144. Remarks on the Taxila Bactro-Palt Inscription.  |No. 2, 
that this conjecture is a plausible one, and I am therefore inclined to 
assign the easily remembered date of 57 B. C. as the approximate 
period of the consolidation of the Yuchi power under the Gushdn 
tribe. This important event is also noticed by Trogus Pompeius, 
who says that the Asiant gave kings to the Tochari.* The Asiani I 
take to be the same as Strabo’s Pasiani, and both the same as the 
Gushan, Kushan, and Khushan of the coins, and the Kuei-shwang of 
the Chinese authors. 
I will now apply these eras to the other dated inscriptions which 
are accessible to me. 
No. 1.—Manikyala inscription of General Court ; see Thomas’ Prin- 
sep’s Hssays, Vol. I. Plate IX. The second line opens with the date 
as follows: San, 10, 4, 4 (== 18), etaye purvvaye, Maharajasa Gu- 
shina * * * and the last line gives the month and day, thus: Karti- 
kasa mdse divase 20. “ In the 18th year, on this aforesaid date, (in 
the reign) of king Kanishka of the Gushan tribe,—in the month of 
Kartika, on the 20th day.” Accepting B.C. 57 as the approximate 
period of the aggrandizement of the Gushan power, the date of this 
inscription of the reign of Kanishka will be 89 B. C. The local 
Satrap’s name which occurs certainly twice and perhaps three times 
in this record, I read doubtfully as -Hovedarta, of which the third 
letter is purely conjectural. 
No. 2.—Hidda inscription, No. 13, Tope, Masson :—See Ariana An- 
tiqua, Plate of Alphabet, p. 262—Samvatsaraye athavis' atihi 20,4,4 (= 
28) mdse Apilaesa ekavisatihi Di. 20.1 (= 21). “ In the twenty-eighth 
year, 28, in the month of Apellaios, on the twenty-first day, 21.” 
There is nothing in this inscription to show in which of the two eras 
it is dated ; but as the earlier era of 163 B. C. would refer this record to 
B. C. 185 while the forms of the letters, even allowing for the cur- 
sive nature of the writing, seem to me to be of later date than the 
characters on the coins of the first Saka kings Moas and Azas, I con- 
clude that the Gushdn era is that which has been employed. The 
date of this inscription will therefore be 57—28 = 29 B.C. The 
word s’arira (relics) occurs shortly after the date, and I observe the 
word dharma twice in the lower line, which ends with puyae, the lo- 
cal form of the well known word punya. 
No, 3.—The Wardak inscription, of which a translation has been 
* Reges Thocharorum Asiani. 
