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Jaina-Rupa-Mandana
show the correctness of the identification. On one coin of Sapaleiges the name Nanaia appears and is associated with lion.
Recently B.N. Mukerjee has treated the problem thoroughly in his brilliant monograph "Nana on the Lion"168 and has shown that Nana of the coins must be a prototype of Durgā. Nana or Nanaia however has no correspondence with the name Durgā, but in RV IX.112.33, Nana means 'Mother' (=Amba),169 Even today Nani - Mother's mother in North India.
B.N. Mukerjee writes,170 "The appearance of the famous ancient Babylonian (Sumerian) goddess Nana on several coins of the Kuṣaṇa empire171 is a well-known fact. So is also her identification with the ancient Akkadian-Assyrian deity Ishtar and the Persian goddess Anahita. 172 Anahatā (Anahitä), whose cult was perhaps not so ancient as that of Ishtar or Nana, was described in an epigraph from Susa as being invoked by Artexerxes (II Mnemon) (405-361 B.C.). The same Achaemenid emperor was described by Berossos as having created statues of Aphrodite-Anaitis in the temples of the great cities of the empire including Bactra. Several classical sources speak of an attack on the temple of ArtemisNanaia in Elymais by (the Seleucid king) Antiochus (IV). Epigraphic evidence found in a temple complex at Dura-Europar, dod roughly to the third and second century B.C., refers to Nanaia (i.e. Nanā). A cult image of Nanaia has been discovered at Hatra. She also appears on clay votive tablets at Palmyra, while a few seals found there carry the figure of Ishtar. The lion of Nana and the inscription Nanaia can be noticed on coins of Sapadbizes found in the territories on the Oxus and datable to a period before the rise of the Kuṣaṇa empire... The above evidence also indicates the existence of the cult of the goddesses (Babylonian Nana and the Assyrian Ishtar) and also of Anahita in territories later included in the Kuşana empire. . ."173
Incidentally we may note here that a goddess Anihata (Anaitis ?), Aṇāhiya, Anahita, appears in the old Jaina Tantric formula known as the Varddhamana Vidya. 174 Also a god Aṇadhiya is spoken of as the Gate-Keeper or protector of the Jambu-dvipa, in Jaina traditions. 175
B.N. Mukerjee writes in his Epilogue: 176 "The coins bearing the figure of Nană... were probably known in the early period as Nāņaka. In the Angavijja the expression Naṇam ca Mășako refers to the term Nāņa (which may be related to the name of Nana) as signifying a particular class or species (of coins). It has been observed that the term Naṇaka was explained by a commentator on the Yajnavalkya Smrti as denoting the coins having Nāṇā (Nani?) as their cognizance (Näṇānka-tanka).177
Mukerjee's following remarks are noteworthy: "... icons, particularly syncretic ones, indeed mirror fusion of thoughts. This is not only true of Kuṣaṇa icons, but also of those of later periods and even of the late mediaeval age. Nevertheless, the tendency of imbibing foreign influence in this field of Indian art had never been so pronounced as in the age of the Kusanas." Trade was one of the carriers of thought. It helped India to get acquainted with the "West". Again, probably through the same or associated channel of human activities an Indian concept influenced as artist of the Alexandrian (or West Asiatic ?) school of the first or second or the third century A.D. who engraved a figure of the Hermaphrodite figure on a silver dish found at Lampracus in Turkey. It is not difficult to recognise in this figure a representation of the Indian Ardhanariśvara. Such an identification is strengthened by the evidence of Dio Coccieanus regarding the presence of Indians as well as Bactrians in Alexandria in the second century A.D., apparently for carrying on trade and commerce... The artists of the Kuşaṇa empire exerted as well as imbibed influence. The Kuṣaṇa age, like some other periods of Indian history, brought the world in India and presented India to the outside world."178
Since the Jainas have assimilated, in their ancient tantric formula known as the Varddhamana-Vidya, the Iranian goddess Anaitis-Anahita as a separate deity along with ancient Indian goddesses Jaya, Vijaya, Jayanta and Aparajita, it would be worthwhile noting here something more about Anahită.
Yasht V of the Avesta is dedicated to Anahita. Yasht V.64 describes her thus: "Then Arǝdvi Sura Anahitä approached in the form of a beautiful maiden, very powerful, beautifully formed, who is high-girded, tall of stature (?), of noble descent, exalted, whose feet are shod with shining gold-laced shoes."179
Anahita is well-known as a goddess of water and a fertility goddess. In the same Yasht, the
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