THE LEGEND OF ST. THOMAS. 
11 
written by a man who professed to have any knowledge 
whatever of our peninsula ? Is there a single name of person 
or place mentioned in any part of it that will bear a moment's 
comparison with South Indian names ? The evidence is aU 
the other way, and the only link that connects the Acts of 
Thomas with history is the name of the king whose court 
he visited. Within the Victorian era, interesting discoveries 
have been made in consequence of the extension of our Indian 
frontier towards the north-west and the escapades of our 
army into Afghanistan, which tend to show that there was 
in the first century a king in that region of the name of 
Gondophares, who is most probably to be identified with the 
king of our story. 
Numerous coins bearing Greek legends — certainly not 
less than 30,000 in number and ranging over a period of 
more than three centuries — have been found in Kabul and 
the Punjab. The greater number belong to the series of 
pure Greek princes, who ruled over the Indian provinces 
of Alexander the Great. The remainder belong to their 
Scythian conquerors and to their Indo- Parthian contem- 
poraries. Among these Indo-Parthian princes is to be 
reckoned Gondophares. 
The inscription on the obverse side of these Gondophares 
coins is in Greek characters ; on the reverse side in Indian 
Pali. The Greek form of the name is, on the horseman coins, 
rONAO^APOT, on the bust coins TNAO^EPPOT ; while 
the Indian Pali equivalent is Gudapharasa or Gadapliarasa, 
The important questions concerning Gondophares are 
where and when did he rule ? Both are answered in the 
following extract from General Cunningham : — " The 
coins of Gondophares are common in Kabul, Kandahar, and 
Sistan, and in the Western and Southern Punjab. All these 
See his paper on " Coins of Indian Buddhist Satraps with Greek In- 
scriptions," being No. 7 of 1854, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 
vol. XXIII, pp. 711-2. 
