The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c30.s1: Key to Plate V
The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c30.s1
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Key to Plate V
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1. Æ. **Eran:** Dharmapāla. *Obv.* *Rañō Dhamapālasa* in ancient Brāhmī² characters written from right to left.
2. Æ. **Kauçāmbī:** Bahasatimitra. *Obv.* Humped bull to r. facing *chaitya*; above, symbol. *Rev.* *Bahasatimitrasa*. Tree within railing; on either side, symbols.
3. Æ. **Pañchāla:** Agnimitra. *Obv.* Agni, with head of flames, standing between posts on railing. *Rev.* in incuse, *Agimitasa*; above, three symbols.
4. Æ. id.: Indramitra. *Obv.* Indra seated on railing. *Rev.* in incuse, *Idamitasa*; above, three symbols.
5. Æ. **Mathurā:** Gomitra. *Rev.* *Gomitasa*. Standing figure; on either side, symbols.
6. Æ. id.: Brahmamitra. *Rev.* *Brahmamitasa*. Standing figure, with r. arm raised; on either side, symbols.
7. Æ. id.: Hagāmasha. *Obv.* Horse to l. *Rev.* *Khatapasa Hagāmashasa*. Standing figure, with r. arm raised; on either side, symbols.
8. Æ. id.: Hagāna and Hagāmasha. *Obv.* Horse to l. *Rev.* *Khatapāna Hagānasa Hagāmashasa*; to r., thunderbolt.
9. Æ. id.: Rañjubula. *Obv.* The abhisheka of Lakshmī. *Rev.* *Mahākhatapasa Rājuvulasa*. Standing figure; on either side, symbol.
10. Æ. id.: Çoḍāsa. *Obv.* Indistinct, probably as on no. 9. *Rev.* *Mahākhatapasa putasa Khatapasa Çoḍāsasa*. Type as on no. 9.
11. Æ. **Ayodhyā:** Āryamitra. *Obv.* Peacock to r. facing tree. *Rev.* in incuse, *Ayyamitasa*. Humped bull to l. facing post.
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² All the coin-legends in this Plate are in Brāhmī, except when ‘Kharoshṭhī’ is specially indicated.
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12. Æ. id.: Mūladeva. *Obv.* *Mūladevasa*. Elephant to l. facing symbol. *Rev.* Wreath; above, symbol; below, snake.
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13. Æ. **Rājanya Janapada.** *Obv.* Humped bull to l. *Rev.* *Rājanya-janapadasa*. Standing figure.
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14. AR. **Udumbara**: Dharāghosha. *Obv.* *Mahadevasa raño Dharaghashasa* | *Odumbarisa*; r., tree within railing; l., trident battle-axe. *Rev.* Similar legend in Kharoshṭhī characters. Viçvāmitra standing, with r. hand raised; across field, *Viçpa—mitra* in Kharoshṭhī characters.
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15. AR. **Çaka**: Azilises. *Rev.* (Kh.) *Maharajasa rajatirajasa mahatasa* | *Ayilishasa*. One of the Dioscuri standing.
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16. AR. **Kuṇinda**: Amoghabhūti. *Obv.* *Raño Kuṇiṃdasa Amoghabhūtisa Mahārājasa*. Deer to r. facing female figure; above, symbol; below, *chaitya*. *Rev.* Similar legend in Kharoshṭhī characters. *Chaitya* surmounted by *nandipada*; r., tree within railing; l., *svastika* and another symbol.
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17. AR. **Almora**: Çivadatta. *Obv.* Railing with symbols between the posts. *Rev.* *Sivadātasa*. Type uncertain (symbol or letter ?); in margin, deer and tree within railing.
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18. Æ. **Ujjayinī.** *Obv.* Elephant to r. *Rev.* *Ujeni*[ye]; above, a hand.
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19. Æ. id. *Obv.* Three-headed standing figure. *Rev.* The symbol usually found on coins of Ujjayinī.
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THE disintegration of the Maurya empire was followed by foreign invasions. Now that the unifying power was removed, the frontiers could no longer be held securely; and the history of N.W. India becomes for many centuries the record of successive conquerors who came along the routes which led from Bactria (N. Afghānistān) over the Hindu Kush into the Kābul valley or from Ariāna (Seistān and Kandahār) over the Brāhūi Mountains into Sind.
