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The Development of Hindu Iconography c11: Chapter IV: Brahmanical Divinities and their Emblems on Early Indian Coins

The Development of Hindu Iconography c11

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Chapter IV: Brahmanical Divinities and their Emblems on Early Indian Coins

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The way in which the ancient Indian coins and seals can be utilised for the study of Indian iconography has already been indicated in the first chapter. The value of the earliest Indian coins in this respect has also been briefly assayed.¹ The one substantial fact which is supplied to us by them, if we accept the view sponsored by several scholars that many of the symbols are religious in character, is that they fully corroborate the conclusion already arrived at with the help of textual and monumental evidence with regard to the earlier aniconic tradition of a large section of the Indians. Even when iconism had come to be accepted by the majority of the Indian people, they continued the earlier practice. Some of the animals appearing on them may stand for theriomorphic representations of deities while others appearing on mountain symbols, three-, five- or six-arched ones, may also have some cult significance; the wheel, lotus and rayed disc may well be accepted as depicting the Sun god; the tree within railing may stand for vṛkṣa caityas or sthalavṛkṣas; we find even a human figure holding a staff and a vase in his two hands, depicted almost in the same manner as on the coins of Ujjayinī where we can justifiably identify it as Śiva; the three-arched mountain symbol with a crescent above it may typify the aniconic representation of the same god (he is sometimes described as triśṛṅga parvata, cf. Coomaraswamy, O. Z., 1927-28, p. 179) with the lunar crescent on his crest, Śaśāṅkaśekhara (Pl. I, figs. 1-4); some other symbols again as the second from the top on the left column of page 300 of Allan’s Catalogue may be taken to depict schematically a garuḍa- or a makara-dhvaja. But all these suggestions are, by their very nature, conjectural in character, and no certainty can be arrived at in the present state of our knowledge. It seems, however, there is a great resemblance between some of them and others appearing on the pictographic seals of the Indus Valley, and if we can ever recognise the exact significance of the latter, then more light may be thrown on the former. But this uncertainty and hesitation disappear to a very great extent when we take up the study of the local and tribal coins. Some at least of the figures appearing on them can be explained with much greater confidence, and when this is done it will appear that these are associated with particular religious practices or cults. Thus, the bull standing before a symbol (Pl. II, fig. 2) differently represented (Allan, op. cit., p. 307, Col. II, Nos. 3-6) on the earliest coins of the Ārjunāyanas and the Yaudheyas (collectively to be dated in the 2nd-3rd century B.C. or a little later) may very well represent the bull before the yūpa, i.e., sacrificial post. Allan has offered two suggestions for the symbol—a liṅga or a yūpa, the latter of which is acceptable. He has noticed this symbol on the reverse of one round copper coin of Viṣṇumitra, collected by Prinsep from Kanauj; he correctly remarks, ‘The reverse has a horse apparently before a sacrificial post (yūpa) and may commemorate an aśvamedha sacrifice.¹ One can compare the representation of this Vedic yūpa with figures appearing on some other early coins in the tribal series, which were certainly based on plastic types and which were also cult objects. Stone yūpas belonging to the third century A.D. have been discovered at Badva, old Kotah State, Rajputana; their shape supports my suggestion to a great extent (for some symbols appearing on punch-marked, local, tribal and other coins of ancient India, refer to Plates I and II).

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¹ For a somewhat detailed discussion about the significance of some of the symbols appearing on them, refer to Coomaraswamy, *H.I.I.A.*, pp. 43-45. D. B. Spooner at first suggested that many of the symbols were particularly Buddhist in character, the so-called solar symbol stood for Dharmacakra, the tree, for Bodhi tree, etc., *A.S.I.A.R.*, 1905-06, pp. 151 ff. But later he discarded this view in favour of another, viz., that many of them were Zoroastrian in nature; thus, the solar symbol stood for Mithra, the tree for haoma tree, etc., *J.R.A.S.*, 1915, pp. 411-13. D. R. Bhandarkar supposed that many of these can be explained as the various ways of representing the seven jewels (*sapta ratnāni*, such as *hasti*, *aśva*, *ratha*, *maṇi*, *strī*, *gṛhapati* and *pariṇāyaka*, the insignia of an Indian Cakravartin empowered to strike coins, *A.S.I.A.R.*, 1913-14, p. 211. Durga Prasad tried to explain the significance of these symbols with the help of some late texts and suggested that most of these were Tāntric in character; he described the circular cluster of dots as *vindumaṇḍala*, a variant of the so-called Taxila symbol as *ṣaḍara cakra*, etc., *J.A.S.B.*, 1934, Numismatic Supplement No. XLV, pp. 16-55. J. Allan in his publication—*Catalogue of Coins of Ancient India in the British Museum*—has justifiably refrained from putting forth any suggestion about their character and has gone to the length of drawing most of these for referring to them in his description. P. N. Bhattacharyya in his Memoir (of the Archaeological Survey of India, No. 62), on a hoard of silver punch-marked coins from Purnea, has very carefully noted the multifarious symbols and their variants appearing on them; he has also not attempted to explain any of them.

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¹ J. Allan, Op. cit., pp. xciv, 147, Pl. XIX, 13. An elaborate form of the same symbol appears on the Aśvamedha type coins of the Gupta emperors, Samudragupta and Kumāragupta I. I have referred to this symbol, though it does not represent an icon, for showing how Vedic ceremonial religious practice is being portrayed by a few at least of these tribal coins. In my paper on 'Devices on Some Tribal Coins', published in I.H.Q., Vol. XVI, 497 ff., I have adduced grounds for explaining the 'Bull before yūpa' symbol as associated with the Śūlagava sacrifice mentioned in the Gṛhyasūtras. The performance of this sacrifice resulted in the acquisition of wealth and prosperity.

