612 Note on some Sculptures found in Peshaivar. [No. 7- 



Buddhist interpretation, nothing at any rate of that profusion of em- 

 blem with which Buddhistic remains are generally adorned. 



On the contrary the leaning of the Greek dynasties seems rather to 

 havejbeen to a Mithraic faith, such as there is at least some reason to 

 believe Buddhism originally superseded. 



And if anywhere the existence of Buddhism under the new " re- 

 gime" be a question, it certainly would be so in the countries Trans- 

 Indus, for according even to Buddhist authority it was introduced 

 there from India as a new faith by a dynasty of foreign invaders. Its 

 continued existence even, therefore, would be scarcely probable when 

 the countenance of those in power was withdrawn from it. 



But even supposing it continued to exist, it is highly improbable 

 that it remained as a dominant faith, or even in such a flourishing 

 condition under the Greek rulers, as that its votaries should be enabled 

 to raise buildings as extensive and elaborately ornamented as that of 

 Jamal Giri apparently was. 



It therefore can only be a question whether to attribute this edifice 

 to the period when Buddhism nourished Trans-Indus, under the patron- 

 age of the Maurya dynasty, and antecedent to their expulsion by the 

 Greeks of Bactria from all territories to the north of that river, or to 

 a period altogether subsequent to the overthrow and dismemberment 

 of the Greco-Bactrian empire. 



But, as we have seen above, the purity of their style of art forbids 

 our attributing these sculptures to so late an era as the latter, while 

 the mixed character of the Buddhism they display would certainly 

 harmonize rather with the history of that faith in the former than in 

 the latter period. 



Supposing therefore that they belong to the period when Buddhism 

 was dominant Trans-Indus under the Maurya monarchs, it follows 

 they could not have been of later date than the reign of Demetrius, 

 who having made conquests in India proper, must a fortiori have held 

 all the Trans-Indus provinces. This would place their most recent 

 possible date as little later than 200 B. C. 



But it is probable that they are not even so late, for we are now able, 

 on the evidence of the binominal coin recently published from the 

 Vienna Cabinet, to state that Agathocles was, if not a contemporary, at 

 any rate an immediate successor, of Diodotus. 



