Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c6.61.3

c6.61.3

The Greeks were notorious for identifying foreign deities with their own so long as there were any characteristics in common. For do we not know that Megasthenes, *e.g.*, calls Kṛiṣhṇa or rather Balarāma of Mathurā, Herakles, and Śiva of the hills, Dionysos? Nay, that some of the deities occurring on the coins of the Indo-Bactrian Greek princes may not be Hellenic, though they are invested with Hellenic attributes, was suspected long ago by Percy Gardner. "On coins of Demetrius," says this eminent numismatist, "Artemis is sometimes radiate, on coins of Agathocles Zeus bears in his hand the three-headed Hekate, Herakles crowns himself with a wreath, Pallas appears in short skirts, and many other such strange forms of Greek deities appear. To search out the reasons of these variations of type, reasons to be found probably in many instances in the influence of local Indian or Persian legend or belief, would be a very attractive task, and not hopeless, considering the data furnished us by the legends of the gold Indo-Scythic coins. The earliest of the clearly Indian types to make its appearance is a dancing-girl, wearing long hanging ear-rings and oriental trousers, on the money of Pantaleon and Agathocles. As we come to a later period, non-Hellenic types, or types in which there is a non-Hellenic element, gradually make their way on the coins. On coins of Philoxenus and Telephus we find a radiate figure of a sun-god, holding a long sceptre.