86 On tlie Ballads and Legends of tie Punjab. [No. 1. 



the worship of fire, or to have rapidly succeeded. For before the 

 types of this series of coins are quite effaced, we find the king flour- 

 ishing, in lieu of a sceptre, the Buddhistic rattle. 



It is I know the fashion to consider Kadphises as a barbarian, 

 i. e. an Asiatic and not a Greek. But this surmise appears to me 

 to have little foundation, Greek could never have been the language 

 of Ariana, for we have almost no traces of its existence in the dia- 

 lects of the Asiatic provinces of that empire. It could have been 

 only the court language, and must have been unintelligible to the 

 mass of the people. Why then should Kadphises, if not of Grecian 

 descent, have adopted it ? and why should he have clung with such 

 tenacity to Grecian emblems ? It is highly probable I think that 

 he was of Greek descent, born in Bulk or its neighbourhood, and 

 that he conquered Cabul and the Sind Sagur Dooab. In that case 

 he might naturally have dropt the Pali, as being unintelligible to 

 him, and have preserved only the Greek characters in his inscrip- 

 tions. 



Then follows the question, "What is the origin of Boodhism ? Is 

 there any monument of that worship which can with certainty be 

 traced to a period antecedent to Christianity ? Are we not justified 

 in regarding Egypt and Assyria as the nurseries of the worship of 

 fire, with which was associated the doctrine of the good and the 

 evil principle ? Are we not justified in considering the pyramids as 

 the original type of topes and dagobas of whatever kind ? If the 

 latter surmise be sound, the course of Boodhism was from North- 

 West to South-East and the earliest topes are those of Cabul. 

 Yet from none of these topes have coins been found of earlier date 

 than the second century of our era, although Sakhya Muni the sup- 

 posed founder of Boodhism, is generally believed to have flourished 

 three or four centuries before Christ, and although in the 7th cen- 

 tury, the Chinese traveller Hiang Tsang mentions dagobas at Jul- 

 lalabad and Peshawur built by Asoka, who is supposed to have 

 reigned in the third century before Christ. 



When the doctrine of Christ was first preached to the world, the 

 prevalent eastern philosophy was that of the Gnostics, which per- 

 vaded Egypt and Syria, and being closely allied to the religion of 

 the Magi, was probably also prevalent throughout Persia. We need 



