

626 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [December, 1910 



of the 28 Ahom coins in the British Museum in Plate XXV, which 

 was drawn up with the assistance of S'rijut Golap Chandra 

 Barua, the translator of the Assam Buranjis. Mr. Allan in- 

 forms me that the unique gold muhur reproduced at the bottom 

 of the plate was bought from a London dealer in 1882. Of the 

 remaining coins, 19 were bought in 1878 from Dr. Foster — pre- 

 sumably the resident of Nazira near Garhganw, or some relation 

 of his, who is referred to in the notes of Dr. Blochmann's paper 

 on Kuch Bihar and Assam, to which reference has alreadv been 

 made. The gold coin of Suklenmiin came from the India Office 

 Collection. One of the gold coins of Siinatpha was bequeathed 

 by Sir C. W. Trevelyan in 1878, while the silver coin of Siinen- 

 pha (Pramatta) was givento the Museum in 1818 by Miss Banks. 

 In addition to the 8 Ahom coins in the Indian Museum Col- 

 lection described by Mr. Vincent Smith {Indian Museum Cata- 

 logue, I, p. 298), Mr. Botham also possesses 8 coins — a muhur 

 and rupee of Suklenmiin; 5 rupees of Gadhadhara (Siipatpha), 

 4 of which are duplicates of those in the Indian Museum ; and 

 thejfairly common rupee of Pramatta. A few other specimens 

 of Ahom coins are also found in the local Cabinets already 

 mentioned. 



Assamese Coins tn Bengali Script prior to the time of 



RUDRA SlMHA. 



Only three such coins are known. Two of them belong to 

 Siisenpha (more commonly referred to as Pratapa Simha from 

 his successful warfare against the Muhammadans) , and the 

 third to Chakradhvaja or Supunmiin. 1 The former differ 



mar 



a year far 



Kin 



in fact they were struck shortly before Siisenpha's death, after 



~ 1^ : £-.4-1 i ^ . mi • . i r i • i Ml U^ 



reign 



ptions 



Mr. Allan's paper, appear to 

 *s of Vaishnavism in Assam 



would be gathered from the Buranjis. The invocations to Hari 

 Hara and Hari Harendra (Vishnu and Siva) on the reverse of 

 the coins are in marked contrast to the coin legends of most of 

 the subsequent kings of Assam in which veneration for Hara 

 Gauri (Siva and Durga) is usually expressed, and were it not 

 that the title had already been used by Siihunmun, we might 

 even be justified in concluding from the fact that Siisenpha 

 styles himself simply ( ' Surga Narayan Deva ' ' (Vishnu) instead 

 of giving his actual name, that he became a Vaishnava shortly 

 before his death. The Buranjis record on the other hand that 

 he encouraged the worship of Siva and ™rsf>mitf>d the Maha- 



The beautiful tiger of heaven ' and Siipun 

 an country.' 



