150 Y. A. Smith —-Gold Goins of the Imperial Gupta Dynasty. [No. 2, 
latter are extremely rare, only about 40, I believe, being known to exist, 
and the neighbourhood of Benares is a place extremely unlikely in which 
to find a large hoard of them. I consider it highly probable that the 
trove consisted of Gupta gold coins of the prevailing Archer type, which 
might in those days be easily confounded with the Persian ro^orat. 
Another great golden treasure was found during the reign of Warren 
Hastings in the year 1783, at Kali Ghat, ten miles above Calcutta, on 
the east bank of the Hiigli. The hoard comprised over 200 coins, many 
of which were sent home by the Governor-General and were distri¬ 
buted among the cabinets of the British Museum, East India Company, 
and other public institutions, where some, at any rate, of the speci¬ 
mens are still to be seen. The coins of this hoard are described by 
Wilson as being “ of rude execution and debased metal,” and it is doubt¬ 
ful if any of them are authentic issues of the imperial Gupta dynasty, 
though agreeing in general design with the Archer type of those issues. 
A few specimens from this hoard, which I designate by the name of 
Kalighat, are noticed in the Supplement to my Catalogue.* 
In 1838 Mr. Tregear dug up some specimens of the Gupta gold coin¬ 
age in some ruins, known as Jaichandra’s Mahal, near Jaunpur. The 
exact number of the coins so found is not stated, but it does not appear 
to have been large. Most, if not all, of these coins were subsequently 
published by Prinsep, and are included in my Catalogue.f 
The important trove, which is referred to in the Catalogue as the 
Bharsar hoard, was found near Benares in 1851 and is described by 
Major Kittoe as follows :— 
“ These coins, which are all gold, of different weight and quality, 
were of a trove of ninety in number, that is, such number were delivered 
into the treasury. They were found, with about 70 more, by some vil¬ 
lagers, buried in a copper vessel, in a mound on which stands the village 
of Bharsar, in pargana Bharwal, and Thana Chandauli, about twelve miles 
from Benares, between the Ganges and Karamnasa. Bharsar is the site 
of one of the many ancient cities, the names of which are lost. 
“ Of the number \_scil recovered] 71 were coins of Chandra Gupta, 
69 being of one type of his coinage \_scil. evidently. Archer type]. Of 
these, four were retained of the most perfect, and the remainder were 
sold by auction ; they were all more or less defective, and but few of 
them had even a portion of the legend round the rim perfect, but the 
* Marsden Num. Or., II, 726; Ariana Ant. pp. 416-17 and Plate XVIII,/[/s. 
21 seqq. The barbarous coins figured by Marsden were from this hoard. (Prinsep’s 
Essays, I, 230.) 
t J. A. S. B. Ill, (1831), 619. 
