All the states whose coinages form the subject of this chapter, with the exception of Kashmīr, were once provinces subject to the Dehlī Sultans, and owed their independence to the ambition of powerful viceroys, who took advantage at various times of the weakened control of the central power. The earliest issues of each state were more or less close imitations of the Dehlī currency, but local conditions soon introduced modifications in standard and fabric, and in the course of a century each had generally acquired a well-defined and characteristic coinage of its own. Prosperity was usually short-lived; the inevitable period of decay set in; and the coinage, confined at the close to ill-struck copper pieces, illustrates history in striking fashion. Bengal, however, was able to maintain its silver currency to the last.
Bengal was brought into subjection to the Dehlī kingdom in 1202 (A.H. 599) by Baḵẖ̱tiyār Ḵẖ̱iljī, who became the first governor of the province. Till 1338 it was nominally ruled from the capital, Lakhnautī, by independent governors; but at least six of these issued coins in their own names; and after 1310 there was a divided governorship, the rulers of East and West Bengal each assuming the right to coin. Independence was gained under one of the rulers of East Bengal, Faḵẖ̱ru-d-dīn Mubārak; and, after a year of discord, Shamsu-d-dīn Ilyās Shāh, in 1339, brought the whole province under his control. From 1339-1358 Bengal was ruled by four dynasties, the house of Ilyās Shāh, 1339-1406 and 1442-1481, the house of the Hindu rāja, Ganesh, 1406-1442, the Ḥabshī kings, 1486-1490, and the house of the greatest of Bengal kings, ’Alāu-d-dīn Ḥusain Shāh, 1493-1538. Bengal was then ruled from Dehlī by Sher Shāh and his family; then independently from 1552-1563 by younger members of his dynasty; and finally by three sovereigns of the Afg̱ẖān Kararānī family till 1576, when Bengal became a province of Akbar’s empire.
Gold coins of Bengal are very scarce, and but one billon coin, of the governor G̱ẖ̱iyās̤u-d-dīn Bahādur (1310-1323) has been found. The place of copper, it is supposed, was supplied by cowries. Silver coins are known of twenty-nine out of the fifty-six governors and sultans, but the silver is inferior in purity to the Dehlī coins; and that of the Sultans is struck to a local standard of 166 grains: they are frequently much disfigured by countermarks and chisel-cuts made by the money-changers. The coins of the governors and Sultans until Shamsu-d-dīn Ilyās Shāh show Dehlī influence in fabric and inscription, and this influence reappears occasionally later. The issues of the earlier governors bear the Kalima on the obverse; for this later governors substitute the name of the last Khalif of Bag̱ẖdād, Al Must’aṣim. The independent kings adopt various titles expressing their loyalty to the head of Islām, such as “The right hand of the Khalif, aider of the commander of the faithful” and “Succourer of Islām and the Muslims.” The convert, Jalālu-d-dīn Muḥammad (1414-1431), revived the use of the Kalima, which is continued with two exceptions by all his successors till ’Alāu-d-dīn Ḥusain Shāh’s reign. The most usual personal titles are “The mighty Sultan,” or “The strengthened by the support of the Compassionate,” but certain rulers adopt striking formulæ of their own. Shamsu-d-dīn Ilyās Shāh, following ’Alāu-d-dīn Muḥammad of Dehlī, called himself “The Second Alexander,” and Sikandar Shāh (1358-89) was evidently imitating Muḥammad bin Tug̱ẖlaq in “The warrior in the cause of the Compassionate.” One of the most curious and interesting titles appears on a coin of ’Alāu-d-dīn Ḥusain; it runs as follows: “The Sultan, conqueror over Kāmrū and Kamtah and Jājnagar and Urīssah,” alluding to his invasions of Assam and Orissa.
