482 Journ. of the Asiat. Soc. of Bengal. [Nov. & Dec., 1915. 
No mint monograms other than Rad or Rud have been 
known on dirhams of Vastham. We can, therefore, ata 
that his sage must have been confined to some places 
ersia at or 
The euusaraen fud on coins of Vastham is applicable to 
the me known as Shahrud in Khorasan where Vastham held 
swa, 
its aediis the ~ sien of Khorasan, the Hon’ble Mr. George 
N. Curzon, M.P. (now Lord Curzon) in his book entitled 
‘*Persia,’”’ Vol. i, ssihilished 3 in 1892 (page 180), says:— 
Khorasan has experienced a history of great and psec 
HL aeroaayee Situated on the borders of Iran, it has 
been the perpetual theatre of armed struggle, a and a 
favourite battle-ground of races. Its capital cities 
ee alternately excited by their dimensions the bewil- 
admiration of Arab chroniclers, and have nese 
swept off the earth, as though by a tornado, by the 
passions of conquerors and kings. It has been the resi- 
mice ng i: monarchs, and the nucleus of mighty 
mpires. At one time its name implied a dominion 
that inched Pestle (Khiva) and Merv on the north, 
that stretched to the Oxus and embraced Balkh, the 
mother of cities, of which Herat was a central point, 
and that extended beyond Kandahar. Later as limb 
after limb was torn away, and independent sovereign- 
ties were created out of the fragments, its boundaries 
became more and more contracted,. until the Kings of 
Persia would sometimes have found it sutiianes to ge?! 
how much they really held of Khorasan. 
The mint monograms have proved a great puzzle to stu- 
dents of Sassanian numismatics, but thanks largely to the 
labours of Dr. A. D. Mordtmann, Mr. Edward Thomas, and Mr. 
J. de Morgan, several of the mints can now be identified. 
FRAMJEE JAMASJEE THANAWALLA. 
Bombay. 
