translated the same passage: "The Prasthalas (perhaps borderers) Madras, Gándháras, Arattas, Khosas, Básas, Atisindhus (or those beyond the Sindhu), Sauvíras, are all equally infamous."—"Legit igitur ; Sed præstantiorem præbet lectionem Codex Parisiensis; et Chasi huc non pertinent; a Pentapotamia enim sunt alieni. Basorum et Atisindhuidarum nomina ignota mihi sunt, et in errorem h.l. induci sese passus est doctissimus Anglus. Compositum non ex tribus, sed ex duobus tantum nominibus constat, Basâti et Sindhusauvíra. Posteriores laudantur Râm., I. xii. 25: ed. Schl., et alio nomine appellati sunt Cumâlaca (Hem., ch. iv. 26.) Prius nomen sæpius in Bharatea reperi, ex. c. in hoc versu, ex libro sexto descripto : गान्धाराः शद्धलि प्रच्य पार्वतीया चशातयः । 'Gandhári, Şaddhales, orientales montium incolæ atque Başátes.' The Professor's reading so entirely accords with the conditions of our Sáh or Sau fraternity, that no doubt can be entertained of its being correct; and we gain a very important step by learning the Sanskrit mode of spelling the term, , since we may thence hazard a new interpretation of the word Saurashtra, as Sau-ráshtra, 'the country of the Sau tribe, a more close and plausible one than that hitherto accepted of Saurya-rashtra, 'the country of the sun-worshippers.' The 72nd couplet confirms such an interpretation, by ascribing precisely the same iniquities (theft, or perhaps commercial usury) to the Saurashtrians, the vowel being only shortened for the sake of the verse. प्राच्या दासा वृषला दक्षिणात्याः स्तेना बाहीकास्तस्कराःसुराष्ट्राः 'Orientales servi sunt, meridionales turpes, Bâhici latrones, Surashtri prædatores.' Commentators have uniformly supposed Surashtra to denote the modern Súrat, but this is an error: the name applies only to the Surastréne of Ptolemy; and Súrat, as I am assured by Mr. Borrodaile of the Bombay Civil Service, is comparatively a modern town; and its name, now Persianized into Surat, was originally Súr yapur, the town of the Sun.' I waive all discussion here on the important bearing the above theory has on the age of the Mahabharata,' and of the Rámáyana: either the Sáhs or Sinde must be very old, or the passages of abuse and praise in these poems must yield their claim to high antiquity. At any rate, a departure from strict orthodoxy is established against the tribe. There are some other points in the reverse legend of the coins before us that call for further explanation-first, of the word kritrima. The expression quoted above from Arrian indicates something of an elective government, even while the Parthians ruled at Minagara; each party, as it acquired the ascendancy in the politics of the state, choosing a king out of its own body.' Dr. Vincent supposes that the contending parties (the Whigs and Tories of their day) were not both Parthians, but more probably Parthian and Indian. This view is not a little supported by the coin evidence, and it is only necessary to imagine that the native influence of a rich mercantile aristocracy at length prevailed, and excluded the Parthians altogether. Of these Parthians we see the remnant in the Parsis, so numerously located in Gujarat and Súrat, and can easily imagine, from their numbers and commercial enterprize, that they must have been formidable rivals to the indigenous merchant kings. Something of this feudal system of government is visible to this day, in the fraternity of the jarajahs or chiefs of Kattiwar and Katch. The name jarajah might, without any unwarrantable license, be deduced from sah-raja, Persianized to ja-raja, or local chieftain. In 1809 there were twenty or more of these chiefs in Katch alone, able to furnish a contingent of from two hundred to one thousand men.1 In the Gujarat peninsula the number must be much greater, since, in 1807 there were estimated to be five thousand two hundred families in which the inhuman custom of female infanticide was regarded as a dignified distinction of their caste! In the names of these modern chieftains we can trace a few of our list atra, visa, and vira: and a town called Damanagar may have owed its foundation to our prince of that name. The Jah-rájahs and Kattís call themselves Hindús, but are very superficially acquainted with the doctrines of their faith: the real objects of their worship are the Sun and the 'Matha Assapuri'2 'the goddess of nature,'-doubtless