12 
THE LEGEND OF ST. THOMAS. 
countries, therefore, must have owned his sway. He was 
besides the head and founder of his family, as no less than 
three members of it claim relationship with him on their 
coins, viz., Orthagnes, his full brother, Abdagases, his nephew, 
and 8asa (or Sasan), a more distant relation. The coins of 
Orthagnes are found in Sistan and Kandahar, those of 
Abdagases and Sasan in the Western Punjab. I presume, 
therefore, that they were the viceroys of those provinces on 
the part of the great king Gondophares, who himself resided 
at Kabul, All the names are those of Parthians, but the 
language of the coins is Indian Pali. Abdagases is the 
name of the Parthian chief, who headed the successful 
revolt against Artabanus in A.D. 44. The great power 
of G-ondophares and the discovery of a coin of Artabanus, 
countermarked with the peculiar monogram of all the 
Gondopharian dynasty, make it highly probable that the 
Indo-Parthian Abdagases was the same as the Parthian 
chief, whose revolt is recorded by Tacitus (Anna!, xv. 2) and 
Josephus {Antiqua, xx. iii. 2). This surmise is very much 
strengthened by the date of the revolt {A. J). 44), which 
would make Gondophares a contemporary of St. Thomas." 
Further light regarding the period of Gondophares' gov- 
ernment is derived fi'om an inscription on the Taht-i-Bahi 
stone, the history of which must be briefly told. Taht-i- 
Balii," situated 28 miles to the north-east of Peshawar, 
'3 This monogi-am ^ is thought by Prinsep to be a combination of the 
b, m, and n of the old Sanscrit alphabet (Jouriial, As. Soe., Bengal, July 
1838, p. 653). Professor H. H. Wilson quotes but does not approve this 
suggestion {Ariana Antiqua, p. 340), nor does he suggest any other explana- 
tion. Canningham reg-ai'ds it as a pictorial representation of the compound 
name gaudaphor = " sugar-cane crusher," from the circumsfcvnce that the 
outer channels for the cane juice in a sugar mill are chiselled in the very 
form of this peculiar monogi'am. 
11 Besides two other reservoirs higher up, there is one at the foot of the 
hill, whore it joins the plain, concerning which the people have a tradition 
that it is connected \A-ith the Indus by an imderground channel. Such a 
reser voir is in the colloquial called Bahai. hence the name of the hill and 
the ruins. Taht-i-Cahi = the scat of the reservoir. 
