Key to Plate XII

Note—In the Plate the obverse and reverse of No. 7 have been transposed.

With the extinction of the Vijayanagar kingdom the number of petty states minting their own money rapidly increased. For example, the “Durgi pagoda” continued to be struck by the Nāyakas of Chitaldrūg from 1689 to 1779; the god and goddess type was continued by the Nāyakas of Ikkeri (1559-1640), and later on at Bednūr (1640-1763). On the conquest of the latter city in 1763 by Ḥaidar ’Alī, the type was for a short time struck by him with addition of the initial letter of his name “hē” on the reverse; but this initial soon became the obverse and the year and date in Persian occupied the reverse. So also the East India Company issued, from Madras, pagodas of the “three swami” type, and both British and Dutch Companies struck “Veṅkaṭapati pagodas,” but with a granulated reverse. These latter Company coins acquired the name “Porto Novo pagodas,” from one of their places of issue. The famous “Star pagoda” was of this type, with the addition of a star on the reverse. Likewise the Niz̤āms of Ḥaidarābād and the Nawābs of the Karnatic struck pagodas of various types; those of the Nawāb Ṣafdar ’Alī are of the “Porto Novo” type with an “’Ain” on the granulated reverse.

At Bālāpūr, Qolār (Kolār), Gūtī and Ooscotta were struck fanams, and at Imtiyāzgarh pagodas, with Persian inscriptions in the name of the Mug̱ẖal Emperor, Muḥammad Shāh, and a small copper coinage in the name of ’Ālamgīr II was in general circulation in parts of the peninsula; small silver coins of a similar type are also known. An exceedingly interesting fanam, as well as some copper pieces, bear the Nāgarī legend, Śrī Rāja Śiva on the obverse, and Chhatrapati, “Lord of the umbrella,” on the reverse, and have with great probability been assigned to the great Marāṭhā chief, Śivajī.

The coinage of the old Keraḷa country, the Malabar coast, was, in 1657, the Portuguese Viaggio di Vincenzo Maria informs us, in the hands of the rulers of four states, Kannanur, Kalikat, Cochin and Travancore. It is distinguished from that of the rest of the peninsula by its large employment of silver, the most remarkable among these silver coins being the tārēs, said to have been struck in Kalikat, which have a śaṅkha shell on the obverse and a deity on the reverse, and weigh only from one to two grains each. The same device, a śaṅkha shell, appears on the silver puttans of Cochin, struck both by the Dutch and the native rulers, and also on the old and modern silver vellis of Travancore. Various gold fanams were current in Travancore before the nineteenth century, the oldest, known as the rasi, also has a śaṅkha on the obverse, and is closely allied to the “Vīra rāya” fanams of Kalikat. During the eighteenth century the copper coinage of Travancore was known as the “Anantan kāsu”; on the obverse was a five-headed cobra, and on the reverse the value of the coin, one, two, four or eight “cash” written in Tamil. In the years 1764 and 1774 the Moplah chief of Kannanur, ’Alī Rāja, struck double silver and gold fanams with Persian inscriptions, recording his name and the date (Pl. VII, 13). The Muhammadan coinage of Mysore is reserved for a later chapter.