686 Continuation of notes on Hindu Coins.- [Dkc. 



Now A0PO was also one of the original simple denominations of 

 the same class, supposed to be of a like import with Mithra, or the 

 sun. By the rule of mutations, the addition of APaA or APTA, great, 

 would lengthen the initial vowel of this word, or change it into an 

 H, and produce the compound form APAH0PO, " the great Athra." 

 Giving a Greek termination and putting it, as usual, in the genitive 

 case, we shall have MAKAP02 aPah0POt, " of the blessed ord- Athra." 

 This is the very expression exiting on the coin, supplying only a 

 single letter, A, which is cut off through the imperfection of the die. 

 Hear we have a happy illustration as well of the connection between 

 the several groups and their respective objects of worship, as of 

 the gradual and necessary development which these interesting re- 

 searches are calculated to produce. Further, on conversing, this 

 moment, with a pandit from the Panjdb, I learn that the sun is 

 called in the Pushtu language, Ait, ^TT^rT, or Ayat ^rn??T ; a 

 corruption, he says from the pure Sanscrit ^Tf^TEj Aditya, whence 

 may be derived in a similar manner Ait-war or etwdr, the common 

 Hindui expression for Sunday. To all of these forms, the similarity 

 of the Zend word Athro is obvious, and we need therefore seek no 

 refined subtlety in admitting it to worship as the etherial essence of 

 the sun, since it can with so much more simplicity be understood as a 

 common denomination of the solar orb itself. It should be remarked, 

 that the effigy of APAH0PO, like that of A©PO, has flames on his 

 shoulders. 



I will not stop to inquire whether the change from the Sanscrit 

 OKPO (Arka) to the Pushto or Zend A0PO (Aita) has any possible 

 connection with a parallel charge in the family designation of the 

 Sauroshtra princes, who were in the first centuries of the Christian 

 era marked by the affix Bhatdrka, (cherished by Arka,) but afterwards, 

 for a long succession of reigns, were known by the surname of 

 A'ditya ; but will proceed to describe the immediate contents of the 

 plate now under review. 



Figs. 1, 2, 3, are placed at the head of the series, because in them 

 the head bears the nearest analogy to its prototype. In fig. I, indeed, 

 the letters behind the head may be almost conceived to belong to 

 KUJAOr- In the centre of the reverse is the so called chaitya symbol fo; 

 which, had it only occurred on these descendants of a Mithraic coin, 

 I should now be inclined to designate a symbol of the holy flame, 



saint in the Juanpur district, along with 50 others, which were immediately com. 

 mitted to the melting pot. I may here take occasion to notice, that the pilgrim 

 who sold the three coins of Kadphisiss in the bazar of Benares was not a Mar- 

 hatta, but a native of the Panjdb. 