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One of the earliest devices, frequently found on tribal coins, is Gaja-Lakṣmī, i.e., Lakṣmī standing (rarely seated), being bathed by two elephants (Foucher recognises in it the nativity scene of the Buddha). It appears on an uninscribed coin from Kausāmbī (3rd century B.C.), coins of Viśākhadeva, Śivadatta and probably also of Vāyudeva of Ayodhyā (1st century B.C.) and uninscribed coins of Ujjayinī (2nd-3rd century B.C.); nay, such was the popularity of this device that many alien rulers of northern India like Azilises, Rajuvula and Soḍāsa adopted it on their coins (Pl. XI, fig. I).² Relief carvings illustrating this motif are found on the early monuments of Central India; here is a close approximation of the numismatic and sculptural representations. The motif, as it typifies the Indian idea of prosperity, frequently appears on coins and sculptures of later date and is still used by the Hindus. Goddess Lakṣmī again, without the attendant elephants, either seated on a full-blossomed lotus or standing with a lotus flower in her hand, or standing on a lotus with the flower in her hand, very often appears on the coins of Ujjayinī, on those of the Hindu kings like Brahmamitra, Dṛḍhamitra, Sūryamitra, Viṣṇumitra, Puruṣadatta, Uttamadatta, her hand, very often appears on the coins of Ujjayinī, on the coins of the Satraps of Mathura like Śivadatta, Hagāmāsa, Rajuvula and Soḍāsa, on the coins of the Rājanya Janapada and on the coins of Bhadraghoṣa of Pañcāla.¹ The so-called ‘dancing girl wearing long hanging ear-rings and oriental trousers’ on the coins of the Indo-Greek kings Pantaleon and Agathokles, dubbed as ‘a strictly Hindu type’ by Gardner, has been recognised by Coomaraswamy in his article on ‘Early Indian Iconography’ as Śrī-Lakṣmī, with a great deal of justification. I myself hesitatingly suggested that the female figure on the above coin with a very long equine head may stand for Yakṣinī Aśvamukhī (Pl. IX, fig. 7).² The city deity of Puṣkalāvatī on the unique Indo-Scythian gold coin described by Gardner (B.M.C., p. 162) may be identified either as Lakṣmī with a lotus in her hand, as suggested by Coomaraswamy in the above article (Pl. IX, fig. 9), or as Durgā Ekānaṃśā. It may be argued that the numismatic and sculptural representations of Lakṣmī do not prove much with regard to the iconic representations of deities associated with different Brahmanical cults like those of Śiva and Vāsudeva-Viṣṇu, because, Lakṣmī, as the Indian goddess of wealth and prosperity, was respected by the Indians in general. But here also early Indian coins do not fail us. The appearance of the cult-gods on them may not be as frequent as that of this particular goddess, but their figures are undoubtedly met with. The reason for their comparative infrequency is obvious; Lakṣmī could very appositely be used by the issuers of coins (units of wealth), to whatever creed they might belong; but such could not usually be the case with the sectarian gods or goddesses.

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² J. Allan, op. cit., pp. 131-4, 149, 187, 190-1, 256 and corresponding plates; R. B. Whitehead, Punjab Museum Catalogue, Vol. I, p. 135, Pl. XIII, fig 333. The reverse device of some copper coins of Maues and Azes (P.M.C., Vol. I, pp. 100-101, 122; B.M.C., pp. 70-71, 89) has been described as a 'female figure standing to front between trees'; Whitehead says that it may be a Bacchante among vines, while Gardner asks whether it may be a Maenad standing between two vines. Coomaraswamy in his article on Early Indian Iconography (Eastern Art, Vol. I, p. 178) refers to three varieties of Lakṣmī, the third one described by him being Padmavāsinī or Kamalālayā type, in which she is surrounded by flowering stems and growing leaves, and very often she holds one of the flowering stems in each hand. The above coin device of Maues and Azes (cf. Pl. VIII, fig. 4) may be a Hellenised version of the third variety of Lakṣmī. Coomaraswamy illustrates the motif as represented in the early Indian art of Central India, and the similarity is very striking.

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¹ J. Allan, op. cit., pp. 210-12, 252, 270-71, 279-80, 283, etc., and corresponding plates. The figure of the goddess on the Mathura coins was sometimes wrongly identified as that of Kṛṣṇa, Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, p 526. For a detailed study of the early iconography of Śrī-Lakṣmī on the basis of textual, monumental and numismatic data, refer to A. K. Coomaraswamy's article on ‘Early Indian Iconography’, in Eastern Art, Vol. I, pp. 175ff. The coins which are noticed above can collectively be dated from the 2nd century B.C. to the 1st century A.D. Some of these figures, however, may also stand for Durgā-Gaurī, as will be shown later on.

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² I.H.Q., Vol. XIV, 1938, p. 302.

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With regard to the representation of Buddha and Śiva on the coins, the following observation of Coomarswamy is worth noticing, 'In Buddhist art, we find at Bharhut and Sanchi the tree, wheel, etc., on or behind an altar, clearly designated in the inscriptions as Buddha (Bhagavato) and worshipped as such... Later on the figure of a human teacher takes its place upon the throne, the old symbols being retained as specific designations... In the same way with Hindu types; thus we find at first the humped bull alone, then a two-armed, and finally a four-armed figure accompanying the bull, once the representative of the deity, now his vehicle, while other symbols are held in the hands as attributes.'¹ As regards Buddha, no certain representation of him appears on coins before the time of Kanishka. On account of the hammer-like object placed in his raised right hand, the seated figure on some coins of Kadaphes cannot be definitely recognised as Buddha; the seated figures on copper coins of Maues and on others from Ujjayinī are of uncertain character (cf. Coomaraswamy, *The Origin of the Buddha Image*).² In the case of Śiva, it is true, there cannot be much doubt in identifying the bull appearing on many indigenous coins as well as on those of the alien rulers of India as representing him theriomorphically. Thus, the humped bull, represented on the reverse side of the unique gold coin of an uncertain Indo-Scythic king, bearing legends in Greek and Kharoṣṭhī script, Tauras and Uṣabhe (Vṛṣabha), may stand for Śiva (Pl. IX, fig. 8); this reminds us of the same device appearing on the coins of the White Hun ruler Mihirakula with the legend jayatu vṛṣaḥ in the script of the period.¹ But, it has been already shown that the bull before a particular symbol on some coins may also have represented the sacrificial bull.

