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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
There is another most important point disclosed by the legends of coins Nos. 1-4, in the termination "Kura," or Kula as I read it, which is rendered as 'a race, a family, tribe, caste,' &c. In the present instances it seems to refer to some joint brotherhood, descendants of the ancestral female by different fathers. These communities in process of time may have grouped themselves into small republics, and the title of Rand which heads the legends may perchance refer to the senior or anonymous president for the time being.T
The subjoined list of the Western coins which I have now seen for the first time has been restricted to a technical description of the types, and an avowedly tentative effort at the decipherment of the legends. The time has not yet arrived for any consecutive arrangement of the coins, either in the numismatic or historical sense. I trust that the future contributions of local collectors will enable me to make it more perfect hereafter. List of Coins.
No. 1. Copper mixed with lead. Size, full 9 of Mionnet's scale. Weight 220 grains. 4 specimens. 2 Bo. Br. R. As. Soc., 2 Hon'ble Mr. Gibbs.
Obverse-A crude figure of a bow and broadly barbed arrow.*
Reverse-Chaitya with four rows of inverted semicircles surmounted by a half-moon (as in the Sâh coins), to the right a tree with seven leaves or branches, at the foot an oblong pedestal with serpent in a wavy line, and dots.
Legend रञ मदारी पुतस सिवाल कुरस Raño Maddri-putasa Sivála-kurasa.
No. 2. Copper and lead. Size 7 of Mionnet's scale. Weight 228 grains. 3 specimens. 1 Bo. Br. R. As. Soc., 2 the Hon'ble Mr. Gibbs.
Obverse-Device a crude strung bow, and broadly barbed arrow set for use.
Legend - रञो वासिठो पुतस विदवाय कुरस
Raño Vásitho-putasa Vidavdya-kurasa. Reverse-A chaitya consisting of three layers of inverted semicircles with dots, surmounted by a chakra (or figure of the sun?). To the left a tree. with seven broad leaves. At the foot, an oblong square pedestal, in which is figured a serpent, with the wavy intervals filled in with dots.
I place the children of the daughter, Vå sithi,
Molesworth, in his Marathi Dictionary, notices several variants in the orthography of this word "the compounds changing the into and the into ." The interchanges of R and L and R and I may be followed in Caldwell's Grammar, but it is sufficient for our purpose to notice that the ancient inscriptions fully authorize the optional use of Raja or Laja.
It is remarkable how apparently complete an organization of corporate bodies and trade guilds is seen to have existed in Western India when the Nasik cave inscriptions were put upon recory.
I myself long ago suggested that some such explanation
[SEPTEMBER, 1877.
earlier than the children of the mother, Gautami, on numismatic grounds. It is possible that the greater glories and ancestral status of the grandmother eclipsed, in process of time, the subdued claims of the memory of the mother.
No. 3. Copper and lead. Size 9 of Mionnet's scale. Weights range from 180 grains to 196. The execution of the dies is inferior. Numerous specimens.
Obverse-The usual crude bow and arrow. Legend - रञो गौतमी पुतस विदवाय कुरस
Raño Gotami-putasa Vidaváya-kurasa. Reverse-Chaitya device as above, but the tree is attached to the main device and rises directly from the end of the pedestal.
Many of these coins are what is technically termed double-struck,' i.e. the dies of a successor or adverse contemporary have been repeated over the original impression, without any refashioning of the piece itself.
These indications are often of much value in
determining the relative priority of the conjoint
rulers. In the present instance they authorize us to place the children of Ma dari before those of Gautam î.
In one case a coin of the Gautami-putras has had the identical legends of the original obverse repeated over the surface of the old reverse.
No. 4. Copper. Size 4 of Mionnet's scale. Weight 28 grains. 2 specimens, Hon'ble Mr. Gibbs.
Obverse-Bow and arrow.
Legend - रञो वास
तसविदवाय कुरस
Raño Vasi [tho-pu]tasa Vidavdya-kurasa. Reverse-Chaitya, with tree growing on the
summit.
In the field of one specimen, a monogram possibly composed of the letters tachd or tavá; on the other example, a letter exactly like a Chaldæan-Pehlvi (a).†
No. 5. Copper and lead. Size 7. Weight 230 grains. Sir Walter Elliot.
Obverse-Device similar in some respects to No. 1, but the Chaitya is solid, surmounted with the usual half-moon, while the tree is replaced by a couch-shell, balanced on the other side of the field by a flower. Serpent at foot.
might apply to the Sâh series in a republican system of rotation, which should account for the over-full list of the kings whose names occur on the coins.
The same typical form of bow and arrow occurs frequently on the earliest specimens of the ancient punched coins. See my Indian Weights, Numismata Orientalia, Part I. Plate, figs. 12, &c.
† See Jour. R. As. Soc. N. S. vol. III. (1868) p. 264. It may be as well to add that the occurrence of such a letter on the local coinage need not necessarily reduce the age of the pieces so inscribed to the modern limits assigned to extant Pehlvi inscriptions. The letters of these alphabets are found on very early specimens of the Parthian coinage.
