The Greeks in Bactria and India c29.25

c29.25

The word ΣΑΝΑΒ is unexplained; but Cunningham was certain of the B on every coin he had seen. His own explanation, tsanyu (= devaputra of the Kushan kings), is hardly satisfactory; it neglects the B, and it may be doubted whether a Kushan chief at this time could have called himself ‘Son of Heaven’, whatever his Imperial descendants were to do.³ The popular interpretation, Saka,⁴ is equally unsatisfactory. It, also, neglects the B; Miaos coined tetradrachms, which no Saca king ever did;⁵ above all, no known Saca or Kushan king ever calls himself ‘Saca’, and it is not, I think, even known whether the collection of peoples whom the Persians (followed by the Greeks and ourselves) called Sacas ever called themselves by that name, precisely as it is not known what the people whom Greeks and Romans called Parthians called themselves. One writer has sought to remedy the omission of the B by saying it is Middle Persian ve, ‘and’, and that the legend should read ‘Saca and Kushan’;⁶ but Greek coin-engravers in India did not join two titles by καί and did not use Middle Persian words for simple Greek ones. ΣΑΝΑΒ remains unexplained.