The coinage assumes a characteristic local type first under Sikandar (Pl. IX, 1), son of the founder of the house of Ilyās, and henceforth there is much variety of design, the Sultan’s name and titles being enclosed in circles, squares, octagons, sometimes with multifoil borders or scalloped edges; margins occur more usually on the reverse only, sometimes on both sides, in which are inscribed the mint and date in Arabic words. Nāṣiru-d-dīn Maḥmūd I (1442-59), abolished the marginal inscription; and from his reign the mint name and date, in figures, appear at the bottom of the reverse area. For some of his coins Jalālu-d-dīn Muḥammad used Tughra characters, which, owing to the up-strokes being elongated to the upper edge of the coin, give the curious appearance of a row of organ-pipes. It must be admitted that the majority of Bengal coins are entirely wanting in artistic form, the depths being reached perhaps in some of the issues of Ruknu-d-dīn Bārbak (1459-74); the calligraphy is of the poorest quality; and the Bengali die-cutters frequently reveal their ignorance of Arabic. The fine broad coins of the two Afg̱ẖān dynasties display an immediate improvement; they are identical in form and inscription with the Dehlī Sūrī coinage, and are struck to Sher Shāh’s new silver standard. A special feature of the Bengal coinage is the number of its mints; twenty-one names have been read on the coins, but it is uncertain whether some of these are not temporary names for better-known towns. The most important mints were Lakhnautī, Fīrozābād, Satgāon, Fatḥābād, Ḥusainābād, Naṣratābād and Tānda. Also certain coins are inscribed as struck at “The Mint” and “The Treasury.” The broad silver coins of the little state of Jayantāpura, though struck two centuries after the independent coinage of Bengal had disappeared, seem to be a late echo of the popularity it achieved, particularly in the neighbouring hill states.
Kashmīr was conquered about the year 1346 by a Swāt, named Shāh Mirzā, who, assuming the title of Shamsu-d-dīn, founded the first Muhammadan dynasty. The most famous of succeeding rulers were the iconoclast Sikandar (1393-1416) and the tolerant Zainu-l-’ābidīn (1420-70). From 1541 to 1551 Kashmīr was ruled by a Mug̱ẖal governor, Mirzā Ḥaidar, nominally in subjection to the Emperor Humāyūn. In 1561 the Chak dynasty succeeded and ruled till 1589, when Akbar annexed Kashmīr to the empire. Coins are known of sixteen sultans; there are also coins in the local style struck in the names of the Mug̱ẖals, Akbar and Humāyūn and of Islām Shāh Sūrī. The gold of these Sultans is extremely scarce, only about twelve specimens being known, including coins of Muḥammad Shāh, Ibrāhīm and Yūsuf. They are all of one type: on the obverse is the Kalima enclosed in a circle, the reverse inscription giving the king’s name and titles and the mint, Kashmīr, is divided into two parts by a double band running across the face of the coin. Most characteristic of the Kashmīr kingdom are the square silver pieces (Pl. IX, 9); size, shape and design suggest that the model for these may perhaps be found in the recent billon issues of Qut̤bu-d-dīn Mubārak of Dehlī (1316-20). Following conservative Kashmīr traditions, the design once fixed remained unchanged till the downfall of the kingdom. The obverse gives the ruler’s name accompanied invariably by the title, “The most mighty Sultan,” and the date in figures; on the reverse appears the legend “Struck in Kashmīr,” in a square border set diagonally to the sides of the coin, and in the margins the date (usually illegible) in Arabic words. Dates on Kashmīr coins are frequently unreliable, they seem at times to have become conventional along with the style.
The copper coinage follows in general the standard of the preceding Hindu kings and is very poorly executed. In the commonest type the obverse inscription is divided by a bar with a knot in the middle. Zainu-l-’ābidīn struck several kinds of copper; a large crude square type, also found in brass, may belong to an earlier reign. Of Ḥasan Shāh a lead coin has been recorded.
When Muḥammad bin Tug̱ẖlaq formed the most southern districts of his kingdom into a province, which he named Ma’bar, he seems to have struck certain types of billon and copper specially for circulation there. In 1334 (A.H. 735) the governor, Jalālu-d-dīn Aḥsan Shāh, proclaimed his independence, and he and his eight successors minted coins of copper and billon[57] in their capital, Madura, until they were subjugated by the king of Vijayanagar in 1371 (A.H. 773). The last coin of ’Alāu-d-dīn Sikandar Shāh is, however, dated A.H. 779. These coins, which are of little interest, follow two types of the Dehlī coinage, one of which has the sultan’s name in a circle with the date in Arabic in the surrounding margin; the other has the title, “The most mighty Sultan,” on the reverse, and the sultan’s name on the obverse (Pl. IX, 8). The calligraphy is of a southern type and this alone distinguishes these coins from Dehlī issues.
