1854 ] On the Ballads and Legends of tie Punjab. 83 



pounded of the Persian words *[; and ^Afc&r or ^l&S the dragger 

 or murderer of the highway. In one of the coins of the preceding 

 series, if indeed it belong not to the same era, is the wild figure of a 

 man, casting what appears to be a net. This method of entangling 

 an enemy was known to the ancients : and the Thugs long had the 

 credit of practising it upon their victims. 



\ The elephant-strider coin appears to me to belong to several suc- 

 cessive reigns, the type gradually growing more barbarous. This 

 would be the case whether the image represented were the figure of 

 the reigning ruler and his gigantic descendants, or whether it were 

 that of a monster slain by the founder of the dynasty. The strider 

 of the elephant bears sometimes a spear in rest, sometimes only the 

 Ankoh or iron-hook used for driving the elephant, he has the fillets 

 of royalty and sometimes what appears to be a horned helmet. The 

 figure in reverse, burning incense or obtesting, wears top boots and 

 an English hunting-coat buttoned. Sometimes he wears a turban. 

 The figure of the reverse leaning upon a trident is naked to the 

 waist ; after which appears the dhotie of Hindustan, a single cloth 

 hanging in profuse folds about the loins. There is nothing in these 

 coins savouring of Buddhism, excepting the place they seem to hold 

 in the Buddhistic series. The characters are Greek. The head-dress 

 is Persian, the coat and boots are of Europe not of Tartary. The 

 trident* which oriental scholars are so fond of attributing to Sheov, 

 although he stole it from Neptune, is essentially Greek ; as is the 

 figure of Ceres with her cornucopia. The language most nearly 

 approaches to the ancient Persian. The frequent occurrence of 

 Ea seems to allude to the Ea of Egypt ; the sun-god worshipped 

 there, throughout Persia and eastward to the Jelum, and taken up 

 in Hindustan under the slightly modified name Earn. On some 

 of the coins Ardokro may be almost decyphered. In the Ceres 

 type occurs the word Agothl or Agothkhr if I read aright the bar- 

 barised characters ATOQA (the rest defaced) AK20XP. On another 

 type appears the word POAO or EOAO. 



* The trident first appears in coins of Mauas or of Azas, when it serves for 

 sceptre to the King who, as Neptune, stands upon the ocean, his right foot resting 

 on his submerged foe. All succeeding appearances of the trident must be regarded 

 as derived from this type. 



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