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Of the coins of the fourth variety, any thing of the legend is only visible on No. 2, where the following fragment can be read:

maharaja xxxx
X X X X X X X X

The longer legend is found on the coins of the third variety. On these the letters are written in long, narrow shapes, closely crowded together; and calculating from what of the legend is preserved, it may be seen that the face of the coin affords room for 20 letters. On the coins of the second variety, the letters are formed large and square, taking up much more space, so that the surface of the coin, to judge from what remains of the legend, cannot have admitted more than 13 letters. The same is the case with the coins of the first variety, where the letters are formed small and square, but are set wider apart from one another than on the coins of the third variety. On the two coins of the latter variety, the legend reads as follows:

Gugra (da) max

No. 1 x X X X X XXXX XX xx ta(sa)
No. 2 maharajasa ra(jati)× (jasa) (ma) × × (sa) Gugramadasa.

(Pl. I, 16).
on the large

The same long legend, as already observed, occurs coins, with a slightly different form of the name, viz., Gugramayasa.

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X X X X X X

(Pl. I, 6).

xxxx (Gugramayasa)

(Gu)gra × ×sa.

X X X X

No. 3, (mahara) x x The bracketed letters are distinguishable; the others are perfectly clear. The whole of the visible letters (eleven) occupy slightly more than one-half of the circle; hence the total inscription must have comprised about 20 letters.

Accordingly the complete legends, probably, stood as follows:

(1) longer legend: Maharajasa Rajatirajasa Mahatasa Gugramayasa (or Gugramadasa or Gugradamasa),

(2) shorter legend: Maharaj-uthabiraja-Gugramadasa (or Gugradmasa or Gugramodasa or Gugratidasa). With variants yuthabi and juthubi.

1 Some of these bracketed letters do not show sufficiently on the photographs though they are quite distinguishable on the original coin.

The letters which I read juthabi or yuthabi (or juthubi) are puzzling. Their forms, as seen on some of the coins, are clear enough and are shown in the subjoined Woodcut No. 4. Thus (a) is seen on

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6

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Var. II, No. 11, (b) on Var. II, No. 12, (c) on Var. II, No. 4, (d) on Var. I, No. 1, (e) on Var. I, No. 4, and (ƒ) on Var. II, No. 8. Of these (a) signifies juthabi, (b, c, d) signify jutha, (e) signifies yutha, and (f) signifies juthu. The form of the syllable bi never varies. In (a) and (f) the vowel u is formed in an unusual way, but similar to its formation in (d) of Woodcut No. 5, below. I would venture to offer the following explanation, which must be understood to be altogether tentative only. I would suggest that the legend might be the equivalent of the not uncommon title Sanskrit Pṛthvi-rāja or Pāli-Prākrit Puthavīrāja or Puthuvi-rāja, i.e., King of the earth.' The complete title on the coins, accordingly, would run Sanskrit Mahārāja-pṛthvīrāja, or Pāli-Prakrit mahārāja-puthavīrāja or mahārāya-puthavīrāja. In Prakrit, as is well-known, the initial consonant of a conjunct word may be elided, and the resultant hiatus- vowels may be contracted in the present case apu may be changed to oaï', and contracted to %° or even to u°. We thus obtain the form of the title maharaj-uthabīrāja or mahārāy-uthabīrāja, with the provincialism of hardening v. This explanation postulates a somewhat advanced stage of Prakrit phonetic change; but the existence of such a stage in Khotan at the period of these coins is rendered probable by the change of j to y in the form mahārāya.

2 I was disposed at one time to find some confirmation of my suggestion in the Chinese Pi-çi-pi-lien, which, according to Abel Remusat's Histoire de la Ville de Khotan, p. 30, was the royal title of Khotan, and which I thought might represent the Sanskrit Viçva-raya (for Viçva-rāja) or 'king of the world,' a synonym of Prthvīrāja. The context in Remusat seemed to imply that Pi-çi-pi-lien was the title of the Khotanese Kings from ancient times up to the beginning of the 7th century A.D., when the 'Weï si family (ibidem, p. 35) succeeded the Wang family. But from what Prof. Sylvain Levi kindly writes me (15th February, 1899) it appears that Pi-çi-pi-lien was only the proper name of a particular king of the Wang family which reigned in the 6th and 7th centuries, A.D. Pi-çi-pi-lien, accordingly, is more likely to be the Chinese transliteration of some Turki name, similar to Mekelien.

The two first letters gugra of the name appear in the following forms :

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Perhaps the group might also be read gurga. The form (a) is the commonest; it occurs in Nos. 2, 3, 4 of the first variety, and can be seen very distinctly in No. 3 (Pl. I, 13); it is also seen in the large coin No. 1 (Pl. I, 6). The form (b) occurs in No. 1, (c) in No. 10, and (e) in No. 14, all of the first variety. The form (ƒ) occurs in the third variety, and the absence of the conjunct marks at the foot of the two letters is accounted for by the crowded state of the legend.

The final letters dasa appear in a curiously conjunct form in the coins Nos. 2 and 4 of the first variety. They are shown as (g) in the above Woodcut No. 5. The conjunction is probably merely due to the negligence of the engraver.

