Bulletin of the Asia Institute

New Series/Volume 21

2007

Published with the assistance of the Neil Kreitman Foundation (U.K.)

 Contents

Penlop Riboud Bird-Priests in Central Asian Tombs of 6th-Century China and

Their Significance in the Funerary Realm 1
Pratapaditya Pal Evidence of Jainism in Afghanistan and Kashmir in Ancient Times 25
Alka Patel Architectural Cultures and Empire: The Ghurids in Northern India
(ca. 11921210) 35
Mehrdad Shokoohy The Zoroastrian Towers of Silence in the Ex-Portuguese Colony
of Diu 61
David Frendo Dangerous Ideas: Julians Persian Campaign, Its Historical
Background, Motivation, and Objectives 79
M. Rahim Shayegan Prosopographical Notes: The Iranian Nobility during and after the
Macedonian Conquest 97
tienne de la Vaissire A Note on the Schyen Copper Scroll: Bactrian or Indian? 127
Harry Falk Ancient Indian Eras: An Overview 131

Introduction to Persia beyond the Oxus

(M. Rahim Shayegan) 147
D. T. Potts Cataphractus and kamandar: Some Thoughts on the Dynamic
Evolution of Heavy Cavalry and Mounted Archers in Iran and
Central Asia 149
Frantz Grenet; Where Are the Sogdian Magi? 159
with Samra Azarnoush
Richard Salomon Gandhari in the Worlds of India, Iran, and Central Asia 179
Nicholas Sims-Williams Some Bactrian Terms for Realia 193

Reviews
timothy lenz. Gandharan Avadanas: British Library
Kharohi Fragments 13 and 21 and Supplementary
Fragments AC (Tyson Yost) 197
pavel b. lurje. Personal Names in Sogdian Texts. R. Schmitt,
H. Eichner, B. G. Fragner, and V. Sadovski, eds., Iranisches
Personennamenbuch, Bd. 2, Fasc. 8 (Yutaka Yoshida) 201
pratapaditya pal. The Elegant Image: Bronzes from the Indian
Subcontinent in the Siddharth K. Bhansali Collection
(Donald M. Stadtner) 206


Books Received 211
Abbreviations 213

Color plates including images from Penlop Riboud, Pratapaditya Pal, and Frantz Grenet follow p. 34
in this volume.

