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History Highlight: Nahapana
Nahapana was an Indo-Scythian King of the Western Satrap Empire, ruling out of and around what is now Gujarat in the late 2nd and early 1st century BCE.
Numismatists find his reign quite interesting as he founded the Kshatrapa coinage system and additionally because his coins exhibit heavy Hellenic (Greek) and possibly Roman (Latin) influence. During that time, Greek influence still permeated in the Northwest areas of the Indian subcontinent, and we have highlighted some of that history in our Week 20 and Week 2 issues. On the coin below, we see the Prakrit phrase “Rannio Kshaharata” (King Kshaharata) in a version of the Greek alphabet. The Greek equivalent of “Nahapana” is Mambanos.
In addition to his coinage, where we have a Hindu King of Eastern Iranian/Turkic origin minting coins using the Greek script, he patronized both Hinduism and Buddhism during his reign. He undertook pilgrimages to Somnath, donated hundreds of thousands of cows, and funded many temples and pilgrimage sites.
Nahapana is well known for (allegedly) being the rival of the Telugu King Gautamiputra Satakarni of the Satavahana Empire, who conquered the Satrap Empire from the South. There are debates over the timing of Nahapana’s reign and whether it coincided with the battle between the Satavahanas and Satraps. Additionally, there is a spurious narrative that the Satavahana battle with the Satraps as one of dharmic forces conquering Yavanas (Literally meaning “Greek”, but having an effective meaning closer to “foreigner barbarian”), which does not comport with the Satrap’s patronization of the Hindu and Buddhist religions.
Hinduphobia Highlight: Al-Jazeera
Coverage of people advocating for Hindu interests is often mired in bizarre agendas, with Al-Jazeera, the state-owned news source of the ultraconservative Islamist nation of Qatar, firmly among the worst. A recent article by Raqib Naik published by al-Jazeera, spuriously and inaccurately claimed that “Hindutva” organizations in the US received money from PPP grants. Later he feuded with Suhag Shukla, HAF’s Director on Twitter.
In response to the libel, HAF announced legal action against Al-Jazeera, and a few other groups involved in spreading falsehoods about HAF and other Hindu American organizations. Its an important lesson that narratives matter, and that liars and Hinduphobes need to be directly countered, exposed, and smeared. A late breaking update is that Al-Jazeera has retracted the article (as of Thursday 4/22).
Aesthetic: Afghan Hindu Shahi Coin
