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NOVEMBER, 1889.]
MODERN PANJABI COINS.
THE COINS OF THE MODERN NATIVE CHIEFS OF THE PANJAB,
BY CAPTAIN, B. C. TEMPLE, B.S.C., M.R.A.S.
821
I. GENERAL REMARKS.
THE
THE coins which form the subject of this monograph, were collected mostly by myself in the Pañjab about eight years ago, with the kindly personal assistance of the Chiefs of the Panjab Native States, one of whom has since died. These coins I had the pleasure of presenting to the British Museum. The remainder are taken from former presentations to the Museum, and I am indebted to the courtesy of the Keeper of the Coins for being enabled to represent them in the plates attached hereto. I am also specially indebted to Mr. Graeber, of the Numismatic Department, for the trouble he has taken in having both the coins I collected and those previously presented to the Museum properly reproduced for me. In the detailed description attached to this paper the coins given by myself to the British Museum and those of other donors are carefully distinguished. There is, as far as I am aware, no other collection of these coins in existence.
Properly speaking, the Coins of the Moderu Native Chiefs or the Pañjab should include those of the Mahåråjås of Lâhôr and of the Mahârâjas of Jammu and Kaámir. But the Sikh coinage is a study in itself, and so is the ancient coinage of Kasmir. This paper is therefore confined to the productions of the mints of the Chiefs of the Panjab, that have now, or have had in recent times, the right to issue coins of their own. These are the Maharajas of Patiala, the Rajas of Nabha and Jind, the Sardars of Kaithal, and the Nawabs of Kotla-Maler (more commonly called Mâlêr-Kôtlâ). Of these the Maharajâs of Patiala, the Rájás of Nabha and Jind and the Sardars of Kaithal, belonged to one great family of Chiefs known in the Pañjab as the Phûlkian.
To the student of numismatics the coins of these chiefs have a special interest, as affording valuable examples of the principles governing the evolation of the coinage of partially civilized peoples. The theory of the evolution of coins, first made known by Mr. Evans in his wellknown work, has been applied with great acuteness and ability by Mr. Keary in his Morphology of Coins (1886) to Oriental coins. It is in support or criticism of its application to the coins of semi-barbarous peoples that the following pages will be found to be chiefly valuable.
Mr. Keary makes two remarks in his little book which the reader will do well to bear in mind throughout his perusal of this article. At page 9 he says: "There is a peculiar sort of morphology (of coins) shown when a barbarous or semi-barbarous people, incapable of inaugurating or much modifying a coinage of its own, takes as a model the money of some other State and makes either imitations or reproductions of it in a descending order of degradation. Examples of this class take generally one of two forms: a. If the nation is not very barbarous, it sometimes invents for itself a new type founded on the parent type, and adheres to that for a long succession of years. Such people are not artistic enough or original enough to produce variations of importance on this fixed type. b. A much more barbarous people, who are incapable of either inventing any type for themselves or of copying correctly that which is before them, produce a series of successive degradations which are very curious and interesting to trace." At page 13 he further remarks: "The local issues of different (Greek) cities may be regarded as a kind of token money, not acceptable except by weight outside a narrow area," How far the semi-barbarous coinage of the modern Native Chiefs of the Pañjab bears out these observations the reader will be able to judge for himself.
In the year A.H. 1164, or A.D. 1751, being the fourth year of his reign, the famous Ahmad Shah Durrani (or Abdall) made a raid into the Pañjab and overran the greater part of it; and it is a common historical statement in the Pañjâb, that in that year he granted to the Coins of the Ancient Britons, 1864. But see below, p. 325.
1 As distant connections only.
