page_title: Apollodotus I
section_title: Buddhist and Hindu symbolism
hierarchical_section_title: Apollodotus I / Coinage / Buddhist and Hindu symbolism
caption_attribution_description: English: Apollodotus bull with nandipada. Another coin where the symbol on the hump is clear:
context_page_description: Apollodotus I Soter was an Indo-Greek king between 180 BCE and 160 BCE or between 174 and 165 BCE who ruled the western and southern parts of the Indo-Greek kingdom, from Taxila in Punjab to the areas of Sindh and possibly Gujarat.
context_section_description: Before their design was eventually simplified, some of the earlier coins of king Apollodotus directly associate the elephant with Buddhist symbolism, such as the stupa hill (arched-hill symbol) surmounted by a crescent or a star (the Chaitya symbol), also seen, for example on the coins of the Mauryan Empire, many local coins of Taxila or those of the later Kuninda kingdom.
  Also the zebu bull on the reverse is often shown with a nandipada taurine mark on its hump on the less-worn coins, which reinforces the role of the animal as a symbol, religious or geographic, rather than just the depiction of an animal for decorative purposes. The nandipada and the zebu bull are generally associated with Nandi, Shiva's humped bull in Hinduism. The same association was made later on coins of Zeionises or Vima Kadphises. The elephant, pendant to the bull, and shown with a girdle on the obverse, also must have a symbolic role, possibly Buddhism, as it was associated with the stupa hill in the earliest coins of Apollodotus. 
  Apollodotus experimented with different coin standards for his silver, until he settled for a standard lighter than the Attic which would prevail for centuries, though later rulers usually struck round coins instead of the square (typically Indian) shape of most of Apollodotus' silver. He issued a number of bronzes with Apollo/tripod, that also were repeated for centuries.
caption: Indian coin of Apollodotus I, with a nandipada taurine symbol on the hump of the zebu bull.
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