Essays on Indian Antiquities

more recent works. While progressing in the examination of each Essay, as it chanced to be required for the compositor, I felt that it was desirable to extend my supplementary notes and additions far beyond what I had at first contemplated; and gradually the question suggested itself, whether it would not be preferable to myself, and more advantageous to the work, to re-cast and re-write the several articles illustrative of the alreadyprepared plates, so as to bring the former up to the present state of our knowledge, without condemning the reader to follow the progressive lessons that Prinsep taught himself and others, as he advanced in his novel discoveries, which may be said to have been limited more by the incoming of materials, than by any defect of his own talent, or power of combination. As this impression forced itself upon my notice coincidently with the disclosure of the loss of a considerable number of the original copper-plates, I proposed the alternative to Mr. Austin; but as a large portion of the first volume had already been completed, and for other reasons which it is needless to recapitulate, this course was not adopted.

For my own share in the work, as it now stands, I have to claim much indulgence. I in no wise pretend to the qualifications necessary to have done it full justice, and the transition from the position of an editor seeking merely to preserve the works of a writer whom he admires, and undertaking to correct the press of a reprint of the original matter, to the responsibilities of a commentator and critic on that author's text, is necessarily wide and marked: for the latter office it will be seen that I was but in

differently prepared; and in further explanation I may add, that not only were many of the subjects embraced in these Essays entirely new to me, but, owing to the irregular demand for 'copy,' I have at times had but scant opportunity of rectification or revision of the standard text.

Under these somewhat conflicting aspects, it will be seen that the plan of the work has been considerably modified during its progress through the press, the first design being confined to a reprint of James Prinsep's Numismatic Essays alone, while the subsequent arrangement tended rather to the suppression of much of the comparatively obsolete matter,-which, however, has generally been met by a mere reduction in the size of the type; while, in desiring to make the book a more complete record of the general circle of Indian Antiquities, I have eventually been led to incorporate in these pages the substance of many of my author's memoirs on Archæological and Palæographical subjects, which do not properly come under the heading of Numismatic studies.

In reference to the vexed question of the transcription of Oriental words, I have adopted the compromise of preserving, in their English form, all such terms as have been received into our language and become fixed and sanctioned by custom, whatever the correctness of the orthographical expression thus obtained. Having admitted this amount of latitude, consistency became at once impossible; but, in addition to the inherent difficulties of the application of any one uniform system to the transliteration of languages of

diverse articulations, we have, in the following pages, contributions from many lands, of various epochs, and undefined local and linguistic ramifications, the orthographical discrepancies of which it would be difficult indeed to reconcile. So that, however easy it might appear to be to follow the literal exactitude of pure Sanskrit, it becomes a different task when Semitisms intervene, or when provincial or unlettered scribes have had to deal with the composition of documents more or less shaped after the classic tongue. For the rest, in the present instance, I have been desirous chiefly of avoiding the pedantry of needlessly correcting, not alone my own author's varying orthography, in which he followed progressively his own improving knowledge of Oriental languages, but I have intentionally retained many of the independently devised Anglicisms of the miscellaneous contributors, with whose personal and individual identities so much of the history of 'Prinsep's Journal' is associated.

In conclusion, I have to thank the many friends and coadjutors who have assisted me with information. or new materials, whose aid, in either case will, I trust, be found duly acknowledged each in its fitting place.

CONTENTS.

[Supplementary Note on an unpublished binominal coin of Euthydemus and

Agathocles, xvi.]

Memoir of the Author, by Mr. H. T. Prinsep, i.

ART. I.-On the ancient Roman Coins in the Cabinet of the Asiatic Society, 1.

[Omission of portions of the original article. Consideration claimed by Sir Wm.

Jones for the deficiency of style, etc., in the contributions of Anglo-Indian writers, 5.

M. Mohls' acknowledgment of the intrinsic merit of the papers ordinarily submitted

to the Asiatic Society, Bengal, 6.]

ART. II.—On the Greek Coins in the Cabinet of the Asiatic Society, 7. Notices
of Parthian, 9; Sassanian, 12; Bactrian, 15; and Muhammadan Coins, 18; [with
occasional notes by the Editor.]

ART. III.-Note on Lieut. Burnes' Coins, 23. Syrian Coins, 24. [Attribution of the

type of the Coinage of Antiochus II., which formed the earliest model of the Bactrian

money, 25. Important binominal medal of Diodotus and Agathocles, 27. Theory

advanced to account for this junction of names, by M. M. Bartholomæi, Droysen, and

Lassen, 28. Relative value of the terms ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ and ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΟΝΤΟΣ, 28.]

Bactrian Coins, 29. [Attempt to determine the meaning of the writing on the Coins

classed as barbarous imitations of Euthydemus' tetradrachmas, 30.] Essay continued—

Sassanian Coins, 33. [Shewn to be of Sapor, 34. Note on Sassanian Coins, having

on the obverse a bust in the Phoenician style, 34.] Bactrian Coins continued, 36.

[Coin attributed to Vanka deva, by Prof. Wilson, 43.]

Prof. Schlegel's

ART. IV. Bactrian and Indo-Scythic Coins continued, 45.