engraving are from Mohan Lál's collection; the worst from Cautley's disinterred Behat relics, where a large proportion of these 'heart' coins was found in association with the supposed Buddhist coins described in Art. X. I can find but one approach to a letter on any of them, viz., the fa to the left of the well-formed 'rája' in fig. 16. It is hardly sufficient to confirm their Indian origin and it must be noted that this species is found in abundance farther to the north-west than any of the others.

Thus, Masson says of them: "This series is very extensively found in Western Afghánistán. The obverse has a rude figure of the prince, clad in mail, with the accompaniment of the fire-altar,' (not visible in ours, but clearly so in Masson's drawings) ' and, on the reverse, a figure seated on a throne with her foot on a footstool. On no one coin of the class have I been able to detect the legend, although they appear in some instances to have had characters intended for such. Figs. 61 to 63,' (those that shew the chair, the cornucopia and noose) 'are generally found at Beghrám: figs. 64 to 65,' (those having only the outline of a heart) are the types prevalent on the banks of the Indus and in the Panjáb,'and, as we have stated above, near Saharanpur in India proper. This series has, undoubtedly, a better claim to be considered the genuine descendant of the 'Ardokro' coin in situ than any of the three preceding series.

To sum up my review of these coins, I cannot help remarking how great an analogy exists between the circumstance of these several adoptions, by subordinate imitators, of a prominent form of coinage that had pre

vailed for centuries under a paramount rule; and the nearly parallel case of the Sháh 'Alam coinage of the last century, the very words and form of which were copied by the numerous rájas and nuwábs who assumed the privilege of coinage upon the dismemberment of the Dihlí monarchy. In many places, a few years only have sufficed so to disfigure the Persian letters as to render them quite illegible and barbarous.

PÁLA OR DEVA DYNASTY OF KANAUJ.

By way of filling the plate, I have engraved at foot two new specimens of this dynasty, brought to light since the publication of pl. xxvi.

Fig. 19 is taken from a cast of a gold coin in Col. T. P. Smith's possession. Some of the letters are new in form, but they may possibly be read श्री मद विग्रह पालदेव Sri mad Vigrahapála deva.

Fig. 20 is an unique copper coin of Cunningham's. On the obverse, the four-handed god is crushing a demon, instead of being seated in the usual serene attitude. The legend on the other side may be read, reza Sri mat Prithvi deva, a name occurring in the Dihlí list as having reigned at Láhor A.D. 1176-1192: but not to be found among the many names which inscriptions have given us of the Bhúpála family of Kanauj and Benáres. [At the time my note on these coins (page 292) was set up, I was unaware that Prinsep had already published in this article a decypherment of the coins of Prithví Deva.]

Masson has figured a third new name of the same group, which I have inadvertently neglected to introduce in this plate, as I had intended. The letters that are visible are श्री म. मीरमरस देव .. Ea Sri ma...miramaras ... deva. deva. The first and last letters are half cut off, and the vowel may be an á, so that the reading may possibly be Sri m(at Ku)mára mah(á Rája) deva. Masson says

...

that 'at Kábul, coins of this peculiar type are met with occasionally in the bázár, generally of gold. A large parcel was dug out of the soil, three or four years ago, near Korinder, a village of Koh-damán.' He places them as the last of the Indo-Scythic series, not having, at the time of writing, seen what had been made of them here. If the sitting female be indeed a far descendant from the Mithraic goddess, the long interval of six or eight centuries will fully account for the magnitude of her transformation.

It is a great pity that the hoard discovered at Korinder was not secured at once. It might have contributed very materially to our classification of this second Kanauj dynasty. A great many specimens

of the same sort must also be scattered about in the cabinets of retired Indians at home; and we may hope, now that Prof. Wilson has commenced upon the task of examining the coins in the Royal Asiatic Society and India House collections, that specimens will flow in to him from all quarters to be deciphered and described.