After the battle of Pānīpat, in 1526, Z̤ahīru-d-dīn Bābur’s rule in
Hindustān, until his death in 1530, was in reality nothing more than
a military occupation, and Humāyūn’s position during the first ten
years of his reign was even more unstable. The silver _shāhruḵẖ̱īs_,
or _dirhams_, of Bābur and Humāyūn, which follow in every respect the
Central Asian coinage of the Timurid princes, were obviously struck
only as occasion warranted, chiefly at Āgra, Lāhor (Pl. X, 1), Dehlī
and Kābul. The interesting camp mint Urdū first appears on a coin of
Bābur, an eloquent testimony to the nature of his sovereignty. On the
obverse of these coins is the Kalima, enclosed in areas of various
shapes with the names of the four orthodox Khalifs or Companions and
their attributes[59] in the margins; on the reverse the king’s name,
also in an area, in the margins various titles, together with the mint
and generally the date. Humāyūn’s gold are tiny mintless pieces, also
of Timurid fabric (Pl. X, 2); a very few of these and some silver
dirhams are known of Akbar’s first three years. Bābur and Humāyūn’s
copper coins are anonymous, and were minted chiefly at Āgra, Dehlī,
Lāhor and Jaunpūr.
_Note._—The mint marks in Fig. 9 occur on coins of
the following: (1) Humāyūn, Āgra, etc. (2) Shāh ’Ālam
II, Shāhjahānābād. (3) Aurangzeb, Multān. (4) East India
Company, copied from Mug̱ẖal coins. (5) Nawābs of Awadh,
Muḥammadābād-Banāras. (6) The Kitār—“dagger,” Shāh ’Ālam
II, Narwar, etc. (7) Ankūs—“Elephant-goad”—Marāṭhā coins.
[59] For inscription, cf. Key to Plate X, 1.
The Afg̱ẖān Sher Shāh Sūrī, who after the expulsion of Humāyūn in 1540
(A.H. 947), controlled the destinies of Hindustān for five years, was a
ruler of great constructive and administrative ability, and the reform
of the coinage, though completed by Akbar, was in a great measure due
to his genius. His innovations lay chiefly in two directions: first,
the introduction of a new standard of 178 grains for silver, and one
of about 330 grains for copper, with its half, quarter, eighth and
sixteenth parts. These two new coins were subsequently known as the
_rupee_ and the _dām_. The second innovation was a large increase in
the number of the mints: at least twenty-three mint names appear on the
Sūrī coins. The object of this extension, probably suggested to Sher
Shāh during his residence in Bihār by the Bengal coinage, was no doubt
to provide an ocular proof of sovereignty to his subjects in the most
distant provinces of his dominions; but the system needed a firm and
resolute hand at the centre of government.
Genuine gold coins of the Sūrī kings are exceedingly rare. The rupees
are fine broad pieces (Pl. X, 3); the obverse follows the style of
Humāyūn’s silver; the reverse bears the Sultan’s name in a square
or circular area, along with the date and the legend, “_May God
perpetuate his kingdom_,” and below the area the Sultan’s name in
Hindī, often very faulty.[60] In the margin are inscribed the special
titles of the Sultan, and sometimes the mint. On a large number of
both silver and copper coins no mint name occurs; some of these seem
to be really mintless, the dies of others were too large for the coin
discs. On a very common mintless silver type of Islām Shāh (1545-53)
and Muḥammad ’Ādil Shāh, the Arabic figures 477 occur in the margin:
the significance of these is unknown. A few silver coins of Sher
Shāh and Islām Shāh are square; half-rupees are extremely scarce; a
one-sixteenth piece is also known.
[60] If the area is circular the Hindī inscription appears in the
margin.
The majority of copper coins bear on the obverse the inscription,
“_In the time of the commander of the faithful, the protector of the
religion of the Requiter_”; on the reverse appear the Sultan’s name
and titles and the mint (Pl. X, 4). These inscriptions are sometimes
contained within square areas.