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The first three of the series, who belong to the period before the Christian era, are known in Indian literature and inscriptions as Yavanas or Yonas (Greeks), Çakas or Sakas (Scythians), and Pahlavas (Parthians). Like other invaders they are regarded by the Sanskrit law-books and epics as degenerate Kshatriyas who had lost caste through their neglect of the religious and social code, and they are supposed to be of Indian origin, the descendants of Turvasu; but their names alone are sufficient to prove that they were foreigners, and that they came into India from Bactria or from Irān.
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The Yavanas are the Iaunā of the Old Persian inscriptions of Darius, which show that the Persians applied to all Greeks without distinction the name of the Ionians of Asia Minor who were conquered by Cyrus in 545 B.C. Greek soldiers and officials formed no unimportant element in the administration of the empire of the Achaemenids; and it is not surprising therefore to find that the Greeks were known in India at a time when a large portion of the North-West was still under Persian rule. The occurrence of the word Yavana in a grammatical rule of Pāṇini (IV, 1, 49) is a certain indication that it had been adopted into Sanskrit before the middle of the fourth century B.C. Its Prākrit equivalent, Yona, is used in the inscriptions of Açoka to describe the Hellenic sovereigns of Egypt, Cyrene, Macedonia, Epirus, and Syria; and there can be little doubt that, in all Indian documents earlier than the third century A.D., the term denotes a person of Greek descent, in spite of the fact that, like other foreign settlers in India, many of the Yavanas had become Hinduised and had adopted Indian names. At a later date, foreigners generally are classed as Yavanas.
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On three occasions have Yavana conquerors occupied the Kābul valley, the North-Western Frontier Province, and large portions of the Punjab. The earliest of these episodes, the Indian expedition of Alexander the Great, has for more than twenty-two centuries been celebrated in the Western world as one of the most amazing feats of arms in the whole of history. Of its progress detailed accounts have been preserved by Greek and Latin authors whose information was derived from the writings of officers who themselves took part in the events which they describe; and in all these accounts Alexander himself is the great central figure. No personage of the ancient world is better known; but of this great conqueror the records of India have preserved no certain trace: he had failed to reach the Midland Country, to which the literature of the period is almost exclusively confined.
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On the second occasion, Bactrian princes of the house of Euthydemus, whose conquests began c. 200 B.C., succeeded in rivalling and in surpassing the exploits of Alexander; and on the third occasion, Eucratides, who had supplanted the family of Euthydemus in Bactria, deprived it of its possessions in the Kābul valley and of a portion of its territory in N.W. India, before 162 B.C. (p. 457).
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No connected account of these two rival Yavana houses has been preserved; and practically nothing is known about the personal character or achievements of the leaders who directed the affairs of a period which must have been full of stirring events. A few isolated references in literature, Greek, Roman, and Indian, a single Indian inscription, and the coin-legends of about thirty Greek kings and two Greek queens supply the evidence which enables us to retrace very imperfectly a few outlines in the history of the successors of Alexander the Great in India during the second and first centuries B.C.
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For about a century after the treaty of peace between Seleucus and Chandragupta, c. 305 B.C., and half a century after the foundation of the Hellenic kingdom of Bactria, c. 250 B.C., the southern limit of the Yavana dominions was marked by the Hindu Kush. This broad band of mountainous country, which separates the great river systems of the Oxus and the Indus, was thus also the political boundary between Bactria and Paropanisadae (the Kābul valley and the country north of the Kābul river now known as Laghmān, Kohistān, and Kāfiristān). The mountain barrier, although a formidable natural obstacle, has never effectually prevented intercourse between the two fertile regions which it divides. In all ages it has been traversed by migrating tribes, by military expeditions, or by peaceful traders and pilgrims. It was crossed by Alexander, from the Paropanisadae to Bactria, in fifteen days, and recrossed in eleven days¹. The routes which led from Bactria over its passes converged at a point near the present Chārīkār where Alexander had founded the city of Alexandria-under-the-Caucasus; and, so long as this strategical position could be held, invasion was impossible. But already in 206 b.c. the expedition of Antiochus the Great had shown that the way was now open; and the object lesson was not lost. Within a few years, the Bactrian king Euthydemus and the princes of his house began their triumphal career, the first stage of which was marked by the occupation of the Kābul valley.
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¹ M‘Crindle, *The Invasion of Ind. by Alex. the Great* (ed. 1896), p. 39; cf. Holdich, *Gates of India*, pp. 87–8. (2) *Itinerarium Alex. Mag.*, 104, trans. M‘Crindle, *Ancient India*, p. 150.