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¹ A. K. Coomaraswamy, *H.I.I.A.*, p. 45.

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² The seated figure on the coins of Kadaphes may stand for Śiva; the head seems to bear on it a *krobylos* (*jaṭāmukuṭa*), but the object in the raised right hand is not distinct.

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¹ P. Gardner, British Museum Catalogue of Coins of the Greek and Scythic Kings of Bactria and India, p. 162, pl. XXIX, 15; V. A. Smith. Catalogue of Coins in the Indian Museum, Vol. I, p. 236, pl. XXV, 5.

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Before I pass on to the anthropomorphic figures of Śiva on early indigenous and foreign coins, I shall refer to a symbol which appears on an uninscribed cast coin (provenance unknown). It seems to be a somewhat realistic representation of the liṅgam. If the interpretation of this symbol is correct, then we have here an emblem intimately connected with Śiva-worship. In fact, Allan has definitely described it as ‘liṅgam on square pedestal;’ the tree in railing on left of the same coin may stand for the sthala-vṛkṣa in association with the particular Śaiva emblem. Allan thus describes its obverse: ‘Building(?) on l.; tree in centre; on r. female figure to l.’ There can be no doubt about the interrelation of many of these symbols appearing on such types of coins, and on the basis of Allan’s description as supported by his plates, one is tempted to find in the obverse and reverse devices of this coin, the cult object, the sacred tree associated with it, the shrine(?) as well as the votary all together (Pl. I, figs. 14-15). Though Allan has not named another symbol appearing on the obverse of two square copper coins probably to be attributed to Taxila, its very appearance seems to connect with the other one just described, the pedestal here being somewhat summarily represented (Pl. I, fig. 9). But liṅgams with or without elaborate pedestals are known to have existed in ancient times (for example, the Gudimallam Liṅga, one of the earliest such, rises abruptly from the floor of the shrine); in fact, in the early specimens the latter mode was usually followed. Now, the reverse of these coins has a hill with trees growing from its two sides and an honorific parasol like emblem on the top. Here again, these symbols, taken together, seem unmistakably to point to their cult connection. A Śivaliṅga on a pedestal placed between two different trees in side railings is also represented on the obverse of var. *c* of Class I coins hailing from Ujjayinī.¹ As for the association of the tree with the phallic emblem of Śiva, reference may be made to the terracotta seal in the collection of Dhir Singh Nahar, having on it a Śivaliṅga with subdued realism, described as *Pādapeśvara* in Gupta characters. Even now many of the important Śivaliṅgas worshipped in India have their particular trees; the celebrated Ap-liṅga of Jambukeśvara near Srirangam and the tradition associated with it should be noted here. Numerous textual references can be cited to show Śiva's connection with hills and mountains; notice should be taken here, however, of the extremely realistic phallic emblems of Śiva shown above or beside a hill exactly in the manner in which the latter symbol is depicted on the Taxila coins, and inscribed in Brāhmī characters of the Gupta Period, on some terracotta seals from Bhita (*A. S. I. A. R.*, 1911-12, p. 49, Nos. 15 and 16. Pl. XI, fig. 8). The three coins noted above can with some confidence be dated in the 2nd-3rd century B.C., if not earlier. Coomaraswamy remarked, with regard to the symbols on punch-marked coins, before the publication of Allan's *Catalogue*, that the 'marks which we might expect, but which are not found, include the *liṅgam*, etc.' (*H. I. I. A.*, p. 45). If the above suggestion is accepted and there is every reason to accept it, we find here perhaps the earliest representation of phalli on some local or tribal coins of the historical period (for the phallic emblems of Śiva on an Ujjayinī coin, see Pl. I, fig. 10).

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¹ J. Allan, *op. cit.*, p. 85, No. 2, XI, 2; p. 233, Nos. 154 and 154a, Pl. XXXV, 5 and p. 243, No. 19, Pl. XXXVI, 15.

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A few other symbols appearing on the indigenous as well as the foreign coins of India must also be interpreted as so many Śaivic emblems. The reverse side of the coins of the Pañcāla king Rudragupta bears a device which has been described by Allan as 'railing with three pillars above;

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uncertain objects at top of each." Two of these coins are illustrated on Plate XXVII (Nos. 1 and 2) of his book; the reverse of No. 2, I think, discloses the identity of this device. The central object is a trident (*triśūla*) placed inside a railing and the side ones are pillars similar to the two shown on either side of Agni standing over a basement on the coins of Pañcāla Agnimitra. The association of the issuer's name Rudragupta with the well-known attribute of Rudra-Śiva will have to be noted here. In fact, Allan in his Introduction (p. cxviii-cxix) puts forth the same suggestion; he writes, ' Rudragupta has on his reverse a trident between two pillars (*e.g.*, Pl. XXVII, 2), the emblem of Rudra-Śiva. On other coins (*e.g.*, Pl. XXVII, 1) the object appears to be a star or a kind of double trident with prongs below as well as above.' If we compare the central object with the device on the reverse of a coin doubtfully attributed to Taxila we find that both of them are identical. The latter has been described by Allan as 'Tree in centre; standing figure on either side' (*op. cit.*, p. 237, No. 2, Pl. XLV, 1); but there are only three prongs and these are placed on the top of the long staff issuing out of a basement. The two figures on either side of this enshrined *triśūla* emblem may simply represent the votaries before the object of their devotion.

