The Coinage of the Gupta Empire and its Imitations c11.s7.26

c11.s7.26

While conceding the possibility,--as I have already done above,--of some petty Scythian ruler of the Punjab having issued coins in the name of his feudal lord, Chandragupta II, I cannot exclude the chance of Smith and Rodgers having mistaken a coin of Bhadra for that of Chandragupta. I am reproducing a coin of this type (Pl. I. 5). Under the arm of the king, the legend is Bhadra. But the top line of dra joins together the two lower limbs of bha and the letter can easily be mistaken for Cha. Instead of Bhadra, one can therefore easily mistake the legend for Cha(m)dra. On the coin illuatrated, outside the standard, there is an enigmatic Brāhmī legend, which has been read as Shilada by Cunningham. But la and da are so joined together on the present coin that the lower letter does look like a pta, as Smith had thought. The upper letter does look like a sha and ka joined together, and if the coin of Rodgers had not the lower letter fully preserved, as is evident from Smith saying that only a trace of p could be seen, it is quite easy to understand how Rodgers took the legend to be Shāka. On the whole I am inclined to think that the unpublished coin of Rodgers was most probably a coin of Bhadra, similar to but not so well preserved as the coin illustrated by us (Pl. 1.5).