348 INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 



The domination of this race had previously formed an important but 

 undefined epoch among the dynastic revolutions of India, and the 

 late Mr. Edward Thomas, the well-known numismatist undertook 

 the arrangement and classification of the coins.*" Some of these 

 coins bear legends in imperfect Greek, the Greek language having 

 followed the conquering progress of the Baktro-Heilenic kings as 

 far as Mathura, Oudh, and Patna, and having been reserved more 

 exclusively for the ruling classes during their brief sway, while the 

 Greek alphabet in a degraded form was preserved still longer. It is 

 singular that there is no trace of any solitary inscription in the 

 Greek language in India, but in its numismatic form it remained 

 the leading vehicle of official record for more than two centuries, 

 under Greek and Scythian auspices. 



The conquest of Sind by the Arabs in A.D. 712 was a marked 

 epoch in the annals of the country, associated with some instructive 

 coincidences, such as its inception, the ready domestication of the 

 conquerors on an alien soil, their final ethnic absorption into the 

 Indian native element, and their abrupt disappearance into com- 

 parative obscurity. Several coins discovered by Mr. Burgess are 

 ascribed by Mr. Thomas to this period. 



At Junagadh, one of the most ancient cities of India, there is 

 probably a rich mine of buried antiquities, and the rock inscription 

 about a mile west of the city is the most interesting archaeological 

 relic in the province. f It is approached by a noble avenue of 

 mango and jamun trees, terminating in a substantial causeway and 

 bridge over the Sonarekha. The memorial itself is a huge hemi- 

 spherical mass of grey granite covered with 14 tablets or edicts of 

 Asoka,J. besides a Kshatrapa and a Gupta inscription. This rock-cut 

 lettering extends over considerably more than a hundred square feet, 

 The edicts are in the Pali dialect and character, and contain a variety 

 of injunctions as to moral behaviour, public orders, the sparing of 

 animal life, religious tolerance, and the like. Professor Kern 



* Mr. Edward Thomas was the author of the third chapter of Mr. Burgess's Report, 

 dealing with the Sail and Gupta coins. 



j It was visited and described by Major James Tod (Travels in Western India, 

 p. 369). 



J The other edicts are at I)hauli, in Cuttak, at Kalsi, on the banks of the Jamuna, 

 at Jaugada Naugam, in the Ganjam district, near the coast of the Bay of Bengal 

 (these three being, like that near Junagadh. in the Pali character), at Shah-baz-garhi, 

 about 36 miles N.E. of Peshawar. >ml at Mansahra in the Hazara district (both 

 n the Baktrian character). 



