704 Coins of Indian Buddhist Satraps. [No. 7. 



the satraps of Saurashtra. The date I would refer to the Buddhist 

 era of the Nirvana of Sakya Sinha, not as now established in 543 

 B. C. but as generally believed in by the early Buddhists for a 

 period of several centuries. According to the Chinese Buddhists 

 the Turki king Kanishka nourished 400 years after the Nirvana, and 

 the great Asoka was converted to Buddhism 218 years after the 

 same event, or 182 years before the date of Kanishka's rule. Now 

 as the date of Asoka's conversion was the year 259 B. C. the epoch 

 of the Nirvima, as generally accepted by the early Buddhists, must 

 have been in B. C. 259 + 218 = 477 B. C. The difference between 

 this date and B. C. 543 is 66 years, which is exactly the amount of 

 difference between the Buddhist and Brahmanical accounts of the 

 length of sway of the nine Nandas. Taking this corrected date as 

 our guide to the Buddhist chronology we obtain 477 — -400=77 

 B. C. for the accession of the three Turki kings Hushka, Jushka, 

 and Kanishka ; and as they are said by the Baja Tarangini to have 

 reigned sixty years, we obtain B. C. 17 for the close of their sway. 

 Now as the date of Genl. Court's inscription, 446 — 477=31 B. C. 

 falls between these two fixed points of the accession and close of 

 Kanishka's reign, there would appear to be some probability in 

 favour of the correctness of my reading of the numerical figures.* 



already been used for 7 — and 9 by n for nah. Even the 4 is a ch, but as the Pashtu 

 word is salor, this form must have been derived from India. The first four figures 

 are given in two distinct forms, the second set being the older ; and the two forms 

 show in the clearest manner how the straight horizontal strokes of Asoka's, and 

 even of later days, gradually became the 1, 2, 3 of India, from whence they were 

 transmitted through the Arabs to Europe. Dr. Stevenson, in Bombay Journal, Vol. 

 V. p. 38, found " a striking resemblance between the character denoting a thousand, 

 and the Bactrian S reversed," and after an examination of the rest he " thought 

 it exceedingly probable that they were all derived from that source." This was in 

 (in article read on the 17th February, 1853. My own more complete discovery 

 was made somewhat earlier, in the summer of 1852. Dr. Stevenson's discovery 

 besides deals with the higher number of one thousand ; mine with the units only. 

 But our independent deductions are the more satisfactory as they were obtained 

 from different sources. 



* As the Harshakdl, or era of Sri Harsha, as recorded by Al-Biruni is within 

 twenty years of this epoch, it is possible that the figured date of this text |fAA 

 may be a misreading for | »a- The difference of exactly 400 years between the 

 dates of Sri Harsha and of Vikramaditya is, to say the least, very suspicious. 



