182 
Y. A. Smith — History and Coinage of the Gupta Period. [No. 4, 
as Kusdna. The letter near the altar is often ^ sa. Occasionally there 
is a character on the reverse, which on a specimen in my possession 
(brass) may perhaps be read as Ld. 
The name Kidara 1 under the king’s arm seems to require the classi¬ 
fication of these coins with those of the Little Kusans, or Kidarites, 
which will presently be noticed; but the coins now under discussion 
seem to be of much earlier date. Cunningham figures one of these 
coins (Nam. Chron. for 1893, PL XV, 3), and describes it (p. 199) as 
follows— u A r . Diam. 85. Wt. 118. 
Obv. King standing to left, as on the earlier Kushan coins of 
Kanishka and his successors. Indian letters or mono¬ 
grams in three places. To right, Kushdna ; under 
king’s arm, Kidara ; to left, Kapan (? for Kophene). I 
conclude ‘ The Kushan king Kidara of Kapan.’ 
Rev. The goddess Ardokhsho (Lakshmi) seated on throne with 
cornucopias in her left hand. I found a duplicate of 
this coin in the Baotipind Stupa, to the north of Hadon 
(sic. ? Hasan) Abdal.” 
Cunningham includes this coin in his Little Kusan plate. 
The other Kidarite coins, which he describes and figures, are much 
ruder in execution and have different legends. 
Cunningham also describes Later Great Kusan, Class B, coins, 
which have the name Kirada (not Kidara) under the arm, but these 
coins have the word Gadahara, and not Kasana , outside the spear. 
The Kidara-Kasana coins appear to me to belong to the same 
class as the Bha Saka , s Samudra Gadakhara , and other pieces which 
Cunningham groups together as Class B of the Later Great Kusans. 
The devices are executed in sharp, clearly-cut relief, and show little or 
none of the degradation which characterizes the other Kidarite coins in 
Cunningham’s plate XV. I do not think it possible that the well-executed 
Kidara coins can be so late as A. D. 430, the approximate date of the 
occupation of Gandhara, by Ki-to-lo, the Little Kusan Chief. Cunning¬ 
ham always assumes that the Chinese name Ki-to-lo is identical with the 
Kidara of the coins. But the identity does not seem to be proved. 
Even if the names are identical, it is quite possible that the name or 
title Kidara may have been in use among the Ku§ans long before 
A. D. 430. 
I am inclined to think that the well-executed Kidara-Kasana coins 
1 Cunningham writes Kidara. I cannot find the long a. Thomas writes 
Kidara. 
2 Cunningham writes Sdka, hut I cannot find any trace of the long vowel. 
Thomas writes the word with the vowel short. 