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The central object on the obverse of the next coin reproduced in Allan's Plate XLV may show a tree as several branches issue out of the central stem; whatever may be its significance, it is also an object of worship. But this time it is so possibly to other gods, one of them being in his animal form; *cf.* Allan's description of the whole device—'Tree in railing in centre; on left, figure on elephant to right; on right, lion right with a solar symbol above; at top the hill with crescent, the taurine, *swastika* and an uncertain object' (p. 237). It can be suggested that some sacred tree associated probably with Śiva is being shown here as an object of veneration. Cunningham describes the reverse of a coin of the Pañcāla Dhruvamitra as 'Trident on basement of Buddhist railing' and remarks, 'Dhruva is the north Polar Star, but as it is also a name of Śiva, I conclude that the trident refers to him' (C., *C.A.I.*, p. 81, Pl. VII, fig. 3). Allan, however, writes about the same device, ‘The object in question, which stands on a platform in the position usually occupied by the deity between two pillars with cross-bars at top, is, however, not a trident. On No. 53 (Pl. XXVII, 5) it looks like a battle-axe, but on No. 55 (Pl. XXVII, 6) and others the shaft is clearly bent. It must be a symbol of Dhruva, the pole-star’ (p. cxviii).

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I am not sure about the nature of the device from the respective plates, but even if it be a battle-axe at all, then that would also connect the symbol with Śiva one of whose epithets is dhruva; it being a special emblem of the polar star, however, should not also be discounted, especially with regard to the coin No. 55. In any case, I shall presently show how the combined trident-battle-axe was sometimes used by itself as the obverse or reverse device on coins. Mention may be made in this connection of a symbol appearing on some of the uninscribed cast coins described by Allan in pages 87-91 of his book (Pl. I, fig. 5). When observed along with the above devices, it seems to represent a trident with broad flattened prongs, issuing out of a railing which contains also two parasol-like objects on its two sides (a comparison with the side parasols of railings enclosing Bodhi-tree and other Buddhist symbols, as represented in Bodh Gaya and Amaravati reliefs, is suggested). The combined trident and battle-axe placed before a tree inside an enclosure on the reverse side of the coins of the Audumbara chief Dharaghoṣa should be noted here (Allan, op. cit., p. 124, Pl. XIV, 14). This combined symbol with undoubted Śaiva association appears on the obverse of Wema Kadphises’ coins, where the king, a Māheśvara by faith, puts offerings in honour of his deity on the sacrificial fire (Whitehead, P.M.C., Vol. I, Pl. XVII, 36). The same symbol is present on the coins of Vāsudeva and Vāsu;

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when Samudragupta issued some of his gold coins in evident imitation of the late Kushan money, he had to replace the trident-battle-axe standard of the prototypes of his coins with the Garuḍa emblem sacred to Viṣṇu, as he was a Parama-bhāgavata (a devout Bhāgavata or a Vaiṣṇava). The replacement of the hill symbol with crescent above, possibly a Śaiva emblem, with Vāsudeva-Viṣṇu's Garuḍa, by Chandragupta II in his silver issues, struck in imitation of the silver coins of the Western Satraps after he had overthrown them, may also be explained in the same manner.

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Śiva appears for the first time in an anthropomorphic form on the coins hailing from Ujjayinī and its environs. The single standing figure on many of these coins can be definitely identified with him. Cunningham was not sure about its identification; but the attributes in the hands, *viz.*, a staff (not a sun standard, as he described it, for the solar symbol does not seem to be joined to the staff) in the right and vase in the left clearly disclose its identity (Pl. I, fig.7). Any doubt whatsoever is set at rest by the testimony of another variety of the same series of coins which shows a bull slightly prancing up and looking at the deity (*cf.* the *Matsyapurāṇa* passage which enjoins that Viśākha, the mount of Śiva, should be in the attitude of looking at the god, *devavīkṣaṇatatparaḥ*; Pl. I, fig. 13). Moreover, the three-headed standing figure on the obverse of a third variety of the Ujjayinī coins, carrying the identical attributes, further strengthens my hypothesis (Pl. I, fig. 8). Cunningham, no doubt, identified the latter as Mahākāla, but his statement that 'this coin may be accepted as a single evidence of Brahmanism at Ujjain' is unjustifiable. Allan is in doubt about the identity of this figure; he proposes that this figure and its variants may stand for both the deities, *viz.*, Śiva Mahākāla and Skanda Kārttikeya (in the body of the *Catalogue*, however, he invariably describes them as Kārttikeya or simply as deity). The three heads of the figure on some Ujjayinī coins have been taken by him to represent partially the six heads of the latter divinity. But we have six-headed figures of Kārttikeya in indigenous coins and three-headed Śiva figures are known from Kushan coins.¹ On the obverse of the Audumbara chief Dharaghoṣa's silver coins, we find the figure of Viśpamitra (Viśvāmitra)

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¹ Cunningham, C. A. I., pp. 97-8, pl. x, figs. 1-6; Allan, *op. cit.*, Introduction, pp. cxliii, 245-52. The object in the right hand of the figure is invariably described by Allan as a spear, but it is nothing but a staff or a standard; the spear in the right hand of the definitely recognisable Kārttikeya on several varieties of the Yaudheya coins can rightly be distinguished from the staff above.

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as described by the Kharoṣṭhī legend across the figure, but on the reverse there occur two symbols which are intimately associated with Śiva, viz., combined trident-battle-axe on a pedestal and a tree within railing. What is further of interest in the case of the copper coins of the Audumbara chiefs, Śivadāsa, Rudradāsa and Dharaghoṣa, is that they almost invariably bear on their reverse sides the representations of structural shrines ('domed pavilions,' Coomaraswamy, and 'two-storied domed *stūpa*,' Allan) with the trident-battle-axe standards almost invariably placed before them (Pl. I, figs. 16-17). The latter unmistakably prove that the structures are not *stūpas*, but Śaiva shrines which must have contained images or phallic emblems of Śiva. The coins can be dated in the 1st-2nd century B.C. On some copper coins of the second century A.D. issued by an anonymous ruler of most probably the Kuniṇḍa tribe, we find the standing figure of Śiva, holding in his right hand a trident-battle-axe, his left hand, from which hangs some thing (tiger skin?), resting on hip; his head is adorned with *jaṭās* arranged in the *jaṭābhāra* manner, as we find them arranged on that of Śiva carved on the shaft of the Śiva-liṅga at Guḍimallam; on some specimens, however, he seems to be standing under an umbrella (Pl. I, fig. 21.). The legend on these coins reads '*Bhagavata Chatreśvara mahātmanaḥ*,' i.e., 'of the holy or worshipful one, the noble-souled lord of the *Chatra*' (one of the Indian insignia of sovereignty).¹