The Deccan province, after a series of revolts extending over four years, became finally severed from the Dehlī kingdom in 1347 (A.H. 748). Certain copper coins in the Dehlī style, bearing this date, have been attributed to Nāṣiru-d-dīn Isma’īl, the first officer to assume the state of royalty. But in the same year he was superseded by Sultan ’Alāu-d-dīn Ḥasan Bahmanī, founder of a dynasty which ruled till 1518, when its bloodstained annals as an independent kingdom closed, though nominal sovereigns supported the pretensions of royalty until 1525. The earliest known coin of the dynasty bears the date A.H. 757. The kingdom at the height of its power, under Muḥammad Shāh III (1463-82), extended from the province of Berār in the north to the confines of Mysore in the south, and east to west from sea to sea. Until the time of ’Alāu-d-dīn Aḥmad Shāh II (1435-57) the capital was Kulbarga, renamed by the founder of the kingdom Aḥsanābād; Aḥmad Shāh moved the seat of government to Bīdar, which henceforth, under the name Muḥammadābād, appears on the coinage in place of Aḥsanābād. No other mint names have been found.
The gold and silver coins are fine broad pieces modelled on the tankahs of ’Alāu-d-dīn Muḥammad of Dehlī. In the earlier reigns there is some variety in arrangement and design: the legend on the silver of Aḥmad Shāh I (1422-35), for example, is enclosed in an oval border, and there is a gold piece of the versatile bigot, Fīroz Shāh (1399-1422), corresponding in weight and fabric to Muḥammad bin Tug̱ẖlaq’s heavy issue. But by the reign of Aḥmad Shāh II a single design had been adopted for both metals (Pl. IX, 2); on the obverse are inscribed various titles which changed with each ruler; on the reverse appear the king’s name and further titles within a square area; while in the margins are the mint name and date. The legend on the gold coins of Maḥmūd Shāh (1482-1518), perhaps the commonest of the rare Bahmanī gold issues, may serve as an example: obverse, “Trusting in the Merciful one, the strong, the rich, the mighty Sultan”; reverse, “The father of battles, Maḥmūd Shāh, the guardian, the Bahmanī.” Small silver pieces were struck by the first two rulers, weighing from 15 to 26 grains.
The earliest copper follows closely that of Dehlī, but innovations soon made their appearance, and after the reign of Aḥmad Shāh II coins are found varying from 225 to 27 grains in weight; the copper standard seems to have been continually changed. Some of the titles appearing on the silver are usually to be found on the same ruler’s copper, but many varieties in type are found, especially among the issues of Muḥammad I (1358-73) and the later kings; of Maḥmūd Shāh seven varieties are known, and seven are also known of Kalīmullah, the last nominal king, struck probably by Amīr Barīd of Bīdar.
During the reign of Maḥmūd Shāh the great kingdom of the Deccan was split up into five separate sultanates. Copper coins of at least three of the Niz̤ām Shāhs of Aḥmadnagar (1490-1637) are known: they appear to have had mints at Aḥmadnagar, Daulatābād and Burhānābād. The coinage of Gulkanda is confined to a single copper type, struck by the two last Qut̤b Shāhī kings, ’Abdullah and Abu-l-Ḥasan; the reverse bears the pathetic legend, “It has come to an end well and auspiciously.” The copper coins of the last five ’Ādil Shāhī rulers of Bījāpūr are rather ornate, but usually very ill-struck; small gold pieces bearing a couplet are known of Muḥammad (1627-56). Most interesting of all Bījāpūr coins are the curious silver Lārīns,[58] or fish-hook money, issued by ’Alī II, 1656-72 (Pl. IX, 10), which became one of the standard currencies among traders in the Indian Ocean towards the end of the sixteenth century. The coinage of the sultans of the Maldive Islands, whereon they styled themselves “Sultans of land and sea,” was based on that of Bījāpūr and survived till the present century.
