138 
Pandyan Coins. 
(By the Eev. JAIIES E. TRACY, m.a., 
Tirnmangalam, Madura District.) 
Those wlio have been able to examine the recent volume of 
the International Numismata Orientalia, in which Sir Walter 
Elliot has gathered up the results of his many years numis- 
matic research, will be gratified to see how large a number 
of previously unpublished coins, especially of the copper 
series, are there figured and described. Many of them have, 
indeed, long been well known to such numismatists as are 
favorably situated for the study of South Indian coins, but it 
is much that they have at last been put before the nunn's- 
matic public, so that comparison and discussion may, if pos- 
sible, focus upon them light, which would otherwise remain 
scattered, and also that other workers in the same line may 
have before them the results thus far attained. Some coins 
of the Pandyan and neighbouring dynasties of South India 
have been brought to liffht since the collections of Sir Walter 
Elliot were made, or, if represented in his cabinets, have, at 
least, not been published by him. It is quite possible that 
these also may throw some light, either dii-ectlj- or indii-ectly, 
upon the subject. 
The coins of the Pandyans may be variously classified, 
either into typical series ha^ang reference to the riding tj^ie 
or symbol emploj^ed, e.g., fish t^^^pe, boar type, elephant t^-jx^ 
Ceylon-man type, &c., or into periodic series, as earlier and 
later, having reference to the age as indicated by the inscrip- 
tions, or as shown in the general stylo and appearance of 
the coins. The latter is perhaps the bettor classification, and 
is the one adopted by Sir Walter Elliot, who pronounces the 
earliest known Pandyan coins to be those ^^'hich ha^-o only 