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¹ For the Audumbara and Kuniṇḍa coins, refer to Allan, *op. cit.*, pp. 122-25 and plates, pp. 167-68 and plates. Does this class of Kuniṇḍa coins show that the tribal state of the Kuniṇḍas at one time was dedicated to the Lord Śiva in the 2nd century A.D., and the coins were issued in his name in the capacity of its sovereign ruler (the title Chatreśvara is significant)? We can cite a modern analogy; the real ruler of the old Travancore State was Lord Padmanābha and the ruling chief acted as his substitute. In mediæval times, the kingdom of Mewar was also sometimes dedicated to the Lord Ekliṅgaji, its patron deity.

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Among the coins of the early foreign rulers of India, Śiva has been recognised on certain billon coins of Gondophares. He stands facing with his left leg slightly advanced and head bent a little towards the left, clasping a long trident in his right hand and a palm-branch in his left which rests in the approved Indian iconographic manner on the hip (kaṭihasta). Faint traces of jaṭā are to be found on his head. E. J. Rapson described another variety of the deity with his right-hand extended and a trident in his left hand (J.R.A.S., 1903, pp. 285-6). Figure 9 in Pl. XXII of Gardner's Catalogue shows this second variety of Śiva on Gondophares' coins. The standing posture of the god in this type is exactly similar to that of Śiva (undoubtedly so) on some gold coins of Wema Kadphises, where the deity is depicted without his mount, though there is a little difference in the placing of attributes in the hands (Pl. I, fig. 19). Thus, the object held in the right hand of the latter figure is not simply trident but trident-battle-axe combined (as in the Kuniṇḍa coin noted above), and the object hanging down from the left arm is the skin garment, the palm branch being absent. But the close similarity of the slightly bent pose of the body, just suggestive of dvibhaṅga, is a very important consideration, and the possibility of its being the Greek deity Poseidon, because that god too has a trident as his attribute and the palm-branch is a Greek insignia, can be discounted. In the other variety noticed by Rapson the palm-branch is absent. The epithet devavrata applied to Gondophares on most of his coins may be significant; it is likely that deva here does not simply mean 'god' but means the god Śiva as in several passages of Hiuen-Tsang's Si-yu-ki (cf. his statement, 'Outside the west gate of the city of Puṣkalāvatī was a Deva-temple and a marvel-working image of the Deva;' Watters, On Yuan Chwang, I, p. 214). Considering all these facts one will be fully justified in rejecting Tarn's statement that Śiva 'does not appear in person on coins till those of the Kushans.'¹ On a round copper seal discovered at Sirkap in the year 1914-15, Śiva appears with trident in left hand and club in right; it is biscriptural, bearing the legend ‘Śivarakṣitasa’ in Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭhī characters of the first century A.D., or a little earlier. The standing pose of the figure is slightly dissimilar to that of the same god on the coins of Gondophares and Wema Kadphises just discussed; the left leg is placed in the same manner but the right one with the bent knee is stretched forward. But the club on the right hand is specially noteworthy, because it greatly resembles the knotted club in the hands of Herakles appearing on some Indo-Greek coins. The treatment of the whole figure is undoubtedly Hellenistic, though the subject itself and part of the motif are purely Indian (*cf.* the loin cloth and the turban on the head; Pl. XI, fig. 5).¹

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¹ W. M. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India, p. 402. For the coins of Gondophares and Wema Kadphises, cf. Whitehead, op. cit., p. 151, Pl. XV, Fig. 43 and p. 183, Pl. XVII, Fig. 33. For Śiva with his mount on Wema's coins, cf. Pl. IX, fig. 14. It is curious that even in the second edition of his book Tarn did neither refer to the anthropomorphic figures of Śiva on much earlier coins of Ujjayinī, nor to the human forms of the god present on the coins of Gondophares (Rapson) and of Maues as shown by myself.

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¹ Sten Konow, *C. I. I.*, Vol. II, p. 102. Pl. XX, 11. The name of the owner of the seal, Śivarakṣita, is interesting; it means one protected by Śiva, i.e., Śiva was his patron deity. On this analogy, the name Terambi-pāla, referred to in the end of the first Chapter, may mean ‘one protected by Terambi.’ Terambi or Terambā may be the feminine form of Tryamba or Tryambaka, a name of Śiva.

