Jainism Early Faith of Ashoka

Author(s): Edward Thomas
Publisher: Trubner and Company London

Page 19

they both claimed kindred with that tribe, or at some time held command in their national contingent-and Plato may, with equal possibility, have introduced the device, in the first instance, as have copied the more abundant obverses of similar character from the coins of Eucratides. On the other hand, the identity of the helmet may indicate an absolute borrowing of a ready prepared device. The singular and eccentric combination of Bactrian Mint dies has from the first constituted a difficulty and a danger to modern interpreters. I have for long past looked suspiciously upon the too facile adaptations of otherwise conscientious mint masters, leading them to utilize, for reasons of their own, the available die-devices in stock for purposes foreign to the original intent under which they were executed. However, in the present instance, the imperfect preservation of the single coin of Plato available does not permit of our pronouncing with any certainty upon the identity of the features with those of the profile of Eucratides.
BACTRIAN COINS AND INDÍAN DATES.
To revert to our leading subject. In addition to the value of the data quoted above as fixing definitively, though within fairly anticipated limits, the epochs of three prominent Bactrian kings, their conventional use of the system of abbreviated definitions points, directly, to the assimilation of local customs, to which the Greeks so readily lent themselves, in adopting the method of reckoning by the Indian Loka Kála, which simplified the expression of dates, even as we do now, in the civilized year of our Lord, when we write 76 for 1876.
The extension of the Seleucidan era eastwards, and its amalgamation of Indian methods of definition within its own mechanism, leads further to the consideration of how long this exotic era maintained its ground in Upper India, and how much influence it exerted upon the chronological records of succeeding dynasties. I have always been under the impression that this influence was more wide-spread and abiding than my fellow-antiquaries have been ready to admit,1 but
1 Journal Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. XII. p. 41; Journal Asiatic Society
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