Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c6.61.1

c6.61.1

And you may naturally ask: What new contribution these coins can possibly make to the knowledge of Hellenic pantheon which we already possess from more direct and exhaustive sources? Let us, however, see whether it is possible to approach the study of these coins from a new angle of vision. If Sophytes was a Greek of the time of Alexander and yet he adopted a Hindu name, is it not possible to say that some of the Indo-Bactrian kings must have embraced Hindu religion? Or if you want to leave Sophytes out of account, do we not know that during the regime of Antialkidas when the Indo-Bactrian rule was in the heyday of its glory, his very ambassador Heliodorus, a Greek, had become a Bhāgavata, a devotee of Vāsudeva? How is it then possible to think that none of the Indo-Bactrian kings was a Hindu? Is it not therefore possible to study their coins more closely and from this view-point? In this connection, allow me to invite your attention to the square bronze coins of Eucratides.