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NOVEMBER, 1903.] THE NIMBUS ON INDO-SKYTHIAN COINS.
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THE NIMBUS AND SIGNS OF DEIFICATION ON THE COINS OF THE INDO-SK YTHIAN KINGS.
BY M. E. DROUIN.
(Translated from the "Revue Numismatique," IVme Ser., Tome V, 1901, pp. 154-166.)
[The following paper appeared in the Revue Numismatique, 1901, pp. 154-166; and as the subject is of considerable interest to Indian antiquarians, whilst the French journal may not be accessible to many of them, I have had the following translation made of Mons. Drouin's valuable paper. J. BURGESS.]
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MUCH has been written on the subject of the halo or nimbus which surrounds the heads of deities, kings, and certain personages on coins, vases, paintings and sculptures of the pagan period. We know the aveýλior прówяоv, 'face like the sun's,' of Euripides, Homer's goddesses, xápis d'àreλáuwero modλý, round whom all grace beamed.' In Virgil, Pallas is nimbo effulgens, and she dissipates the darkness, dispulit umbras, by her brightness. The idea of radiance and light accompanying divinity is quite a natural one, of which the representation is to be found in the earliest Egyptian antiquities. On Assyrian cylinders is seen the shining nimbus round the head and body of divine personages receiving the homage of worshippers. In an inscription of Assurbanipal (7th century B. C.) and in the magic texts, Ishtar is spoken of with the flaming aureole.' In the Catacombs, the faces of the holy martyrs are likewise surrounded by a luminous circle which distinguishes them among the other figures of the wall paintings. No doubt the nimbus in Christian iconography, like so many other institutions, customs, feasts, and religious ceremonies, was only borrowed from paganism.
[155] Not only we divinities represented with the luminous aureole, or the circular nimbus : the Indo-Skythian kings claimed for themselves a celestial origin, and called themselves sons of heaven, like all the sovereigns of High Asia, as the Sassanides later on, who were of divine race,minochetri min Yezdin. Still later, the Greeks were imitated in this by the Roman emperors; they decreed to several of their kings the title of god, OEOX, and the Caesars, even in their lifetime, were divi.
Little has been said of the nimbus in numismatics. I wish to offer some observations on the subject of this symbol as we meet it on the coins of the Indo-Skythian kings and of their successors in ancient India.
We must remember that the Indo-Skythian dynasty is that of the Great Kushans or Ta Yue-chi, and succeeded the Makedonian dynasty of Baktria and of North-Western India. About the year 25 B. C. the Ta Yue-chi invaded the country to the south of the Paropamisos mountains (Hindu Kuh) under Hermæus; their chief Kiu Tsio Kiu (according to Chinese authors) had coins struck with the bust of Hermæus under the name of Kozulo Koshana Kadphizes. Nothing special is on his coins, or on those of his successor Kadaphes, but on the beautiful gold pieces of Hvima Kadpisa or Kadphises II (OOHMO KAASICHC) the shoulders of the king are surrounded by luminous rays or flames, and his bust appears to issue from clouds, like the gods of Greece, who envelope themselves with clouds to descend upon the earth. All these are the characteristics of deification or of apotheosis.
With Kanishka, the first of the Turushkas, appeared the nimbus, but only on some pieces, round the head of the king; it is much more frequent on certain gold pieces [158] of Havishka. This sovereign is at once ornamented with the nimbus, flames and clouds. Wilson (Ariana Antiqua, 1841, pl. xiii) has given drawings of ten copper pieces of this king in ten attitudes. One of them represents him mounted on an elephant, his head adorned with a radiated nimbus, and his bust surrounded with
1 Ion, 1550; Iliad, XIV. 182; Eneid, II. 615.-J. B.
