Indian Antiquary Vol 33

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 18

14
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JANUARY, 1904.
transcribed ; ! this name only appears in the series called Indo-Parthian, and is there borne by only this one prince. If Gondophares had been reigning twenty six years in the year 103 of the unknown era, his accession was in the year 77 of the same. An era also undetermined, but certainly pretty near the other, was in constant use among the Kushaņas beginning with Kanishka, whose name figares in an inscription of the year 5 (Bühler, Jaina Inscrs. from Mathura in Epigr. Ind. 1, 881, No. 1). If we admit [37] hypothetically the identity of the two eras, then Vasudeva, among [88] the Kushaņas, would be a contemporary of Gondophares13; the latest actually known dates of Vasudēva are from 74 to 98. The Sanskrit name Vásudēva is only found in epigraphio monumente; on coins with Greek legends he is BAZOAHO and BAZAHO. No doubt these coins, intended for circulation in a vast dominion, wero by preference inscribed with the current form of the royal name. But the name Bazdēo, when it came into Iranian territory, would fall under Mazdean influences, and easily be transformed into Mazdeo. The initial labials M and B were constantly confused; to confine ourselves to India only, we may recall the name Mumbā, transformed by the Portuguese into Bombay, and to go further back, the name Minnagar (Periplus, $ 40), written Binnagar by Ptolemy.
All the aumerous variants of the royal nam, in the Acts converge towards Mazdeo as the original form: the Greek floats between Misdaios, Misdeos, Mesdeos, altered into Smidaios in the Menaea [certain liturgical books of the Greek Church), and into Sminlaios in Nicephoras; the Latin of the Miracula and of the Pussio gives Mesdeus and Misdeus; the Syriac has (39) Mazdai; the Armenian Mštēh; the Ethiopian Mastius. The name borne by the son of Masdeos saggests an identical solution. The Greek has Ouzanēs, Onazanēs, Iouza"ēs; the Latin Zuzanes and Luzanes; the Syriac Wizan; the Armenian Vizan. Gutschmid, and Marquart 15 after him, saw here the Pahlavi
11 Bühler has recently pointed out a new form "Gudupharna" discovered by O. Franke on coins at Berlin; W. 2. K. M. 1893, p. 53, note. - [See alao Indian Antiquary, 1896, p. 141.-W. R, P.]
19 The name of this king, so plainly Indian, comes 88 a enrprise at the still barbarous names of Kanishka and of Haabks. It is true, however, that a Sanchi inscription (Bühler, Ep. Ad. II. 339) gives an intermediate form Vasushka. The following explanation is suggested as to the origin of the name Vasudeva. On the oldest soins of the dynasty, we have in Indian charactera Kuhana or Khushana, in Greek KOPCNA (KOPCANO on the coins of the doubtful Minos or Herace); and XOPANO. The letters PC correspond to the first attempt to represent a foreign sound in Greek characters, sound which was reproduoed afterwards by P and finally by a new form of P with the staff prolonged apwards. To an Indian ear kopova would have sounded like the name Kisha, which the Greeks have transcribed by Koprávns. (The gloss givou by Hesychius : dopo avns ó'Hpak is trap' 'Lvdois, correctaiteell.) The name of Kosharra, thus understood, might have been translated into Indian language by one of the synonyms of Kțishņa. Vasudeva, ose of the most frequent names of the divine hero, could then be substituted for Kuchana, as a sort of synonym. The numerous coins struck during several centuries in the name of Vasudēva would be the ooioage of the Indianised Kushana kings. Moreover, if the equivalence of the rh, whether with or without the prolonged staff, with the Indian or Iranian oh is incontestable, their identity remains to be established. In view of the names Kanērkās, Oārkā:= Kanishka, Huvishka, we may reoall that Herodotus mentions a king of the Sakse named Amorgās: the formation of these dames presents & striking resemblance, the name given by Herodotus to the son of the famous queen Tomyris, Sparzapisēs, which recalls so closely the names of several kings olassed by nomismatists after Gondophares, for instance Spalgadamēs, seems to shew the same onomastio formations in mo among the Soythians, contemporary with Christ. The coins of Spalirisēs shews the floating state of the transcription ; his name is there sometimes written Sapilirinou, sometimes Spalirisou, and also Rpalirisou. The Saythio sound no doubt required a very strong aspiration. It is not impossible that the Soytha Chauranaei of Ptolemy. with the town of Khsurana (VI. 18, 8-4), placed on the northern frontier of India, along the Emõdus (Himalaya), may be the Kushanas. The name in any case is externally identical with the form XOPANO -Kushana of the coins of Kujulakadphisēs (cf. Vol. XXXII. above, p. 424).
13 Von Sallet has already insisted upon the coincidence of the epigraphical dates of Gondophares and Väsudāva: "If the era is the same, Gondophares comes at the end of the Indo-Saythians, perhaps even after Bazdeo, the last " of them. But, from a numismatio point of view, this, in my opinion, is almost impossible, for Bazodeo cannot be for removed from the time of the Samanides. Gondophares seems earlier. If, however, the erws are the same
ne to be solved by Indianists. I should put Gondophares after Jesus Christ, but "before the Turushkas" (Die Nachfolger Alexanders des Grossen in Baktrien und Indier, 52).
14 The forma louzanoa, Zouzanās in Greek, Zuzanes and Lazanes in Latin, perhaps preserve the trace of an initial letter, which has disappeared in Oazancs. Only & slight correction, perhaps only another reading of the manusoript, would be necessary to change 'Iovane into loucans.
16 Marquart, Beiträge xur Geschichte und Sage von Eran, in 2. D. M. G. 49 (1895), 62€-372. Marquart, in that artiole, also brings to notice the name of the kings (to the number of 8 or 12), whom tradition points out as contemporaries of Christ in the Iranian world. The king of Bahl (Bactres) is there called Akhyary bar Sakhbán.