1867.] The Initial Coinage of Bengal. 49 



die-rendering of the^*^ = 10 for i^.j-^ = 20 ;* which would bring 

 the corrected range of Bahadur's dates to 720-72-1 ; but even these 

 figures leave something to be reconciled in reference to their asso- 

 ciate place of mintage, for in 720-722, his father, Shams-ud din 

 Firuz, was clearly in possession of the already commemorated " Lalch- 

 nauti ;" but such an anomaly might be explained by the supposition 

 that Bahadur, in the earlier days, used the name of Lahhnauti as a 

 geographical expression for a portion of the dominions ordinarily 

 administered from that capital. Undoubtedly the first appearance of 

 the contrasted designation of the Eastern capital " Sonargaon" occurs on 

 a coin of his father ; but even this sign of discrimination of urban 

 issues would not be altogether opposed to a continuance by Bahadur 

 of the loose usage of Camp Mints, of naming the metropolis as the 

 general term for the division at large, or inconsistent with the 

 subsidiary legitimate employment of the designation of the province 

 on a coinage effected anywhere within its own boundaries, — either 

 of which simple causes may have prevailed, and been utilized with 

 a new motive, if any covert ulterior meaning might be designed, as 

 implying that Bahadur himself • had special successional or other 

 claims to the metropolitan districts. 



Tughlak Shah's intervention in the affairs of Bengal seems to have 

 originated in an appeal on the part of the ejected Shahab-ud-din 

 against the usurpation of his brother Bahadur. The result of the 

 Imperial expedition to the South was the defeat, capture, and 

 transport to Dehli of Bahadur Shah ; but among the first acts of the 

 new Sultan, Muhammad bin Tughlak, was the release and re-installa- 

 tion of the offender, showing clearly that he was something more 

 than an ordinary local governor, transferable at will, and that possibly 

 the interests of the father and son, in their newly-established dynastic 

 rank, and the confessed insubordination of the latter, were indepen- 

 dently advocated by the opposing members of the royal line of 

 Bengal, whose family tree could show so much more ancient a series 

 of regal successions than their parvenu Suzerains, whose elevation 

 dated scarce five years back. One of the most interesting illustrations- 



* Among more critical Arabic scholars than the Bengal Mint Masters ever" 

 affected to be, this point would have been easily determined by the insertion 

 or omission of the conjunction j vau, which, as a rule, is required to couple the 

 omits and the twenties, but is not used with the units and tens. 



7 



