76 On the Ballads and Legends of the Punjab. [No. 1. 



tion of the Sinde Sagur Dooab or land, included between the Indus 

 and Hydaspcs was called Aodiana. In this land the commonest* 

 silver coin of antiquity is, that which bears the effigy of the hero or 

 king Eaam, and on the reverse a bull seated, with an inscription in 

 Sanscrit, varying on different types. On one it is 



Asawrari Sri Samagu Dewa, 

 or steed of his excellency the god Shib — an inscription which may 

 have led to the fable which confounds Shib with Rama. On other 

 coins occurs in the same place, the inscription 



Sri Eaam Poodup, 

 the seal of his excellency Earn, or the seal of the wife of Eaam 

 or power of Eaam : — whence first this class of coins were called 

 Sitla Eami, a name which has been extended to the whole of the 

 Baktro Greek series by the natives. 



On other types it is 



Sri Eaam Oodye — Sri Eaam's effulgence. 



On others 



Sri Eaam Numma, or service to Sri Eaam. On others Madana 

 pala deva, the god, cherisher of the world. 



Now, where the bull is called the steed of his excellency Shib, it 

 is manifest that Shib and the horseman are two distinct personages, 

 otherwise the bull and not a horse would have been mounted. The 

 horseman therefore is in all probability as in other Indo- Greek 

 coins the reigning monarch : and if so, the inscription, the seal of 

 Sri Earn will imply that such was the monarch's name. If the horse- 

 man be other than the reigning monarch, it is a deviation from the 

 system observed in the series of coins to which it belongs. 



Now it is singular, that whilst the land producing this coin is 

 called Aodiana, and whilst local tradition every where breathes of 



the Southern country. But Elphinstone observes that he could not have con- 

 quered what we now call the Dekkun previous to the compilation of Menu's Insti- 

 tutes, for that then no Hindu occupied those countries. Supposing that he had 

 been born in the Sinde Sagur Dooab according to local traditions, he would have 

 conquered the Dekkun or South country in conquering Central India or Rajpoo- 

 tana. In the Sinde Sagur Dooab on the right bank of the Jelum, are the ruins of 

 an ancieut town called Ootlinugr. 

 * See Nos. 10 and 13 of the Plate. 



