An Indo-European Locution on Early Indian Coin Issues.

• Author: HAMP, ERIC P.

In an article in Scottish Gaelic Studies 14 (1986): 138-41 I have studied the outcome in the Gaelic term morair, applied to the Great Steward of the king, of the inherited Indo-European syntagma for *GREAT + RULER. In an earlier note (Etudes celtiques 21 [1984]: 139) I recognized this same syntagma in the compound attested in Mediaeval Welsh mech deyrn, which must be derived from (pre-) Celtic *maksi-tegernos [less than] *mag-si+teges-no-. The same syntactic phrase has been renewed in Irish, as ard-ri 'great king, High King', elaborated in ancient Greek as 'A[gamma][alpha]-[micro][epsilon][micro][nu][omega][nu] and was applied to Darius in Old Persian. It is of interest to trace the fate of its Indic counterpart maharaja on coins of this region.

We find our locution rendered into Greek among the Indo-Bactrian Greek rulers. On a coin of Eucratides I (171-150 B.C.) we read [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII TEXT], and on another coin the same in the genitive, [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII TEXT]. On the two sides of no. 265 we have a complete bilingual in Greek and Kharosthi scripts; obverse: [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII TEXT], and reverse: Maharajasa / Eukratidasa. No. 266 shows that [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII TEXT] could also be used unmodified with [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII TEXT], and this suggests that the source locution had begun to lose its literal phrasal meaning. Such a development is confirmed by the coins of Apollodotus (mid 2nd cent. B.C.), king of the Hindukush, Kabul Valley, and Gandhara, whose title appears bilingually [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII TEXT] = Maharajasa tratarasa, and of Lysias (end of 2nd cent.), with [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII TEXT] = Maharajasa apadihatasa, to cite just two rulers from this later period. A particularly revealing coin legend title is no. 313 of Hippostratus: [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII TEXT] = Maharajasa tratarasa mahatasa jayamitasa, where the equivalent of [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII TEXT] is clearly the separate attributive mahatasa.

A similar equation is found in no. 321ff. of the IndoParthian Maues (22 B.C.-22 A.D.): [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII TEXT] = Rajatirajasa mahatasa Moasa, where the epithet now modifies (or else metathesizes with) the King of Kings' formula. We find all the features discussed up to this point displayed cumulatively in no. 326ff. of Azes I (ca. 5-25 A.D.): [CHARACTERS NOT...