v
 A Note on the Schyen Copper Scroll: Bactrian or Indian?
t i e n n e d e l a V a i ss i r e
cole des hautes tudes en sciences sociales,paris
The publication of the Schyen Copper Scroll by
Gudrun Melzer in 2006 was a great achievement
that provided a major surprise for the history of
the nomadic tribal groupings that dominated Cen-
tral Asia and northwestern India in the 5th and
6th centuries.1 If we accept Melzers interpreta-
tion, it will be necessary to modify our complete
understanding of the history of the Hephtalite
empire.
This donation inscription for a Buddhist stupa
is written in Sanskrit and Brahmi on a copper
scroll. After praise of the Buddha, the dharma,
and the sagha, the beginning of a Mahayana su
tra is quoted, and then six lines of donation for-
mula. Verses praising the donators conclude the
text. The donation formula is extremely interest-
ing, as it is dated and mentions several names of
known Alxon rulers. The text is the following, in
the translation of Gudrun Melzer:
In the sixty-eighth year on the seventh day of the
bright half of the month Karttika: On this day this
caitya of the Realized One containing relics was es-
tablished by the lord of the great monastery, the son
of Opanda, the Talaganika-Devaputra-ahi,..., to-
gether with [his] father Opanda, together with [his]
wife, the daughter of the Sarada-ahi..., together
with the mistress of a great monastery Arccavamana,
together with [her] father Ho..gaya, [and] with [her]
mother, the queen..., together with the spiritual
friend, the religious teacher Ratnagama, together with
the great ahi Khigila, together with the god-king
Toramana, together with the mistress of a great mon-
astery Sasa, together with the great ahi Mehama, to-
gether with Sadavikha, together with the great king
Javukha, the son of Sadavikha, during the reign of
Mehama.
At the end of the inscription, the location of the
stupa is referred to as ardiysa.2
127
Together with the main core of the article, an
edition and philological commentary which have
been widely accepted, a historical interpretation
was proposed in a very cautious manner that can
be summarized:
among the various possible eras, the date would
be in the Laukika era, so that the inscription
would be dated a.d. 492/493.
Talaganika-Devaputra-ahi is interpreted as
the lord of Talaqan, in northeastern Afghanistan,
following a suggestion of N. Sims-Williams.
There would be only one clearly Indian name,
Ratnagama, while three names would be Iranian/
Bactrian: Arccavamana, Mehama, and Sasa.
Mehama might be the ruler Meyam mentioned
in the Bactrian documents as reigning over a re-
gion to the east of the Rob kingdom, Kadagistan,
which might have included Talaqan.
the presence of the Alxon rulers named together
in the donation formula might mean that they
reigned simultaneously in different regions rather
than consecutively as previously considered.3
Melzers interpretation of the scroll places the
location of the inscription in Bactria, a crucial
point that is open to dispute (although it should
be pointed out that it was not the main aim of the
article and that Melzer put great emphasis on be-
ing very cautious about this). The designation of
the location of the stupa as Talaqan, in northeast-
ern Afghanistan, is prompted by the reference to
Talaganika-Devaputra-ahi, whom Melzer thinks
was the lord there. The aim of this note is to
show that there should be another possibility.
The location in northeastern Afghanistan im-
plies that the mention of the known Alxon rulers
Khigila, Toramaa, and Javukha in the inscription
provides a link between them and the Hephtalites
 d e l a v a i s s i r e : A Note on the Schyen Copper Scroll: Bactrian or Indian?
whose nucleus lay north of the Hindukush. Hith-
erto, a link has been based almost exclusively on
the testimony of the Chinese pilgrim Song Yun,
who in a.d. 520 met a tegin of Gandhara usu-
ally regarded as Mihirakula.4 Song Yun wrote that
two generations before his travel the country had
been conquered by the Hephtalites (generations
thought to be Khigila, Toramaa, and then Mi-
hirakula). Yet the evidence of coins runs counter
to the idea that Hepthalites ruled in Gandhara:
on coins, only Alxon is known as the name of
the dominant dynasty or ethnic group in that re-
gionno Hepthalites are known from coins that
originated south of the Hindukush. Conversely,
Alxon coins have been found only south of the
Hindukush, up to Central Asia, and never to the
north. Thus, depending on whether one follows
the evidence of the coins or that of Song Yun,
these southern rulers were named either Alxon
or Hephtalite.
Melzers interpretation of the Schyen Copper
Scroll indicates that the Alxon wielded political
influence in the core portion of the Hephtalite
empire, to the north of the Hindukush: in Ta
laqan, which lay at or close to the very heart of
the empire, the names of Khigila, Toramaa,
and Javukha necessarily would have been men-
tioned in the dedication of a local monastery if
there were such a relationship. We can no lon-
ger differentiate between the known names of
the Alxon and those of the Hephtalite kings; it
is impossible that they reigned separately in the
same region. They should be identified.
There are several consequences that stem from
our inability to distinguish Alxon rulers from
Hephtalites. First, if Khigila was a king in the
north as well as in the south, from a chronologi-
cal point of view he should have been Axsunwar,
who fought against Peroz. As regards Axsunwar,
this is quite possible as Axsunwar is a title rather
than a personal name.
Second, in a.d. 520, Song Yun described a Heph
talite king reigning to the north of the Hindukush
and later in his account a person who was sup-
posed to be the Alxon leader Mihirakula reigning
in Gandhara. These are different. This can only
mean that by 520 the unity between the north and
south had been destroyed, that a split had taken
place between the date of the scroll and 520.
According to the Melzer interpretation, the list
of the donators indicates that these various kings
reigned simultaneously in parts of the Hephtalite
128
empire.5 This is not likely. As I understand it,
the list of donators lists first the actual dona-
tor, Talaganika-Devaputra-ahi and his family,
then the two Alxon rulers in the expected order
of seniority as demonstrated by the coins, first
Khigila, then Toramaa. These Alxon rulers,
however, might be only a list of deceased mem-
bers of the dynasty, and indeed the father of the
later mentioned Javukha, Sadavikha, is listed be-
fore his son and probably was dead, as his son
