South Indian Inscriptions

COINS

As stated before, the coins of Krishnarāja circulated over a very wide territory from Rajputana in the north to Maharashtra in the south and from Konkan in the west to Vidarbha in the east. They continued to be current long after the time of Krishnarāja ; for, they are mentioned in the Anjanēri plates dated K. 461 (710-11 A.C.) of Bhōgaśakti. They were, therefore, in circulation for at least 150 years after the time of Krishnarāja. As might be expected, there were several issues of them ; for, the inscription on the reverse does not always commence at the same place and differences in the shapes of some letters are also noticeable.

As stated before, the silver coins of the Kshatrapas which were struck to the same weight-standard as the coins of Krishnaraja were called kārshāpanas. Later on, however, this denomination seems to have given place to rupaka. The Anjanēri plates show that the coins of Krishnarāja, which were then in general circulation were called Krishnarāja-rūpakas, evidently to distinguish them from the rupakas of the Kshatrapas, the satavahanas and the Traikūtakas which were similar in fabric.

The Coins of Gangeyadeva

The first coin of this king to be recorded was that figured in P1. L, No. I, facing page 668 in the Journal of the Asiatic society of Bengal, Vol. IV (1835). Prinsep, who published the coin, read the legend on the obverse as Srimad-Jādjēyadēva, and described the figure on the other side as ‘a rudely executed front view of a male or female (it is difficult to say which), seated in the native fashion, with a glory round the head and some incomprehensible objects in the hands’. The legend was correctly read as Śrīmad-Gāngēyadēva by E. Thomas1 in 1858, but he could not identify the king.

In his Archæological survey of India Reports, Vol. X (1180), p. 21 and Coins of Mediæval India (1894), p. 72, Cunningham described, with illustrations, gold silver and copper coins of Gāngēyadēva. He identified the goddess on the reverse as Pārvati and ascribed the coins to the Kalachuri king Gāngēyadēva, mentioned by Albērūnī as the contemporary ruler of Dāhala. The coins were next described by Rapson in his Indian Coins (1897), p. 33, and by Vincent Smith, first in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. LXVI (1897) pp.305-6, and then in his Catalogue of Coins in the Indian Museum (1906), pp. 251 ff. Pl.s A, NO. 4. AV. Size in dimatere—.7” Wt.—61 grs. Obverse—Inside a circle of dots, the legend in Nagari characters in three lines (I) [Śrỉ-mad]- G[ā]-(2) ngēyadē-(3) [va]. Reverse¬—Inside a circle of dots the figure of four-armed Lakshmi, nimbate, sitting crosslegged, with lotuses in her two upper hands.2 Gāngēya’s coins exist in all the three metals: gold, silver and copper. Gold coins generally weigh 61 or 62 grains, but Dr. V.S. Agrawala informs me that the top weight of Gāngēya’s gold coin in the Lucknow Museum is 65 grains. Gold coins were called tankas. The Rewa stone inscription of Vijayasimha mentions tankakas stamped with the effigy of Bhagavat (or rather Bhagavati, i.e., Lakshmī)3. They were probably the gold coins of Gāngēya. Another term denoting gold coins which seems to have been current in that period, though it does not occur in any record edited here, was gadyānaka. The Chandrāvati plate dated V. 1148 (1090 A.C.) of the Gāhadavāla king Chandradēva, who was a
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¹See his edition of Prinsep’s Essays on Indian Antiquities, p. 291.
²The Kalachuri kings were no doubt Śaivas, but the device on the seals of their copper-plate grants is a figure of Lakshmi with an elephant on either side pouring water over her head. The lotuses in the hands of the female deity on the coins of Gangeya plainly indicate that she was intended to represent Lakshmi.
³No. 67, 11.20-21.