ART. XIII.-Affinities of the Dialects of the Chepang and Kusundah Tribes of Nipál with those of the Hill ... ... ... JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. ART. I.-Bactrian Coins and Indian Dates. By E. THOMAS, Esq., F.R.S. A SHORT time ago, a casual reference to the complicated Greek monograms stamped on the earlier Bactrian coins suggested to me an explanation of some of their less involved combinations by the test of simple Greek letter dates, which was followed by the curious discovery that the Bactrian kings were in the habit of recognizing and employing curtailed dates to the optional omission of the figure for hundreds, which seems to have been the immemorial custom in many parts of India. My chief authority for this conclusion was derived from a chance passage in Albírúní,1 whose statement, however, has since been independently supported by the interpretation of an inscription of the ninth century A.D. from Kashmir, which illustrates the provincial use of a cycle of one hundred years, and has now 2 1 Albírúní, writing in India in 1031 A.D., tells us, "Le vulgaire, dans l'Inde, compte par siècles, et les siècles se placent l'un après l'autre. On appelle cela le Samvatsara du cent. Quand un cent est écoulé, on le laisse et l'on en commence un autre. On appelle cela Loka-kála, c'est-à-dire comput du peuple." -Reinaud's Translation, Fragments Arabes, Paris, 1845, p. 145. 2 This second inscription ends with the words Saka Kálagatavdah 726-that is, "Şaka Kála years elapsed 726," equivalent to A.D. 804, which is therefore the date of the temple. This date also corresponds with the year 80 of the local cycle, which is the Loka-kála of Kashmir or cycle of 2,700 years, counted by centuries named after the twenty-seven nakshatras, or lunar mansions. The reckoning, therefore, never goes beyond 100 years, and as each century begins in the 25th year of the Christian century, the 80th year of the local cycle is equivalent to the 4th year of the Christian century.-General A. Cunningham, Archeological Report, 1875, vol. v. p. 181. VOL. IX.- -[NEW SERIES.] 1 YHA been definitively confirmed by information obtained by Dr. Bühler as to the origin of the Kashmírí era and the corroboration of the practice of the omission of "the hundreds in stating dates" still prevailing in that conservative kingdom.2 Since Bayer's premature attempt to interpret the mintmonogram HP, on a piece of Eucratides, as 108,3 Numismatists have not lost sight of the possible discrimination of dates as opposed to the preferential mint-marks so abundant on the surfaces of these issues, though the general impression has been adverse to the possibility of their fulfilling any such functions.1 1 "Dr. Bühler has found out the key to the Kashmirean era: it begins in the year of the Kaliyug 25, or 3076 B.C., when the Saptarshis are said to have gone to heaven. The Kashmir people often omit the hundreds in stating dates. Thus the year 24 (Kashmir era) in which Kalhana wrote his Rájatarangini, and which corresponded with Şaka 1070, stands for 4,224."-Athenæum, Nov. 20, 1875, p. 675. 2 Since this was written, General Cunningham's letter of the 30th March, 1876, has appeared in the Athenæum (April 29th, 1876), from the text of which I extract the following passages. These seem to establish the fact that the optional omission of the hundreds was a common and well-understood rule so early as about the age of Asoka. "The passage in which the figures occur runs as follows in the Sahasarâm text: iyam cha savane vivuthena dutesa The corresponding passage in the Rûpnâth text is somewhat different : ahâle sava vivasetavâya ati vyathena sâvane kaṭesu 52 satavivasâta. The corresponding portion of the Bairât text is lost. My reason for looking upon these figures as expressing a date is that they are preceded in the Rûpnâth text by the word katesu, which I take to be the equivalent of the Sanskrit kránteshu = (so many years) 'having elapsed.'” I do not stop to follow General Cunningham's arguments with regard to the value of the figures which he interprets as 252. The sign for 50, in its horizontal form, has hitherto been received as 80, but that the same symbol came, sooner or later, to represent 50, when placed perpendicularly, is sufficiently shown by Prof. Eggeling's Plate, p. 52, in Vol. VIII. of our Journal. I should, however, take great exception to the rendering of the unit as 2, which, to judge by Mr. Bayley's letter, in the same number of the Athenæum, Gen. Cunningham and Dr. Bühler had at first rightly concurred in reading as 6. 