FIG. 8 is a small copper coin procured by Lieut. A. Conolly,' at Kanauj, upon which this chaitya mark forms the distinguishing emblem. A similar coin is in Major Stacy's possession, obtained in Central India. I shall have to recur to the subject in describing figs. 19 and 22.

FIGS. 9 and 10.-I have introduced these two coins to shew that what has been called the Indo-Scythic series occurs plentifully among the exhumed relics of Behat.

The first of these, the Rájá and bull coin, must henceforward be entitled the Kadphises series, in compliance with the successful researches of Mr. Masson; the Kanerkos series also occurs as commonly among the coins transmitted by Capt. Cautley, and as we know that these two coins bear Greek inscriptions, and that their epoch cannot consequently be much posterior to the Bactrian dynasties, we may presume that all the descriptions of coins having the chaitya symbol, being proved to be contemporaneous with these, must belong to the first centuries of the Christian era; and consequently the destruction of the ancient city may be ascribed with tolerable certainty to the same early period. The circumstance of so much money being discovered in one place would seem to denote that the catastrophe which destroyed the place was sudden, but the destruction is as likely to have been effected by the ravages of war, as by any convulsion of nature; and, when once depopulated, the place might easily have been buried under the gradual deposit of silt washed down by hill streams, as described by Capt. Cautley.

Figs. 11 and 12. These coins are connected with the above by the tree symbol, by their being stamped only on one side, and by their

[The adventurous officer who subsequently perished with Colonel Stoddart at Bukhará.]

being of white bronze: but in them the animal is decidedly the bráhmaní bull, and the inscription is in a different character. [The letters may be read in the old lát character on 11; No. 12 reproduces the three characters यधय.

Art. X., infrâ.]

See

Figs. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18, are introduced to give an idea of the other curiosities from Behat. The first is a black-and-white enamelled bead; 14, an ornament of the head-dress of some image; 15, a ring worn probably while performing certain religious ceremonies; 16, appears to be a weight moulded in the shape of a frog, as is the custom in Ava, and in many parts of India: it weighs 360 grains (precisely two tolás), or six Grecian drachmæ, and is not corroded. Fig. 17 is the metal handle of some vessel: it is broken in half. Fig. 18, the Saláís for applying Surmá to the eyes, spoken of by Capt. Cautley as so numerous in the present day they are generally made of zine.

Besides these articles, our flourishing little museum contains plain rings, arrow-heads, hooks, and rolls of lead, converted into semi-crystalline hydrated oxide by exposure to the moisture under ground. Most of the copper coins, likewise, are in a very imperfect state, the pure metal not resisting corrosion nearly so well as bronze.

HINDÚ COINS FROM THE RUINS OF KANAUJ.

To confirm the assertion made above of the connection of several other series with the Behat coinage, I have introduced at the foot of the present plate, drawings of some most interesting coins, procured by Lieut. A. Conolly, of the 6th Light Cavalry, at Kanauj, and this moment received from that officer at Cawnpore.

Figs. 19 and 21. Silver coins, weighing 28 grains each (drachm),

1 See note on a similar change produced in zinc plates, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. ii., p. 437. The lead is partially converted into minium, and partly into protoxide. In some rolls the interior is still metallic.

corresponding in every respect with Colonel Tod's fifth series, in the head, on the obverse; and in the circular inscription on the reverse: in 19, also, we find the central chaitya symbol, with five dots on the side, as in his coin.

Colonel Tod's observations on these rare coins are as follows:

"The fifth series is entirely novel and unexplored. All I can say of them is that they belong to a dynasty which ruled from Avanti or Ujjayan to the Indus, for in that whole tract I have found them. The first I obtained was from the ruins of ancient Ujjayan, twelve years ago, presented to me by Mr. Williams, resident at the Gykwar court, who first awakened my attention to their importance. He found them in Cutch, and in his company, I discovered others among the ruins in the Gulf. The character of the epigraphe I have met with on rocks in Saurashtra, in the haunts of the Suroi, the bounds of the conquests of Menander and Apollodotus. I have little hesitation in assigning them to the Balhara sovereigns of Renaudot's Arabian travellers, the Bhalla Raes of Anhulwara Patan, who were supreme in those countries: This Balhara is the most illustrious prince of the Indies, and all the other kings acknowledge his pre-eminence. He has, of these, pieces of silver called Tartarian drams. They are coined with the die of the prince, and have the year of his reign.'-Renaudot, p. 15. The Balhara dynasty had a distinct era, 375 years posterior to Vicramaditya."

The character of the circular legend in all these coins strongly resembles Sanskrit :-if the place of their discovery be a test of the extent of empire in which they circulated, they will belong to a powerful monarch indeed, for Mr. Masson has found twenty at Beghrám (of the same symbol at least), while they extend to Kanauj, Behat, and Benáres on the east.