The Eastern (Sharqī) kingdom of Jaunpūr, which also included the modern districts of Gorakhpūr, Tirhut and Bihār, owed its independence to the power and influence of the eunuch, Ḵẖ̱wāja-i-Jahān, who was appointed “Lord of the East,” by Māḥmūd Shāh II of Dehlī, in 1394. The coinage does not, however, begin till the reign of the third ruler Ibrāhīm (1400-40), and he and his three successors continued to mint till 1476, when Bahlol Lodī overthrew Ḥusain Shāh and re-annexed the province to Dehlī. The bulk of the Jaunpūr coinage consists of billon and copper pieces modelled on those of Dehlī. The commonest billon type has on the obverse the legend, “The Khalif, the commander of the faithful, may his khalifate be perpetuated”; the reverse gives the king’s name, and on coins of the last three rulers their pedigree as well. Maḥmūd Shāh (1440-58) introduced a type of copper with his name in a circle on the obverse, which was continued by his successors (Pl. IX, 5). Billon coins were struck in the name of Ḥusain Shāh for thirty years after his expulsion from Jaunpūr in 1476 (A.H. 881); and a few copper coins of about the same period bear the name of a rebel, Bārbak Shāh, a brother of Bahlol Lodī. The silver coins of Ibrāhīm and Maḥmūd are extremely scarce. Gold was struck by Ibrāhīm, Maḥmūd and Ḥusain. With the exception of one coin of Ibrāhīm, which follows the ordinary Dehlī model, all three rulers, evidently influenced by their neighbour, Jalālu-d-dīn Muḥammad of Bengal, used the “organ-pipe” arrangement of tughra characters for the inscription of the reverse (Pl. IX, 4). The obverse inscription employed by Ibrāhīm and Maḥmūd, “In the time of the supreme head of Islām, the deputy of the commander of the faithful,” and the more correct form used by Ḥusain, which omits the words “the deputy of,” again show Dehlī influence. Only one coin, a large copper piece of Maḥmūd in the British Museum, is known to bear the mint name Jaunpūr.
Mālwā, annexed to the Dehlī kingdom by ’Alāu-d-dīn in 1305, became an independent state under the governor, Dilāwar Ḵẖ̱ān G̱ẖ̱orī, in 1401. His son, Hoshang Shāh (1405-32), initiated the coinage. The province, after incessant wars with Gujarāt, attained its widest limits under the usurping minister, Maḥmūd I, Ḵẖ̱iljī (1436-68). But after a civil war, in 1510, a steady decline set in, and in 1530 Bahādur Shāh of Gujarāt captured Mandū, the capital, and the country remained a province of his kingdom for four years. It was next captured by Humāyūn. Then, from 1536 to 1542, it was ruled by a Gujarātī governor, Qādir Shāh. Finally it was governed by Bāz Bahādur, a son of Sher Shāh’s nominee, Shujā’ Ḵẖ̱ān, from 1554 to 1560, when it was conquered by Akbar and made a Mug̱ẖal province.
The first seven Sultans struck coins in all three metals. Maḥmūd I introduced billon, and this was employed also by his three successors. The characteristic feature of the Mālwā coinage is the square shape, also introduced by Maḥmūd I; he and his successor, G̱ẖ̱iyās̤ Shāh (1469-1500), struck both square and round coins, but from the reign of Nāṣir Shāh (1500-10) the square form is used exclusively. The gold pieces of the first two kings follow the Dehlī style. Maḥmūd, however, introduced a new type for the reverse, dividing the face of the coin into two equal parts by lengthening the tail of the last letter “yē” in his name, Ḵẖ̱iljī. G̱ẖ̱iyās̤ Shāh used a similar band on both faces (Pl. IX, 3), and this is a mark of almost all succeeding coins in both shapes.