the Nanaia of more classical Bactria. They are said to impress the solar image on every written document. We are accordingly prepared to find it on their ancient coinage, where it is seen on the right hand side, the moon (matha for más or mah) being always in company on the left. The central symbol I have had to explain so often and with so many modifications, that I really feel it becomes more of an enigma the more that is said of it! It 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 opposite extremity of India. It is the Buddhist Chaitya, the Mithraic flame-Mount Meru, Mount Abú! In fact, it is as yet unintelligible; and the less said of it the sooner unsaid when the enigma shall be happily solved! LEGEND OF THE OBVERSE. Having satisfactorily made out the contents of the inscription on the reverse of the Saurashtra coins, I might have hoped to be equally successful with the obverse; but here I must confess myself quite foiled. From the obverse die being somewhat larger than the other, it seldom happens that a perfect legend can be met with; and by placing together all the scraps from different samples, enough only can be restored to shew-first, its general character; second, to prove that it is not Sanskrit; and third, that it contains two distinct styles of letter on the opposite sides of the head; that on the right having a strong resemblance to Greek, the other a fainter to Pehlví; but both written by an ignorant hand. The three or four Pehlví letters are variable and quite illegible; but the others, by combining the two first examples in the plate (No. 5, from my coin; 8, from Mr. Steuart), might be read vonones vasileus, allowing sufficient latitude for the corruption of a century or two. Should my conjecture be admitted, even to the extent that the letters are Greek, we may safely attribute their presence to the supremacy of the Arsacidan king of Persia; or, looking further back, to the offsets of the Bactrian kingdom in the valley of the Indus, where the Greek characters were still retained, as proved by the coins of Kodes and Nones (or Vonones), Azes, etc.; and we may conclude that his portrait, and not that of the tributary rája, was allowed to grace the coinage of Saurashtra. The sway of Demetrius, we know from Strabo, to have extended over the delta of the Indus, and the retrenchment of a single particle from his text would make it include Saurashtra also. Speaking of Menander's Indian possessions, he says: Ειγε καὶ τὸν Ὕπανιν (Υπασιν) διέβη πρὸς ἔω καὶ μέχρι του Ισαμου (Ιωμάνου) προ ῆλθέ. ταμὲν γὰρ αὐτὸς, ταδε Δημήτριος Ευθυδήμου υἱος τοῦ Βακτρίων βασιλέως οὐ μόνον δε Πατταληνὴν κατέσχον, αλλά καὶ τῆς ἄλλης παραλίας τὴντε Τεσσαριόστου καλουμένην καὶ την Σιγέρτιδος βασιλειαν. 1 Hamilton's 'Hindostan,' i. 587. 2 Ibid. i. 637. On this important passage many have been the opinions expressed by the learned. Bayer refers the third name (the first two being fixed as the Hyphasis and Jamná) to the mouths of the Ganges: 'quam Strabo, alteram oram maritimam nomine Teoσapióσrov dicit? nempe nullam potuit, nisi quæ ad Gangis fluminis ostia ubi et répridos regnum.' Lassen, from whose Pentapotamia' I have cited the above extract, thinks that the word merely alludes to the coasts in the neighbourhood of Pattalene; and he identifies Sigertis with the Sanskrit f trigartá, in the province of Láhor. Manners places the former in Gujarát: 'ad oram maritimam, quæ hodie Gujarat, olim nomine Sanskrit Gurjára, appellata est regσapiórov regionem refert Mannertus, quod at veritatem haud dubie proxime accedit, sed nil certius de hoc nomine invenio.' 1 Now, by abstracting, as I said before, the twice repeated particle re, or by changing Tes to the article rov or 7ns, the whole obscurity of the text disappears, and the Βασιλεια της Σαριοστου καλουμένη stands forth as the maritime kingdom of Saurashtra. This interpretation is surely more natural than the extension of Menander's rule to the extreme east of India, merely to find another maritime delta and port for the Græco-Latinized corruption of a name quasi Tessariostia! But we dare not venture on any speculations in regard to Greek names or affairs, lest we undergo castigation from the Hellenic critics of Paris, who are surprised at our ignorance of authors, ancient and modern, Greek and German, whose works we regret to say have never yet visited the banks of