OF BHAKATAVARSA OK INDIA. 
137 
Madras, is pointed out as the place of his last mission and of 
his passion. Peculiarly enough, we find that the Eaja of 
Mailapur, who is associated with Saint Thomas, is called 
Kandappa, a name which has some resemblance with Ganda- 
phares, a variation of Grondophares. It must, however, be 
mentioned that Kanda or Kandappa is the Tamil form of 
Skanda, the well-known Subrahmanya, whose vehicle is the 
peacock, in Tamil mayil, lduSIw. Professor Gutschmid has 
identified Gundophares with Caspar, one of the three Magi 
who went to Bethlehem. I have already explained in my 
monograph on Prester John the names of the three holy 
kings as representing the countries whence they came. 
Melchior, king of Nubia, became thus Maiki y''6r, king of 
the Nile, Balthasar, king of Saba, Behazzar, king of the 
Chaldaeans, and Kaspar, king of T arsis in Central Asia, 
Kas-bd) , the ruler of the Casia regio.^" 
are distriljuted chiefly in the Bider, Naldrug, Aurangabad, Birh and Nandair 
districts. They are usually attached to temples, though some are wandering 
mendicants. Numbers of them are found at Tuljapur. They perform what 
is known as the Gondhal ceremony at the houses of Brahmins in the 
Dasara, Hanuman's birthday and the cocoanut holidays. This ceremony 
can only be performed by married members of the sect, and those so entitled 
to perform it wear a string of cowries round their necks. They bury their 
dead and shave their beards as a sign of mourning." See Gazetteer of 
Aurangabad, p. 309 ; " They dance at Hindu weddings with a lighted torch 
in their hands." 
Compare note 51 on p. 132. 
5^ The variations of Gondaphares are : Gandophares, Gundopharus, 
Gundoforus, Yndopheres, Gudaphara, Gadaphara, Godaphara. 
See on this subject The Coins of the Greek and Scythic Kings of Bactria and 
India in the British Museum, by Percy Gardner, ll.d., edited by E. S. Poole, 
I.L.D. ; Introduction, pp. xliii, xlvi, Ixxiii ; 103-107, 174. With respect 
to dental and lingual d the editor makes on p. Ixx the remark : " I cannot 
distinguish on the coins between na and na, rfa and da." The nasal in Gu 
(fia or Go) daphara has been omitted as in the name of Menander, which 
is spelt Menadra. 
Read also Dr. M. Aurel Stein's Zoroastrian Deities on Tndo- Scythian 
Coins, p. 13. 
Among the articles of the pioneers of Indian Archasology consult 
T. Prinsep's Note on the Historical Results deducible from recent Discoveries 
in Afghanistan, London, 1844, and his Essays on Indian Antiquities ; H. H. 
Wilson's Ariana Antigua, pp. 256, 340, 342 ; Christian Lassen's monograph 
2ur G^eschichte der Griechiscken zmd Indoshjihiscken Kcnige and especially in 