3 Hist. Reg. Græcorum Bactriani, St. Petersburg, 1738, p. 92: "Numus Eucratidis, quem postea copiosius explicabo, annum 108. habet, sine dubio epochae Bactrianae, qui annus ex nostris rationibus A.v.c. 606. Septembri mense iniit. Igitur cum hoc in numo victoriae ejus Indicae celebrantur, quibus ut Justinus ait, Indiam in potestatem redegit." See also pp. 38, 56, 134. H. H. Wilson, Ariana Antiqua, pp. 235, 238. General A. Cunningham, Numismatic Chronicle, vol. viii. o.s. p. 175; and vol. viii. N.s. 1868, p. 183; vol. ix. N.s. 1869, p. 230. In 1858 I published, in my edition of "Prinsep's Essays on Indian Antiquities," a notice of the detached letters Or as occurring on a coin of Eucratides (No. 3, p. 184, vol. ii.), and IIT as found on the money of Heliocles (No. 1, p. 182), which letters, in their simple form, would severally represent the figures 73 and 83; but the difficulty obtruded itself that these numbers were too low to afford any satisfactory elucidation of the question involved in their application as dynastic dates. Among the later acquisitions of Bactrian coins in the British Museum is a piece of Heliocles bearing the full triliteral date, after the manner of the Syrian mints, of PIII or 183, which, when tested by the Seleucidan era (i.e. 311-183), brings his reign under the convenient date of B.c. 128, authorizing us to use the coincident abbreviated figures, under the same terms, as OT=73 for 173 of the Seleucidan era= B.C. 138 for Eucratides, and the repeated IIT = 83 for 183 Seleucidan=B.C. 128, for Heliocles,' a date which is further supported by the appearance of the exceptionally combined open monogram A (IA), or 81 for 181-B.c. 130 on his other pieces. = The last fully-dated piece, in the Bactrian series, is the unique example of the money of Plato (bearing the figured letter date PMZ 147 of the Seleucidæ, or в.c. 165). We have two doubtful dates E=60 and EE=65, on the coins of Apollodotus; but if these letters were intended for dates, they will scarcely fit-in with the Seleucidan scheme. Menander dates his coins in regnal years. I can trace extant examples from 1 to 8. But this practice by no means necessitates the disuse of the Seleucidan era in ordinary reckonings, still less its abandonment in State documents where more formal precision was = 83 as found on the 1 General Cunningham was cognizant of the date Пг coins of Heliocles, which he associated with the year B.C. 164, under the assumption that he had detected the true initial date of the Bactrian era, which he had settled to his own satisfaction, "as beginning in B.C. 246."-Num. Chron. N.S. vol. viii. 1868, p. 266; N.S. vol. ix. 1869, pp. 35, 230. See also Mr. Vaux's note, N.C. 1875, vol. xv. p. 3. required. Subjoined is a rough facsimile and technical description of the coin of Plato.1 Obv. Head of king to the right, with helmet ornamented with the peculiar ear and horn of a bull, so marked on the coins of Eucratides. Rev. Apollo driving the horses of the Sun. Monogram No. 46a, Prinsep's Essays. Legend. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ ΠΛΑΤΩΝΟΣ. Date at foot, PMZ=147 Selucidæ (or B.c. 165). My first impression on noticing the near identity of the obverse head with the standard Numismatic portraits of Eucratides, and the coincidence of the date with that assumed, by our latest authority, as the year of the decease of that monarch, was that Plato must have succeeded him but the advanced interpretation of the dates, above given, puts any such assignment altogether out of court, and necessitates a critical reconstruction of all previous speculative epochal or serial lists of the Bactrian succession. 1; In the present instance the adoption of the helmet of the Chabylians by Eucratides and Plato may merely imply that The woodcut here given was prepared for Mr. Vaux's original article on this unique coin of Plato, in the Numismatic Chronicle, vol. xv. p. 1. 2 Gen. Cunningham, N.C. vol. viii. o.s. 1843, p. 175, and vol. ix. N.s. 1869, p. 175. 3" The Chabylians had small shields made of raw hides, and each had two javelins used for hunting wolves. Brazen helmets protected their heads, and above these they wore the ears and horns of an ox fashioned in brass. They had also crests on their helms."- Herodotus vii. 76; Rawlinson, vol. iv. p. 72; Xenophon Anab. v. |