was the reigning king. I think rather that at the
time of the dedication of the stupa Khigila and
Toramaa had died, that Javukha reigned as the
main king of the Alxon,6 and that Mehama was a
regional viceroy, in whose dominion lay the local
Talaganika-Devaputra-ahi.
However, the major difficulty in accepting Mel-
zers interpretation lies not in the chronology but
in the geography: whether the location of the
stupa was in Bactria or in India. The coins and
inscriptions of Khigila, Toramaa, Javukha, and
Mihirakula are purely Indian. It is very difficult to
reconcile the clear discrepancy between the coin-
age on the one hand and the geography that was
inferred from the scroll on the other.7 Another
point is the extension of Indian cultural influ-
ence to Talaqan: this dedicatory copper scroll is
purely Indian and does not display any influence
of a Bactrian context, while to my knowledge,
copper scrolls or plates are unknown outside of
India in Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. The
use of Brahmi and Sanskrit instead of Bactrian re-
flects a cultural choice (which however might be
explained in part by the Buddhist context). And
last, the Laukika era is known in India and never
attested north of the Hindukush.
It seems clear that most of these difficulties
raised by Melzers interpretation are the result of
the identification of Talaganika-Devaputra-ahi
with the lord of the Bactrian (northeastern Af-
ghanistan) Talaqan. If we were to suppose that
Talaganika refers to a town in northwestern India
instead, then the results would be much more in
line with what we know. We no longer would
need to assimilate Axsunwar and Khigila and
imagine a split in the Hephtalite empire before
Song Yungs travel; we should not modify our
understanding of the geography of coinage nor
our knowledge of the extent of the Indian epi-
graphical culture to the north. We would have a
usual Indian dedicatory copper scroll, from north-
western India, written in Brahmi and Sanskrit,
 d e l a v a i s s i r e : A Note on the Schyen Copper Scroll: Bactrian or Indian?
that mentions the names of kings known from
coinage and inscriptions to have reigned over this
region, and is dated to an era known to have been
in use in Panjab and Kashmir.
Is there any towns name that might be linked
to the title Talaganika-Devaputra-ahi? Just
north of the Salt range, the town of Talagang
(32543.65N, 722939.10E) fits perfectly into
this pattern. It lies within the region usually as-
cribed to the kings mentioned in the text. While
we do not know its past, it is known from the
16th century on, and its name closely matches
the title of Talaganika-Devaputra-ahi, as Ta
laqan is always spelled with a -q-, and not a -g-, in
Persian. Also, there is another argument in favor
of Talagang: Melzer points out in her article that
the closest inscription in paleography to ours is
that of Kura (Khwera), in the Salt range, which
mentions Toramaa as well.8 As the crow flies,
there are 65 km between the two points. More-
over, while a name in the text, that of Sarada-
ahi, might point to Kashmir,9 this was discarded
by Melzer because it was supposed to be too far
away from the Bactrian Talaqan. There is a strong
possibility that this dedicatory copper scroll
comes from a village in the region of Talagang,
in Pakistan, and not from the region of Talaqan
in eastern Afghanistan.
However, the Talagang hypothesis does not ex-
plain the few Iranian names of the text: Arcca
vamana, Mehama, and Sasa. The third name is
at least known among the Indo-Parthian rulers
(Sases), and the first name might be only partly
Bactrianthe first part might be Indian. Me-
hama, is a more serious problem, as it is an actual
Bactrian name, known in the Arabic documents
from Bactria under the form mhm. A Meyam,
etymologically related to Mehama,, is known to
have reigned somewhere in northeastern Afghan-
istan a few decades before our scroll.10 A simple
way to deal with the problem might be to say that
the rulers from northwestern India came from the
northwest and that it is not that surprising that a
local king bears a Bactrian name. This is perfectly
well known from the coins, as many of the Alxon
minted coins both in Brahmi and in Bactrian.
Let us conclude as cautiously as Melzer has for-
mulated her historical interpretation: in favor of
the Talagang hypothesis we find the scroll itself,
in all its physical, linguistic, and paleographical
aspects; the spelling -g- of Talaganika; the name
of the Alxon leaders mentioned in it and the geog-
raphy of their coinage; Sarada-ahi; Ratnagama;
the Laukika era. In favor of the Talaqan hypoth-
esis, we find mainly the three Iranian names, or
part of them, and perhaps the link with Meyam.
In a sense we have to choose between a well-
known Bactrian influence among the aristocracy
in northwestern India or a very strongto my
mind too strongIndian cultural influence in
northeastern Afghanistan. In sum, I would rather
not rely on this document to modify what we
know of the history of the Hephtalites.
Notes
1. Melzer 2006. Attempts to cope with the new re-
sults in Alram and Pfisterer 2010, 20f., and Vondrovec
2008.
2. Melzer 2006, 274, 277.
3. Melzer 2006, 25664.
4. Jenner 1981, 265.
5. Melzer 2006, 262; Vondrovec 2008, 26; Alram
and Pfisterer 2010, 22.
6. The mention of Javukha in the scroll does not
modify this pattern, as he is not a member of the dy-
nasty, being the son of the unknown Sadavikha. He
might have been an usurpator before being superseded
by Mihirakula. However, that Toramaa is dead is con-
tradictory to the idea that the Laukika era is that of
the inscription, as he is supposed to have died ca. 515,
as correctly pointed out to me by G. Melzer. But is it
the right era? Could it not be the era of the conquest?
7. Vondrovec 2008 and Alram and Pfisterer 2010,
2627, are both attempts to reconcile the geography
with the one deduced from the scroll. They both raise
utmost difficulties, which might be avoided. It is es-
pecially difficult to think that the Alxon might have
controlled Talaqan while being still different from the
Hephtalites, as Talaqan is the very heart of the Heph
talite country.
8. Melzer 2006, 261.
9. Melzer 2006, 257.
10. Discussion and references in Sims-Williams
2010, 8586.
Bibliography
Alram and M. Alram and M. Pfisterer.
Pfisterer 2010 Alkhan and Hephthalite
Coinage. In Coins, Art, and
Chronology II: The First Mille-
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Borderlands, ed. M. Alram
et al. Wien.
129
 d e l a v a i s s i r e : A Note on the Schyen Copper Scroll: Bactrian or Indian?
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