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JUNE, 1911.]
MISCELLANEA
MISCELLANEA.
THE FORM OF BUSTS ON INDO-SCYTHIAN COINS.
SOME time ago when reading an article on Roman Art in the Quarterly Review, I found mention of a classification of Roman busts which might possibly give a clue to the date of Kanishke, if applied to the Kushan coins. Recently I worked out the details, and, although no very definite conclusion has been attained, the investigation may be of interest to some readers of the Indian Antiquary.
A Polish scholar has undertaken to deter. mine the age of Roman busts by their form, defining six varieties, namely:
I. Julio-Claudian (to A.D. 69)-shoulder not included;
II. Flavian (A.D. 69-98)-shoulder, but not junction of arm, included;
III. Trojan (A.D. 98-117.)-junction of arm included;
IV. Hadrian and the Antonines (A. D. 117192 death of Commodus)-part of the upper arm included;
V. About A.D. 200.-half-length figure; VI. Third century-partial reversion to older fashions.1
The want of busts in the Gandhåra school renders this test inapplicable to the sculpture, but I have applied it to the Kushan coins with the following result:
The coins of Kadphises I (=Kadaphes, &c.), whether alone, or with Hermaios the last Greek king of Bactria, present a bust of Type I. As is well known, some of these coins are copied from issues of the time of Augustus. (Gardner, Pl. xxv, fig. 1-5). The conquest of Kabul by
A NOTE ON "FOREIGN ELEMENTS IN THE HINDU POPULATION."
[Vide Above, for January, 1911.]
MR. D. R. BHANDARKAE, M.A., has infer red from palæological evidences that pure "Aryan blood does not run through the veins of the Brahmanas" [p. 37. Op. cit.]. The question I am here tempted to put is, who are the Bråhmanas, through whose veins Aryan blood does not run? Are the Brahmanas Aryan or non-Aryan? The foreign elements that came to India, viz. the Hanas, Sakas, Mihiras, Chalukyas, &c., what are they again, Åryan or non-Aryan? If Aryans are different from these, did those Aryans come to
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Kadphises I, may be dated about A.D. 20. In this case the Indo-Scythian king followed the fashion of contemporary Romans. Type II, is found on the Sassanian coinage of Persia from the reign of Ardashir Bâbakân (A.D. 226), and recurs in late Indo-Sassanian coins of about A.D. 500 (I. M. Cat. Pl. xxv). I have not found it on Kushan coins.
Nor do I know Indian examples of Type III. A gold coin of Kadphises IIP cir. A.D. 45-78) exhibits a bust of Type IV form (Gardner Pl. xxv, 8). Another coin (ibid, Pl. xxv, 9) includes the whole of the left arm. If the datea assumed for Kadphises II are at all correct, he must have anticipated the change of fashion at Rome. The gold coinage of Havishker (P cir. A.D. 123-140) has the half-length figure (Gardner Pl. xxviii., 9), as in the Roman Type V. Here too, if the assumed dates are right, India was in advance of Rome. So far as it goes, the text would support rather later dates for the Kushan kings. I may note that a coin of Gondophernes (I. M. Cat. Pl. ix, 11) agrees with the Flavian Type II. The same type is found on a coin of Soter Megas (ibid. Pl., ix., 16), supposed to have been contemporary with Kadphises II, who used a slight advance on Type IV.
NOTES AND QUERIES.
The Indian coins so far agree with the Roman bust series that, like it, they exhibit a progres
sion from the head and neck without the
shoulder to the half-figure, but the stages of the progression do not seem to coincide chrono. logically, and some of them are missing in the Indian series.
VINCENT A. SMITH.
India also from somewhere in the Central Asia? Are those who are called Brahmanas autochthonous or exotic? If the Brahmanas are Aryans and are exotic, the blood running through their veins is Aryan; but if they are a race autochthonous to India, there is no Aryan blood in them, for ex hypothese, the Aryans are a race trans-Himalayan; and when Aryans came to India therefore, the old pure autochthonous Indian blood of the Brahmana must have been strained by Aryan blood. Hence before the Hanas, etc., poured into India, the Brahmana blood had already been once impregnated with the foreign Aryan element. Is this 20?
1 M. Bierkowski, cited by Mr. H. Stuart Jonca in 'Art under the Roman Empire,' Quarterly Review, Jaa. 1903, p. 123. Gardener' means P. Gardner, Catalogue of Coins of Greek and Scythian kings of Baktria and India in B. M. The tentative dates in this text are those of Mr R. D. Bauerji.
