The Greeks in Bactria and India c34.2

c34.2

In the *Times* of October 16th, 1937, to which Professor Adcock called my attention, there was announced the discovery, at Shinkot in Bajaur, of a relic casket with an inscription in Kharoshthi by the dedicator, an Indian Buddhist named Vijayamitra, dated on the twenty-fifth day of the Indian month Vaisakha in the fifth year of the reign of Menander. As Bajaur was the frontier province of Gandhāra to the northward, this furnishes proof of what I had previously deduced from the coin-hoards (see p. 229), that Menander recovered and ruled the whole of Gandhāra. Also it is the first instance in India of dating by the regnal years of a Greek king; that this should be done by an Indian Buddhist may bear on what I have written with regard to Buddhist support of Demetrius and Menander. Menander’s fifth year most probably lies between 161 and 155 B.C.