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Art. VII.—Notes on Indian Coins and Seals. Part I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

With the kind permission of the Council of the Society, I purpose from time to time to contribute a series of notes on such unpublished or noteworthy coins and seals of Ancient and Mediaeval India as come under my notice; and I shall be greatly obliged to collectors of these objects if they will submit to me at the British Museum any specimens about which they may desire information.

Type
Original Communications
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1900

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References

page 97 note 1 Grundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, ii. Band, 3. Heft, B. (Trübner: Strassburg, 1898.)Google Scholar

page 98 note 1 xiv, 3, ed. Kern, and trans., p. 88 = J.R.A.S., 1871, p. 82.

page 99 note 1 Referred to in P.W., s.v. ‘Audumbari.’

page 99 note 2 For references, see Rapson, , Indian Coins, § 6Google Scholar.

page 99 note 3 Figured in Cunningham, , Coins of Ancient India, pl. iii, 11Google Scholar.

page 100 note 1 Cunningham, , C.A.I., p. 82Google Scholar, pl. vii, 4; Rapson, , Indian Coins, § 53Google Scholar.

page 100 note 2 Indian Coins, § 46.

page 101 note 1 In three out of the four coins of the largest size in the British Museum. This counter-mark seems to occur less frequently on the coins of medium size, and not at all on the small coins.

page 101 note 2 It appears among other ornaments in a necklace (Fergusson, , Tree and Serpent Worship, 2nd ed., 1873, pl. iii, 4)Google Scholar, and a similar ornament, described by Mr. Vincent Smith as ‘a gold-leaf cross,’ was found among the relics from the Piprāhwā Stūpa (J.R.A.S., 1898, p. 586, pi. 10).

page 101 note 3 Führer, , Epigraphia Indica, ii, p. 240Google Scholar.

page 101 note 4 Alberuni's, India (trans. , Sachau), vol. i, p. 300Google Scholar.

page 102 note 1 Indian Antiquary, 1893, p. 192.

page 102 note 2 Cunn, ., Coins of Anc. Ind., p. 61Google Scholar: Rapson, , Indian Coins, § 56Google Scholar.

page 103 note 1 Cunn., id., pl. ii, 21, 22.

page 103 note 2 Indische Palaeographie, p. 8.

page 103 note 3 Cunn., Arch. Surv. Reports, xv, pl. iii; v. also Bühler (l.c.).

page 104 note 1 Gardner: b.m. Cat., Greek and Scythic Kings of Bactria and India, pl. iii, 9; pl. iv, 9.

page 104 note 2 Cunningham, , Coins of Anc. Ind., pl. iii, 14Google Scholar; cf. Rapson, , Indian Coins, §§ 21, 56Google Scholar.

page 104 note 3 Gardner, op. cit., pl. iv, 10; Cunn., op. cit., pl. iii, 9, 13.

page 105 note 1 “taśa, Khālsi, xii, 31; Agapalaśa, Patna seal, Cunningham, A.S.R., xv, pl. iii, 2; Bühler, , Ind. Pal., pp. 8, 9Google Scholar; Haviṣkaśa, on a coin, Cunningham, Coins of the Ku'āns, Num. Chron., 1892, pi. viii, 15 (Cunn. reads differently); Sakaśa, in the second Nāsik Inscription of Private Individuals, A.S.W.I., iv, p. 114.” Prof. Franke also refers me to an instance—Gamiṇi Tisaśa—occurring in an ancient inscription of Ceylon, published by DrHoernlé, in Ind. Ant., vol. i, pl. viiGoogle Scholar. On this form Dr. Hoernlé observes (p. 170): “The śa of the genitive of this word is most remarkable. . . .; it is not given by Prinsep, and has not, I think, been found in India, but I have since found it in many places in Ceylon, and there can be no doubt about the meaning of the sign.”

page 105 note 2 It may be noted incidentally that śpa—not spa—seems to be the regular equivalent ΣπΑ on the coins which bear the names of Spalagadama, Spalahora, Spalarises, Spalyris (the Śaka or Śaka-Parthian class), v. Bühler, Indische Palaeographie, Taf. 1. Moreover, on the Audumbara coin published by Cunningham, , Coins of Anc. Ind., pl. iv, 1Google Scholar =Rapson, , Indian Coins, pl. iii, 8Google Scholar, the reading Viśvamitra should be corrected to Viśpamitra. The second akṣara is certainly not śva, but śpa, and the dialectical form Viśpamitra is not without interest.

page 105 note 3 Cunningham, , Geog. of Anc. Ind., p. 104Google Scholar.

page 106 note 1 Kielhorn, , Epigraphia Indica, i, pp. 180, 181Google Scholar: “Harivarmmanāmā Śrī-Mamma ity aparanāmakṛtapratītiḥ.”

page 106 note 2 Stein, , Num. Chron., 1899, p. 158Google Scholar.

page 106 note 3 Burgess, : Arch. Surv. West. Ind., Buddhist Cave Temples, pl. lv, p. 116Google Scholar; note 3, “Mammā is probably a corruption of Mahimā, just as Mammaṭa is of Mahimabhaṭṭa.”

page 106 note 4 Cunn, ., Coins of Anc. Ind., p. 90Google Scholar, pl. viii, 20. Prinsep's Essays (ed. Thomas), vol. ii, pl. xliv, 224; p. 224 (wrongly read).

page 107 note 1 The full inscription on these coins has not been read. I conjecture that, on certain specimens, the word of which traces can be seen beneath the type may have been Bahudhañake; but there seem to be several varieties.

page 107 note 2 Fleet, , Corpus Inscr. Ind., iii, p. 1Google Scholar.

