54 Ancient Indian Weights. [No. 2, 
succeeding dynasties, progressive generations of men, or whether they 
were merely the equitable revisions of contemporary jurisdictions. 
Though more probably, as a general rule, the simple fixed weights 
of metal circulated from one end of the country to the other, in virtue 
of previous marks, only arrested in their course when seeming wear or 
dubious colour called for fresh attestation : or incidentally, when new 
conquerors came on the scene and gratuitously added their hereditary 
symbols. The devices, in the open sense, are all domestic or emble- 
matic within the mundane range of simple people—the highest flight 
heavenwards is the figure of the sun, but its orb is associated with no 
other symptom of planetary influences, and no single purely Vedic 
conception. So also, amid the numerous symbols or esoteric mono- 
grams that have been claimed as specially Buddhist,* there is not one 
that is absolutely and conclusively an origination of, or emanation from, 
that creed. The Chaitya other Scythians had before them ; the Bodhi- 
Tree is no more essentially Buddhist than the Assyrian Sacred Tree,} 
the Hebrew Grove,{ or the popularly venerated trees of India at 
large.§ 
Equally on the other part Vedic advocates will now scarcely claim 
the figure of the objectionable Dog,|| or seek to appropriate to Aryan 
Brahmanism ploughs, harrows, or serpents. In brief, these primitive 
punch-dies seem to have been the produce of purely home fancies and. 
local thought, until we reach incomprehensible devices, composed of. 
lines, angles, and circles, which clearly depart from Nature’s forms ; 
and while we put these aside as exceptional composite designs, we may~ 
accept unhesitatingly as of foreign origin the panther and the vine, 
engraved in a style of good Greek art, which overlays the mixed im- 
pressions of earlier date and provincial imagery, and appears only to- 
wards the end ofthe career of the punch-marked coins, in their north- 
western spread, before they were finally absorbed in that quarter by 
* Sykes, “Jour. R. A. S.,” v. 451; Cunningham, “ Bhilsa Topes,” p. 351, 
plates xxxi., xxxii. B. H. Hodgson, “Jour. R. A. S.,” xviii. 393. 
+ Gosse’s “ Assyria,” p. 94; Rawlinson’s ‘“ Ancient Monarchies,” ii, 235. 
{ Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” article “ Grove,’—doubts are raised 
regarding the correctness of the translation of the word Ashérah as a grove. 
See also note in Gesenius, sub voce Ashérah. 7 
§ Wilson, ‘“‘ Megha Dita,” ver, 157. Ward’s Hindus, iii. 204. So also Tul- 
ast,—* Ocymum sanctum,” or ‘Sacred Basil.” 
|| Manu, iii. 92, iv. 208, x. 51, 91, 106, etc. Max Miller, “Science of Lan- 
guage,” ii. 481. 

