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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[DECEMBER, 1924
Taken all round, the "Indian Knight's Tour" fails, because it does not solve the problem in 64 moves the "Correct Knight's Tour" fails, because it is not exactly symmetrical: the "Symmetrical Knight's Tour" succeeds in being both correct and symmetrical. It does not, however, explain itself in the first half of the moves, Nos. 1 to 32: nor does it confine itself to one half of the board in the first 32 moves. It is this point that has puzzled mathematicians. How is a mathematical statement, or a mnemonic sloka, to be drawn up which will automatically settle the problem from beginning to end? There is still room for research in this problem.
264
SOME COPPER COINS OF SOUTHERN INDIA.
(A Note on the Plates issued, ante, vol. XXXII (1903), pp: 313-25.)
BY. CH. MOHD. ISMAIL, M.A., M.R.A.S.
THERE is no doubt as to the fact that there was little material for the identification of coins when Mr. Sewell explained the Plate mentioned above. The research carried out during the last twenty years has made it comparatively easy to identify most of the coins now. Peing chiefly concerned with Musalman coins or specimens, stamped with "Persian" or "Arabio" characters, I have tried to identify some of the figures in the plates illustrating Mr. Sewell's article, and being successful in some cases, I give below my observations:
Plate I.
Figures 4-A-4-1. Mr. Sewell says that these specimens have peacocks on one side, but with the exception of 4-A, 4-B, 4-F and 4-I, these birds are not clear. For the sake of convenience, however, we may term these specimens "peacock coins". In this connection the following quotation from the British Museum Catalogue of Persian Coins, 1887, will be of interest. "The copper coinage of Persia under the Shahs is until the present reign, with insignificant exceptions, autonomous. It presents on the obverse a type, usually the figure of an animal, and on the reverse the name of the mint, preceded by or
No doubt the first inscription should be read, the inversion being due to the habit on gold and silver money of placing the word at the foot of the coin, to be read immediately before the mint written next above it. As the types in several instances are identical with the eponymous animals of the Tatar. Cycle, it might be supposed that these at least were chosen with a chronological intention."-Introduction, p. xc.
Now out of these coins, 4-A and 4-B bear the legend, which is evidently a portion of plus the name of the mint where the coin was struck. This fact goes to prove that they cannot be associated with a temple (presumably a Hindu one), which would never use" Persian" for the legend. Though the name of the mint is not to be found on these two specimens, yet by comparing them with figures 9, 21 and 94 of the autonomous copper coins of Persia, given in the above-mentioned Catalogue of the British Museum and figures 30 (p. 105), 47-50 (p. 119), 1 (p. 129), 35 (p. 133), 75 and 84 (p. 141), 172-175 (p. 155) of "Modern Copper Coins of the Muhammadan States "by W. H. Valentine, and taking into consideration the last paragraph of the above quotation from the British Museum Catalogue, we can say with certainty that these coins are "autonomous " of Iranian origin, if we take Iran to mean Caucasia, Persia and Afghanistan, and have nothing to do with the temples of Southern India. Of course, if there is no "Persian" inscription, we are in darkness, as coins of similar appearance have been given, though not definitely assigned, in plate IV (figures 8 and 9) of Thurston's Mysore Coins.
