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). [22] Nāgarī is a later form of Brāhmī script. [23] The Śaka era started in A.D. 78; this date is now considered to mark the first year of Kanishka’s reign. 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. [Illustration: Fig. 3a. Kharoshṭhī Script on Coin of Hippostratos. Cf. Pl. II, 5.] [Illustration: Fig. 3b. Monograms on Indo-Greek Coins, etc.] III COINS OF THE KUSHĀṆA KINGS _Note._—The monograms in Fig. 3b occur on coins of the following: (1) Eukratides, (2) Apollodotos, (3) Apollodotos, Maues, (4) Azes I, (5) Sotēr Megas, (6) Gondopharnes and Aspavarma. The Yueh-chi, who drove the Śakas out of Bactria about the year 126 B.C., were destined to create “one of the greatest empires of ancient India.” At some date after A.D. 25, one of the five tribes of which they were composed, the Kushāṇas, became supreme, and under the leadership of the head of that tribe, Kujūla Kadphises, they passed south of the Hindu Kush, and overwhelmed the Pahlavas, then ruling in the Kābul valley. The deposition of Pacores, successor of Gondopharnes to the Pahlava kingdom of Taxila, must have taken place between the years A.D. 45 and A.D. 64, and was effected by Vima Kadphises, the second Kushāṇa king. Henceforward there is less confusion of dynasties. We know the names and the chronological order of these powerful Kushāṇa princes—Kujūla Kadphises, Vima Kadphises, Kanishka, Huvishka, Vāsudeva; the names of the three last are even recorded in several inscriptions. It seems to be now generally accepted that Kanishka was the founder of the so-called Śaka era, and that consequently his reign started in A.D. 78.[24] The chief remaining difficulty is the attribution of certain copper coins bearing the title _Kujūla Kadaphes_ (Kharoshṭhī—_Kuyula Kaphasa_); this must remain for the present unsettled. [24] _Camb. History of India_, Vol. I, p. 583.