M R. L. Miii'n— Coins of the Shah Kings. [Feb. 



ing of the original passage in the inscription ; notwithstanding all this, 

 there is some reason to concur in the idea itself, that the Sah kings were 

 ' influenced hy the opinions of the Buddhists, though this by no means 

 implies a complete desertion of the old faith.' " (J. R. A, S., XII, p. 28.) 



The first argument of Prinsep appears to be unaccountably hasty. 

 The word Rudra is positively and unquestionably Hindu. It occurs in the 

 Vedas as the name of a god, and for the last two thousand years and more 

 has been accepted as an alias of Siva ; and this name is just what the 

 Sah kings most affected. The word fsvara in Tsvaradatta is also another 

 positively Hindu word which the Buddhists never recognised. It is the 

 name of the Supreme divinity, which the Buddhists, at least the early 

 Buddhists, never acknowledged ; and these two words should leave no doubt 

 in the mind that the earlier Sah kings were Hindus. The word Atri, the 

 name of a Hindu sage, supports this inference. 



As regards the second argument the correction suggested by Mr. 

 Thomas seems not to be tenable. The letter in my specimen is n and not 

 V, and in the numerous specimens which Mr. Newton had before him he 

 found n ; at least he, having Mr. Thomas's essay before him, did not accept 

 the reading Jiva. Jina, however, does not necessarily imply Buddhism. 

 Seeing that Jainism prevailed and still prevails in Western India, the 

 presumption is strong that Jainism is what is implied by the term, and not 

 Buddhism. Jinadama was not one of the Sah kings; his title is svdmt, 

 or a priest, a learned Brahman, or a saint, whose son Rudra Siiiha became 

 the 16th king, and the inference these facts would suggest is, that the 

 earlier kings were all Brahmanical Hindus, and on a change of dynasty the 

 16th king became a Jain, and the three subsequent kings with whom we 

 are acquainted followed his faith. Nor need the symbolic indications or 

 the obverse stand in the way of this inference. The central symbol is a 

 tumulus formed of three segments of circles placed on a curved or wavy 

 line, and Prinsep took it for a chaitya, which at once allied the kings with 

 Buddhism ; but on the other hand thecrescent moon, the sun, and the stars 

 associated with it are decidedly Hindu ; and if the symbols be of a religious 

 character it is difficult to reconcile them with the assumption that the 

 tumulus means a chaitya. I am disposed, therefore, to accept the tumulus 

 to stand for a mountain, " the sunrise hill," Udayngiri, over which the 

 celestial luminaries are placed, or " the hill city," {Girinagara referred to in 

 the Girnar record), which formed the capital of this dynasty of kings. 

 The simplest way of depicting a hill is by putting together segments of 

 circles, and this is exactly what has been done on the coins ; there was 

 neither space enough on the coins, nor talent sufficient at command to do 

 any thing better. If this conjecture be accepted it would follow that the 

 earlier Sahs were heliolaters, and from that the later ones passed to the 

 woryhip of the Tirthankaras. 



