Colonel WILFORD mentions in the third and fourth volumes of the Researches a goddess called by STRABO, ANAIA and equivalent to the Sanscrit anayasá déví, which seems to have a near connection with the object of discussion. "Even to this day," says this learned mythologist, "the Hindus occasionally visit the two jwálá-mukhís or the burning springs (of naphtha) in Cusha-dwrpa within the first of which dedicated to the goddess Déví with the epithet anáyasá is not far from the Tigris; and STRABO mentions a temple on that very spot, inscribed to the goddess Anaias :” again, “ anáyasá-dévi-sthán (now Corcur) was the Αναιας Ιερον της of STRABO*."

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He afterwards alludes to some Hindus who had visited the place : "I have been fortunate enough to meet with four or five pilgrims of India who had paid their devotions at this holy temple of the goddess ANAIA or ANAIAS, with its burning mouth or jwálá-mukhí: it is near Kerkook, east of the Tigrist."

The circumstance of the burning fountain is of material importance, as it will be seen by the sequel that it connects nanaia with the other devices of the reverse, and with the general and national fire worship to which it is imagined they may all be traced. The inscriptions accompanying this appellation are generally speaking of pure Greek; had they been otherwise, it might have been doubted whether nanaia were not the adjectival or feminine form of the word nána on the ob

verse.

The goddess Nanaia, or Anaia, again bears a close analogy in name and character to the Anaïtis of the Greek, and Anahid of the Persian, mythology; that is, the planet Venus, and one of the seven fires held sacred by the latter people. M. GUIGNIAUT's remarks on the subject may be applied to the figure on our coin :-" Le culte simple et pur du feu, dominant dans les premiers âges, se vit bientôt associer le culte des astres et surtout des planètes.... Les feux, les planètes, et les génies qui y président sont au nombre de sept, nombre le plus sacré de tous chez les Perses; mais trois surtout se représentent sans cesse comme les plus anciennement révérés, le feu des étoiles ou la planète de Vénus, Anahid; le feu du soleil, ou feu Mihr; le feu de la foudre, ou feu Bersin, Jupiter. Le culte du feu Guschasp ou d' Anahid figure comme un culte fort antique dans les livres Zends et dans le Schah Nameh, de même que celui d' Anaïtis dans une foule d'auteurs Grecs depuis Hérodote..... Or Mitrá (feminin de Mithras) et Anahid ou Anaïtis sont une seule et même déesse, l'étoile du matin, génie femelle qui préside à l'amour, qui donne la lumière, et qui dirige la marche harmonieuse

* As. Res. vol. iii. p. 297 and 434. † As. Res. vol. iv. p. 374.

des astres avec les sons de sa lyre dont les rayons du soleil forment les cordes*."

The object in the hand of our Nanaia, fig. 7, Plate XXV., is not however a musical instrument, but rather a flower, or perhaps the mirror appertaining to Venus.

The larger gold coin from Manikyála has apparently an expanded form of the same name: it is read MANAOBATO in page 316, but from the similarity of M and N in the corrupted Greek of the period in question, I entertain little doubt that the correct reading is NANAO (for vavala), with some affix or epithet BA or BAгO or BAAO, which could only he made out by one acquainted with the Zend language.

On the other hand the horns of the moon projecting from the shoulders of this figure, assimilate it strongly to a drawing in HYDE's Rel. Vet. Pers. p. 114, of Malach-baal, to which also the last four letters of the inscription bear some resemblance. Malach-baal or rex-baal is only another name for the sun. Those who incline to the latter interpretation will of course class this reverse with those of HAIOC, to which I shall presently advert. A remarkable variation from the genuine Greek reading occurs in one of the specimens published by Colonel Top in the Transactions Roy. As. Soc. vol. i. plate xii. fig. 14, on a coin of PAO KA .... (vпρki). The word nanaia here appears under the disguise of NANAO, and this is an important accession to our knowledge, both as shewing that the Greek name corresponded to the vernacular, and as proving from the Zend termination in áo the link with the Sanscrit anáyasa.

The second type of the Kanerkou reverse represents a male figure, dressed in a frock, trowsers, and boots: he is in a graceful attitude, facing the left, with the right arm uplifted and the left a-kimbo. He has a turban and a glory, which is in some instances radiated.

