544 Third Memoir of the Ancient Coins. [Sept. 



in Afghanistan, has its mounds or ancient burial places. The cave 

 temples may therefore be considered, in some instances, more ancient 

 than the topes, whose age is within the reach of verification ; and 

 while it may point to the period of the introduction of Buddhist so- 

 vereignty in Afghdnistdn, that of the cave temples must be carried to 

 the period when the religion, in whose service they were constructed, 

 had its rise or was pre-eminent. Of this religion the Guebres are, 

 at this day, evidences, as are possibly the inhabitants of Cafferistdn. 

 Asceticism, of which every case presents a memento ; while a dis- 

 tinguishing feature of primitive Buddhism would be also a condition 

 of the more ancient Mithriac faith ; for 



" La religion a toujours produit des solitaires." 



Reverting from this digression to the coins to which the term Indo- 

 Scythic was once considered so aptly applied, and whose sovereigns 

 we had considered, in deference to historical evidence, to have been of 

 the Buddhist religion, if it should be ultimately found that they were 

 of another faith, yet the Buddhist religion will have been widely dis- 

 seminated in Afghanistan, the images of Buddha and other idols to be 

 found in abundance being accepted as proof. The apparent traces 

 of the faiths of Mithra and Buddha observable in the antiquities of the 

 country, are only natural consequences ; — in like manner, at Moscow 

 before its destruction, might be seen the mosques of Mahommedans 

 surmounted by the cross, as at the present day at Constantinople may 

 be witnessed the temples of Christianity surmounted by the Crescent. 

 The terms applied to designate the sun and moon on these Indo-Scythic 

 or Mithraic coins, may suggest some reflections, some of them appear- 

 ing to have been derived from the West, as HAIOC, NANAIA, <i>APO, &c. 

 and others from the east, as MAO, OKPO. &c. 



We had hoped to have obtained a sufficient quantity of coins from 

 some known spot north of the Caucasus, which could not fail of throw- 

 ing additional light on Bactrian numismatology ; but not having been 

 able personally to attend to the point, dependence upon others has hi- 

 therto frustrated our object. Even at Beghrdm we have not met with 

 all the coins that probability would lead us to expect ; at least we dare 

 not appropriate any of them to the Pandava dynasty, which go- 

 verned in the Paropamisus at the period of the invasion of Antiochus 

 the Great. It is but reasonable to suppose that after the Macedonian 

 invasion, all the native princes had distinct coinages, and, of course, 

 this dynasty among the rest. Greek historians have preserved the 

 name of Sophagasenus, who established himself in the Paropamisus ; 

 and Sanscrit records, as Colonel Tod informs us, gives the name of 

 his son Ga j, both valuable ; Gaj accounting for the etymology of Gaj- 