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From Kābul ancient routes led, on the one hand, into the provinces of Ariāna—Aria (Herāt) on the west, and Arachosia (Kandahār) on the south-west—and, on the other hand, into India through Gandhāra (Peshāwar and Rāwalpindi) on the south-east. It is probable that the Yavana power expanded in all three directions; but it was in the second and third of these—to Arachosia and to India—that its progress was most marked. In these directions it must no doubt have followed the routes once trodden by the armies of Alexander the Great. The full extent of the Yavana conquests is described by Strabo (xi, 516) who quotes Apollodorus of Artemita, the author of a history of Parthia which has been lost:
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The Greeks who occasioned its (Bactria's) revolt became so powerful by means of its fertility and advantages of the country that they became masters of Ariāna and India, according to Apollodorus of Artemita. Their chiefs, particularly Menander (if he really crossed the Hypanis to the east and reached Isamus), conquered more nations than Alexander. These conquests were achieved partly by Menander, partly by Demetrius, son of Euthydemus, king of the Bactrians. They got possession not only of Patalene but of the kingdom of Saraostos, and Sigerdis, which constitute the remainder of the coast....They extended their empire even as far as the Seres and Phryni. (Trans. M‘Crindle, *Ancient India*, pp. 100–1.)
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This passage is not without its difficulties; but the general purport is clear. The conquests of the Bactrian kings are said to have been carried to the south over the Hindu Kush into S. Afghānistān, the North-Western Frontier Province, the Punjab, Sind, and Kāthiāwār, and to the east over the Pāmīrs into Chinese Turkestān. Unfortunately the Indian limits of this extension are somewhat doubtful. The Hypanis must certainly be intended for the Hyphasis (Beās), the eastern limit of Alexander's march; and the Isamus must probably be intended for the Jumna. Patalene, the country of Patala, is the Indus delta. If the reading Saraostos, which has been restored from the MSS., be correct, it must undoubtedly represent Surāshṭra (Kāthiāwār). The identification of Sigerdis is uncertain.
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The Indian conquests, attributed by Apollodorus to Demetrius and Menander, were ascribed by Trogus Pompeius (Justin, *Prologue* to Book XLI) to Apollodotus and Menander. It seems probable that Apollodotus and Menander, as well as Demetrius, belonged to the house of Euthydemus, and that all these three princes were contemporary.
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Some of the principal stages in the routes which the conquering armies must have followed, together with the distances between the stages, are known from ancient authorities who derived their information from the campaigns of Alexander and Seleucus. The most complete record has been preserved by Pliny (VI, 17 (21)). Many of his measurements are no doubt correct, when due allowance is made for the necessary detours in marches; but, as others are evidently less exact, it will be more convenient to summarise here such information as is supplied by the *Imperial Gazetteer*, and to estimate other distances approximately by straight lines drawn on the map (Railway and Canal Map of India, 1910).
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From Chārikār (Alexandria-under-the-Caucasus) to Kābul (Ortospanum) 40 miles. ” Kābul (1) S.W. to Kandahār (Alexandria-among-the-Arachosians) 313 miles. ” ” (2) S. to Indus delta, in a straight line 725 ” ” ” ” to S. Kāthiāwār ” ” 1000 ” ” ” (3) E. to Jalālābād (Nagara) 101 ” ” Jalālābād E. to Peshāwār (Purushapura) 79 ” (Stages on the ‘royal road’ which ran from Chārsadda, 16 miles N.E. of Peshāwār, to Patna, measured in a series of straight lines.) ” Chārsadda (Pushkalāvatī) E. to Shāhdheri (Takshaçilā) 80 ” ” Shāhdheri S.E. to Jhelum (Nicaea) 70 ” ” Jhelum S.E. to Siālkot (Çākala) 55 ” ” Siālkot S.E. to the Beās (Hyphasis) 65 ” ” the Beās S.E. to the Sutlej (Hesydrus) at Rūpar 85 ” ” the Sutlej S. to the Jumna (Yamunā) at Karnāl (old bed) 100 ”
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The second great Yavana invasion had thus passed beyond the bounds of Alexander's Indian realm in two directions—beyond the Beās eastwards, and beyond the Indus delta southwards. But it is doubtful if the successors of Demetrius, Apollodotus, and Menander exercised any permanent sway over the very wide expanse of territory indicated in Strabo's *Geography*. It is more likely that most of the princes whose coins we possess ruled over various kingdoms in the northern region of this area, that is to say, in the Kābul valley, in the North-Western Frontier Province, and in the northern districts of the Punjab. It is certain however that the military expeditions of the Yavanas were by no means confined within these limits. One such incursion which broke through the Delhi passage and penetrated the Midland Country as far as Pāṭaliputra (Patna) is described in the Yuga Purāṇa, one of the chapters of the Gārgī Saṃhitā.
