865.] Ancient Indian Weights. 69 
the arrangement of so many prior and subsequent series of the subor- 
dinate mintages of a country whose early annals were so largely per- 
verted or sacrificed to sectarian hostility. 
I have still two purely numismatic questions to advert to before 
concluding this paper. Reference has already been made to the adop- 
tion by the Greeks of the Indian or square form of money, but if the 
period and personal identity of the Krananda of these coins are rightly 
determined, the Greek Bactrians must have condescended to appropriate 
further oriental mint developments. Alexander the Great, Seleucus, 
and all those invaders who might have influenced Indian art, had their 
nominal legends arranged in parallel lines, or at the utmost on three 
sides of a square, on the inner field of the reverse. 
Diodotus, Agathocles, Huthydemus, Demetrius, and other Bactrian 
Hellenes, who came into closer contact with India to the westward, 
retained the same practical arrangement of legends. So far as the 
existing numismatic data authorise a conclusion, Eucratides was the 
first to commence any marked modification of the practice, and to lean 
towards the filling up the complete outer margin of the coin with royal 
names and titles. Ofcourse, if Krananda came after all these Bactrian 
Greeks, he may have imitated their customs ; but if, as it would appear, 
he was a contemporary of Alexander, ruling in a distant and unassailed 
part of the country, it is clear that local art was thus far independent 
and in advance of that of Greece, and that the Bactrian and Scythian 
interlopers* borrowed circular legends from India. 
In contrasting the equitable adjustment and full value of the early 
punch-impressed pieces, with the irregularity in these respects, to be 
detected in the mechanically improved and more advanced specimens 
of Indian mintages, 1 was lately led to instance the identical coins of 
Krananda as proofs of what unscrupulous kings might do, even in the 
very introductory application of ideas of seigniorage, towards depre- 
ciating their own currency. The results in question were cited to 
exemplify the statement in the Mahdwanso, where the Brahman 
Chénakya is accused of so operating on the coin of the realm as to 
* The mention of these later Scythians recalls the curious coincidence of 
many of the subordinate members of the ruling families designating themselves, 
somewhat after the manner of Krananda, “ Brothers” and even “ Nephews of 
the King,” &c. See Num, Chron, vol, xix, Nos. xxvii. class B, and xxxiy. 
