128 V. A. Smith —Gold Coins of the Imperial Gupta Dynasty. [No. 2, 
Certainly she cannot be intended for Parvati.* * * § I believe that she also 
may be regarded as representing the consort of the idealized king on the 
obverse, for it is a commonplace of Indian panegyric to represent Laksh- 
mi as the king’s consort.f 
The standing goddess, holding fillet and lotns-flower, or fillet only, 
who appears on the reverse of the Swordsman and Umbrella coins of 
Chandra Gnpta II with the legend ‘ Yikramaditya’, is, perhaps, as sug¬ 
gested by Wilson, primarily intended to represent Victory, who so fre¬ 
quently appears on the Graeco-Bactrian coins but she may be only a 
slightly varied representation of Lakshmi, and it is also possible that, at 
the time the coins were struck, her effigy connoted equally the ideas of 
Victory and of Lakshmi or Good Fortune. Different symbolic inter¬ 
pretations are not necessarily mutually exclusive. 
I have followed Mr. Thomas in calling the object in the right 
hand of this personification a fillet, and, if the figure is intended for 
Victory, no doubt the nomenclature is correct. But, as we shall see, a 
similar object constantly recurs in the hand of the female deities whose 
efiigies are displayed on the Gupta coins, and in many cases I believe it 
would be more proper to follow Prinsep (Vol. I. p. 230) in calling it a 
p)dsa or noose.§ For convenience I shall use throughout the term 
‘ fillet,’ but it should be interpreted with regard to the qualification now 
stated. 
The goddess standing on what looks like a dragon or marine mon¬ 
ster (pnalcara or jalampa) who is shown on the unique Tiger coin of 
Samudra Gupta does not appear to be intended for Lakshmi. In my 
remarks on that coin in the catalogue I have ventured to suggest two 
alternative interpretations of the symbolism. 
The Aswamedha coins of Samudra Gupta were undoubtedly struck 
to commemorate the performance of the sacrifice of the horse, with the 
ceremonies which expressed the performer’s claim to be the supreme 
power in India. These pieces agree in weight with the ordinary coins of 
the period, but in other respects rather resemble medals, and the con¬ 
jecture is allowable that they were issued as a special type of coin for 
* Mf. Thomas, however, describes her as ‘‘ a rather elegant standing figure of 
Parvati, with the exotic cornucopia.” {Epoch of the Guptas, p. 23, from J. B. A. 8. 
{N. 8.) 1881. The same learned writer thinks that the solar standard of Ghatot 
Kacha may signify a claim to solar descent. 
t E. g. Aphsar inscription of later Guptas, 1. 1. 8, 16, seqq. (.7. A. 8. B. XXXV, 
Pt. I, pp. 232, 234), and inscription from Nepal {Indian Ant. for 1880, p. 165). 
J Ar. Ant., p. 418. 
§ Kittoe also uses the term ‘ noose ’ in his description of the Bharsar hoard, 
(J. A. 8. B. XXI,pp. 390-400). 
