378 Legends of the Saurashtra group [May, 



for the end, and suppose us to be enamoured of the very defects of the 

 barbarous specimens of ancient art we seek out with such ardour, 

 rather than give us credit for being impelled by the desire of 

 looking through them at the history of the times they faintly but 

 certainly pourtray. Twice has our small band of collectors been 

 enabled to oppose a triumphant reply to such sceptics even with the 

 unpromising materials of purely Indian relics, without counting the 

 splendid but more natural harvest in ancient Bactria. The dynasty 

 of the Guptas in central and eastern India, and that of the Buddhist 

 rajas of Ceylon, form two unequivocal lines of history developed, o r 

 confirmed, by the unlying evidence of coins. I am now happy in 

 being able to produce a third series for the west of India, equally well 

 filled as to names, and of greater interest than either of the previous 

 discoveries, on several accounts, as will presently be manifest. 



I have given the name of Saurashtra series to the coins depicted in 

 Plate XLIX. of Vol. IV. because they have principally been found at 

 Mandivee, Puragarh, Bhoj, and other ancient towns in Cutch, Cattywar, 

 and Guzerat, the Surastrene of the Greeks, which comprehended from 

 the Sindh or Indus to Barugdza (Baroach) on the confines of Ariake, or 

 India Pi'oper, and which cannot but be identical with the Saurashtra, 

 of Sanskrit authorities*. The specimens before me when engraving 

 the plate alluded to, were not very distinct, and I could not then make 

 out more than a few of the letters, which were seen at once to belong 

 to a peculiar form of ancient Nagari. 



Success in other quarters brought me back to the promising field of 

 Saurashtra, made more promising by the accession of some fresh coins 

 from Mr. Wathen of Bombay, and Captain Burnes, whereon the 

 legends were more complete. 



While thus engaged, I received from Captain Harkness, Sec. Roy. 

 As. Soc. along with a copy of the Society's Journal, No. VI. (which 

 also contains a notice by Professor Wilson of one coin of this group, 

 but without deciphermentf) a couple of beautifully executed plates of 

 a fine collection of these same coins in the possession of Mr. Steuart, 

 who made a tour through India a few years since. The plates appear 

 to have been executed in Italy ; and as no explanation occurs, I 



* See preceding note on the birth place of Ixwaku, page 349. 



f Professor Wilson has inadvertently assumed in his note, on my authority, 

 that these coins are known by the name of Gadhia paisa, or ass-money. It was 

 not to this description, but to a very degenerate descendant of the Indo-Parthian 

 coinage, generally of copper, that Captain Burnes stated the name to be 

 applied.— (See my former paper, Jour. Vol. III. p. 687.) 



