satisfactorily proved, at any rate, that the silver coin in question belongs to this sovereign, we have at once a limit to the antiquity of the tope of Manikyála, in the reign of Sapor II.,-that is, between the years of the Christian era 310-380; for it is natural to suppose that the coins deposited were of the species current at the time, as it has always been customary in the nations of the west so to deposit the current coins of the place on laying the foundations of temples, bridges, and other public works. Thus, then, we contract the date of the erection within the narrow space of these seventy years, which may be esteemed a sufficient approximation, in the absence of more positive information on the subject.

Before quitting the subject of the Sassanian coin, I must notice the other two coins already stated to assimilate with the Sassanian type, namely, figs. 10 and 11 of plate v. The head-dress in these is also remarkable for the wings; although the absence of bushy hair and beard, attended with a difference of feature, forbid their being ascribed to the same prince, or at any rate, to the same year of his reign. The chief peculiarity of these coins is their Devanágarí legend, which, however illegible it may be in parts, contains the initial title of respect, 'Srí,' repeated twice and in the same relative position-before the title and before the name itself as is customary with Indian monarchs; for instance, Srí Mahárájádhi Rájá Srí Chandra Gupta, etc. The name itself may probably be foreign.

The reverse of these coins, no longer a fire-altar

with its attendant priests, bears a rudely executed front face with a head-dress of a peculiar form. Fortunately among the coins procured at Kábul by Sayyid Karámat 'Alí, there is one which serves, in a great measure, to clear up the mystery of this ornament. I have depicted it as fig. 6 of plate vii. On one side of it we see the front face and winged crown of Zú-l-aktáf, Shápúr II., with the precise ornaments on the margin of the obverse described by Ker Porter, and no Sanskrit epigraphe; while on the reverse we have the mysterious head-dress of figs. 10 and 11, and the legible Devanagarí inscription, Srí Vásudeva,' which is the patronymic appellation of Krishna, the Indian Apollo.

[These coins will be more fully considered under Art. XV.] At the epoch now established as the date of the tope, the ancient religion of Persia-the worship of the sun, or Mithras-had not only been restored to its former splendour among the Persians themselves, but it is acknowledged to have exercised a powerful influence on all other religions prevailing at the same time; even the Christian religion was tinctured with many of the mysteries of the Mithraic worship,' and an attempt had been made by Scythien, Terebinthus,2

1 "La fête nommée celle de la naissance du soleil invincible' (natalis solis invicti) tombait au VIIIe des calendes de Janvier, ou au 25 Décembre. Environ à la même époque, quelques jours après le solstice d'hiver, se célébrait la grande fête des Perses, appelée Mirrhagan (mihira, soleil; gâhan, fête), mot qui exprime une idée analogue. L'une et l'autre de ces deux solennités avaient également rapport à Mithras. Les chefs de l'église d'occident fixèrent au même jour la célébration de la naissance du Christ, dont l'époque était demeurée inconnue jusques là."— Religions de l'Antiquité, traduit de l'Allemand du D. F. Creuzer, par J. D. Guigniant.

2 The assumed name of Terebinthus (Buddas) has given rise to conjectures of his connection with the Hindú sacred personages of the same name, and the ancient fathers actually ascribed many of the traditions of the Buddhists to this heretic. Hyde, however, shows the origin of their mistake. 'Buddas' in Chaldaic has the same signification as 'Terebinthus in Greek, and this was the cause of his changing his See Wilford's speculations on the subject, Asiatic Researches,' ix., 215.

name.

and lastly by Manes, in the latter part of the third century, and in the very court of the Persian monarch, to incorporate the doctrines of Christ with the mysteries of Zoroaster, in a system of his own, known to the Alexandrine Church as the Manichæan heresy.

It is not surprising, therefore, that on the Indian side of the Persian monarch's dominions, in a part probably under his influence, if not directly under his sway, we should find the fire-altar, or the image of the sun, replaced by Krishna among the Hindús, or Buddha among the Buddhists; both of them personating the sun in their respective mythologies.

Whatever forms of the Hindú religion were prevalent at the time, the adoption of the Sun as the ostensible representation of divine power, either in accordance with the commands of the ruling prince, or from a natural tendency towards an union of the Brahmanical and Magian faith could not present many difficulties. 'We must not be surprised,' says Sir William Jones, 'at finding that the characters of all the pagan deities, male and female, melt into each other, and at last into one or two; for it seems a well-founded opinion, that the whole crowd of gods and goddesses, in ancient Rome and modern Varánes (Benáres), mean only the powers of nature, and principally those of the sun, expressed in a variety of ways, and by a multitude of fanciful names.'

