The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c28.137

c28.137

It is difficult to judge how far the foreign chiefs who ruled the Panjāb during the third century, and struck coins similar to those of Vāsudeva, yet with a difference, were Kushāns, and how far they belonged to other Asiatic tribes. The marginal legends of the coins of this class, which are written in a modified Greek script, preserve the name of either Kanishka or Vasu[deva] Kushān,¹ King of Kings, and so recognize the Kushān supremacy; but the name in Indian letters, placed by the side of the spear, is frequently monosyllabic, like a Chinese name, *Bha*, *Ga*, *Vi*, and so forth. These monosyllabic names seem to belong to chiefs of various Central Asian tribes who invaded India and acknowledged the supremacy of the Kushān or Shāhi kings of Kābul. One coin with the modified Kushān obverse, and the names *Pāsana*, *Nu*, *Shilada* in Indian Brāhmī characters in various parts of the field, has on the reverse a fire-altar of the type found on the coins of the earliest Sassanian kings. It is thus clear that in some way or other, during the third century, the Panjāb renewed its ancient connexion with Persia.² It is also certain that the later coinage of the Kushāns is clearly connected with that of the Sassanians, a fact which to my mind is fatal to theories which antedate Kanishka and his successors.