1836.] Buddhist Chronology. 535 



on data, which are as yet but imperfectly analyzed, and on the 

 authenticity of which oriental scholars have still to form a judg- 

 ment. 



Reverting, therefore, to the consideration of the Cashmirian Chro- 

 nological Table, I have to observe, that according to the Milindapanna, 

 Naga Sk'na nourished about 500 years after the death of Sa'kya Sinha, 

 or B. C. 43. If his visit or mission to Cashmfr took place towards 

 the close of the reign of the three Turushka princes, the rule of their 

 immediate successor, Abhimanya, who restored Brahminism in 

 Cashmir, must also have commenced about the same date. By your 

 Genealogical Tables, that monarch reigned 35 years, which term 

 deducted from B. C. 43 leaves B. C. S ; being nearly the same date 

 as those to which I arrived, by the two foregoing computations, in 

 which 1 have attempted to reconcile my adjustment " to the most 

 approved data as yet established in both the Brahminical and Bud- 

 dhistical chronologies." 



The next and last source of evidence of which I have to avail 

 myself, is derived chiefly from your valuable researches in numisma- 

 talogy. At the end of the second volume of Lieutenant Burnes' tra- 

 vels into Bokhara, some observations are furnished by Professor Wil- 

 son and yourself, on one of the Bactrian coins found by that enterpriz- 

 ing traveller, and portrayed in the engravings attached to his work*. 



The points you seek to establish in regard to this coin are, that it 

 belongs to Kanishka, one of the three Turushka princes above named ; 

 and that he reigned "near the end of the second century B. C." and 

 these points are apparently corroborated by the foregoing date assign- 

 ed for the age in which Naga Se'na lived, viz. about B. G. 43. By 

 your Genealogical Tables these princes are i-epresented to have reign- 

 ed, synchronously about 60 years : that computation, also, will bring 

 the commencement of their rule to B. C. 43 + 60 = 103 B. C. or " near 

 the end of the second century B. C." 



* See the second volume of the Journal, page 314. Most of our readers are 

 aware that the date assigned in our notice of Lieut. Burnes' coin, was after- 

 wards in a measure abandoned, on the ground of its being found in association 

 with Sassanian coins of a much later period.— The reading of the letter P in 

 KANHPK02 was also confirmed by a multitude of specimens. No argument, 

 therefore, can safely be built on the evidence of this coin as to the period 

 of Na'ga'rjuna's mission, but there remains ample authority without it in the 

 written history of the Buddhist church.— The typographical error in Mr. Wil- 

 son's Chronology of Cashmir I could not fail to perceive when drawing up my 

 own tables ; but for the reason above given, I did not think it worth while to 

 notice it. — Ed. 



