of the Mauryas was overthrown by Pushpamitra, who encountered the Greeks on the Indus during the reign of Menander. By the advice of a Brahman, whom he had chosen for his family priest, Pushpamitra persecuted the Buddhists throughout India.* At Pátaliputra on the Ganges, and at Sákala in the Panjáb, the monks were massacred, and their monasteries were overturned. But Buddhism was too strongly rooted in the soil to be thrown down by the passing whirlwind of a single king's persecution; and in little more than a century later we know that it grew more flourishing than before, under the fostering care of the holy Nágárjuna and Milindu, Rája of Sákala.

2. During this period the Greek sovereigns of Bactria extended their dominions to the south of the Indian Caucasus; and as they were gradually dispossed of their Turanian territories by the Scythian Tochári, they took from the weaker Indians the whole of the Kabul valley and western districts of the Panjab. Menander even is said to have pushed his conquests as far as the Isamus or Isan, a small stream which flows between the Jumna and Ganges. The Buddhist faith of Menander's subjects is proved by the contention of eight different cities for portions of his relics, over which Tombs (or Topes) were erected. This story is similar to that which has been already related regarding Buddha's remains,

Burnouf, p. 431.

+ BAYER, Historia Regni Græcorum Bactriani, p. 77.

which were divided amongst the claimants of eight different cities. It may also serve to illustrate the extent of Menander's rule, when we remember the injunction of Buddha that his own remains were to be treated exactly in the same manner as those of a Chakravartti Raja. Menander therefore must have been a Chakravartti, or supreme monarch; whose power was sufficient to render himself entirely independent of all his neighbours. In another work* I have shown from the monogrammatic names of cities, in which his coins were minted, that Menander's rule extended over the whole of the Kabul valley, the Panjáb and Sindh, including the capital city of Minnagara on the Lower Indus. His reign lasted from about 165 to 130 B. C.

3. Menander was succeeded in his northern dominions by the Greek Princes Strato and Hippostratus; and in Sindh by the Scythian Mauas. This chief expelled the Greeks from the Panjáb, and confined their power to the modern districts of Kábul and Jelálábád. About 126 B. c. Hermæus, the last Greek Prince of India, became a mere puppet in the hands of the Scythian Kadphises (or Kadaphes) of the Khorán tribe.

4. Mauas was succeeded in the Panjab and in Sindh by the Scythian Azas, who extended his dominions beyond Jelálábád, while the Kabulian kingdom of the Scythian Kadphizes, was subverted by the

Monograms on the Grecian coins of Ariana and India, published in the Numismatic Chronicle of London.

Parthian Princes Vonones, Spalygis, and Spalirisas ; during the reign and perhaps with the assistance of the Arsacidan king, Mithridates the Great. But it was wrested from them by the Scythian Azilisas, the successor of Azas; and about 80 B. C., the whole of Khorasan, Afghanistan, Sindh, and the Panjab, were united under the dominion of some nameless king of the Sakas, or Saca Scythians.*

5. A few years later the Sakas were dispossessed of their conquests in Afghanistan and the Western Panjab by the Yuchi or Tochári Scythians, who, with their leader Kadphises, of the Hieu-mi tribe, were at once converted to Buddhism. The possessions of the Sakas on the Lower Indus were seized by the Ujain Prince, Vikramaditya, who after his conquest assumed the title of Sákári, or foe-of-theSákás. By these losses the Sakas were confined to the south-western parts of Khorasan; which, after them, was called Sákásthan (or Sacastene), a name which still exists in the modern Sistan.

6. The Hieumi Prince, Kadphises, was followed by Kanishka of the Khoránt tribe, who is celebrated

* All these details of the Greek princes of Kabul and the Panjab have been derived principally from coins. They will be treated at full length in my forthcoming work of "Alexander's Successors in the East."

+ The name of Khorasán is most probably due to the occupation of the country by the Khorán tribe: Khorasán or Khorastán would be the country of the Khor tribe, as Sacassene or Sákastán was that of the Sákás.

as one of the most eminent patrons of Buddhism. His coins, which are now discovered in very great numbers over the whole of Afghanistan and the Panjab, attest the wide spread of his dominions; and their common occurrence in Rajputána and the North Western Provinces of India perhaps shows the extent of his conquests. He subdued the valley of Kashmir, and there founded a town named after himself which

is still called Kámpur or Kánikpur. For the honour of his religion he erected numerous Topes, of which the most magnificent is still standing in the Khaibur Pass beyond Peshawar.† Another of his Topes at Manikyála was opened by General Court; and its deposits form one of the most interesting discoveries that have yet been made in the archæology of India. At ten feet above the ground level, General Court obtained a stone box covered with a flat slab, which on its under surface bore an inscription of nine lines in the Ariano-Pali character. The published copy is very corrupt; but through the kindness of Professor Lassen I possess a more correct transcript, from which I have been able to read with certainty the name of Maharaja KANISHKA of the Gushang tribe. The second line contains a figured date which I have not yet been able to read, but which looks like either 520 or 120. Inside the

+ Hwan Thsang, in the Appendix to the Fo-kwe-ki.

See the account of this discovery in Prinsep's Journal, vol. iii.

p. 558.

K

stone box were found three cylindrical caskets of copper, silver, and gold, each containing a certain number of coins. The copper casket held eight copper coins; the silver casket held seven silver coins; and the gold casket held four gold coins. On the lid of the stone box also there were four copper coins. The gold coins and all the copper ones, excepting three, belong to Kanerki or Kanishka himself; two of the copper coins are of his predecessor Kadphises Hieumi, and the third is of Kadphizes or Kadaphes Khóran. The seven silver coins all belong to the last years of the Roman Republic, from B, C. 73 to 33,* and they serve to establish the period of Kanishka's reign in the latter end of the first century before the Christian

era.

7. At this time the Eastern Panjáb was governed by Milindu, Raja of Sákala or Sangala, one of the most learned disputants in India. He had challenged the Buddhist Arhats of Sákala to argue with him, and had silenced them all. † The discomfited monks retired to Rahkhita-talo or Rakshita-Tál in the Hemawanta region; where after a lapse of twelve years they were joined by the youthful Nágásena or Nágárjuna, whom they persuaded to undertake the difficult task of coping with Raja Milindu in argu

* Journal des Savans, Fevrier, 1836, p. 74. The battle of Actium was fought in B.c. 31.

+ Turnour's Páli Annals, in Prinsep's Journal, v. 533; also Colonel Low. Jour. As. Soc. Bengal, xvii. 616.