The designation on the higher class of this type is uniformly HAIOC the sun, and there can be no doubt therefore concerning its nature : moreover in the subsequent series, wherein the Greek language is suspended and the letters only retained, a corresponding change is observed in the title, while the same dress of the regent of the sun' is preserved, and enables us to identify him.

The Romans and Greeks, as we learn from HYDE, always dressed Mithra in the costume of a Persian king: thus on various sculptures inscribed Deo Mithra Persarum, "visitur MITHRA seu Sol, figurâ humanâ Regis Persici qui subijit taurum eumque calcat necatquet." This very

* Religions de l'Antiquité du Dr. CREUZER, par GUIGNIAUT, ii. 731. Historia Religionis veterum Persarum, 112.-The expression of Lucian's in Deorum Consilio, is also thus rendered by GUIGNIAUT:-" Ce Mithras qui vêtu de

common attribute of MITHRA slaying the bull, which is supposed to typify the power of the sun subjecting the earth to the purposes of agriculture and vegetation, might lead to the conjecture that the figure on the reverse of the Kadphises coin was also MITHRA with his bull; the dress however is different: neither is there any appearance of a sacrifice; the reading of the Zend inscription can alone clear up this difficulty, and I will in a future plate collate all the inscriptions which are suffi.. ciently legible for the examination of the Secretary of the Paris As. Soc., whose researches in this language point him out as the most competent scholar to undertake the solution of the problem.

In Plate XXV. (figs. 12 to 24). I have engraved such of the substi-› tutes for HAIOC as are most distinct in my cabinet, beginning with the well developed characters of fig. 10. It requires no stretch of imagination to discover in the first six of these, the word MIOPA, written MIOPO or MIOPO, according to the Zend pronunciation, Mihira being the Sanscrit and Persian name for the sun.

Thus when the reformation of the mint nomenclature was effected, by the discontinuance of Greek appellations, we perceive that the vernacular words were simultaneously introduced on both sides of the coin; and the fortunate discovery of two coincident terms so familiar as helios and mihira or mithra, adds corroboration to the identity of the titles of the monarch on the obverse, and his names, Kanerki and Kanerkou.

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The number of coins on which MIOPO appears is very great: it always accompanies the PAO KA .... NHPKI form: see Colonel Tod's plate in the Royal Asiatic Society's Transactions, vol. i. plate xii. fig. 11, in the 3rd series: also figure 12, which belongs to the sitting-figure type. It is frequently found also on the elephant coin, see fig. 12, of ToD and fig. 31, of WILSON (Asiatic Researches xvii.) Figure 33, of my own Plate XXV. is a small copper coin from the Mánikyála tope in which it is also recognizable. I find it likewise on several of the sittingfigure coins, figs. 29 and 32, of Plate XXII: but what is of more consequence in our examination of the Mánikyála relics, it is discernible on the reverse of the small gold coin (Plate XXII. fig. 24,) although I did not recognise the individual letters when I penned the description of it in page 319.

As we proceed down lower in the list in Plate XXV. the purity of expression is altogether lost, and the word MIOPO degenerates into MAO or HAO, and MA or HA, for the M and H are with difficulty distin

la candys et paré de la tiare, ne sait pas dire un mot de Grec au banquet de l'Olympe, et n'a pas même l'air de comprendre que l'on boit le nectar à sa santé.”—Rel. de l'Ant. 738.

guished. Many of the coins, containing this form of the word, are complete, and seem to have borne no other letters. We might almost be tempted to discover in this expression another cognomen of the Sun or of Bacchus, IAO and IA, about which so much discussion appears in the works of the Fathers, on the Manichean heresy and the doctrines of the magi, in the third century*. The Greek mode of writing the word, to be sure, is different, but the pronunciation will be nearly alike, and as the word was of barbaric origin, (being taken from the Hebrew Iaho or Jehovah,) some latitude of orthography might be expected in places so distant. This is however but a vague hypothesis to account for the presence of a name in connection with a figure, which is known from its identity with the HAIOC type of figure 8, to represent that deity. A multitude of symbols and names, under which the sun was worshipped or typified at the time that the Christian doctrines were spreading, and the old religions as it were breaking up and amalgamating in new groupes, will be found enumerated in the learned work of BEAUSOBRE. The engraved stones, amulets, and talismans ascribed to the Gnostics and the followers of BASILIDES, &c. bear the names of Iao, Adonai, Sabaoth, and Abraxas, all of which this author traces to divers attributes of the sun. But it is impossible to pursue the subject into the endless labyrinth of cabalistic mythology in which it is involv, ed :-That the image on our coins represents the sun or his priest is all I aim to prove.

