40 The Initial Coinage of Bengal. [No. 1, 



I.— RUKN-UD-DI'N KAI KA'U'S. 



The full and satisfactory identification of the king who ruled under 

 the designation of Kaiis has yet to be accomplished. Rajendralala 

 Mitra has suggested a notion that Nasir-ud-din Mahmud, the son of 

 Balban, so often mentioned in this article, sought, as local ruler of 

 Bengal, " to continue his allegiance to his grandson Kaimurs [momen- 

 tarily king of Dehli], even after his deposition, and possibly after his 

 death,"* by retaining his name on the public money. I should be 

 disposed to seek a less complicated explanation of the numismatic 

 evidences. Kai Kaus' date, tested by the examples of his mintages in 

 the Kooch Bahar hoard, is limited, in range of time, to five years 

 (691-695 a.h.) ;f a latitude might be taken beyond the ascertained 

 units, which are somewhat indeterminate in their tracings, and have 

 equally suffered from abrasion, on the exposed margins of the coins, 

 but the ninety and the six hundred can scarcely be contested. If we 

 examine the political state of India at this period, we find that Hin- 

 dustan was abnormally quiet under the feeble rule of Jalal-ud-din 

 Firuz (687-696 a.h.) : Ala-ud-din's conquests in the Dakhin could 

 have but little affected Bengal, so that any changes that may have 

 taken place in the latter kingdom were probably due to succes- 

 sional or revolutionary causes arising within its own limits. We can 

 scarcely build up a theory of an access of vigour and assumption of 



" Formerly it was called Lucknouty, and sometimes Gour" (A.A. ii p. 11) ; while 

 Budauni gives a ridiculous version of the origin of the designation as being 

 derived from ^y. He writes ^l^j ls^ _, jjUu, jL1±> a+zs* j 



<ijl<i f»u jjS &? dj K j 9 j±+** lA^J^ (*^" ^ke obvious imperfection 

 of the critical philology of the derivation, however, debars its reception, as does 

 the caustic alternative of ^J, =" grave," which the often deserted site, under the 

 speedy action of water and a semi-tropical vegetation, may have deservedly earn- 

 ed for it. But it is quite legitimate to infer that as jjr^ was the ancient name 

 for central Bengal (Wilson, Glossary, sub voce; Albiruni, quoted J. B. A. S. i., 

 JN. b., p. 471), and so intimately associated with the tribal divisions of the 

 indigenous Brahmans, that the designation originated in the popular appli- 

 cation of the name of the country to its own metropolis, and that the town 

 continued to be called Gaur -in vernacular speech in spite of the new names 

 so frequently bestowed upon it by its alien lords. 



* Jour. As. Soc. Beng., 1864, p 508. 



f Eajendra Lala says, " the units one and three are perfectly clear." Col. 

 Guthrie s three coins are imperfect in the word for the unit. I observe traces of 

 a, four on two specimens ; and I read, with some certainty, 695 on another. 



