Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c6.39

c6.39

As regards the adoption of Hindu names, there is but one instance among the foreign princes so far noted, *viz.*, Vāsudeva, successor of Huvishka. But if you turn to the Kshatrapa dynasty which held Surāshṭra and Mālwa, you will find that except two all the twenty-seven names of these rulers supplied to us by their coins are distinctly Hindu. The founder of this family was, of course, Chashtana, and his father’s name was Ysāmotika. Both these names are Scythic and therefore foreign. But immediately after Chashtana we begin to get a string of Hindu names, such as Jayadāman, Rudradāman and so forth, and as if to remind us that these Hindu names were borne by princes of alien extraction, we find immediately after Rudradāman the name Dāmaysada, about whose foreign origin no doubt can arise.