The coins of the various Rājpūt princes ruling in Hindustān and Central
India are usually gold, copper or billon, very rarely silver. The gold
coins are all “_drammas_” in weight; the usual type, which appears to
have been struck first by Gāṅgeya-deva Vikramāditya (1015-1040) of the
Kalachuri dynasty of Ḍahāla (Jabalpūr), bears the familiar goddess
(Lakshmī) on the obverse (Pl. VI, 10), with a slight deviation from
the Gupta device, in that the goddess has four instead of two arms;
on the reverse is an inscription giving the king’s name in old Nāgarī
(Fig. 5). Of the same type are the gold coins of six Chandel kings
of Mahoba (Pl. VI, 9) in Bundelkhand (circ. 1055-1280), of the Tomara
dynasty of Ajmer and Dehlī (978-1128), and of the Rāṭhor kings of
Kanauj (1080-1193). On the conquest of Kanauj, Muḥammad of G̱ẖ̱or
actually struck a few gold pieces in this style. On the gold of the
last three princes of the Kalachuri dynasty of Mahākośala, in the
Central Provinces (circ. 1060-1140), a rampant lion is substituted for
the seated goddess on the obverse.
The seated bull and horseman, the almost invariable devices on Rājpūt
copper and billon coins, were introduced by the Brahman kings of
Gandhāra, or Ohind (circ. 860-950), who first used them on silver; the
commonest of these are the issues of Spalapati-deva (Pl. VI, 12) and
Samanta-deva. The later coins of the dynasty, however, degenerate into
billon. The name of the king in Nāgarī appears along with the bull on
the reverse, and on the obverse of the Ohind coins is an inscription
hitherto undeciphered, but probably in some Turanian script. Bull
and Horseman coins, either copper or billon, were also struck by the
Tomara and Chauhan dynasties of Dehlī (Pl. VI, 11), the Rāṭhors of
Kanauj, Amṛitapāla Rāja of Budāyūn (Budāon), and the Rājpūt kings of
Narwar (1220-1260; Pl. VI, 13). Some of these last, in imitation of
the Muḥammadan invaders, placed dates in the Vikrama era[35] on their
coins. The Narwar horseman on later coins is particularly crude in
design. The Mahārājas of Kāngra continued to strike degenerate Bull
and Horseman coins, from 1315 down to 1625. Deviations from this
conventional type are rare. There is a unique coin of Śrī Kamāra, king
of Ohind, with a lion on the obverse and a peacock on the reverse,
while three kings of the same dynasty issued copper with an elephant
obverse and a lion reverse.
[35] The Vikrama era starts in 58 B.C. (See page 24 ante.)
A few copper coins of the Mahākośala kings and of Jayavarma of Mahoba
have a figure of Hanumān on the obverse and a Nāgarī legend on the
reverse; and a similar legend takes the place of the bull on some
copper pieces of Asalla-deva and Gaṇapati-deva of Narwar.