Vol. VI, No. 11.] History & Ethnology of N.-E. India— II. 625 



[N.S.] 



Obverse . 



Lakni, in the year, [year of cycle]. 1 



Khun 



Reverse. 



Kao 



appellation, Pha, heavenly], He-u, offer, Ghii, in the name. 



Only three deities are mentioned on Ahom coins 



1. On those of Suklenmiin. TARA (td, eye; ra, evil) the 

 Evil-eyed One, that is to say, not the gentle Buddhist goddess, 

 Tara, but a Shan goddess who was first incorporated into Hindu- 

 ism as the Tan trie Tara, the War-Goddess, and then trans- 

 formed as an ath&a of Durga into Kamakhya, the Goddess of 

 Desire. According to the Yogirii Tantra (Report, p. 52) this god- 

 dess was worshipped at Nilachala Hill near Gauhati from the time 

 of !S T araka, the legendary hero of Assam, who is said to have been 

 born of the Earth by Vishnu in the form of a pig (the third 

 incarnation), and who was the father of King Bhagadatta whose 

 deeds are recounted in the Mahabharata.. 



t 9 



9 qfiftfiM.* a C PHA-TU-CHIN, literally, - the 



z. bunatpha and J x . , . , . £ ,' , J .' rrUr ^ 



Siihuri \ ^g^est being ot heaven , i.e., Ine 



^Supreme God. 



In the case of Sunatpha's coin the additional suffix 

 Ph(r)dn hum, ' the most glorious \ also appears. This Shan god 

 was identified with either Siva or Vishnu, according as the 

 Hindu priest happened to be a S'akta or Vaisnava. 



3. Gadadhara, 



Pramatta, and \. LENDAN. 

 Raj e& vara 



Lendan literally means " the Sole (lord of) Thunder", and 

 hence was identified with Indra by the Brahmins attached 

 to the Ahom court. 2 



It is obvious from the small number of known Ahom coins 

 that much work still remains to be done when a fortunate find 

 will place us in possession of more of these interesting coins. 

 In the meantime, to facilitate subsequent work by numisma- 

 tists, I have embodied the results of a careful study of the casts 



1 In Suklerimiih's coins Pha (heavenly) is inserted as an additional 

 appellation before the King's name, and Chao (< lod or King) takes the 

 place of Khun. The third line of the obverse of Siinatpha's coin reads 

 Chao Cham Pi, Pi being another Ahom word for 4 year ' and Cham a 

 copula which may be translated by 'and this was*. There are two 

 misprints in Mr. Allan's transcription of this line. 



2 For a full account of the Ahom theology, pp. 68—71 of Mr. Gait's 

 History may be consulted. 



