1845.] of the Indo- Scythians. 437 



Reverse. A three-headed full length figure to the right, standing 

 before a bull, which has a bell hanging from its neck ; the figure clad in 

 the Indian dhoti, and wearing the sacred string of the superior castes ; 

 and holding out in his three hands, three different objects, one of which 

 looks like a noose. The Indo-Scythian monograph over the bull's 

 head; and to the left in bad Greek letters the word OKPO, which 

 Professor Lassen has happily explained by Ugra, one of the many 

 names of Siva : the whole surrounded by a dotted circle. 



This figure is, I believe, the personification of Siva, under his triple 

 form ; the same in which he is sculptured in the caves of Elephanta and 

 Ellora ; one head representing the destroying power, and the other heads 

 the two creative powers, male and female, or Siva and Parvati, behind 

 whom stands the sacred bull Nandi. On the coin before us there are 

 but three arms ; although the triple headed busts of Siva have six arms : 

 the other three arms have been omitted merely from want of space. 



On this coin we have an entirely new name added to our Indo-Scy- 

 thian list. In the annexed sketch it is but faintly traceable, as the 

 lithographer has failed in faithfully representing my sketch : but I may 

 mention that the first two letters are distinctly BA ; the third is A 

 or A, and the last three are A NO or perhaps AMO \ thus forming 

 either BAAANO or BAAANO. That the former is the true read- 

 ing is, I think, almost confirmed by the following fact. The author of 

 the Raja Tarangini in mentioning the cause of quarrel between the Raja 

 Hiranya, and his younger brother Toramana, the Yuva Raja, states that 

 Toramana, having melted down the ancient coin of the country called 

 Balahats, framed Dinars in his own name. Now Bala-hat means 

 simply " the mintage of Bala," who must therefore have been a former 

 ruler of Kashmir ; and was most probably this very Balan, whose name 

 we have just discovered for the first time upon a coin. For I contend that 

 Balan or Balano or Balanus, who is clearly from the make of his coin of 

 the same family as Kanerki, was equally with him a king of Kashmir, and 

 perhaps prior even to Kanerki ; as this single coin is decidedly superior 

 in execution to that of many of the Kanerki coins which I have seen. But 

 Mr. Prinsep's engravings of the Kanerki gold coins exhibit several pieces 

 of apparently the same beauty of workmanship ; and therefore 1 shall 

 be content for the present with ranging Balan in the series of Indo-Scy- 

 thian princes immediately following Kanerki. 



