Vol. XI, Nos. 7 & 8.| Numismatic Supplement No. XXV. 241 
[V.S.] 
151. Tue Lakanav Mint. 
[With Plates XIII-XV]. 
‘“‘Lakhnau is a large city on the banks of the Gumti, 
delightful in its surroundings,’’ says Abu-l-Fazl, and indeed 
little more is to be said of it during Mughal times. Its im- 
portance both as a city and a mint came later. Still this 
much we can gather from the scanty records of historians that, 
situated as it was in the most fertile province of Northern 
Hindustan, and standing away from the main roads between 
the capitals of the Empire, it was continually, like Jaunpur, the 
spot fixed upon by the disaffected ‘‘to raise the head of rebel- 
lion’’—a back shop of sedition, a city of refuge for such as were 
under the ban of the court. The origin of the name has never 
been satisfactorily settled. Some would find it in an ancient 
Village site Lachhmanpar (Lakhshmanavati) supposed to have 
been founded by the legendary Lachhman, brother of Ram 
handra —near an orifice, within the present Machchhi Bhawan, 
which led down the abode of Sesnag, a thousand-headed snake 
which supports the world on its head. The name Lachhman 
la (= Lachhman’s Hill) survived until quite recent times. 
Others prefer the derivation from Qila Likhna derived 
ftom an Ahir architect Likhna, who is supposed to have plann 
the fort for the Sheikhs who settled in the town in the 13th 
century. Both are almost certainly incorrect, but they point 
to the earliest site of the city. The earliest Muhammadan 
settlers came in the 13th century, the Sheikhs from Bijnaur, 
kh Qiyamu-d-din Haji, who had arrived in Lakhnau 
The name Minanagar, properly applied to a muhalla, 
Was Once applied to the whole city. vo 
akhnau formed part of the dominions of the Sharqi Kings 
i Jaunpar, but in the year of Shah Mina’s death it was re- 
1 Lodi. 
ns Shut 1526 a. (933 a.H.) but abandoned it the same year, 
J r ho 
ra and that in that short time the Sheikhs collected 
i Akbar until at least as late as the thirty-seventh year - 
* Teign, 1000 a.n. During the early years of the reign vee 
