The Greeks in Bactria and India c30.2

c30.2

That the sign ϸ which appears in Greek legends on the Kushan coinage and on that of two earlier rulers has the value *sh* was remarked in 1872 by Cunningham,¹ who thought that the sign was a peculiar form of Rho. In 1887 Sir A. Stein² put forward the theory that it was a revival of the obsolete Greek letter San (which had the value *sh*), since the oldest minuscule form of San resembles, though apparently it is not identical with, the ϸ sign on the Kushan coinage. This has raised a good deal of discussion; on the one hand, various other origins have been suggested for the ϸ sign, including the Aramaean Tsade,³ and on the other, much learning has been expended in an attempt to show that this sign had not the value *sh* but the value *r* (Rho),⁴ while Professor F. W. Thomas has taken the view, which resembles Cunningham's, that the *sh* sign ϸ was derived from the *r* sign ρ (Rho),⁵ and has also said that after the fifth century San only survived as a numeral⁶ (and as a numeral it cannot come in question, for it was written with a totally different sign). But I have never seen the one enlightening Greek text on the subject quoted.