CEYLON BRANCH —ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 83 



is lost in the obscurity of antiquity, to demons, they call 

 these coins by the names of Pax hash, or the demon's money, 

 and Paiperumdn hash, or the demon king's money. I have 

 also heard some call them Ravanen kash or Havana's money. 



The characters stamped on them are Nagari or Hindi ; but 

 my very slight acquaintance with those characters will not 

 permit of my making any attempt at decyphering and trans- 

 lating them. The following note by the late Mr. Prinsep, 

 Secretary of the Calcutta Asiatic Society, on two coins of 

 this description, one gold, and the other copper, which I 

 transmitted to that institution, through the late lamented 

 Governor Sir Wilmot Horton, however, throw some 

 light on them, and I have therefore taken the liberty to 

 transcribe it here. 



" The two coins transmitted by His Excellency the Go- 

 vernor of Ceylon, belong to the class described by Mr. Wil- 

 son in the seventeenth volume of the Researches, and 

 depicted on plate V., figures 109 to 113, which are stated, 

 like the present coins, to have been found by Colonel 

 Mackenzie, at Depaldinna, No. 3, according almost exactly 

 with the present copper coin, is a drawing of one found at 

 Kandya in Ceylon." 



ee ^| r< Wilson does not attempt to explain them further, 

 than that they evidently belong to a Hindoo dynasty, either 

 on the Island of Ceylon, or in the south of the peninsula. 

 The letters are distinctly Hindi in all, though it is difficult 

 to make out their purport. The word i( sri" is also evident 

 in all of them. 



" Description. 

 " No. i. A gold coin, weighing 60 grains. 

 Obverse. A male figure, seated in the Indian manner 

 with dhoti* Left hand raised, and face looking to 

 the left on the side. 



* The sitting figure is no doubt Hanuman. S. C. C. 



