Description

About the Book:-The papers collected together in this volume appeared periodically in the Numismatic Chronicle during the years 1893 and 1894. The last of the series, which deals with the history and numismatics of the White Huns, was published after the author’s death; but, as it is practically a reprint of an article included in the Transact ions of the Oriental Congress of 1892, it, too, may be said to have had the benefit of his final revision. The author has elsewhere treated of the earlier foreign settlers — Greeks, Sakas, and Kusbans — the traces of whose dominion in India have afforded so much help in the recovery of its lost history. He here extends this investigation to the later and less-known Indo-Scythian dynasties, whose dates range from about the end of the second century to the middle of the seventh century A. D. Of the coinages of these later Indo-Scythian rulers no scientific classification has previously been attempted. The arrangement here proposed marks a distinct advance in Indian chronology, for which students of Indian history and archeology will be grateful. No careful reader of the following pages can fill to recognise in this, the author’s last work, the qualities which characterise everything that he wrote — his unequalled knowledge of Indian numismatics, his intimate acquaintance with the many sources from which has been gleaned whatever is now known of the history of Ancient and Mediaeval India and his great natural acumen.