During the years 1552-56 two nephews and a cousin of Sher Shāh,
Muḥammad ’Ādil, Sikandar and Ibrāhīm, contested the throne and struck
both copper and silver. Coins of the two last are very rare (Pl. X, 5).
The few coins of Humāyūn’s short second reign of six months which
have survived show that he had adopted both the new silver and copper
standards of the Sūrīs, though he also coined dirhams. With Akbar’s
accession, in 1556 (A.H. 963), begins the Mug̱ẖal coinage proper.
The special value placed by Muhammadan sovereigns on the privilege of
coining has already been noticed; Muḥammad bin Tug̱ẖlaq used his money
as a means of imposing decrees upon his subjects; in a more refined
way Akbar used the coinage to propagate his new “Divine” faith; and
both he and the cultured Jahāngīr detected in it a ready medium for
the expression of their artistic tastes. The importance attached to
the currency by the Mug̱ẖal emperors is further revealed in the full
accounts given by Akbar’s minister, Abū-l-faẓl, in the _Āīn-i-Akbarī_,
and by Jahāngīr in his memoirs, the _Tūzuk-i-Jahāngīrī_, and by the
number of references to the subject by historians throughout the whole
period. From these and from a study of the coins themselves scholars
have collected a mass of materials, from which it is now possible to
give a fairly comprehensive account of the Mug̱ẖal coinage. Abū-l-faẓl
and Jahāngīr mention a large number of gold and silver coins, varying
from 2,000 tolahs[61] to a few grains in weight. Gigantic pieces
are also mentioned by Manucci, Hawkins and others; and Manucci says
that they were not current, but that the king (Shāh Jahān) “gave
them as presents to the ladies.” They were also at times presented
to ambassadors, and appear, indeed, to have been merely used as a
convenient form in which to store treasure. Naturally very few of
these pieces have survived, but a silver coin of Aurangzeb is reported
to be in Dresden, which weighs five and a half English pounds, and
there is a cast of a 200-muhar piece of Shāh Jahān in the British
Museum. In the British Museum also are two five-muhar pieces, one of
Akbar and one of Jahāngīr, both struck in the Āgra mint. A few double
rupees of later emperors, and a ten-rupee piece of Shāh ’Ālam II of
Sūrat mint are also known. The standard gold coin of the Mug̱ẖals was
the muhar, of about 170 to 175 grains, the equivalent of nine rupees
in Abū-l-faẓl’s time. With the exception of a few of Akbar’s square
issues, which are slightly heavier, and Jahāngīr’s experiment during
his first five years, when it was raised first by one-fifth to 204
grains, and then by one-fourth to 212·5 grains, the muhar maintains a
wonderful consistency of weight and purity to the end of the dynasty.
Half and quarter muhars are known of several emperors, and a very few
smaller pieces.
[61] The tolah in Jahāngīr’s time weighed probably between 185 and 187
grains.
The rupee, adopted from Sher Shāh’s currency, is the most famous of
all Mug̱ẖal coins. The name occurs only once, on a rupee of Āgra
minted in Akbar’s forty-seventh year.[62] This, too, maintained its
standard of weight, 178 grains, practically unimpaired, although during
the reigns of the later emperors some rupees minted by their officers
are deficient in purity. The “heavy” rupees of Jahāngīr’s early years
exceed the normal weight, like the muhars, first by one-fifth and then
by one-fourth; and a few slightly heavier than the normal standard
were also minted by Shāh ’Ālam Bahādur and Farruḵẖ̱siyar in Bihār
and Bengal. Halves, quarters, eighths and sixteenths were also struck.
In Sūrat the half rupee appears to have been in special demand, and in
Akbar’s reign the half rupee was also the principal coin issuing from
Kābul.
[62] Cf. _Lahore Museum Catalogue_ (Mug̱ẖal Emperors), Pl. XXI, iv.
