jan. — mar. 1858.] Numismatic Gleanings. 221 



The only trustworthy data now extant from which a knowledge 

 of former events can be gathered, are the contemporary records 

 offered by deeds of gift inscribed on stone and copper and by coins. 

 Scattered, obscure and imperfect facts derived from these sources 

 supply almost the whole of the knowledge we possess of the earlier 

 southern dynasties and kingdoms, 



It is the object of the following papers to draw attention^ o~ the 

 latter of these fields of inquiry and by stimulating a more general 

 and combined investigation of the coins of southern India, to col- 

 lect and digest the information which may be extracted^from them. 



A large collection of Hindu and Mahomedan coins was formed 

 by Col. Mackenzie chiefly though notexclusivelyin the south, which 

 is deposited in the India House Museum. From it duplicates were 

 furnished to the Asiatic SDciety of Calcutta, but most of these have 

 been lost. The original collection contained upwards of 5,000 spe- 

 cimens, the list of which including a few European coins, occupies 

 from pages ccxxiv. to ccxxxix. of the second volume of Wilson's 

 Catalogue. The Central Museum at Madras contains a pretty 

 good collection derived from the cabinet transferred to it from the 

 Literary Society, greatly enlarged and extended by the present in- 

 defatigable Curator, These are the only public cabinets of any 

 extent with which we are acquainted. But several private col- 

 lections of varying importance are known to exist, the contents of 

 which it is important to ascertain. 



The first published notice of coins belonging exclusively to 

 southern India, occurs in Moore's Hindu Pantheon, where, in 1809, 

 the author figured 23 specimens from a small collection procured 

 by Major Priee at the prize sale of the contents of Tippoo's trea- 

 sury, after the capture of Seringapatam. Moore has also describ- 

 ed and figured a series of Mysore coins in his narrative of Little's 

 Detachment, p. 465. 



In 1832, Prof. Wilson inserted a paper on the coins deposited in 

 the Museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in which he included 

 observations on those received from the Mackenzie collection. 

 This was printed in the XVII. Vol. of the Asiatic Researches and 

 is accompanied by figures of 53 specimens. The descriptions are 



