1888.] Philological Secretary — Reports on Coins. 181 



Khorasan, struck at Merw in A. H. QQ^ or A. D. 685-6, (see Prinsep's 

 Indian Antiquities, ed. E. Thomas, Vol. I, p. 94). The only king, 

 named Yasovarman, who is known to have lived about this time, 

 is he of Kanauj, the contemporary and rival of king Lalitaditya of 

 Kashmir, who is calculated to have reigned from A. D. 719 — 756 

 (see Gottingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1888, p. 70). These two kings, 

 according to the Kashmirian chronicle Rajatarangini, were at war 

 with one another ; and it was assumed that king Yasovarman might have 

 carried his arms victoriously so far west as the Panjab and Kashmir. 

 On that occasion, it was thought, the coins which bear Yasovarman's 

 name might have been struck. For they, and all coins of that class, 

 belong to the extreme north-west of India. To my mind, there are 

 some objections to this ascription of the Yasovarman coins. In the 

 first place, according to the Rajatarangini, which tells us of the war 

 between the two kings (in the 4th Book), it was Lalitaditya of Kashmir 

 who invaded the kingdom of Kanauj, and not Yasovarman of Kanauj 

 conquering Kashmir. This, therefore, affords no ground for assuming 

 that Yasovarman issued coins in the extreme north-west of India. It 

 is true that the Prakrit poem called the GaildavdJio, lately edited by 

 Sh, P. Pandit, also alludes to expeditions of king Yasovarman of 

 Kanauj into the North-west (to Thanesar in the Punjab, and against the 

 Parasikas). But vague statements in a poem which, in the form now 

 preserved, makes no pretence to being a historical narration, cannot 

 for a moment be pitted against the direct statements of a professedly 

 historical work, possessing an admittedly general trustworthiness ; (see 

 the editor's Introduction, pp. XXVII, XXVIII, LXXII, LXXIII). In 

 the second place, among the coins found with the Yasovarman coin in 

 the Manikyala tope, there was also a coin of Huvishka who reigned in 

 the 2nd century A. D. ; and there seems no cogent reason why the age 

 of the Yasovarman coin should be determined by its juxtaposition 

 to the Sassanian coin rather than the Huvishka coin. In the third 

 place, the general appearance of the Indo- Scythian coins of this class 

 makes it probable that they are of a much older date, and are the last 

 crude and deteriorated representatives of a type (the so-called " Ardokro " 

 type), which commenced with the great Indo- Scythian kings Kanishka 

 and Huvishka of the two first centuries A. I). In the fourth place, 

 the form of the orthogr aphy and inflection of the name, which is that 

 peculiar to the ancient North Western Prakrit, points to a very much 

 earlier date. Under these circumstances I would suggest as a more 

 probable view, that the Yasovarman of the coin may be identical with a 

 Yasovarman (or Yasodharman), who reigned early in the sixth century 

 (about 532 A. D.), and who has recorded his exploits in three pillar- 