[Fig. 19 belongs to the Sáh series, and 21 to a subordinate suite of the same class.]

Fig. 20. A silver coin, weighing 34 grains; is evidently of the same series; but here the distinctive symbol is lost, and is replaced by a peacock with expanded tail: the letters are not decypherable.

[The legends on these coins are given under Art. XI., in connection with figs. 10, 11, 12, pl. xxvii.]

Fig. 22. A square copper coin, also from Kanauj, is already known as No. 68 of Wilson's plate (see Asiatic Researches,' vol. xvii.), which was dug up by Capt. Vetch on the Allahábád road. It bears on the obverse an elephant and some other animal prostrate; on the

reverse, the chaitya symbol, the tree, and a cross, all of which prove its close alliance with the Behat coins. More of the general history of the whole series may yet be developed by future discovery.

Fig. 23. A silver coin, weighing 7.7 grains, resembles a fanam of South India, but its type shows that it may be a genuine connection of the coins it accompanies.

Fig. 24. A gold medal, weighing 123 grains.

OBVERSE.-A figure clothed in the Hindú dhotí, with armlets, holding a bow, as having just discharged an arrow through the head of a lion, or other monster, on the right; in his left he holds another arrow prepared; his right foot rests on the tail of the lion. Inscription in ancient Nágarí, महाराजधिराज श्री Mahdrajadhiraja Srt.

REVERSE.-Either the same person, or a female figure clad in similar costume, seated upon the vanquished lion, holding a large flower in the manner of a cornucopia in the left hand (see also figs. 1, 4), and in the right, a kind of noose; above which the lozenge symbol with four prongs, (16 of pl. xiv., vol. ii.) On the right in ancient Nágarí, the words Sri madghavakacho [ सिङ्क विक्रम Sri sinha vikrama.]

[श्री

It will be at once seen that this beautiful medal has no connection with the subjects of the foregoing remarks. I have given it a place that it might be as early as possible brought to the knowledge of numismatologists, for it appears likely to prove the very key to our knowledge of the valuable series of Kanauj coins, forming the fourth of Colonel Tod; and the second plate of Wilson.

[This piece is re-engraved in the general series, under No. 25, pl. xxiii. I assign this coin to Kumára Gupta.]

The former author says of these coins:

"They are Hindú, of a very remote period, and have the same character which I have found wherever the Pandu authority existed, in the caves, and on the rocks of Janagur Girnar, on the pillar of victory in Meywar, and on the columns of Indraprestha (Delhi) and Prayag (Allahabad). Some of them are not unlike ancient Pehlevi. These coins are of gold, and in fine preservation. Like all my medals, they are either from Agra, Mathura, Ujjayan, or Ajmere. Dr. Wilkins possesses some found even in Bengal: he thinks he can make out the word 'Chandra' upon them."

"It is well known," as Lieut. Conolly remarks, "that our love for the antique has induced certain cunning men of this famed city to set up a mint for the fabrication of moneys of the olden time;" and many that are brought thence bear all the marks of having been cast in the mould of some original, of which they bear so imperfect an impression that it has been hitherto impossible to assign the true nature of their inscriptions Colonel Tod, it is evident, supposed them to be in the Dihlí character No. 1; one was read as in the Mahabalipúr alphabet': and only now do we perceive for certain that the character is precisely that of No. 2, of the Allahábád column of which the reader may convince himself by comparing the legend on the obverse with the titles of Chandra-gupta in pl. vi., vol. iii., of the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.' Applying the same alphabet to the reverse, we find the name 'Srí mad-gava kavo' or 'kacho' which, as Dr. Mill remarks, by a slight alteration will become Ghatat-kacho, the very name read by himself as the

[The following additional note was inserted among the miscellaneous notices appended to the December No. of the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal' for 1833]:-Note on the Inscription on the Hindú Coin (pl. iii., fig. 15). At page 415 of the present volume I stated that the characters of the inscription on the reverse of the ancient gold coins of Hindú fabrication from Kanauj represented in fig. 15, and in several coins of pl. i., vol. xvii., 'Asiatic Researches,' were not legible. Mr. Wilson had, however, suggested, that the three first letters agreed with the ancient Nagari characters, and I find, on referring to Dr. Babington's 'Account of the Inscriptions and Sculptures at Mahámalaipur,' that all of the letters may be unquestionably identified with the ancient Sanskrit characters of the Ratha sculpture, so ably decyphered by that gentleman, and of which he has given a complete alphabet in the same volume. The first letter is probably rather than or although, as observed by Dr. Babington, these letters are very similar in form; the fourth letter is, and the whole word thus restored becomes clearly meaning is still as hidden as ever; and if it be a proper name, none such is to be found in the catalogue of Hindú princes.'-J.P.

but the