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Śiva appears earlier on the obverse of some square copper coins of Maues. The device on a British Museum coin of Maues has been described by Gardner as ‘male figure l., chlamys flying behind; holds club and trident’ (*B.M.C.*, p. 71, Pl. XVII, 3); but Whitehead describes a Punjab Museum specimen of the same variety of Maues’ coin as ‘male deity striding to l. with flowing draperies, holding club in r. hand and long spear or sceptre in l.’ (*P.M.C.*, Vol. I, p. 101, Pl. X, 25). A comparison of the plates in the two catalogues will show that both the specimens belong to the same variety of Maues’ square copper coins, and Gardner’s description, though short, is more correct. In fact, the peculiar knotted club in the right hand and the trident held over the left shoulder in the left and the characteristic stride leave no doubt that the god is identical with the one on the seal of Śivarakṣita, where the very name ‘one protected by Śiva’ shows that the god is Śiva. Thus, this is an undoubted representation of Śiva on a coin of Maues, and we can now say that Śiva makes his appearance on some coins of alien rulers of India much earlier than on those of Gondophares (Pl. IX, fig. 18). Attention may be drawn in this connection to the obverse of Maues' coin (No. 13 in Cunningham's *Coins of the Indo-Scythians and Kushans*, p. 30, Pl. II, Fig. 13) which has been described by Cunningham as 'Male figure to front, with elephant goad over 1. shoulder'; elephant goad as an attribute of Śiva appears on the coins of Kanishka and Huvishka, and it is probable that this figure here also represents Śiva. Those figures on Maues' coins which carry only a trident in their hands and sometimes trample on a dwarfish figure are to be identified as Poseidon; he appears thus on certain coins of Antimachus Theos. But the composition reminds us of the Indian one in which Śiva tramples on Apasmāra-Puruṣa. The bronze seal No. 12, unearthed at Sirkap, Taxila, is described by Marshall in *A.S.I.A.R.*, 1914-15, p. 35, Pl. XXIV, 50, as Herakles trampling down a bull-shaped dragon; the Kharoṣṭhī legend in it was tentatively read by him as *Tiḍusa Vibhumitrasa(?)*. Konow definitely reads it as *Baḍusa Viśpamitrasa* and translates it as 'Of the young Brahman Viśvāmitra' (*C.I.I.*, Vol. II, p. 102). This figure most probably represents Śiva as Viśvāmitra, the name of the person in this seal being after the name of the god reproduced. The bull below the left leg of the principal figure is significant. The epithet *baḍu* and the name Viśpamitra (Viśvāmitra) of the owner of the seal are significant. The name is one of the various appellations of Śiva (*cf.* the name of the god on some silver coins of Dharaghosha, the Audumbara Chief noted above), and one of his aspects is described as Vaṭuka Bhairava (Pl. XI, fig. 4).

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The most noteworthy representations of Śiva, however, especially from the iconographic point of view, are those that appear on the Kushan money, the coins of Wema Kadphises, Kanishka, Huvishka and Vāsudeva. It is not merely the feature of the multiplication of Śiva's hands and heads that is interesting, but the varying nature of the attributes placed in the hands of Śiva is also of great iconographic interest. In the earliest of the Śiva figures in this series, *viz.*, those on the coins of Wema Kadphises, the god is invariably two-armed, the right hand, almost without exception, holds a trident or a trident-battle-axe, while the left one hanging downwards carries a water-vessel, with the skin upper-garment slung round the forearm; the last feature strongly reminds us of a similar feature in the figure of Viśvāmitra on Dharaghoṣa's silver coins noticed above, and of the device of standing Herakles appearing on the coins of some Indo-Greek rulers like Demetrius (cf. also the figure of Herakles on some coins of Huvishka (Pl. I, fig. 18). The treatment of the jaṭā differs in individual specimens, two modes being discernible, one where the matted locks are gathered together ending in a knob just on the centre of the head, while in the other mode, beneath it is shown a convex-shaped object which may be the hair treated in a fashion similar to that on the head of Śiva in the Chatreśvara coin of the Kuniṇḍas. On one copper coin of Wema Kadphises, again, reproduced in Cunningham's Coins of the Indo-Scythians and Kushans (Plate XV, Fig. 11), the deity seems to be polycephalous; Cunningham has, however, described the figure simply as Śiva. In the coins of Kanishka and Huvishka the iconography of Śiva acquires a new orientation, and both the two-armed and the four-armed figures are found with a variety of attributes reminiscent of the varied iconography of later days. Śiva here almost invariably appears without his mount, and when he is two-armed, he carries a trident in the right hand and a gourd in the left (Whitehead suggests the possibility of the latter being a human head, but that is unlikely). On some copper coins of Kanishka in the Indian Museum, Śiva grasps a spear or a staff with right hand while his left hand rests on a club. On several types of gold and copper coins of Kanishka the god is four-armed and is shown wearing a garland or necklace, but different sets of attributes appear on different specimens; on one set of Kanishka's and Huvishka's coins Śiva holds in the upper right hand vajra (small hand-drum according to Cunningham and Whitehead; but the object closely resembles the thunderbolt which is held by Vajrapāṇi, the constant attendant of Buddha in Gandhāra art), in lower right, a water-vessel with mouth downwards (an unusual way of holding it), in upper left hand a trident and in lower left an antelope (Pl. IX, fig. 15). On some specimens of this series we find elephant-goad along with the water-vessel in the lower right hand; this mode of crowding two attributes in one hand is uncommon in the representations of the Indian deities. Again, four-armed Śiva on some copper coins of Kanishka holds noose in lower right hand, while the lower left is sometimes empty, but at other times resting on hip or hanging down, it holds a water-vessel, the other attributes being similar to the above. Some gold coins of Huvishka show three-faced and four-armed Śiva, holding water-vessel, thunderbolt, trident and club respectively in the four hands from the lower right upwards (Pl. IX, fig. 16); on other gold coins of the same king Śiva appears as one-faced with more or less the same attributes, an antelope being placed in the lower left hand; but such is the imperfect state of preservation of many of his copper coins, that the attributes held by the hands of Śiva are seldom fully discernible.

