纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 042鸠摩罗笈多王一世金币（6）（在线收听）

What we're looking at is a statue of the god as you would see it in a temple, just the sort of statue that Kumaragupta himself might have commissioned. It's a tradition of temple imagery that emerges here, and continues to the present day.

因此我们看到的并非一幅神祇的形象，而是一尊寺庙里的雕像，也许鸠摩罗笈多自己也在供奉一尊。寺庙造像的传统即在这个时代出现，一直延续至今。

And on the other side of the coin is King Kumaragupta, also with a peacock but, unlike Kumara, he doesn't ride this peacock. Instead, he elegantly offers grapes to his god's sacred bird. Crowned and haloed, the king wears heavy earrings and an elaborate necklace and the inscription tells us that this is: "Kumaragupta, deservedly victorious with an abundance of virtues".

金币的另一面上是鸠摩罗笈多自己的形象，也有一头孔雀。国王立在一侧，优雅地让神鸟享用葡萄，并没有像鸠摩罗一样骑上去。他戴着王冠，头顶光环，还戴着沉甸甸的耳环和精致的项链。金币上刻着鸠摩罗笈多王，德行高尚，战无不胜。

The gold coin does what coins have always done uniquely well: they tell everyone who handles them that their ruler enjoys the special favour of heaven and, in this case, the special favour of heaven's commander-in-chief, because he is linked in a particular way to the god Kumara. It's a form of mass communications, invented around the death of Alexander, that rulers have exploited ever since. The "Grace of God" claimed for the Queen on every British penny stands in the same tradition as Kumaragupta's coin. But Kumaragupta's image of his god is about much more than the theology of power-it also speaks of a universal human desire. Like all the objects this week, it's evidence of the longing for a direct personal connection with the divine, which everyone-not just the king-could access. Mediated by statues and images, it's a relationship that's been central to Hinduism every since.

这两枚金币充分发挥了硬币的独特功用：它们让所有硬币持用者了解，他们的君主受到神的恩宠。后面这枚还特别表现来自战神的恩宠，因为很显然，国王与鸠摩罗的关系非同一般。这是在亚历山大死后统治者们发明的大众传播方式（第31节)，一直沿用至今：英国的每一枚便士都宣称女王蒙受上帝恩典，作用与鸠摩罗笈多一世的硬币一般无二。但鸠摩罗笈多金币上的神像不只表现了权力神学，它还表现了人类的普遍欲望，人类一直渴望能与神有直接的个人接触。借助雕像与画像，这种关系自此成为印度教的核心。