1835.] on Indo-Scythic and Hindu Coins. 629 



devices in the later coins of the series ; since it is well known, that 

 Buddhism prevailed through these countries also, and a constant inter- 

 communication must have been consequently kept up. How far the 

 antiquity of the first Buddhist groups of coins may have approached 

 the epoch of Buddha (544 B. C.) it is difficult to determine, but the 

 acquisition of their similitude to the Indo-Scythic coins must have 

 been posterior to the breaking up of the genuine Bactrian dynasty, 

 perhaps about the commencement of the Christian era. 

 Plate LI. Iado-Scythic Coins resumed. 

 Having disposed to the best of our knowledge of the earliest 

 Hindu coins, we must now return to the Indo-Scythic series, for the 

 purpose of conducting the reader through the promised line of con- 

 nection into the second great field of Hindu imitation. 



Enough has been said on former occasions of the two principal 

 families of this type, the Kadphises and the Kanerkos groupes ; but 

 with a view of systematizing a little the information already obtained ; 

 and, at the same time, of introducing a few new and very beautiful 

 coins lately added to our list, I have collected in the present plate the 

 principal varieties of the Kanerkos mithriacs, subsequent to the 

 adoption of the vernacular titles rao and rao nano rao. 



With the most common obverse of the Indo-Scythic family, a raja 

 clad in the Tartar coat and inscribed PAO KAN'HPKI, fig- 3, I have 

 traced on the copper coins, as well as in the gold ones, the follow- 

 ing series of reverses, nana (for nanaia), nanao, MAO, MI0PO, MITPO, 

 MIOPO, M1PO, A0PO, OKPO, and a word not very clearly made out on 

 fig. 8, OAAO. Of these, the explanations have been already attempted* ; 

 mithro, mitro, miro\ are but varieties of mithra, the sun, whose effigy 

 on the genuine Greek coins of Kanerkos is plainly entitled haios. Okro 

 1 have conjectured to be intended for arka, the Sanscrit name of the 

 sun ; and his four-armed effigy in fig. 7, more beautifully developed 

 on the gold coin fig. 1, an unique obtained by Keramat Alx at Cabul, 

 confirms this opinion. Athro has been before stated to be the Zend 

 word for the igneous essence of the sun, and accordingly, we find 

 flame depicted on the shoulders of the figures bearing this epithet, in 

 fig. 6, and in fig. 2, a very pretty little gold coin, for which I am 

 also indebted to Keramat All Nanaia, remaining feminine in nana 

 of fig. 4, has been shewn to be the Persian Diana, or the moon : — and 

 in strict accordance with the Brahmanical mythology, this deity is 

 made masculine in NANAO and MAO, the mas or lunus of the Hindus, 



* See vol. iii. p. 452, et seq. 



f Lieut. Cunningham has added this variety from a fine gold coin. 

 4 M 



