Two Inscriptions in Graeco-Bactrian Cursive Script from Afghanistan

Author(s): Helmut Humbach

Source: East and West, Vol. 17, No. 1/2 (March-June 1967), pp. 25-26
Published by: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29755102
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Fig. 1 no. 1.
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 Two in Graeco-Bactrian Cursive
Inscriptions

Script from Afghanistan

In the year 1957 Prof. A. Bombaci and Prof. U. Scerrato, members of the Italian

Archaeological Mission, found in Jagatu (Gagat?) in Afghanistan (*), two rock-inscriptions

in Graeco-Bactrian cursive script. Their ductus is, in any case, younger than that of the
Kus?no-Sas?nian coins and is similar to the ductus which was employed by the Hephthali
tes and by theTurk! S?his of Kabul. The nature of this script has been misunderstood
by R. G?bl, EW, XIII, 1962, p. 207 ff.,who reads the 8th century coin legend
Ytiaovo /ot]o r= ynAavo ? lord of the world ? (MP. geh?n xvat?y) erroneously as
/oaSrio
which, according to him, is the name of Szu-kin Mo-han KVhan, the Qayan
t^yopiovoxo
of the Eastern Turks in the 6th century. The clearest form of this later Graeco-Bactrian
cursive occurs in the so called Berlin Hephthalite fragments (MB). In these fragments the
letters a, o, 5 have all become o; only the ligature So has been preserved as a separate
?o. Moreover x and y are indiscriminately employed. a, r\ are clearly di?
sign, namely
stinguishedinMB, but, ifwritten less carefully, theymay be confounded. The script is,
therefore, in many respects as ambiguous as any Central Asian script could be.

1. The first of the two inscriptions contains the Buddhist Triratna formula, as al?

ready discerned by O. Hansen and communicated by him to G. Tucci some years ago. The
Sanskrit text of this formula, namo buddhasya namo dharmasya namo sanghasya is trans?
lated into Bactrian by

1 vajAco o ?o8o reverence to the Buddha,

2 va^ico o Soikxqjio reverence to the Dharma,

3 vapid) o oayyo reverence to the Sangha.

Taking into consideration that the usual ending of Bactrian words is -o, the final -to
of va^JUi) is striking. The reason for its application seems to lie in the ceremonial pronun?

ciation of the word which is borrowed from Sanskrit. Cf. also Sogd. nrrfw in nm w^pwP
nnfw o*rn? nnPw snk^ VJ 1. ? thrice repeated medial o is either a
The preposition (cf.
MP ?) or an article (cf. Sogd. ^w) or perhaps it ismerely a word divider, a use forwhich,
it is true, I can advance no parallels. ? SouctQu-o, where
u has the
phonetic value of h} is
an attempt at an exact rendering of Skr. dharma- in a language which has no media aspi

i1) The site is north-west of Ghazni, not so this issue of EW, p. 11 ff.The photographs illustrat?
far fromBand-i Sultan going upstream, quite close ing this article are by U. Scerrato; they are kept in
to the caravan route; cf. U. Scerrato, ?A Note the Museo Nazionale d'Arte Orientale, Rome:
on Some Pre-Muslim Antiquities of Gagat? ?, in Neg. nos. 564/7 (1957) and 588/31A (1958).

25

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rata. Unlike this in ?oSo 'Buddha* Skr. ddh is representedby simple 8.? The shape of
u is more archaic than that of the same letter inMB; it is similar to that of the inscrip?
tions from Uruzg?n. ? is found with the same but
aayyo exactly spelling, apparently
with anothermeaning ('rock' PN) on one Hephthalite seal, published by Stavisky, Journal
of theNumismatic Society of India, XII, 1950 (1951), p. 102,who erroneouslyreads cravoc.
2. The second inscription is incompletelypreserved and, therefore,difficultto deal
with. Quite some timeback I had discussed itwith Gobi whose suggestions I note below
jointlywith mine.
1 ?axo 'Baka' or with Gobi ?oXo 'Z?bul'
2 Y?^otlQ? 'who outshines Tir'

3 <r(?)apo 'head' or '-like' or with Gobi [<p](cc)qqo 'majesty'

4 oi(|i)o pa(o)[o] 'kingVima'
5 oJLoyi 'Uluy'

My reading of line 1 is based on the inscriptions of Uruzg?n, both of which com?

mence with theword ?axo (with distinct k). This name or title recalls Skr. Baku- which
occurs in R?jatarangint 1.325, 8.3415 as the name of the son and successor of Mihirakula.
Baka- does not mean 'heron' (Skr. baka-) as supposed by Stein, R?jat, transl., I, p. 79, but
is borrowed from Eastern Ir. ?aya- 'lord'. Perhaps it is an old Saka title, as the same

treatment of Ir. y occurs in the Mathur? inscriptions where we find the title bakanapati-f

vakanapati- from Ir. *$ayanapati- (cf. Sogd. ^(npt 'sorcerer') (2). From this we may pos?

sibly infer thatBactrian ?axo is reborrowed fromSkr. baka- 'lord'which itself is of Iranian
? to read 'Z?bul' with reference to certain
origin. Gobi, however, proposed [?a]?oXo
coin legends of the epoch of Mihirakula. He assumed that thebeginningof the line is lost.
? The
This neither can be proved nor refuted: cf. e.g. line 3 with line 5. readingyolo was
name of Mihirakula/
proposed by Gobi who connected this group of letterswith the
Mihiragula/r?JLXag.We should, however, read yoXouQo.Here yoXo is the firstmember of a
compoundwhich literallymeans 'who hides Tir, who makes Tir hide himself', Y?^? belong?
? t,
ing to root gud 'to hide'. tipo contains i/Y joined with the following short which
is turned upward. The same ligature occurs in the semi-cursive legend pt/xi of a Huviska
? a tentative one. I would
coin (3). My reading ol(h)o 'Vima' is prefer *toyivo gavo*
'Tigin S?hi' which occurs on coins and in one of theTochi valley inscriptions,but on the
rockwe can discern only oivo ?a(v)[o]. ? In oivo / oi(n)o the t appears in its usual long
form. The same is found in oXoyiIn line 5. If my assumption is right that thisword or
title or name is borrowed from TurkI uluy 'great', then this inscription is not written by
theHephthalites but belongs to the Turkish period of Eastern Iranian history.

Helmut Humbach

(2) H. L?ders, K. Janert, Mathur? inscrip? (3) R. G?bl, Mitteilungen der ?sterreichischen
tions, ? 98,1. 3 (p. 135); S. Konow, EI, XXI, Numismatischen Gesellschaft, XI, 1960, p. 95 f.
1931/32, p. 60, 1. 3.

26

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