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BUDDHIST LIDIA
structive. The oldest coin which bears an inscription in Sanskrit is a unique coin of Satyadāman, belonging to the western Kshatrapa dynasty, whose approximate date is 200 A.D.' Of the seven words contained in the inscription on this coin all have Sanskrit terminations, and only one offends against the rules of sandhi as observed in Sanskrit. All coins previous to this one bear legends either in Pāli or in the vernacular. So, also, oddly enough, do all subsequent coins for a period of about two centuries. The experiment was evidently found to have been a failure, and was not repeated. Sporadically we find single words in Sanskrit occurring in legends, otherwise in the vernacular. These are evidence of the desire of the mint authorities, or of the mint officials, to appear learned. But the people did not fancy the innovation of Sanskrit legends, and the authorities apparently did not care to go on issuing coins not popular with the people.
So in our own country up to as late as the end of the nineteenth century any important monumental record in honour of a wealthy or successful personage was almost always written in Latin. Coins still, for the most part, have their legends in Latin. And throughout Europe, up to .a date not so very remote, works on a great variety of subjects were written, and education was often carried on, in that language. We have never reached the point, reached in the fiíth century A.D. in India, that the
? Rapson in the 7. R. A. S. 1899, p. 379.
? Even in 1855, the first Pāli text edited in Europe was edited with Latin introduction, Latin notes, and a Latin translation.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
