Obv. * * Mahendra Gupta. 
 Rev. Ajita Mahendra. 
 
 Some of these Horseman Coins have — 
 
 ObV. Parama * * Sri Chandra Gupta. 
 Rev. Ajita Vikrama 1 . See also fig. 0, PI. VII. 
 
 Figs. 31, 32. Obv. Under the horse, the letters Se. 
 
 Rev. Asvamedha Parakrama, The paramount hero of the 
 Asvamedha/ 
 
 Fig. 33. Rev. Maha rdja Sri Ganpati. 
 
 British Museum. 
 
Fig. 3. 
 
 Obv. 
 
 Fig. 4. 
 
 Obv. 
 
 Fig. 5. 
 
 Obv. 
 
 Fig. 6. 
 
 Obv. 
 Rev. 
 
 Fig. 7. 
 
 Obv. 
 
 Fig. 8. 
 
 Obv. 
 
 76 [Plate VI. 
 
 Fig. 1. Obv. PAO NANO PAO KANHPKI KOPANO. 
 Rev. APAArNO. 
 
 Fig. 2. Obv. As above, but with OOHPKI in place of Kauerki. 
 Rev. 0>APO. 
 
 As No. 2. Rev. MI IPO. 
 
 Legend as in No. 1. Rev. NANA PAO. 
 
 As in No. 2. Rev. NANA. 
 
 As in No. 2. 
 
 AOPO. Atars, Zend, fire (Prinsep). 
 
 No inscription. Rev. Doubtful. 
 
 As No. 2. 
 Rev. MANAOBArO, " Lord of the months" (Prinsep). 
 
 Fig. 9. Obv. As No. 1. 
 
 Rev. APAOKPO (^TR^^f), "The great sun" (Prinsep, 
 
 J. A. S. B., v. 643). Ard, "half;" Okro, "Siva:" hence, Wife of Siva (Lassen, 
 J. A. S. B., 1840, p. 455. 
 
 Fig. 10. Obv. Corrupt Greek legend, similar in tenor to that on No. 1 } 
 below the right arm, between the small altar and the leg of the figure, is seen the 
 
 compound Sanskrit letter c[ rv; between the legs is a second letter, which is not 
 
 clearly identifiable ; and on the left of the field is a character which may either 
 
 be a Greek $, or, what is more probable, a compound Sanskrit ~?5 chhu. 
 
 Rev. APAOKPO. 
 This coin is cited by Prinsep as the very " link of connection" between the 
 two series of Indo-Scythic and Gupta coins. 
 
 Fig. 11. Obv. Margin illegible. Under the arm, Samudra. 
 
 Rev. Kragipta paragu, or, as Prinsep here proposes, Kubhcwu 
 paragu-(-ja being taken from the Obverse)? (See Wilson, Ar. Ant , p. 424 and 
 fig. 23, pi. V., supra.) 
 
 Fig. 12. Obv. Kdma-naruttama-ja Gha(tot), and under the left arm 
 Kacha, " Son-of-an-excellent-man resembling-KAMA Ghatot Kacha. 
 
 Rev. Sarvardjochhatra, " The overshadower of all the Rajas." 
 
 Fig. 13. Obv. Margin, Raja Sri Chandra * * Under the arm, Chandra. 
 Rev. Sri Vikrama. 
 
 Fig. 14. Obv. Margin, Samara Satamataga(ja), " Having the strength of 
 one hundred wild elephants" (Prinsep); and on the opposite portion of the mar- 
 gin, Vijayajatara. Under the arm, Samudra. 
 
 Fig. 1 5. Obv. *. Margin illegible. Below the arm, portions on each side of 
 the spear, Chandra 1 Gupta. 
 
 Rev. * Panch Chhavayas? "The five excellencies" (Prinsep); Pach- 
 chawaya (Wilson). 
 
 Fig. 16. Obv. Kumar a. Rev. No letters visible. 
 
 Fig. 17. Obv. Margin illegible. Under the arm, Skanda. 
 Rev. Kramaditya. 
 
 Fig. 18. Obv. Margin illegible. Under the arm, Skanda. 
 Rev. Sri Skanda Gupta. 
 
 Fig, 19. Obv. Parama, fyc. ? Rev. Sri Mahendra. 
 
 Fig. 20. Obv. Jayati Mahendra. Under the arm, Ku? 
 Rev. Sri Mahendra. 
 
Tlaten. 
 
 
 tiruM. c^» /*«*«* J**** *ytt~£+ 4+ (r^*^ 
 
(Jou,r As Soc.i 
 
 
 Caruowj CoLtLs, (2ontiruud. 
 
 
 Secotui Series of Cnuta/ions from tk*. \Ardakro tyht 
 
 0i*ifi 
 
Plate VII.] 77 
 
 Fig. 1. Obv. Illegible. 
 
 Rev. Sinha Vikrama, " The lion hero." 
 
 Fig. 2. Obv. Illegible. 
 
 Rkv. As No. 1 Reverse. 
 
 Figs. 3, 4, 5. Obv. Inscriptions doubtful. 
 Rev. Ajita Mahendra. 
 
 Fig. 6. Obv. Paramo, • • • (Chan)rfro Gupta. 
 
 Rev. Ajita Vikrama. See extra notice under fig. 30, PL V. 
 
 Fig. 7. Obv. Illegible. 
 
 Rev. Vikramaditya. 
 
 Fig. 8. Obv. Margin, Sri * * • ta Mahendra jaya. 
 Rev. (Sri) Mahendra Sinha. 
 
 Fig. 9. Obv. Margin, Sri Chandra Gupta * *. Under the arm, Chandra. 
 Rev. Sri Vikrama. 
 
 Fig. 10. Obv. Margin illegible. Under the arm, Skanda 9 
 Rev. Sri Ska{nda)? 
 
 Figs. 12 to 15. Copper Coins of Chandra Gupta. 
 
 Figs. 16 to 20. Debased imitations from the Ardoliro type. I "Kx^A/L Co £w* ) 
 
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