________________
No. 40]
SILVER COIN OF BHAIRAVASIMHA
ruler of Tirhut is indicated by his issue of silver coins, one of which is now under study. It is also interesting to note that Śivasimha is the only other Oinvär king whose coins have been discovered.
335
In 1913 three small gold coins, out of a lot discovered at the village of Pipra in the Champaran District, were received in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. They were noticed by R. D. Banerji in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1913-14, 248-49, Plate LXVIII, Nos. 1-3. The coins are round in shape with diameters varying between 3 and 325 inch and weights between 13-6 and 14 grains. As on the coin of Bhairavasimha under study, the legend on the Pipra gold coins runs on from the obverse to the reverse. The lengend on the obverse reads śrī- and that on the reverse in two lines runs (1) Siva- (2) sya. King Siva, who issued these coins, has been rightly identified by Banerji with king Śivasimha of the Oinvar dynasty of Tirhut. A similar coin was previously published by Cunningham in his Coins of Medieval India, p. 54, Plate VI, No. 18. Banerji seems to assign the copper coins1 bearing the name of Champakaranya to the dynasty of Śivasimha; but they were issued by the rulers of the Karnata dynasty. of Simraon (Samaragrāma) and not by the Oinvars of Tirhut.
The importance of the coin published here is two-fold. In the first place, it shows, as already indicated above, that Ōinvar Bhairavasimha ruled for sometime as an independent monarch and signalised the achievement with the issue of some silver coins. Secondly, we learn for the first time from it that Bhairavasimha ascended the throne about 1475-76 A. D. and ruled at least for about 15 years down to 1489-90 A. D. The view assigning his accession to 1496 A. D. is thus certainly wrong.
POSTSCRIPT
Another Silver Coin of Bhairavasimha
Shortly after my paper on the silver coin of Bhairavasimha had been sent to the press, Mr. A. N. Lahiri, one of my Epigraphical Assistants, had occasion to visit Calcutta where he studied some coins in the cabinet of the Archaeological Section of the Indian Museum. In the course of his study, Mr. Lahiri luckily came across another silver coin of Bhairavasimha, closely resembling the one discussed above. On his return to Ootacamund, he kindly placed at my disposal the plaster casts of the coin, which he had prepared with the permission of Mr. R. C. Kar, Superintendent of the Archaeological Section.
This coin was examined by V. A. Smith and was noticed as No. 3 under the head 'Sundry Coins' at the last page (p. 333) of his Catalogue of the Coins in the Indian Museum, Vol. I, 1906. He correctly gives the metal, weight and size of the coin respectively as silver, 164 grains and 9 inch. Unfortunately, Smith, who thought that the provenance of the coin might be Nepal, failed to read any part of the five-line (not four-line as supposed by him) legend on the obverse and the reverse. In the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1913-14, p. 259 (Plate LXIX, No. 31), R. D. Banerji made an unsuccessful attempt to read the legend.
The present coin (No. 2) was struck on a flan slightly smaller than that of Bhairavasimha's other coin (No. 1) dealt with above. As a result of this, some of the letters and numerical figures that can be seen on Coin No. 1 are cut off on Coin No. 2. The two coins, although they apparently bear the same date, were struck from two different dies. In some cases, the forms of the letters are different on the two specimens; cf. h in mahārāja, s in simha, etc. As on Coin No. 1, some letters on Coin No. 2 are damaged owing to later punching by the shroffs; cf. ya in
1 See V.A. Smith, JASB, Vol. LXVI, 1897, Part I, p. 309; and Catalogue (Indian Museum, Calcutta), p. 293; C.J. Rodgers, Catalogue (Lahore Museum), p. 12, Plate IV.
