III Coins of the Western Satraps and Other Imitators of the Greek Models
The coinage of the Indo-Greek kings made a deep impression upon their successors and neighbours, just as the coinage of Bactria had impressed the conquering Śakas, who copied it extensively in that country. The crude coins of Miaos (or Heraos) and of Sapeleizes, two very obscure rulers, are evidently modelled on the issues of Heliokles and Eukratides. Śaka princes, like Maues, as we have seen, while adopting many Greek features, employed a characteristic coinage of their own. On the other hand, we find Rājuvula, one of the Śaka satraps who replaced the Hindu kings of Mathurā in the first century A.D., slavishly copying the billon hemidrachms of Strato II (Pl. I, 8). Nahapāna, a great Śaka conqueror who founded a kingdom in the Western Ghats at about the same period, also reproduced the Greek hemidrachm (Pl. II, 11), as did the Andhra king, Śrī Yajña Gotamīputra (Pl. III, 1). Another Śaka chieftain, Chashṭana, about A.D. 115, founded a kingdom in Mālwā, striking hemidrachms like those of Nahapāna on the Greek model, and resembling most nearly the coins of Apollodotos. The coins of both these princes preserve the remains of Greek characters on the obverse, and on the reverse are inscriptions in both Nāgarī22 and Kharoshṭhī, but after the death of Chashṭana the Kharoshṭhī inscription disappears. His successors, known as the Western Satraps, extended his dominions by conquests from the Andhras until they embraced all the flourishing ports on the west coast with their valuable sea-borne trade. Their hemidrachms are found in great abundance throughout Western India: on the reverse of all appears the Buddhist chaitya copied from the Andhra coinage; the portraits on the obverse are distinctly Scythian in appearance. These coins are of special historical importance; for in the reign of the fifth satrap, Jīvadāman, dates in the so-called Śaka era,23 recording the year of issue, were added to the inscription (Pl. III, 2); and these are of the greatest service in helping to date events here and elsewhere in India down to the year A.D. 395, when the Guptas conquered the country, and the long and monotonous series of Western Satrap coins came to an end. The Guptas in their turn struck silver of the same type; and these degenerate descendants of the Greek hemidrachm had a further lease of life, when, imported by the Guptas from their western (Pl. VI, 1) to their central dominions (Pl. VI, 2), they were adopted by several minor dynasties, including the Maukharīs, and were even struck by the invading Huns (Pl. VI, 7).
Imitation of both Greek and Śaka models is noticeable in the coins of the Hindu state of Odumbara. (Pl. III, 3), the modern Pathānkot; both these and the earlier silver coins of the Kuṇindas, who occupied hilly districts near the river Satlej, have legends in Brāhmī and Kharoshṭhī; both may be assigned to the first century B.C.