JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



Part I.— HISTORY, LITERATURE, &c. 



No. I.— 1867. 



TJie Initial Coinage of Bengal. — By Edward Thomas, Esq. 



[Received December 5th, 1866. Reprinted from the Journal of the Royal Asia- 

 tic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. ii. p. I. N. S.] 



Towards the end of August, 18G3, an unusually large hoard of 

 coins, numbering in % all no less than 13,500 pieces of silver, was 

 found in the Protected State of Kooch Behar, in Northern Bengal, 

 the contents of which were consigned, in the ordinary payment 

 of revenue, to the Imperial Treasury in Calcutta. Advantage was 

 wisely sought to be taken of the possible archaeological interest 

 of such a discovery, in selections directed to be made from the 

 general bulk to enrich the medal cabinets of the local Mint and the 

 Museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The task of selection, and 

 with it of inevitably final rejection, was entrusted to Babu Rajendra 

 Lai Mitra — an experienced scholar in many branches of Sanskrit litera- 

 ture, "and who, in the absence of more practised Numismatists, cou- 

 rageously encountered the novel study and impromptu exposition of 

 Semitic Palaeography as practically developed in his own native land 

 six centuries ago. The Babu, after having assiduously completed his 

 selections for the Government,* was considerate enough to devote 

 himself to renewed and more critical examinations of this mass of 

 coined metal, with a view to secure for Colonel C. S. Gruthrie (late of 

 the Bengal Engineers), any examples of importance that might have 

 escaped his earlier investigations. The result has been that more 

 than a thousand additional specimens have been rescued from the 

 * J. A. S. Bengal, 1864, p. 480. 

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