The kind of radiated 'coma' which surrounds the head-dress of Vásu Deva in our coin (fig. 6, plate vii.,) may be readily imagined to represent the glory or

1 'Asiatic Researches,' vol. i., p. 267.

brilliant effulgence of the sun; it resembles somewhat the glory round the head of Súrya, in Moor's 'Pantheon,' plate lxxxvii. The same ornament appears on the reverse of the two coins from Manikyála (figs. 10 and 11, plate v.), but the name Vásu Deva is wanting in these, and the Sanskrit legend is confined to the obverse, where it evidently marks the name of the young king with the winged helmet.

If the winged head-dress be considered, then, the exclusive mark of Shápúr II., we may suppose him to have possessed provinces in India, wherein he struck money, with his name and titles in the Nágarí character; and where, to avoid offending the prejudices of the people, he omitted the altar of Mithras, and adopted the Hindú divinity which coincided nearest with the object of his own worship.

While we have this evidence of Indo-Sassanian rule in some quarter of the Panjáb, another of our coins, though but one, would seem to point out a similar connection with the Bactrian provinces. Among the coins of the Kadphises group sent down by Karámat 'Alí, are two gold ones of very inferior fabrication, thin like the Sassanian coins, and differing in many respects from the class of coins to which they are otherwise allied. One of these is depicted as fig. 10 of plate viii. The other is similar, except that the head-dress of the prince is surmounted by a pair of wings and a globe, as separately shown in fig. 11. I thought at first that the coin might be spurious, being of gold and so vastly inferior in execution to its fellows, but it will be seen hereafter that its authenticity is well estab

lished it is sufficient in this place to point out the above curious fact, and I therefore now proceed to review the other coins of the Manikyála' tumulus, with the hope rather of applying the epoch already found from the Sassanian coin to the history of these, than to draw from the latter any additional light regarding the age of the monument.

OBVERSES OF THE COINS OF KANERKOS.

Beginning, then, with the two gold coins preserved in the cylinders of the same metal, the first remark which occurs on their inspection is, that Greek characters were still in use in the provinces of Kabul and the Panjab in the fourth century, corrupted to be sure, but still retaining more of their original form than those of the latter Arsacidæ, or of the first Sassanidæ of Persia, a century anterior to them in date.

The next observation which offers is, that none of the words of the inscription are Greek; neither the titles of the Indo-Scythic sovereigns of Bactria, 'BACIAETO BACIAEON,' nor even Greek terminations to the words, being any longer apparent (with the exception of two Kadphises coins upon which the Greek legend was barely perceptible). It was not until I had carefully analysed all that was legible of the fresh supply of coins of the same nature, that I was able to distinguish the direct consanguinity of the whole of these barbaric descendants with their comparatively pure progenitors above mentioned.

Nearly the whole of the Bactrian series of coins is now known to us.

Those of pure Grecian fabrication, such as the beautiful silver medal of Euthydemus brought down by Lieut. Burnes, of which Dr. Gerard has recently favored me with a duplicate, simply bear the head of the sovereign on the obverse, and his name, along with a figure of Jupiter, Hercules, or some other god, on the reverse, after the fashion of their Syrian prototypes.2

The coins of Menander, Apollodotus, and Eucratides, as well as those of Antilakides, Hermæus, Unadpherros, and other princes made known through Mr. Masson's successful researches, have invariably an inscription in Pehlvi or some unknown character on the reverse, while the name and titles of the sovereign, instead of running straight across the field as in the Macedonian coins, encircle the device on the obverse, in the manner of the Roman coins of the same period, which were then no doubt, current extensively in the east.

The Pehlvi inscription continues on the coins of Kadphises, which we may conclude, from their comparative rarity in the Manikyála collection, to have belonged to a different province from those of Kanerkos, or to have been antecedent to them by a period sufficient to render them scarce in the district.

1 The Sanskrit legends on the two Manikyála coins have resisted the attempts of all the pandits to whom I could refer, even with the aid of a conjecture that they might refer to Shápúr II. of Persia, or, though less likely, to Krishna.

2 See 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. ii. plate xi. [plate ii. suprâ].