Jainism Early Faith of Ashoka

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

Page 24

12
BACTRIAN COINS AND INDIAN DATES.
The above collection of names and dates covers, in the latter sense, a period of from An. 9 to An. 98, or eighty-nine years in all. The names, as I interpret them, apply to two individuals, only, out of the triple brotherhood mentioned in the Rája Tarangini. After enumerating the reigns of (1) Asoka, (2) Jaloka, and (3) Dámodhara, Professor Wilson's translation of that chronicle continues :
"Dámodhara was succeeded by three princes who divided the country, and severally founded capital cities named after themselves. These princes were called Hushka, Jushka, and Kanishka, of Turushka or Tatar extraction. ... They are considered synchronous, but may possibly be all that are preserved of some series of Tatar princes who, it is very likely, at various periods, established themselves in Kashmir.”2 I
the Western system, marks the simple number of hundreds ; in India an additional prolongation duplicates the value of the normal symbol. Under these terms the adoptive Bactrian figures are positive as 103. Before the figured date there is to be found, in letters, the word satimae in one hundred" or "hundredth," in the reading of which all concur. It is possible that the exceptional use of the figure for 100, which has not previonsly been met with, may have led to its definition and repetition in writing in the body of the inscription, in order that future interpreters should feel no hesitation about the value of the exotic symbol. There was not the same necessity for repeating the 3, the three fingers of which must always have been obvious to the meanest capacity. I have no difficulty about the existence and free currency of the Vikramaditya era per se in its own proper time, which some archæologists are inclined to regard as of later adaptation. But I am unable to concur in the reading of Samvatsara, or to admit, if such should prove the correct interpretation, that the word Samvatsara involved or necessitated a preferential association with the Vikramaditya era, any more than the Samvatsara (J.R.A.S., Vol. IV. p. 500) and Samvatsaraye (ibid. p. 222), or the abbreviated San or Sam, which is so constant in these Bactrian Pali Inscriptions, and so frequent on Indo-Parthian coins (Prinsep’s Essays, vol. ii. p. 205, Coins of Azas, Nos. 1, 2, 6, 7,12; Azilisas, Nos. 1, etc. ; Gondophares, p. 215, No. 4.
| Abulfazl says “ brothers." Gladwin's Translation, vol. ii. p. 171; Calcutta Text, p. 574. Mild rid Tulu w wo Swiss -Skis.
General Cunningham considers that he has succeeded in identifying all the three capitals, the sites of which are placed within the limits of the valley of Kashmir, i.s.,
" Kanishka-pura (Kanikhpur) hod. Kámpur, is ten miles south of Sirinagar, known as Kampur Sarai.
" Hushka-pura, the Hu-se-kia-lo of Hinen Thsang-the Ushkar of Albírúní now surviving in the village of Uskara, two miles south-east of Baráhmula.
« Tecehka-pura is identified by the Brahmans with Zukru or Zukur, a considerable village four miles north of the capital, the Schecroh of Troyer and Wilson." --Ancient Geography of India (London, 1871), p. 99.
2 Prof. H. H. Wilson, “An Essay on the Hindu History of Kashmir » Asiatic Researches, vol. xv. p. 23; and Troyer's Histoire des Rois du Kachmir (Paris, 1840-52), vol. i. p. 19. See also Hioucn-Thsang (Paris, 1858), vol. ii. pr. 42, 106, etc.