page 107 note 3 Ed. Kern, iv, 25; xi, 59; xiv, 25–28; xvi, 22; xvii, 19. It may be said that the Ārjunāyanas are never mentioned apart from the Yaudheyas in the Bṛhat-saṃhitā (v. Fleet, , Topographical List, Ind. Ant., 1893, pp. 173, 194)Google Scholar.

page 107 note 4 Indian Coins, § 51.

page 107 note 5 Smith, J.R.A.S., 1897, p. 884.

page 107 note 6 J.R.A.S., 1897, p. 886.

page 110 note 1 Cunningham, , Coins of Anc. Ind., p. 89Google Scholar.

page 110 note 2 It is uncertain whether or not the word Rājño occupied this position on this coin.

page 111 note 1 See, however, what is apparently an instance of the substitution of nonaspirate for aspirate— catra for chatra—referred to inf., p. 125, note 2.

page 112 note 2 v. sup., p. 100.

page 115 note 1 Smith, J.R.A.S., 1897, p. 876.

page 116 note 1 For this emblem, see Burgess, : Arch. Surv, West. Ind., Elura Cave Temples, p. 12Google Scholar. It occurs very commonly on coins, e.g., Cunn, ., Coins of Anc. Ind., pl. iv, 14; pt. T, 1, 2, etcGoogle Scholar.

page 117 note 1 Fleet, , Corpus Inscr. Ind., p. 1Google Scholar.

page 117 note 2 Fleet, op. cit., Index, s.v. Nāga, p. 328.

page 117 note 3 p. 221 (ed. Bomb., 1892); p. 192 (trans., Cowell & Thomas); cf. Rapson, J.R.A.S., 1898, p. 449.

page 118 note 1 Essays (ed. Thomas), vol. i, p. 341.

page 118 note 2 Cunningham, (Coins of Med. Ind., p. 47)Google Scholar spells the word “Gadiya, derived . . . from the fire-altar or throne (gadi) on the reverse.”

page 118 note 3 With the other class of unattrihuted coins—the copper series, of which specimens are shown in Cunningham's Coins of Med. Ind., pl. vi, 1–6—I shall hope to deal in a subsequent article.

page 119 note 1 Op. cit., p. 48. In the sentence following this, he says, “Even the sun and moon symbols of the Sassanian coins are retained with the fire-altar or throne.” Sassanian is, no doubt, a misprint for Surashtran. The ‘sun and moon symbols' occur, of course, on both the Sassanian and the Surashtran coinages.

page 119 note 2 General Cunningham seems to admit this (op. cit., p. 47) in the passage quoted above.

page 119 note 3 Indrājī, Bhagvānlāl, Journ. of the Bombay Br. R.A.S., xii, p. 325Google Scholar: “Gadhia Coins of Gujarāt and Mālwā.”

page 119 note 4 v. reff. in Indian Coins, § 105. Col. Biddulph informs me that the find described by Dr. Hoernlé took place not in Mārwār, but in Mhairwarra (Merwara), “the small mountainous district in the Aravalli range, forming the south-west portion of the Ajmere-Mhairwarra Commissionership.” He says in a letter to me, “The coins, of which I have eight, were found in 1889, five months before I became Commissioner of Ajmere-Merwara.”

page 120 note 1 Epigraphia Indica, vol. i, p. 155.

page 121 note 1 Khārōd inscription of her son Ratnadeva III. Cedi-samvat, 933 = A.D. 1181; v. Kielhorn, , List of the Inscriptions of Northern India, p. 60Google Scholar, No. 423.

page 121 note 2 Kielhorn, , Epigraphia Indica, i, p. 40Google Scholar.

page 122 note 1 Kielhorn, id., iii, p. 46. Māndhātā is “an island in the Narmadā river, attached to the Nimār district of the Central Provinces.”

page 122 note 2 Bhāṇḍup Grant (ed. Bühler, ), Ind. Ant., 1876, p. 276Google Scholar; Śilāhāra Copperplate Grant (ed. Telang), id., 1880, p. 39; Ambarnāth Inscription (ed. , Bhagvānlāl), Journ. Bomb. Br. R.A.S., xii, p. 332Google Scholar; cf. MrsRickmers, , Chronology of India, pp. 114Google Scholar, 303.

page 122 note 3 Fleet, , Kanarese Dynasties (Bombay Gazetteer, vol. i, pt. 2, p. 543)Google Scholar.

page 123 note 1 The note taken of the weight of this coin has, unfortunately, been lost.

paeg 123 note 2 Coins of Med. Ind., p. 47, pl. vi, 18.

page 123 note 3 Indian Coins, § 110, pl. v, 5.

page 124 note 1 Is it possible that this name can be restored in the obverse inscription— —again with ṇa for na?

paeg 124 note 2 Indrājī, Bhagvānlāl, Ind. Ant., x, p. 34Google Scholar; Cunningham, , Arch. Surv. Reports, ix, pl. xiiGoogle Scholar; v. Kielhorn, , List of Inscriptions of Northern India, p. 81Google Scholar, No. 589.

page 125 note 1 The description of this coin, id., p. 70, requires correction. The inscription is Rājña[ḥ] Kopūtasya Vīrayaśasya. The name also should be given as Vīrayaśasa. This compound from vīra + yaśaḥh is, of course, quite regular.

page 125 note 2 The reading of the inscription of this coin, id., p. 72, should also be corrected. It should be Bhāgavata-Catreśvara-Mahātmanaḥ. The form catreśvara for chatreśvara appears to be quite beyond doubt. But it is certainly very remarkable, and a similar loss of aspiration in a Sanskrit form is not easy to find.