the Ganges! We 'Indianistes' must then leave this investigation to M. Raoul Rochette as being altogether, to use his own words, hors du département de nos études!' There are still two series of Saurashtra coins to be examined, but I have not yet wholly succeeded in decyphering them, and my readers will doubtless rejoice at such an excuse for postponing their discussion. I cannot, however, let pass the present opportunity of mentioning, as a highly curious circumstance, the very great similarity between the old Sanskrit and the Greek character. Their striking uniformity becomes more palpable the farther we retire into antiquity, the older the monuments we have to decypher; so that even now, while we are quite green in the study, we might almost dare to advance (with the fear of M. Raoul Rochette before us), that the oldest Greek (that written like the Phoenician from right to left) was nothing more than Sanskrit turned topsy-turvey! A startling proposition this for those who have so long implicitly believed in Cadmus, and the introduction from Egypt of what, perchance, never existed there. Yet there is nothing very new nor very unnatural in the hypothesis; since the connection of the Greek with the Phoenician and Samaritan alphabets, has been admitted as a strong evidence that 'the use of letters travelled progressively from Chaldea to Phoenicia, and thence along the coasts of the Mediterranean'; and the Greek language is now so indisputably proved to be but a branch of the Sanskrit stem, that it is not likely it should have separated from its parent without carrying away some germs of the art of writing, already perhaps brought to perfection by the followers of Brahmá. But my arguments are not those of books, or learning, or even tradition, but solely of graphic similitude and ocular evidence. The Greek letters are dressed by a line at the foot, in most cases, as A ▲ A MOT, etc.;-the Devanagari are made even along the upper surface of the letters, and in later ages a straight line has been introduced at the top, from which the grammatic 1 'De Pentapotamia Indica Commentatio' C. Lassenii, 51. 2 'Pantographia,' p. 107. elements are suspended. The Greek alphabet is devoid of all system, and has had additions made to it at various times. Some of these, as XV, are precisely those which present the least resemblance to the Sanskrit forms. I have placed my evidence at the bottom of pl. xxiv., taking my Greek type from the well-formed letters on coins, and from the Boustrophedon tablet of Sigeum. Of the vowels, A I O and Y, present a striking conformity with the vowels and the semivowels ☎ and ₹ of the oldest Sanskrit alphabets inverted. The vowel E is unconformable, and resembles more the short e of the Zend. The long H is a later introduction, and appears to be merely the iteration of the short vowel I, as w is of OO. In the consonants, we find B г AZOKAMN ПI PΣ T, in fact every one of the letters, excepting those of after invention, are represented with considerable exactness, by the ब (or double ब्ल), ग ध स थ क ल म न प र ज त of the oldest Sanskrit alphabet, although there is hardly a shadow of resemblance between any pair in their modern forms. The same precision cannot be expected in every case; the BA A M N ПI PT require, like the vowels, to be viewed in an inverted position: the г and Σ remain unturned: the Z and K require to be partially turned. The A and N may be deemed a little far-fetched; the B taken from the double v, and the ▲ from the aspirated, may also be objected to; but taking a comprehensive view of the whole, it seems to me impossible that so constant and so close a conformity of the alphabetical symbols of two distant nations should exist without affording demonstration of a common origin. Whether the priority is to be conceded to the Greeks, the Pelasgians, or the Hindús, is a question requiring great research, and not less impartiality, to determine. The palæography of India is now becoming daily a more interesting and important study, and it cannot fail to elicit disclosures hitherto unexpected on the connection between the European and Asiatic alphabets.1 1 [A paper by Dr. Weber, Ueber den Semitischen Ursprung des indischen Alphabetes, is to be found in the Zeitschrift der Deutsche,' etc. for 1856, p. 389. I may have occasion to notice this more in detail hereafter.] END OF VOL. I. |