Indian Antiquary Vol 56

SR No.: 032548
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1986
Total Pages: 286
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 13 MB

Page 215

OCTOBER, 1927]
SOME SOUTH INDIAN GOLD COINS
187
weight from 5 to 51 grains. Of these latter eighty, thirty-eight have one side blank [No. 4 in Plate). All the eighty have on one side a figure formed by lines anildo ts, with the sun and moon on either side of it. On the reverse side of forty-two there is a legend Rama Rau' ( a) [No. 2 in Plate) in Devanagari script-Rau is apparently intended for Rao
Rama Rao, as the title Rao indicates, is a Maráthå name and the tern (Rao) is affixed to the names of persons eminent az soldiers, clerks, etc. The title is purely a Maratha term generally applied to a ruling chief or king. Palæographical evidence clearly shows that these coins were neither Pallava nor Chôla ones and wo know that they were not of the Vijayanagar empire, for they do not resemble any of the Vijayanagar coins that we know in design, shape, weight or quality of the metal. No viceroy of Vijayanagar appears to have issued coins in his own name. Moreover no viceroy with the name of Rama Raja Appears to have ruled over these parts where these coins were found. The genealogy of Gingee chiefs that is available from inscriptions, Nos. 860 and 861 in Appendix B of the Annual Report of the Assistant Archæological Superintendent for Epigraphy, Southern Circle, Madras, for 1917, gives the names of several chiefs from Khêmu to Råmabhadra Naidu who is said to have ruled in Saka 1593 (A.D. 1671). Twenty chiefs appear to have ruled between Khêmu and Ramabhadra Naidu, and even allowing twenty-five years for each chief, Khêmu, the first chief, would take us down to 1093 Saka or A.D. 1171. Further, palæographically the age of these coins has to be put later than the sixteenth century. It must therefore be concluded that these do not belong to the Vijayanagar period. The Mughals conquered the parts, where these coins were found only at the latter part of the seventeenth century. We know that the Dutch at Negapatam and the French at Pondicherry issued coins of exactly the same des. cription as the coins of the 1908 and 1918 finds, and they were current on the east coast before the Mughals overthrew the Marathas and assumed sway over their territories. Having thus eliminated all the other dynasties that ruled over these parts we have the Maratha period left as the only period to which we can ascribe the origin of these coins.
Gingee, which is very near the two places, from where we had two of these finds, was during this period a seat of Government and was considered a place fit enough for a viceroy to reside and rule, and there is no other place near about these villages in the district which was at any time a seat of Government. So these must have been issued from the mint at Gingee, and we have also on record that Rama Råja, the second son of the famous Sivaji who captured the fortress of Gingee in 1677, had continued to rule hero as king and that he had issued a firman to the Hon'ble the East India Company, who in 1690 entered into negotiations with Rama Raja, the Marathå king of Gingee, for the purchase of a small fort at Dêvanâmpatņam, near Cuddalore, on the site of the existing Fort St. David, and which both the French and the Dutch had previously endeavoured to buy. Tho firman runs thus:"that the sole Government and possession of the same shall be in the said English Company and their Governors, etc., so long as the sun and moon endures, to be governed by their own lawes and customes both civill and martial and criminall and to coyn money either under our Royal stamp or such other as they shall judge convenient, both in silver or gold ...." This clearly shows that Rama Raja himself had a mint of his own and issued coins in his own name. This Rama Raja is the same as Rama Rau ( re) that is referred to in the legend on the coins under reference. The fact that some of these coins do not have any legend may go to show either that Rama Raja himself had copied the design from coins that were current earlier, or that he himself issued them first without the legend and later on added the legend to impress his own power and importance. In any case there can be no doubt as to the fact that these are of Marath issues, and that they have no manner of resemblance or relation to Kali fanams as was erroneously supposed.
i Gazetteer of South Arcot District, p. 42.