Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c6.3

c6.3

If numismatics is thus a source of history, as important as epigraphy itself, can it be shown, it may be asked, to shed light on the different aspects of the ancient Indian history? Let us take the Political History first. It is hardly necessary for me to dwell on this point, because many of you are already aware how much beholden Political History is to this science. In a book of the ancient history of India, how often we read about the Indo-Bactrian Greek, Indo-Scythian, Indo-Parthian and Kushana kings, whose might overshadowed the north of India from about 250 B.C. to about 300 A.D. and who were either ruling conterminously or supplanting each other in succession? What would have been our knowledge of the Indo-Bactrian Greek princes, if we had not had their coins to help us? Of course, some Greek historians like Justin and Strabo have preserved an account of some of them, but this account is of four or five princes only and ranges scarcely over half a century. On the other hand, a study of their coins reveals to us no less than thirty-seven such Greek princes,¹ whose sway extends over two centuries and a half. The condition of their contemporaneous barbarian potentates, *viz.*, the Indo-Scythians,² was even worse. Who would have heard at all of Vonones, Spalirises, Spalahores, Spalagadames, Azes I, Azilises and Azes II, if their coins had not been found? Certainly no historian or traveller, Indian or foreign, has preserved any reminiscences of them. Again, it is their coins which not only give us their names but also enable us to fix their order of succession.³ The Indo-Parthians, who overthrew the Indo-Scythians, do not seem to have fared better. Of course, there is an epigraphic record of Gondophares, the founder of the Indo-Parthian dynasty, and there is also a reference to him, perhaps of a nebulous character, preserved in the Syriac version of the Legend of the Christian Apostle, Saint Thomas. But what about his successors, Abdgases, Orthagnes, Pakores and so forth? If coins of these latter had not been recovered, should we have ever known anything about them? It is true that in regard to the Kushanas we are luckily in possession of a fairly large number of inscriptions of Kanishka, Huvishka and Vāsudeva. But what about their immediate predecessors, Kujula Kadphises and Wema Kadphises, who were the first to establish and propagate Kushana supremacy? Are we not indebted for our knowledge of these rulers to the study of their coinage? Perhaps the most important service done by numismatics to political history is in connection with the Western Kshatrapas who ruled over Kāthiāwār and Mālwā. The founder of this dynasty was Chashtana, who has been identified with Tiastenes of Ozene (Ujjain), mentioned by Ptolemy, and has been assigned to circa 130 A.D. Here too, as in the case of the Indo-Bactrian Greek princes, many names of the Kshatrapa rulers have been revealed by their coins, which, again, as they give the name and title not only of the ruler but also of his father, and, what is most important, specify dates, enable us to arrange them in their order of succession and to determine sometimes even the exact year in which one Kshatrapa ruler was succeeded by another.¹ Nay, a careful study of their coins enables us even to find out where and on what three occasions there was a break in the direct line from Chashtana.