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AZILISES AND AZES II
441
joint coins.1 The relationship between the two monarchs is not known. They may have been related by blood, or they may have been mere allies like Hermaios and Kujula Kadphises."
King Azes I struck some coins bearing his own name in Greek on the obverse, and that of Azilises in Kharoshthi on the reverse.3 Then again we have another type of coins on which the name in Greek is Azilises, and in Kharoshthi is Aya (Azes). Dr. Bhandarkar and Smith postulate that these two joint types, when considered together, prove that Azilises, before his accession to independent power, was the subordinate colleague of an Azes, and that an Azes similarly was subsequently the subordinate colleague of Azilises. The two princes named Azes cannot, therefore, be identical, and they must be
1 Rapson on pp. 573-574 of CHI, identifies Azes, the colleague of Spalirises, with Azes II, and makes him the son of Spalirises. On page 572, however, the suggestion is found that Azes II was the son and successor of Azilises. It is difficult to see how the two views can be reconciled. For an inscription of Azes see Corpus, II. i. 17 (Shahdaur Inscription of Śivarakshita). The name of Aja or Aya (Azes) has also been recognised by certain scholars in the Kalawan Inscription of the year 134 and in the Taxila silver scroll record of the year 136. The absence of any honorific title before the name makes it difficult to say whether it refers to a king, and, if it does refer to a king, whether the ruler in question was Azes I or Azes II. Moreover, if Aja or Aya is a royal name, then it would seem, from the analogy of other early Indian epigraphs, that the years 134 and 136 actually belonged to his reign; not years of an era which he founded but of an era which he used. The absence of any honorific title has, however, ledsome writers to suggest that Aja-Aya was the founder of the reckoning mentioned in the epigraphs, and not the reigning sovereign in the years 134 and 136. The identity of the reckoning with the era of 58 B.C. cannot be regarded as certain, though the theory has many advocates. Another thorny problem is the relation between this reckoning and the reckoning or reckonings used by Moga and Gondophernes. For the Kalawan Inscription see Ep. Ind. XXI. 251 ff.; IHQ. 1932, 825; 1933, 141; India in 1932-33, p. 182.
2 Cf. Whitehead, p. 178; Marshall, Taxila, p. 16.
3 Coins of Azilises are imitated by Mahadeva Dharaghosha Audumbara (CHI, 529). Along with certain caskets discovered in Taxila (ASI, AR, 1934-35, pp. 29, 30) was a silver coin of the dioskouri type of Azilises and a Roman coin issued by Augustus. The deposit was probably made early in the first century A. D. We have here new data for settling the chronology of the O. P. 90-56.