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Huvishka's gold coin described by Gardner in p. 148 of his book (Pl. XXVIII, 16) has a type of Śiva figure on the reverse, which is of outstanding interest from iconographic as well as cult point of view. His description is as follows, ‘Śiva facing, three headed, nimbate; clad only in waist band, ithyphallic; has four arms and hands, in which are goat, wheel, trident, and thunderbolt’ (Pl. IX, fig. 17). Triśūla, vajra and cakra are recognisable in the front left, back left and back right hands respectively; the goat or antelope in the front right is not so very distinct. There are undoubtedly three-heads encircled by a halo (this is sometimes absent round the heads of different deities); whether the faces are all human is not quite clear. The cakra in one of the hands and the ūrdhvalinga, the latter so common in sculptural representations of Śiva from the late Kushan period onwards appearing here for the first time (no other early coin representations of Śiva in his human form bears it), are noteworthy characteristics. The device seems to show the beginning of the interesting composite icon of Hari-Hara of subsequent days; it may also be of the same nature as that of the Gandhāra sculpture of Trimūrti.¹ But the suggestion that it stands for a composite icon, which is also the nature of the Gandhāra Trimūrti, is fully borne out by the evidence of a unique nicolo seal noticed by Cunningham long ago. Cunningham, however, could not understand its character, and his description of it was not accurate. He described the device in this manner :—‘a Kushan chief (identified by him as Huvishka on account of the similarity of his headdress and garment with those of the Kushan King) standing in a respectful pose with folded hands before the four-armed god Viṣṇu; the god carries in his four hands a wheel (shown exactly like a cart-wheel), a mace, a ring-like object and a globular thing; there is an inscription in illegible characters by the side of the god.’ Cunningham identified the four-armed figure as Viṣṇu on account of the emblems of *cakra* and *gadā*. The inscription which could not be read by him has, however, been deciphered by R. Ghirsman. According to the latter it is written in Tocharian script (an adaptation of Greek of a very cursive character), and it contains in the Tocharian language the names of Mihira (the Iranian form of the Sun god), Viṣṇu, and Śiva. He also differed from Cunningham regarding the identity of the foreign devotee who, in his opinion, stands for some unknown Hephtalite Huṇa chief. The dress and features of the worshipping figure led him to suggest it, and the seal device would thus be two or three centuries later than the time of Huvishka. But the seal device is of unique interest from the cult point of view, for it seems to emphasise a further development in the process of cult amalgam, which probably began in the time of Huvishka. It may be observed incidentally that it was these Kushan rulers (Kanishka and Huvishka specially) who showed a great deal of eclecticism in their religious views, and it is in the fitness of things that we find during their period the beginning of the process of cult amalgam. The iconography of the composite figure of the god is also very interesting, for in the emblems held by the god those of Viṣṇu and Śiva can be clearly recognised; the wheel is the emblem *par excellence* of the former, and the mace is curiously reminiscent of the club held by Śiva in the seal of Śivarakṣita already mentioned. In the two other indistinct objects held by this composite figure may be found the distinctive emblem of the Iranian Mihira (Indian Sūrya; Pl. XI, fig. 2). Such a composite cult icon would also remind us of similar figures of a much later date, one of the most representative of which is the Dula Deo (Khajuraho) temple icon of Brahmā-Viṣṇu-Śiva-Sūrya.¹

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¹ A.S.I.A.R., 1913-14, pp. 276 ff., pl. LXXIIa. Natesa Aiyar describes the Gandhāra relief as a three-headed and six-armed Trimūrti, the head to the proper right being that of Viṣṇu and the one to the proper left being that of Brahmā; the central head is that of Śiva recumbent on his bull. But from the plate, the animal mount appears to be an elephant; the composite character of the image is emphasised by such features as *cakra* (of Viṣṇu), *vajra* and the third eye (both of Śiva and Indra) and the elephant mount (of Indra).

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¹ For Cunningham's views about the nicolo seal device, refer to *Numismatic Chronicle*, 1893, pp. 126-7, Pl. X, Fig. 2; for Ghirsman's views, *cf.* *Les Chionites Hephtalites* by R. Ghirsman, pp. 55-8, Fig. 65 and Pl. VII, 1.

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One unique copper coin of Huvishka in the collection of the Indian Museum has the figure of ‘an archer standing right, holding a bow as long as himself, with string inwards; legend right in peculiar characters, which look like old Brāhmī for *Gaṇeśa*’—Smith (Pl. X, fig. 8). Only one other specimen of such a coin was known when Smith published his *Catalogue*, and these two coins are of outstanding interest from both the numismatic and the iconographic point of view. These are the two exceptional pieces where Brāhmī script is used to describe the deity in the imperial Kushan series, and the device here has nothing to do with the elephant-headed and pot-bellied deity bearing that name. Here Śiva is most presumably indicated by the word which is also mentioned in the sixth canto of the *Rāmāyaṇa* as one of the attributive epithets of Śiva (*Gaṇeśo lokaśambhuśca lokapālo mahābhujaḥ | Mahābhāgo mahāśūlī mahādaṃṣṭrī maheśvaraḥ*). If the identification of this device is accepted, then we have here a unique representation of Śiva of early times where a bow is his principal attribute (*cf.* the Ṛgvedic description of Rudra already noted in the second chapter—Arhan vibharṣi sāyakāni dhanvārhan niṣkam, etc.).

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Our survey of the iconographic types of Śiva represented on Huvishka’s coins will be incomplete, if we fail to take note of the unique quarter stater of the same ruler, in the collection of the Punjab Museum, which has two figures, one male and the other female, standing facing each other, with a Kushan monogram between them, the former being described as Oeso (Bhaveśa) and the latter as Nana. Now there can be very little doubt that here Nana is identified by the die-cutter with Umā, the consort of Śiva, whose figure also is to be found on a unique coin of the same Kushan ruler, where the goddess was correctly described as OMMO (Umā) by the die-cutter; this coin was noticed by E. J. Rapson in J.R.A.S., 1897, p. 324. Cunningham had two gold coins in his collection, one a stater and the other a quarter stater, which were later acquired by the British Museum. The latter is similar to the one in the Punjab Museum (P. M. C., Vol. I, p. 197, Pl. XVIII, fig. 135) just described, but the former is the same in which Rapson recognised the figure of Umā. Cunningham wrongly described both the pieces in the same manner; Śiva is no doubt identical in both, but on the stater piece the goddess holds a different object in her right hand (in the other, Nana holds her peculiar sceptre tipped with a horse’s head) and the inscription by her side can be clearly read as OMMO (Umā).