The square base silver pieces of Maḥmūd II (1510-30), with the inscriptions enclosed in circular and octagonal borders, are the finest coins of the series. The rebel, Muḥammad II (1515), the Gujarāt king, Bahādur, the governor, Qādir Shāh, and Bāz Bahādur struck copper coins only. The mint name, Shādīābād (Mandū), “City of Delight,” is inscribed only on coins of the earlier kings.
With the reign of G̱ẖ̱īyās̤ Shāh a series of ornaments begins to appear on the coinage; the purpose of these is uncertain, but they seem to be connected with the dates of issue. Like the Bahmanīs, the Mālwā sovereigns use elaborate honorific titles for their inscriptions. Perhaps the most striking is one of Maḥmūd I, who calls himself “The mighty sovereign, the victorious, the exalted in the Faith and in the world, the second Alexander, the right hand of the Khalifate, the defender of the commander of the faithful.”
The tradition of the square shape lingered on in Mālwā and the neighbourhood long after the extinction of its independence; curious crude little pieces were struck, probably for a century at least, with a mixture of Mug̱ẖal, Mālwā and Gujarātī inscriptions. Square copper Mug̱ẖal coins were struck at Ujjain up to the time of Shāh Jahān I, and Saṅgrāma Siṁha of Mewar (1527-32) also modelled his copper coinage on that of Mālwā.
Z̤afar Ḵẖ̱ān, viceroy of the wealthy province of Gujarāt, threw off his allegiance to Sultan Maḥmūd II of Dehlī in 1403, but the first coins known are those of his grandson, Aḥmad I (1411-43), founder of the great city of Aḥmadābād in A.H. 813 and of Aḥmadnagar in A.H. 829. The dynasty reached the culmination of its power in the long reign of Maḥmūd I (1458-1511), who instituted two new mints at Muṣt̤afaʾābād in Girnār, and Muḥammadābād (Champānīr). He was succeeded by eight princes, of whom Bahādur Shāh (1526-36) alone showed any ruling ability. The province was added to the Mug̱ẖal Empire in 1572, but the deposed king, Muz̤affar III, regained his throne for five months eleven years later, and actually struck silver and copper of the Mug̱ẖal Aḥmadābād type. Coins of nine of the fifteen kings are known.
The coinage, chiefly of silver and copper, at its commencement followed the Dehlī style, but soon developed a characteristic fabric of its own, though the late Dehlī copper type, with the Sultan’s name in a square area, never entirely lost its influence in Gujarāt (Pl. IX, 6, 7). The standard seems, however, always to have been a local one, based on the weight of the Gujarātī rati of 1·85 grains. Gold pieces, except those of Maḥmūd III (1553-61; Pl. IX, 6), are rare. Maḥmūd I also employed billon, and his coins are the finest of the series. His silver coins, on which the legends are enclosed in hexagons, scolloped circles and other figures, are very ornate. The inscriptions are for the most part simple; on the obverse appear various titles and formulæ, on the reverse the king’s name, sometimes accompanied by his laqab (kingly title). The earliest Persian couplet to appear on an Indian coin is found on one of Maḥmūd II, dated A.H. 850. It runs as follows:
Perhaps the most interesting of the Gujarāt series are the so-called “pedigree coins,” each struck probably for some special occasion, on which the striker traces his descent back to the founder of the dynasty. Only four silver coins of this class have been recorded, two of Aḥmad I, one dated A.H. 828 and the earliest known Gujarāt coin, one of Maḥmūd I, and one of Bahādur Shāh.
Although the majority of coins were probably struck at Aḥmadābād, the name actually occurs only on the copper of Muz̤affar III of the years A.H. 977 and 978. Aḥmadnagar, accompanied by an uncertain epithet, is inscribed on the copper of Aḥmad I from A.H. 829 onwards. Shahr-i-a’z̤am (“the very great city”) Muṣt̤afaʾābād appears on silver and copper, and Shahr-i-mukarram (“the illustrious city”) Muḥammadābād on all the finest silver pieces of Maḥmūd I.
Muz̤affar III granted permission to the Jām of Navānagar to coin “korīs” (i.e. copper pieces), provided that they should bear the king’s name. Such korīs, bearing debased Gujarāt legends, were also coined for several centuries by the chiefs of Jūnagaḍh and Purbandar.