In addition to the regular gold and silver currency, special small
pieces were occasionally struck for largesse; the commonest of these
is the _nis̤ār_, struck in silver by Jahāngīr, Shāh Jahān, Aurangzeb,
Jahāndār and Farruḵẖ̱siyar. Gold _nis̤ārs_ are very scarce (Pl. XI,
8). Jahāngīr also issued similar pieces, which he called _Nūr afshān_,
“Light scattering,” and _Ḵẖ̱air qabūl_, “May these alms be accepted”
(Pl. X, 12). In 1679 Aurangzeb reimposed the _jizyā_, or poll-tax, on
infidels, and, in order to facilitate payment in the orthodox manner,
struck the _dirham shar’ī_, “legal dirham,” usually square in shape,
in a number of mints (Pl. XI, 11). Farruḵẖ̱siyar again issued these
dirhams, when he re-instituted the poll-tax in the sixth year of his
reign. The Mug̱ẖal copper coinage is based on Sher Shāh’s dām of 320
to 330 grains, which, with its half, quarter and eighth, continued to
be struck until the fifth year of Aurangzeb, 1663 (A.H. 1073). The
name _dām_ occurs only once on a half dām of Akbar of Srīnagar mint.
The usual term employed is _Fulūs_, “copper money,” or _Sikkah fulūs_,
“stamped copper money.” The names _niṣfī_ (half dām), _damrā_ (=
quarter dām), _damrī_ (= one eighth of a dām) also appear on Akbar’s
copper. Jahāngīr inscribes the word _rawānī_ on some of his full and
half dāms, and _rā’īj_ on his smaller pieces, both meaning simply
“current.”
Between the forty-fifth and fiftieth years of Akbar’s reign were
issued, from eight mints, the full _tankah_ of 644 grains weight, with
its half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth parts, though the large full
_tankahs_ are known only from Āgra, Dehlī (Pl. X, 10), Aḥmadābād and
Bairāt. About the same time Akbar introduced the decimal standard, with
his series of four, two and one _tānkī_ pieces, struck at Aḥmadābād,
Āgra, Kābul and Lāhor; ten _tānkīs_ being equal to one full _tankah_.
After the fifth year of Aurangzeb, owing to a rise in the price of
copper, the weight of the dām or fulūs was diminished to 220 grains,
and this became the accepted standard for southern mints. A few coins
of the heavier weight were struck subsequently by Aurangzeb, Shāh ’Ālam
Bahādur and Farruḵẖ̱siyar. The copper coinage of later emperors until
Shāh ’Ālam II’s reign is not plentiful.
The early gold and silver coins of Akbar bear the same inscriptions,
though there is some variation in their arrangement. Following Bābur’s
and the Sūrī coinage, the Kalima and Companions’ names appear on the
obverse, and on the reverse at the beginning of the reign the following
inscription, “_Jalālu-d-dīn Muḥammad Akbar, Emperor, champion of the
Faith, the mighty Sultan, the illustrious Emperor, may God most High
perpetuate the kingdom and the sovereignty_.” Portions of this are
dropped later on (Pl. X, 7). Squares, circles, lozenges and other
geometrical figures are employed to contain the more important parts of
the legend, and the mint name always, and the date generally, appear on
the reverse. About the year A.H. 985 the shape of the coins was changed
from round to square, but the same inscriptions were retained.