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Rapson remarked: ‘not only is the inscription quite distinct, but the symbol which the female deity holds in her hand, it may perhaps be a flower, is quite different from the well-known symbol of Nanaia; and we may, therefore, unhesitatingly add Umā to the list of Indian deities represented on Kushan coins’ (J.R.A.S., 1897, p. 324). Rapson was fully correct in the above remark and we can produce fresh evidence in its support. The reverse of a stater piece of Huvishka reproduced in Pl. XVIII (No. 136) of the Punjab Museum Catalogue, Vol. I (p. 197) is described by Whitehead as ‘Figure of goddess with the cornucopia as on No. 130, with name to 1, which is quite blundered and illegible.’ But if the legend is compared with the other where Rapson reads OMMO (the coin is reproduced by Cunningham in Numismatic Chronicle, (Ser. III, Vol. XII, Pl. XIII) and Coins of the Indo-Scythians and Kushans (Pl. XXIII, fig. 1), it can be read in the same manner. It begins from top left corner and runs sideways; the first two letters are quite clear, but the third letter (the second M) shows two short additional strokes attached to it, and the last letter, an O, due to exigencies of space runs into the top corner of the second M. The whole legend reads OMMO (Pl. XI, fig. 7). The goddess Umā here holds a cornucopia like Demeter, Tyche and Ardochso; but in the coins of Huvishka, we find some such transpositions.

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Ambikā (Umā) holding cornucopia after the Ardochso figures on late Kushan coins can be seen also on the Chandragupta-Kumāradevī coins in the Imperial Gupta series.

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We do not get so many varieties of Śiva figures on the gold and copper coins of the last great Kushan emperor Vāsudeva, where the god accompanied by his mount, is usually depicted as two-armed and having one face or three faces. A unique gold coin described by Cunningham bears Śiva with three heads and four arms, standing to front; water vessel, noose, trident and tiger-skin are placed in the four hands from the lower right onwards; his mount has got a bell attached to its neck (C.I.K., Pt. III, p. 74, Pl. XXIV, fig. 9). When he is depicted two-armed, he almost invariably holds a noose (pāśa) in the right hand and a trident in the left. As regards the treatment of the head, one curious feature of these coins is worth noticing; sometimes the residue of the hair after being used to form a top-knot on the centre of the head, descending down the sides of the face, is treated in such a manner as to give a spurious appearance of the deity being three-headed. But on the other specimens, the additional faces, one on either side of the central face, can undoubtedly be recognised. On the basis of the noose in the hand of Śiva on some Kushan coins, Cunningham describes ‘Śiva as Yama’; but the association of Śiva or Rudra-Śiva with noose is also comparatively old, and in the later developed theological doctrines of the Śaiva system, pāśa (fetters) is very intimately connected with the god. He is the binder of the individual souls, as he is also the loosener of them. Thus, the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad, where Rudra-Śiva is the god extolled, says—*Tat kāraṇaṃ sāṅkhyayogādhigamyaṃ jñātvā devaṃ mucyate sarvapāśaiḥ* (VI. 13); the Atharvaśiras Upaniṣad, which is a sectarian Upaniṣad extolling the glories of Śiva, describes in detail a rite called the Pāśupata, known also as *Paśupāśavimokṣaṇa*. The god Śiva, as he appears one-headed and two-armed on the coins of Vāsudeva, served as the prototype of the devices of some of the later Kushan coins and those of the Kushano-Sassanian rulers and of many Hindu princes of India, like the kings of Kashmir.¹

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¹ The description of many of the coin-types selected above are based on a close observation of specimens in the collections of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, and the Punjab Museum, Lahore. The reader is referred to the relevant sections of the catalogues of the respective museums. Some descriptions are also based on Cunningham's plates appearing in his *Coins of the Indo-Scythians and Kushans* (Pl. XV, 11, Pl. XXIV, 6, 7, 8, 9).

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It is curious that though we get some inscriptions referring to the Bhāgavata shrines of the pre-Christian and early post-Christian period, as previously noted, very few representations of the cult god Vāsudeva-Viṣṇu are found on the coins of the same period. On the other hand, though the numismatic portrayal of the other cult deity Śiva is so very elaborate, very few epigraphic reference to Śaiva shrines of the contemporaneous periods are forthcoming; still, there can be no doubt that there were such shrines as fully proved by some of the Audumbara coins noted above. One can refer here in *passim* to the Kharoṣṭhī inscription of the 1st century A.D. discovered at Panjtar below the Mahaban range, where a Śaiva shrine is most probably mentioned; the inscription bears the date 122. If Cunningham's eyecopy of it is accurate, there can be no question about the correctness of Konow's reading of a part of the 2nd line as *moike urumujaputre karavide śivathale*, which has been translated by him as ‘was made an auspicious ground by Moika, the Urumuja scion.’ In the introductory section to his edition of this inscription, he remarks, “What a śivathala is, I cannot say. The word may mean ‘a Śiva sanctuary’ or simply ‘an auspicious ground,’ and the latter meaning is probably the more likely one.” But the alternative meaning, which he has himself suggested but discarded, seems to me to be more acceptable. The words sthala and sthāna are very frequently used in epic literature (cf.

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the word Brahmasthāna in the passage, Tato gaccheta rājendra Brahmasthānamanuttamam, Mahābhārata III, 84, 103) and the inscriptions (cf. the word mahāsthāna in the Mathura inscription discussed before) in the sense of ‘a sanctuary,’ ‘a shrine.’ The evidence of contemporary coins, as we have seen above, as well as the observations of foreign writers like Hesychius and Stobaeus fully prove that Śiva was the great object of worship among the people of north-western India. Śiva in his animal (bull) form was known to the Greeks as the god of Gandhāra; Hesychius writes, ‘Gandaros o Taurokrates par Indois.’ Now as regards Vāsudeva-Viṣṇu, we could expect to find his figures on the coins which were discovered from Besnagar and Mathura, because both these localities, as we have shown, contained shrines of the god. But on the earliest monetary issues of Besnagar we do not find any such figure which can be described to represent him; the die-struck coins issued by the early Hindu kings and the Śaka satraps of Mathura bear a standing figure with right hand upraised and left hand on hip which was described as Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa by some numismatists due to the close association of this place with the Kṛṣṇa tradition. But now this view has rightly been rejected, and Śrī-Lakṣmī has been recognised in the particular device. On one interesting coin, however, in the so-called Pañcāla Mitra series, we find the figure of Vāsudeva-Viṣṇu.

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