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As in all Purāṇic literature, we find here a record of past events in the conventional form of prophecy; and, however late the work may be in its present form, there is no reason to doubt that, like the Purāṇas generally, it embodies a more ancient tradition. From the passage in question we gather that 'the viciously valiant Greeks,' after reducing Sāketa (in Oudh), the Pañchāla country (in the doāb between the Jumna and Ganges), and Mathurā (Muttra), reached Pushpapura (Pāṭaliputra); but that they did not remain in the Midland Country because of a dreadful war among themselves which broke out in their own country¹—an evident allusion to the internecine struggle between the houses of Euthydemus and Eucratides.
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¹ Kern, *Bṛhat Saṃhitā*, p. 37.
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This account is to some extent supported and supplemented by two examples given by the grammarian Patañjali (a contemporary of the Çuṅga king, Pushyamitra) in illustration of the use of the imperfect tense to denote an event which has recently happened—'The Yavana was besieging Sāketa: the Yavana was besieging Madhyamikā' (Nagarī, near Chitor in Rājputāna)². Such incursions brought the Yavanas into collision with the Çuṅgas who were now the predominant power in the Midland Country; and Kālidāsa's drama, the *Mālavikāgnimitra* (Act v) preserves the memory of a conflict on the banks of the river Sindhu (*v. sup.* p. 520), in which a Yavana force was defeated in the reign of Pushyamitra by the king's grandson Vasumitra.
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² Kielhorn, *Ind. Ant.* VII, p. 266.
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It is clear that such warlike inroads were followed by no permanent occupation of the Midland Country, and that the period of military conquest, in which they are ineffective episodes, belongs to the earlier part of the second century B.C., when the Yavāna power was as yet undivided by internecine strife. But the struggle of Greek with Greek was not long delayed. The conflict between the rival houses in Bactria was decided in favour of Eucratides; and the third Yavāna invasion under his leadership deprived the princes of the house of Euthydemus of their dominions in Kābul and Kandahār (the Paropanisadae and Arachosia) and in N.W. India (Gandhāra).
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After about 162 B.C. there were therefore two royal houses of Yavanas in India, and several branches of these houses were established in different kingdoms and ruled at the same time. The names and titles of a number of princes belonging to these families have been preserved by their coins; and a study of the coins enables us to recover a few facts in their history.
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In the first place it is evident that some members of both royal houses ruled both to the north and to the south of the Hindu Kush. Their coins belong to two distinct and unmistakable classes. The coins struck in Bactria are purely Greek in style, in language, and in weight. They are the most noble examples of Greek art as applied to portraiture. No rivals to the lifelike portraits of Euthydemus and Demetrius appeared in the world until after the lapse of sixteen centuries, when the Greek spirit was again kindled at the renaissance and manifested itself in the medals of the great Italian artists. Contrasted with these, the coin-portraits executed to the south of the Hindu Kush are lifeless and conventional. Between the two styles of art there is a gulf fixed. Neither can be brought into relation with the other. They are the work of different regions and the outcome of different types of civilisation. In Bactria the Greeks ruled supreme amid peoples of a lower culture. On the south of the mountain barrier, in the Kābul valley and in India, they were brought into contact with a civilisation which was in many respects as advanced as their own and even more ancient—a civilisation in which, as in that of Ancient Egypt, religious and social institutions had long ago been stereotyped, and in which individual effort in literature and art was no longer free but bound by centuries of tradition. With this deeply-rooted civilisation the Greeks were forced to make a compromise; and the results are seen in their bilingual coin-legends, and in their adoption of the Indian (or Persian) weight-standard.
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Differences less strongly marked, differences of degree rather than of kind, are to be observed in the style of the coinages which the Yavanas issued in the kingdoms south of the Hindu Kush. This diversity is no doubt the result chiefly of varying local conditions. The Yavana dominions were very widely extended; and the influence of Greek models was naturally less strong in the more remote districts.
Linked texts (5)
- Aṣṭādhyāyī — Pāṇini, Sanskrit
- Mālavikāgnimitra — Kālidāsa, Sanskrit
- Naturalis historia — C. Plinius Secundus, Latin
- Lohaśāstra (Patañjali) — Patañjali, Sanskrit
- Vṛddhagārgīyajyotiṣa — Garga, Sanskrit