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226
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(AUGUST, 1889.
Vijit-ávanir-avanipati-sri-Toramand dêrô jayati ; - "victorions is his majesty, the lord of
the earth, the glorious Toramana, who has conquered the earth." Here the legend again, as well as following the same wording, agrees with the legends on the Early Gupta coins of Class B. in respect of the point that the superscript vowels were properly engraved on the die ; but they have mostly fallen beyond the edge of the coin, or otherwise have been rubbed and obliterated ; and the i of Sri is the only one that is at all fully recognisable. The legend commences a little to the proper left above the peacock's head. And it is the last two words, dévó jayati, which were wrongly taken by Mr. Thomas and Gen. Sir A. Cunningham, to be the commencement of it, and to be the epithet déva-janita. That this was a mistake, even the collotype is really clear enough to shew.
Miss Baring's coin is exactly similar in all essential points, on both the obverse and reverse; but it was struck from another die; and it is not so good & specimen, either in erecu. tion or in preservation. Here, again, on the obverse there is the same date of 52; and again without any indication of any third symbol. And on the reverse there are parts of the same legend; but only the syllables érí-Toramand are distinctly legible.
In my previous remarks on Tôramâna's coins, referred to above, I would not then give a final opinion as to the exact value of the first symbol of the date ; " since, though probably a 50, it is possibly an 80, turned half round on the die, so as to lie vertically, instead of horizontally, in order that it might not fall chiefly beyond the edge of the coin." But I do not now entertain any doubt about the propriety of reading it as 50; as it was read by Gen. Sir A. Cunningham. The symbol for 2 stands in a perfectly normal position. In order to interpret the other symbol as 80, we must read it at right angles to the direction in which the 2 lies on the coin ; and this is an irregularity for which no analogous instance, as far as I know, can be quoted, and which is probably not in any way justifiable. The symbol is given in Dr. Bhagwanlal Indraji's Table, ante, Vol. VI. p. 45, cols. 6 to 9; but is shewn there only for later times, and not for the Gupta and Valabhi periods, during the latter of which, in the Valabhi 'grante, a radically different symbol was used. But its existence can be traced to a very early period; for it occurs in the Sahasram rock edict of Devânampiya of the year 256 (Corp. Inscr. Indic. Vol. I. p. 94 ; and ante, Vol. VI. p. 155), in which its value is explained in the passage in words. And its continued preservation and use are shewn by its employment in the Nepal inscription of Jayadeva II., of Harsha-Samvat 153 (ante, Vol. IX. p. 178), and in the DighwaDubauli grant of Mahendrapala, of Harsha-Samvat 155 (ante, Vol. XV. p. 112). It remains, therefore, accepting the value of this symbol as 50, and reading the whole date as the year). 52, to see what the application of the date may be.
From the Gwalior inscription (Corp. Inscr. Indic. Vol. III. No. 37, p. 161), we have learned (ante, Vol. XV. p. 245) that Toramana was the father of the great king Mihirakula, who accomplished the final extinction of the Early Gupta sovereignty, so far as we are concerned, with the line ending with Skandagupta, and with the supremacy of the Guptas over the whole of Northern India. As is shewn by, amongst other things, their names, both of which plainly indicate a non-Hindu origin, and by the use of the title Shahi on Mihirakula's copper coins and in a recently discovered inscription of Tôramaņa himself, - the two persons, father and son, belonged by birth either to the same foreign race to which belonged Kanishka, Huvishka, and Vasudêva, and the members of which, whether best and most properly known by the name of Indo-Scythians, Sakas, Honas, or Turushkas, had established themselves in the Paõjâb in the first century A.D.; or else to one or other of the foreign tribes which succeeded Kanishka's dynasty in the Pañjâb, and, as can be proved even from their coins, continued in power down to at least the time of Samudragupta, and the members of which adopted in several respects the characteristics and attributes of Kanishka's dynasty. As we learn from Hiuen Tsiang, Mihirakula's capital was sakals in the Panjab, which is the modern
1 I refer to the coins on some of which & paper by Mr. Thomas, entitled "Indo-Scythian Coins with Hindi Legends," has been published in this Journal, Vol. XII. p. 6 ff.
