1833.] Collection of Ancient Coins. 317 
of central India, and is held in abhorrence by the Brahmans, as belong- 
ing to the Buddhist religion*. 
I need not repeat Mr. Wrtson’s opinion, drawn from other grounds, 
that the tope of Manikydla, in the neighbourhood of which these coins 
are found, is a Buddhist monument, but it receives much confirmation 
from the discovery of this coin of the Sakyan hero Kanishka. 
Having thus far endeavoured to reconcile the coin before us, and 
others of the same class to the Sakyan dynasty, to which the term 
Indo-Scythic very aptly applies, we may reasonably follow up the same 
train by ascribing the next series, which exhibit, on the reverse, a 
Brahmani bull, accompanied by a priest in the common Indian dhoti, 
as the coins of the Brahmanical dynasty which in its turn overcame 
the Buddhist line. Colonel Top includes these coins in the same class 
as the last, and adduces his reasons for referring them to Mithridates, 
or his successors, of the Arsacidan dynasty, whose dominions extended 
from the Indus to the Ganges, and to whom Bactria was latterly tribu- 
tary. Greek legends ‘‘ of the King of kings,’’ &c. are visible on some, 
and what he supposes to be Peflevi characters on the reverse: but I 
incline to think these characters of the Delhi type, and the Bactrian 
Monogram should decide their locality. Mr. Winson and Scuuzcsn, 
both call them Indo-Scythic, and the latter, with Col. Top, names the 
figure ‘‘ Siva with his bull Nandit.”” Mr. Scutzcen thinks it curious 
that such marks of the Hindu faith should appear on these Tartar coins, 
but considering the Indian origin of the Sace, does not this rather 
prove the same of their successors, instead of their Tartar descent? It 
is more curious that the fire-altar should continue on all of the series, 
but the fact of its being a fire-altar at all is still matter of great un- 
certainty. 
* See translation of portions of the Salsette and Ellora inscriptions by Major 
Wixrorp, As. Res. v. 140, which shews them all to refer by name to Sakya. Mr. 
A. Stirxine, As. Res. xv. 314, says of some similar inscriptions on the Udaya Giri 
hill in Orissa, ‘‘ The Brahmans refer the inscription with horror and disgust to the 
time when the Buddhist doctrines prevailed. I cannot however divest myself of the 
notion that the character has some connection with the ancient Prakrit, and I think 
an explanation is to be looked for only from some of the learned of the Jain sect.’ 
What has become of the key to this and other ancient Sanskrit alphabets, which 
Wixrorp says he fortunately discovered in the possession of an ancient sage at 
Benares ? 
+ ‘* Ce qui me parait la circonstance la plus’ remarquable dans ces medailles, ce 
sont ces preuves du culte brahmanique adopté par les rois Tartares., Ils regnaient 
donc certainement sur des provinces ou ce culte était etabli.’”—Journal Asiatigue, 
Nov. 1828. 