In the year 1579 (A.H. 987) Akbar promulgated his Infallibility Decree,
and in the same year appear quarter rupees from the Fatḥpūr, Lāhor,
and Aḥmadābād mints, with a new inscription, _Allāhu Akbar_, upon the
obverse. From the thirty-second year an expanded form of this, _Allāhu
Akbar jalla jalālahu_, “God is great, eminent is His glory,” appears
on a mintless series of square silver coins (Pl. X, 11); and from the
thirty-sixth year it is used regularly on the square issues of the
chief mints; later on there is a reversion to the round form. These
Ilāhī coins are all dated in Akbar’s new regnal era,[63] and also bear
the names of the Persian solar months. The custom of issuing coins
monthly continues with a few breaks in Jahāngīr’s reign until the early
years of Shāh Jahān. The round Ilāhī coins, especially those of Āgra,
Patna and Lāhor, display considerable artistic merit: certain issues
of Āgra of the fiftieth year (Pl. X, 8) are probably the finest of
the whole Mug̱ẖal series. Among the many remarkable coins struck by
Akbar may be mentioned the muhar, shaped like a double _Mihrāb_, which
appeared from the Āgra mint in A.H. 981 (Pl. X, 6); the Ilāhī muhar
of the fiftieth year, from the same mint, engraved with the figure of
a duck (Pl. X, 9); the beautiful “hawk” muhar, struck at Asīrgarh in
commemoration of its conquest in the forty-fifth year; and the mintless
half-muhar, bearing the figures of Sītā and Rāma. Specimens of all
these are in the British Museum. Akbar also initiated the practice
of inscribing verse-couplets on the coinage, into which was worked
the emperor’s name or the mint, or both. These were used by him for
only three mints, but with Jahāngīr the practice became general, and
forty-seven different couplets of his reign have been recorded (cf. Key
to Pl. XI, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
[63] This starts from 28th Rab’ī II, A.H. 963, the first year of his
reign, but was not instituted until the 29th year. The earliest known
coin dated in this era is of the year 31.
Jahāngīr’s gold and silver coins in their endless variety are the most
ornate of all Mug̱ẖal coins. Starting with a Kalima obverse, and his
name and titles on the reverse (Pl. X, 1), he soon adopted a couplet
legend; sometimes the couplet is peculiar to a single mint, sometimes
it serves a group of mints. During the fifth and sixth years at Āgra
(Pl. XI, 4) and Lāhor the couplets were for a short time changed every
month. In the latter year followed a new type, with the emperor’s name
on the obverse, and the month, date and mint name on the reverse; this
remains till the end of the reign on the coins of some mints, but at
Āgra, Lāhor, Qandahār and one or two others there is a return to the
couplet inscription. For varying periods between the years A.H. 1033
and 1037 the name of the Empress Nūr Jahān is associated in a couplet
with that of Jahāngīr on the issues of Āgra, Aḥmadābād, Akbarnagar,
Ilahābād, Patna, Sūrat (Pl. XI, 5) and Lāhor.
Jahāngīr seemed to find unceasing zest in novelty: from the sixth to
the thirteenth year of his reign the rupees of Āgra were minted in the
square and round shape in alternate months. In the thirteenth year
appeared the famous Zodiac coins, on which pictorial representations of
the signs of the zodiac were substituted for the names of the months
on the reverse; this type was retained on the Āgra muhars (Pl. XI,
2) till the seventeenth year. The Zodiac rupees of Aḥmadābād lasted
only for five months during the thirteenth year, while single gold and
silver coins of this type are known of Lāhor, Fatḥpūr, Ajmer, Urdū and
Kashmīr, of various years up to A.H. 1036. The so-called Bacchanalian
and portrait muhars have been recently shown to be insignia presented
by Jahāngīr to his courtiers.[64] Some of these are mintless, others
were struck at Ajmer. On the obverse of the latter the emperor appears
seated cross-legged with a wine-cup in his hand (Pl. XI, 3). The most
remarkable of the former, struck in the first year of the reign,
bears a full-faced portrait of Akbar on the obverse along with the
inscription _Allāhu Akbar_, while a representation of the sun covers
the whole of the reverse.[65]
[64] By S. H. Hodivala, _Historical Studies in Mug̱ẖal Numismatics_,
Memoir No. II, Numismatic Society of India, Calcutta, 1923.
[65] In the possession of Mr. H. Nelson Wright, I.C.S.
