=

nearly all commentators appear now to concur in rejecting the claims of the very era which, in identity of name, would at first sight seem to be specially suited to the purpose. However, it is clear that the epoch of Sri Dhara Sena I. expressed by the ciphers 330,-when tested by the Valabhi Samvat of 318-19 A.D. (330 +318 648 A.D.)-will be reduced to far too modern a period. Neither do these dates appear to have formed a portion of a consecutive series following on to the numbers employed by the Guptas themselves, as was the case in Toramána's local mintages; indeed, it is not a little singular that while the Eastern silver money of the Guptas is duly stamped with the year of issue, the Western coins of the same race, which follow in direct suite the uniformly dated coins of the Sáh kings, are left altogether defective in such records. This would certainly seem to imply that a different system of epochal computation obtained in the two sections of the continent; and, under the option thus seemingly afforded, I should be inclined to conclude, in spite of any apparent inconsistency involved, that the Vikramaditya era is the one which should preferentially apply to the Valabhi grants, which inference, if admitted, clearly adds a very strong argument to those already existing in favour of the test of the Sáka era' for the Gupta dates. I conclude these observations with a sketch of the various schemes applicable to the determination of the Gupta epoch :

165 = 323

SRI DHARA SENA, 330 Local Era......Vikrama (56) 330 274 Saka 330 = 408]

1 [I have been, from the first, disposed to doubt the universality of the use of the Vikramaditya era (Jour. Roy. As. Soc.', xii., 5), my suspicions on the subject having been excited on remarking the extensive prevalence of the em

HINDU COINS-FIRST KANAUJ SERIES.

(pl. xxiii.)

The Devanagarí alphabet, published with Wathen's translation of the Gujarát copper-plates (page 252) [see plate xxxviii.], will be found to apply in every respect to the coins before us: it is also nearly identical with the Gayá and Allahábád alphabets; the principal exceptions having place in the m, which in the latter is written more like, while in the former it is x; and the s, which is respectively in the latter, and in the former. To avoid the necessity of casting a new fount of type to illustrate the following observations, I have availed myself of the pervading similarity of the Tibetan alphabet; which, though several centuries later, can, with the alteration of a few letters, be employed for our purpose much more readily than the modern Devanagarí.

[As the reader will now have ready access to Prinsep's Table of Alphabets, pl. xxxviii., which was published some three years subsequent to the composition of this article,-I have thought it unnecessary to complicate and disfigure the text by a reproduction of the mixed Tibetan type originally adopted in this paper. A type alphabet of that character will be given in its proper place, for the purposes of comparison, but in the

ployment of the Saka cycle in the grants published by Elliot and Wathen of so early a date as 490 and 567 A.D. (Jour. Roy. As. Soc.', iv. v.); yet if we are to trust to Albirúní, we must clearly yield the preference to the Vikramaditya era, in the localities he indicates in the passage rendered by M. Reinaud, 'L'ère de Vikramaditya est employée dans les provinces méridionales et occidentales de l'Inde :' regarding the Sáka Kál it is added, les personnes qui se servent de l'ère de Saca, ce sont les astronomes.'-(Fragments,' 145) An item of negative testimony of some value towards establishing local usage, is further afforded by the insertion of the Vikramaditya, and the exclusion of the Sáka, method of computation in the celebrated grant which determines the epoch of the Valabhis (Tod, i. 801)]

present reprint I substitute the ordinary Sanskrit for the little known Tibetan,—a proceeding indeed that Prinsep himself had recourse to in all his subsequent articles on the Gupta coins.]

The readings of the inscriptions in the present plates are for the most part new, and have been made out, dictionary in hand, by one unacquainted with Sanskrit : they therefore claim indulgence, and will succumb to any more plausible interpretation from the professed scholar.

To begin with the two coins of the last plate, which appear to belong to the same sovereign;-we find on the obverse (combining the two figures) the wordsɖo Srí (?) (a)parajata davaja. On the opposite side of a duplicate, fig. 17, we find the name JAT JA Kumára-gupta, and on the reverse, to the right, parakramah. The whole title may be interpreted, (if in daraja we suppose an ignorant writing of the word dhvaja) The hero of the unconquered standard, the blessed Kumára-Gupta.'

Beneath the left arm of the Rája are three letters, superposed in the Tibetan manner, spyu; which, as we learn from M. Csoma de Körös, are pronounced chu, and signify 'Rája.' The same word is prefixed to every prince's name in the list of Assam Rájas. The triliteral compound may, however, denote a date. A duplicate of Col. Smith's coin, 17, was presented to me by Capt. Wade. The Willoughby cabinet possesses another, and Mr. Wilson has given one precisely similar, in which we find the XIN Kumára (gupta) of the obverse, and the TJX parakrama of the reverse very well marked-the first letter however in this, as in our coin, is more like bhu or su than ku.

In all these specimens, the trident of the 'Rao' coins is changed into a standard having a bird at the top somewhat resembling the Roman eagle.

Figs. 18 and 19, are placed next in succession, because the cornucopia' lady still sits on a couch in the European fashion. The Rája here holds a bow in the left hand, and in the right, a short stick; for the fire-altar below it is now removed. A bracelet on the shoulder, and the head-dress, begin to look Indian. The letters on the margin of the obverse are lost, but in the bow, we find chndr superposed as before. Marsden reads this combination chandra, with some plausibility. On the reverse of 18, is the name or title of the prince, श्री विक्रमः Sri Vikrama.