Jainism Early Faith of Ashoka

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

Page 96

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THE EARLY FAITH OF AŞOKA.
the earlier pages of this paper. The triple series of obverse legends are restricted to the following repetitive Greek transcriptions :
GREEK LEGENDS ON THE KANERKI COINS.
1. PAO NANO PAO KANHPKI KOPANO. 2. PAO NANO PAO OOHPKI KOPANO.
3. PAO NANO PAO BAZOAHO KOPANO. These titles seem to have been more or less sectional and eventually to have become hereditary, like Arsaces, Cæsar, etc., and though probably applicable in the first instance severally to the three brothers, they appear, in process of time, to have become dynastic as the conventional titular designation of the head of the family or tribe, for the time being, and to have continued in imitative use, especially in the instance of BazoaHO, for many centuries. Until, indeed, as I have previously remarked, the Greek characters become altogether unintelligible, though the mint types are still mechanically reproduced.
I have now to describe, as briefly as the subject will admit of, the coins I have selected for insertion in the accompanying Plate II., which were primarily arranged to illustrate the objects of worship admitted into the Indo-Scythian Pantheon; but, which, under subsequent discoveries, have assumed a more important mission in the general range of inquiry.
CONTENTS OF PLATE II.
KANERKI. No. 1. (Obverse. King standing to the front, in the conventional
form represented in Ariana Antiqua, pl. xi. fig. 16, worn die. Legend. Constant. PAO NANO PAO KANHPKI KOPANO.) Reverse. Figure as in the Plate. Legend NANA PAO, Nanaia. .
The identity of Bazdeo as one of the three brothers, and as the person alluded to in the Mathura inscriptions under the title of Pdsudeva, in conjunction with Kanishka and Huvishka, seems to be now placed beyond doubt; but the new coins teach us to discriminate Bazdeo as the third king, in opposition to my suggestion (Vol. IX. p. 11, suprd) that Vásudeva might have been the titular designation of Kanishka."
2 Prinsep's Essays, pl. xxii. 4, 5, 6–11, 13. J.R.A.S. o.e. Vol. XII. P1, IV. the same figures. Ariana Antiqua, pl. xiv. figs. 12, 13, 16, 17.