The beauty and rarity of the couplet rupees of Ajmer, Urdū dar
rāh-i-Dakan, “The camp on the road to the Deccan” and Mandū, as well as
a muhar from the last mint, all struck between the ninth and eleventh
years, entitle them to special mention.
Few of Shāh Jahān’s coins (A.H. 1037-1068) are of any artistic merit.
The earliest form of his gold and silver has the Kalima and mint name
on the obverse, and the emperor’s name and titles on the reverse
(Pl. XI, 7). From the second to the fifth year solar months[66] were
inscribed. From the fifth year to the end of the reign, except at the
Tatta mint, where the earlier style was retained, Shāh Jahān employed
a type, endless in its varieties, in which squares, circles, lozenges
form borders enclosing the Kalima on the obverse and the king’s name
on the reverse, while the names of the companions and their epithets
are restored and appear in the obverse margins. The square border form
of this type was also employed by Aurangzeb’s rivals, Murād Baḵẖ̱sh
and Shāh Shujā’ (Pl. XI, 10); and Aurangzeb uses square areas to
contain the inscriptions on his earlier rupees of Akbarābād (Āgra) and
Jūnagarh, and for a few coins of three other mints.
[66] Jahāngīr used a solar era of his own, starting from the date of
his accession. The years on Shāh Jahān’s coins are lunar. Cf. Hodivala,
_loc-cit._
The coins of Aurangzeb (A.H. 1068-1119) and his successors are, with a
very few exceptions, monotonous in the extreme. On the obverse there is
either a couplet containing the king’s name, or this inscription: “_The
blessed coin of ..._,” followed by the name of the particular king. On
the reverse appears, with very occasional variations, the following:
“_Struck at_ (the mint name), _in the year_ (the regnal year) _of the
accession associated with prosperity_.” The Hijrī date is placed on
the obverse (Pl. XI, 9). Pretentious personal titles are of infrequent
occurrence on Mug̱ẖal coins. Nevertheless the pretenders, Murād
Baḵẖ̱sh and Shāh Shujā’, style themselves “The Second Alexander.”
Shāh Jahān I, in imitation of his ancestor Tīmūr, who adopted the
title “_Lord of the fortunate conjunction_” (_i.e._ of the planets),
called himself “_The Second Lord of the fortunate conjunction_”
(_Ṣāḥib-i-qirān s̤āni_), and eight later emperors followed his example.
Jahāngīr used his princely name, Salīm, on his earliest coins from the
Aḥmadābād mint (Pl. XI, 6) and on a half rupee of Kābul. On a unique
rupee of Lāhor of Shāh Jahān I’s first year occurs the name Ḵẖ̱urram,
while Shāh ’Ālam Bahādur placed his pre-regnal name, Mu’az̤z̤am, on
coins of his first year of Tatta and Murshidābād.
Coins of special interest and rarity are those struck by pretenders,
particularly the rupees of Dāwar Baḵẖ̱sh of Lāhor, A.H. 1037; the
coins of Shāh Shujā’, 1068, of Bīdār Baḵẖ̱t, 1202-1203; and the rupee
of Jahāngīrnagar, struck by ’Az̤īmu-sh-shān in 1124. Commemorative
coins of the later emperors are exceedingly scarce, but the entry of
Lord Lake into Dehlī, in 1803, was marked on Shāh ’Ālam II’s gold and
silver coinage of the forty-seventh year by enclosing the obverse and
reverse inscriptions within a wreath of roses, shamrocks and thistles
(Pl. XII, 1).
The fabric of the copper coins is, in general, rude. With the exception
of the _tankah_ and _tānkī_ issues, Akbar’s copper is anonymous; his
Ilāhī copper, like the silver and gold, was dated in the new era and
issued monthly. Some of Jahāngīr’s _rawānīs_, especially those from the
Ajmer mint, have pretensions to artistic merit. His copper issues, and
those of succeeding kings, with the exception of a few of Aurangzeb’s,
have the king’s name and Hijrī date on the obverse, and the mint and
regnal year on the reverse.
