668 Continuation of notes on Hindu Coins. [Dec. 



III. — Notice of Ancient Hindu Coins, continued from page 640. By 

 James Prinsep, Secy. SfC. 



Plate L. — Hindu coins of middle age. 

 To whatever period it may be finally determined to adjudge the 

 series of Gupta coins described in my last paper, there can be no 

 hesitation in regard to the first group of the present plate ; though 

 here again, had it not been for inscriptions relating to the same period, 

 the absence of credible history would have left us as much in the 

 dark as ever. 



These coins are found, like the former, in greatest abundance in 

 the vicinity of Kanouj. Ten of them were picked out of a remittance 

 from the Cawnpur collectory. The Asiatic Society possesses some 

 found at Allahabad by Dr. A. Tytler ; I have several from Azimgarh, 

 and other places, besides four of gold in Keramat Ali''s collection 

 from the Panjab ; Col. Smith, Dr. Swiney, Lieut. Cunningham, also 

 possess specimens, and I have examined those in Col. Willoughby's 

 cabinet ; but the most plentiful supply, of gold, silver, and copper 

 exists in Col. Stacy's cabinet, whence I have selected most of the 

 specimens now engraved. 



It is rather singular that no mention of a species of coin compara- 

 tively so common, is to be found in Marsden's Numismata Orientalia. 

 The only published drawings of them are, I believe, those accompanying 

 Mr. Wilson's notice, in the seventeenth vol. Asiatic Researches, which 

 were taken from coins in his and my own cabinets. This gentleman 

 was the first to attribute them to their rightful place in history, 

 although he had but one well ascertained name (Govindu Chandra) to 

 guide his judgment. Upon a careful examination of the several collec- 

 tions mentioned above, I have now succeeded in adding five new 

 names to his list, so rapid is the progress and success of the efforts 

 now directed to this line of research. 



The figure on the obverse of all these coins is of precisely the same 

 character ; — a rudely executed front view of a male or female (it is diffi- 

 cult to say which), seated in the native fashion, with a glory round 

 the head, and some unintelligible objects in her hands. Prof. Wilson 

 names her Laxmi, on the ground that the princes of the Rahtore 

 dynasty were of the Vaiskavi sect. In this case, we may recognize 

 in her the female holding the cornucopia of the former Canouj group, 

 sadly altered for the worse in point of execution. 



The inscriptions on the reverse are, with one exception, easily legible ; 

 they are in a much more modern form of Devanagari than the last, 

 differing little from the present style, except as to the vowel inflec- 

 tion e, which falls behind the consonant to which it is attached, as in 