There are altogether five varieties of the royal name, all commencing with Gugra; viz., Gugramada, Gugradama, Gugramaya, Gugramoda, and Gugratida. Perhaps n may be read for d (Gugramana, etc.), in every case, or in some of them, seeing that the Kharoṣṭhi d and n are hardly distinguishable. Seeing also that sometimes y occurs for j in the title mahārāja (mahārāya), it may be that, by a similar phonetic process, Gugramaya is only another form of Gugramada. It is also possible that Gugramoda is really intended for Gugramada, as what looks like the vowel o may be a mere slip of the engraver. In any case there

still remain three names which cannot be identified with one another: Gugramada, Gugradama and Gugratida. Accordingly these coins must be ascribed to three, if not five different kings. As all their names begin with Gugra (perhaps Gurga), they would all seem to have belonged to the same family.

(d) The Chinese Legend.

The Chinese legend, also, occurs in two different versions; a longer and a shorter one. The longer, consisting of six symbols, is found on the large coins, while the shorter, consisting only of three symbols, is seen on the smaller coins.

The longer legend is arranged in four different ways, three of which occur in our collection. In the first variety, the legend commences op

posite the apex of the central symbol (seen at the bottom of the figure in Plate I, 6) and then runs round from right to left. In the second variety it also commences opposite the apex, but runs in the opposite direction, from the left to the right. In the third variety it commeuces on the left of the central symbol, and runs round from the left to the right. The British Museum Catalogue, No. 1799a, presents a fourth variety, in which the legend runs from the right to the left, and commences on the right side of the central symbol.

In all four varieties the legend is identical, as shown in the subjoined Woodcut No. 6:

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A portion of this legend was read by Dr. T. de Lacouperie, in the British Museum Catalogue, p. 394. I read the whole as follows:

tchung (1) liang (2) sze (3) tchu (4) t'ung (5) tsien (6), i.e., " Weight (one) Liang (and) four Tchu (of) copper money."

The symbol which Dr. T. de Lacouperie reads yh 'one' does not occur in any of the coins of our collection, nor can I find it on the coin figured by him in the Catalogue, No. 1799a. The 5th and 6th symbols were too indistinct on his coin to be read by him. They are clear enough on some of our coins, and are those shown in the above Woodcut. No. 6 is the well-known sign for tsien or 'money' (British Museum Catalogue, p. xviii). No. 5 is a sign which I have not been able to find in Morrison's dictionary, the only one available to me; nor is it known to any of the Chinese Literati whom I could consult. I take it to be an old form of the symbol t'ung copper' (see ibid., p. lxiv), made by omitting the long side-strokes of the upper quadrangle of its right-hand portion. A similar modification occurs in the old form of the symbol kuan (see ibid., p. 191), and in the old form AA of the symbol liang (see ibid., p. 300).

The shorter legend is also identical on all the small coins, though the symbols are drawn in rather varying forms. This is not at all an uncommon practice, as an inspection of the British Museum Catalogue will at once show. The legend, with the varying forms of its symbols,

1820.

8 A Dictionary of the Chinese Language in three Parts. By R. Morrison, D.D.,

J. 1. 6

is shown in the subjoined Woodcut No. 7, which also shows the relative po sition of the three symbols in the legend.

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No. I is the usual form, seen in Plate I, 11. Nos. II, III, IV may be seen in Plate I, 8, 14, 16 respectively. No. V shows a form of the 3rd symbol which I have noticed on coins of the 3rd and 4th varieties, shown in Plate III, 1, 3.

I read the symbols as follows:

luh (1) tchu (2) tsien (3), i.e., " six Tchu (of) money."

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The second and third symbols of this legend are the same as the fourth and sixth of the longer one. The first symbol, as shown in Figure III, is that given by Dr. T. de Lacouperie, on page xl of his Introduction to the British Museum Catalogue, for luh six.' The corresponding forms in fig. I, II and IV are merely ornamental modifications. A form of luh, much like that in fig. II and IV, occurs in coin No. 453, of the Br. Mus. Cat., p. 423. Compare also the forms of luh in coins No. 753, 816, 159-161.

The Chinese legends state the weight of the coins. According to them the large coins should normally weigh one liang and four tchu, while the small coins should weigh six tchu. As we shall see presently, these Indo-Chinese coins must be referred to the first and second centuries A.D., i.e., to the time of the Han dynasty in China. That dynasty followed the monetary system of the preceding Tsin dynasty which had doubled the ancient standard. According to this doubled standard the liang weighed about 195 grains, and the tchu, about 8·12 grains. Accordingly the normal weight of the large coins should be approximately 227-48 grains, and of the small coins, 48.72 grains. A reference to the preceding list (see pp. 2-4) will show that the actual weights of the coins vary widely from this normal, even fully allowing for much wear and tear. This, however, was the usual condition of the currency in China. Dr. T. de Lacouperie in his Introduction to the British Museum Catalogue (pp. xxiii, xxiv) shows how numerous the variants in weight were, and how "far they were from being

See Introduction to the Br. Mus. Cat., pp. xlii-xliv.

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