The Hijrī era was used by all emperors and usually the regnal year
is inscribed as well. For his later coins, as has been seen, Akbar
employed his own Divine era, Jahāngīr and Shāh Jahān I each used
similar eras, but as they place the Hijrī year along with the solar
months on the coins the calculation of the dates is somewhat confusing.
From the time of Humāyūn onwards there appear on the coinage certain
marks, sometimes called mint marks, but perhaps more properly
designated ornaments (Fig. 9). The purpose of these on the earlier
issues is uncertain, later on they sometimes marked a change of
mint-masters; others appear to have been really distinctive mint marks,
such as that which appears on Shāh ’Ālam II’s Shāhjahānābād coins (Fig.
9, 2).
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Mug̱ẖal coinage is the
diversity of mints. Akbar’s known mints number seventy-six. Copper
was struck in fifty-nine of these, the largest number recorded for
any emperor, while silver is known from thirty-nine. Aurangzeb’s
conquests in the Deccan raised the silver mints to seventy, whereas
copper mints sank to twenty-four. For the remaining emperors mints for
silver average about fifty until Shāh ’Ālam II’s time, when they rose
to eighty; most of these, however, were not under the imperial control.
The puppet emperors, Akbar II and Bahādur Shāh, were permitted by
the East India Company to strike coins only in their prison capital,
Shāhjahānābād (Dehlī). Altogether over two hundred mints are known, but
the greater number of these were worked only occasionally; Āgra, Dehlī,
Lāhor and Aḥmadābād alone struck coin continuously throughout the
Mug̱ẖal period. To these may be added Sūrat, Ilahābād, Jahāngīrnagar
and Akbarnagar from Jahāngīr’s reign, Multān from the reign of Shāh
Jahān I, and Itāwah and Barelī from the time of Aurangzeb. The practice
of giving mint towns honorific titles, in vogue with the early
Muhammadan Sultans, was continued by the Mug̱ẖals. Thus Dehlī became,
on being selected as the capital of the empire by Shāh Jahān I, in
A.H. 1048, Shāhjahānābād. In the second year of the same reign Āgra
became Akbarābād. Epithets were also frequently attached to mint names.
_Dāru-l-ḵẖ̱ilāfat_, “Seat of the Khalifate,” _i.e._ “Chief City,”
is applied to twelve mints besides Āgra. _Dāru-s-salt̤anat_ is the
usual epithet of Lāhor. After A.H. 1100 Aurangzeb changed the name of
Aurangābād to Ḵẖ̱ujista Bunyād, “The fortunate foundation,” the only
example of a Mug̱ẖal mint called solely by an honorific epithet.
The great system of coinage illustrated by the Mug̱ẖals, operating
over such wide territories, needed, as has been already remarked,
a master hand to control it. With the dissensions which set in
between rival claimants to the empire on the death of Aurangzeb,
the controlling power was weakened. The diminished resources of his
treasury compelled the emperor, Farruḵẖ̱siyar (1713-19), to adopt the
fatal policy of farming out the mints. This gave the _coup de grâce_ to
the system, and henceforward, as will be related in the next chapter,
we find independent, and semi-independent chiefs and states striking
coins of their own, but always with the nominal consent of the Dehlī
emperor, and almost invariably in his name. Not until the nineteenth
century was the Mug̱ẖal style and superscription generally discarded.
Such was the coinage of the “Great Mogul.” Considering it as the
output of a single dynasty, which maintained the high standard and
purity of its gold and silver for three hundred years, considering
also its variety, the number of its mints, the artistic merit of some
of its series, the influence it exerted on contemporary and subsequent
coinages, and the importance of its standard coin—the rupee—in the
commerce of to-day, the Mug̱ẖal currency surely deserves to rank as
one of the great coinages of the world.
[Illustration: Fig. 10. Gurmukhī Script on Sikh Coins, _Akāl Sahāī:
Gūrū Nānakjī_.]
X