Indian Antiquary Vol 32

SR No.: 032524
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 550
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 453

NOVEMBER, 1909.)
THE NIMBUS ON INDO-SKYTHIAN COINS.
499
only represented by symbols, such as the wheel (chakra), the triala, the sacred tree (bodhi), the chatya, tbe stúpa, &c. On the rocks and pillars which have preserved the famous edicts of Aádka (283-223 B. C.), and which, notably at Bhabra, contain details of the Buddhist propagation, there is found neither figure nor symbols. This then is a most interesting fact, in stating which it may be that numismatics comes to the help of history, and affords it, by illustration, fixed date. The conclusion to be drawn from the representations, which the medals (or coins) of the Indo-Skythian kings, Kushan or Turushka, offer, is that these sovereigns were Buddhists as early as the first centuty B. C. The Chinese annals tell us, indeed, that in the year 2 B.O. [160] the king of the Yue-chi transmitted Buddhist books to a certain King-Hien sent from China. This king, whose name the historian does not mention - though he names his capital Pushkaravati (the Leukeha of Ptolemy), - was very probably Kadphises I. His coins, it is true, bear only the image of Hercules (in imitation of the pieces of Hermaus), without Buddhist symbols ; but the epithet dharmathida (constant in the religious low) - essentially Buddhist epithet, proves the adoption of the Buddhist worship. Kadaphês, successor to'Kadphises I., has an analogous epithet, sachadharmathida, a Prikrit form of the Sanskrit satyadharmasthita,"constant in the trae law." Hvima Kadpiss seem to have been a Zoroastrian, for he has his hand extended over the fire altar, and is styled mørely "great king of kings, great prince, prince of the whole world" (mahárdja sarvaloga ispara mahisara). The reign of Kanishka commences about the year 70 A. D. In spite of the presence on his coins of Greek and Iranian divinities, as mentioned above, and in spite of the title of mandéen upon his coins, he is really, at least in the second part of his reign, a Buddhist sovereign ; he is celebrated in the history of the religion for his zeal and proselytism.
After Kanishka, the iconographic representation of Buddha disappeared for some time (about two centuries) either because the faithful were afraid of idolatry, or, as M. Goblet d'Alviella' says, that they objected to reproducing, with the appearances of life, the features of a being who had entered Nirvana for ever. But when, in the second century, the Græco-Buddhist art of the Gandhara school appeared, these scruples vanished under the infinence of Greek art, and [280] the classical type of Buddha was created. Further, the nimbus and aureole combined, as seen on the coins of Kanishka, form a three-lobed figure, which became the type of the trilobate niche of ancient Indian architecture.
Before the Indo-Skythians, the Saka kings, who reigned in Arakhosis (Sakastêne), in Kophên, and in the valley of the Indus, were very probably Buddhists, having adopted the Buddhist worship at the time of their arrival in these countries, when they were driven from Transoxiana by the Yue-chi Their coins are numerous, and, thanks to the presence of immigrant Greek artists in this part of Asis, they form a very beautiful series. But on them Buddhist forms and epithets are rarely met with. It is about 100 B. C. that King Mauas or Moa appears in monetary history, the founder of the Pañjab branch of the Sakas : his coins and those of his successors embody Hindů types, such as the elephant, the Indian ox, river divinities, Poseidon indicating the conquest of the lower Indus and of the ses-coast. There, too, the king is seated in oriental fashion, and on some pieces of Spalahorês and of Spalirises, the wheel, which recalls the wheel of the law (the Buddhist dharmachakra), with the legend dkramika for dharmika, "the faithful of the good law, sada-dharma," - an expression essentially Buddhist, - which is also on the coins of Spalagadamês and of Azês of the same dynasty. Upon none of their coins do the Saka kings of the Indus put their busts; they are always represented on horseback, recalling their nomadic origin, and when the pieces are well preserved we distinguish in their figures the [101] Tartar type. The empire of the Sakas lasted till about the year 50 A. D., the time of its destruction by the Indo-Skythians.
• Ce que l'Inde doit à la Grdor, 8*, Paris, 1897, p. 58.
• On this question, the memoir of V. A. Bwith in the J. A. 8. Bangal, 1980; A. Foucher, L'Art bondatique done l'Inde, Paris, 1896 Bude sur Plconographie bonddhique de l'Inde, Paris, 1900; A. Grunwodel, Buddhist Art in India, Eng. trang. Lond. 1902