There are two other forms of the inscription on this series that it is more difficult to explain: many of the coins with the elephant obverse have very legibly the whole, or a part, of a word ending in AOPO; in some it is as clearly MA@PO.

Now, although both these words may be merely ignorant corruptions of the original form Mithra, it is as well to state that they are both independently pure Zend words, and capable of interpretation, albeit more or less strained and unnatural, as epithets or mythological attributes of the sun, or as we may conjecture, through that resplendent image, of Zoroaster the son and manifest effulgence of the deity.

"Il faut convenir aussi qu'Iao est un des noms que les Payens donnoient au Soleil. J'ai rapporté l'oracle d'Apollon de Claros, dans lequel Pluton, Jupiter, le Soleil et Tao se partagent les saisons. Ces quatres divinités sont au fond la même: Eis Zeus, eis Adns, eis Hλlos, els Alovuσos. C'est a dire "Jupiter, Pluton, le Soleil et Bacchus sont la même chose. Celui que est nommé Dionysus dans ce dernier vers est le même qui est nommé Iao dans l'oracle. Macrobius rapporté

un autre oracle d'Apollon, qui est conçu en ces termes : ppášw τdv TAVTWV UTATOV fedv Euμer 'Idw 'je vous declare qu'lao est le plus grand des dieux.' Macrobe bien instruit de la Theologie Payenne, assure que lao est le Soleil."-Histoire de Manichée par De Beausobre, tom. ii. p. 60.

Thus in the last number of the Journal Asiatique, in a learned essay on the origin of the word Africa, the Zend word athro is quoted as equivalent to the Greek anp, the pure subtle spirit or region of fire, or of the sun, very imperfectly expressed by our derivate ether.

Of the word Máthra, or MAOPO, we find a lucid explanation in M. BURNOUF's commentary on the Yaçna, a part of the vendidad-sadè. In the passage where he analyzes the Zend compound tanumathrahé, corps de la parole,' mathra is thus shewn to be the equivalent of the Sanscrit word mantra :

Il faut reconnaitre que cet adjectif est un composé possessif, et traduire : 'celui qui a la parole pour corps, celui dont la parole est le corps;' et peutêtre par extension: parole faite corps, incarnée.’ Cette interprétation ne saurait être douteuse; car le sens de tanu est bien fixé en Zend, c'est le Sanscrit tanu, et le Persian (corps); et celui de mathra n'est pas moins certain, puisque ce mot Zend ne diffère de Sanscrit mantra que par l'adoption de l'a qui aime à précéder th et les sifflantes, et par l'aspiration du t laquelle résulte de la rencontre de la dentale et de la liquide r."

La parole' is explained by M. BURNOUF to signify la parole d'Ormuzd,' the word of God, or incarnation of the divinity. A title frequently used in the Zendavesta, to designate Zoroaster (Zarathrusta). Thus I have endeavoured to prove, that all of this class of figures refer to the sun, under his various names and attributes :-the only exception I can adduce is in figure 11 of Plate XXV. exhibiting the reverse of a copper Kanerki coin, in very good preservation. The context of its long inscription has hitherto baffled my attempts at decyphering; but I am inclined to class it along with the NANAIA reverses.

Under the risk of being tedious, I have now gone through the whole series of corrupted Greek coins connected with the Mánikyála tope, and I trust that the result of my investigation will serve to throw some new light on the subject. I have ventured to give the appellation of "Mithrïac" to the very numerous coins which have been proved to bear the effigy of the sun, for they afford the strongest evidence of the extension of the religion of ZOROASTER in some parts of Bactria and the Panjab at the time of its reassumption of consequence in Persia; while the appearance of Krishna on the field at the same time proves the effort that was then afloat, as testified by the works of the Christians, to blend the mysteries of magiism with the current religions of the day. I cannot conclude this branch of the Mánikyála investigation better than in the following extract from Moor's Hindú Panthe"So grand a symbol of the deity as the sun looking from his

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