THE LEGEND OF ST. THOMAS. 
13 
is an isolated hill, 1,771 feet above sea-level, or about 570 
feet above the plain. The ruins of a city on this hill have 
yielded many trophies to the archaeological explorer. The 
stone in question, which is 17^ inches long by 14| broad, 
was discovered by Dr. Bellew and presented by him to 
the Lahore Museum, though we are indebted to Dr. Leitner 
for bringing it into notice. Unfortunately for history, this 
stone was used for many years, perhaps for many centuries, 
for the grinding of spices, so that all the middle part of the 
inscription has suffered and become indistinct, and some por- 
tions have been obliterated altogether. The whole inscrip- 
tion consisted of six lines of writing. It can be inferred 
from the concluding part of the inscription, imperfect as it 
is, that the stone commemorates the building of a stupa or a 
vihar by some pious Buddhist " for his own religious merit 
and for the religious merit of his father and his mother." 
The first two lines, which contain the name of the king and 
the date, are translated by Professor Dowson as follows : — 
" In the twenty-sixth year of the great king Grondophares 
(and) on the third day of the month Vais4kha, (year) one 
hundred (100) of the Samvatsara." As the Samvatsara 
or era of Vikramaditya corresponds to 56 B.C., the date on 
the stone, according to this reading, would be 44 A.D. 
The result of the testimony derived from coins and from 
the Taht-i-Bahi stone is that an Indo-Parthian king of the 
name of Gondophares ruled over India in the first Christian 
century and that his India coincides with the Punjab and 
Afghanistan and does not include Peninsular India. 
To sum up the testimony of the Acts of Thomas : When 
Abbanes concluded the bargain for the slave and got a receipt 
15 See Jour. Moy. As. Soc. (New Series), vol. VII, art. xviii (Triibner 
& Co., 1875), pp. 376, ss. 
It is but fair to note that arctseological experts are not agreed about 
the inscription on the Taht-i-Bahi stone, and perhaps the above reading, 
though the last, is not final. 
i 
