72 Note on the Bameean Coins. [No. 97- 



any reference furnished by history, in its proper order in the series of 

 kin^s of Bactria. Perhaps even one might almost doubt whether this 

 medal does form a part of Bactrian numismatics, as the symbol of the 

 elephant, found on the coins of the kings of Syria, does not afford of 

 itself means for determining the matter, and that conjecture, when 

 the subject be but one or two medals, is a still more insufficient index. 

 The absence of a Bactrian inscription on one of these medals, almost 

 all bilingual, would be again a reason sound enough to doubt its 

 belonging to the same numismatic family. In spite of this, T think I 

 recognize a Bactrian medal here by a characteristic mark, which seems 

 to me decisive, in the monogram found on the square drachma of 

 Apollodotus, and which, added to the symbol of the elephant's head, used 

 on the little bronze of Menander, appear to guarantee this coin as the 

 produce of a Bactrian mint. As regards the prince whose name our 

 medal bears, whose existence and whose reign it alone, among the 

 ancient relics which remain to us, reveals, it would be superfluous to 

 give oneself up to conjecture, which can rest on no solid base. How- 

 ever, I cannot help remarking that this name affords very nearly a 

 transcript of both the Zend and Sanscrit words signifying moon, Mao, 

 with the sign of the Greek genitive, MAYOY. To bear out this 

 observation, I may call to mind that the Bactrian medals of the Indo- 

 Scythic series, belonging to the reign of Kanerkes, present us ordinarily 

 on the reverse of the figure of the standing prince, a personage, the head 

 surrounded by a radiated halo, designated at times by the Greek word 

 HAI02, Sun, at other times, and most frequently, by the Zend words 

 MI9P0 or MAO, Sun or Moon indiscriminately. These medals, lately 

 published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, with learned observations on 

 them by Mr. James Prinsep, are found also in almost all their varieties in 

 the collection we owe to General Allard ; and the notion which we thence 

 derive of a personification of some deity of the Bactrian mythology, answer- 

 ing at once to both the male and female of light, and designable either by 

 the term Mithro, or by that of Mao, according as the male and female prin- 

 ciple of this androgyne deity prevailed in its representation, appears sus- 

 ceptible of no sort of doubt. This is the same idea which produced the 

 figure of a god Lunus, so common on the Graeco-Asiatic coins, in the like- 

 ness in which he is most commonly represented as a young man, crowned 

 with a radiated tiara, with a loose robe on his shoulders, and mounted on 

 a horse, an animal consecrated in all ancient religions to the Sun ; and the 

 god Lunus must have answered to the lunar genius Maho, of the Zendish 

 works. This same idea is it, which is again found under another form in 

 the goddess of Comana, a goddess equally androgyne, the worship of whom. 



