78 
C, J. Rodgers —On the Coins of the Sikhs. 
[No. 1, 
Mr. Lepel Griffin in his “ Rajahs of the Panjab” # says “ Nor were 
these coins struck before 1762, not in 1757-8, as stated by Cunningham, 
and it is very doubtful whether they were ever struck in large numbers at 
all. The Rajah of Kupurthalla has none in his possession, nor do I know 
any one who has seen one. The “ Tawarikh-i-Punjab ” of Ganesh Dass, 
states that the Sikhs did not strike this coin, but that the Kazis and Mul¬ 
lahs in 1761, after the famous Nanak Shahi rupee had been struck, and 
desiring to anger Ahmad Shah against the Sikhs, coined 21 rupees with 
this inscription themselves, and sent them to the Shah at Kabul, who was 
as indignant as they anticipated at the insolence of the Distiller (Kalal) 
who claimed to have seized his country (Mulk-i-Ahmad) .” I may add 
that I have hunted through some thousands of Sikh rupees myself but 
have never seen one yet. If they were sent to Kabul to Ahmad Shah direct, 
he probably broke them up at once. 
The Mahrattas were at this time paramount in Dehli. They became 
naturally the rulers of the Panjab and they took Sirhind, Lahore, Multan 
and Attock. This brought Ahmad Shah once more to India. His fifth 
expedition was in 1759-61. He retook the Panjab and extended his arms 
across the Ganges. (He struck rupees in his 14th year at Muradabad). 
But the one great action of this campaign was the battle of Panipat in 
1761, in which the power of the Mahrattas in Northern India was utterly 
destroyed. Ahmad Shah did not know how to improve a victory. He 
left for Kabul immediately after Panipat. Of course the usual thing 
happened. The Sikhs rebelled against his governors, and that rebellion 
induced his return in 1762. In this invasion he turned his arms chiefly 
against the Sikhs who on all previous occasions had always hovered around 
His armies whether victorious or defeated. They had never been well taken 
in hand before and had received but scant attention from the conqueror. 
Hence their numbers had increased marvellously. From the fact that the 
Sikh loss in the great battle which took place “ between Gujerwal and 
Bernala, twenty miles south from Ludiana,” is estimated at from twelve 
to twenty-five thousand men, we may calculate the full Sikh power at that 
time at something between fifty and a hundred thousand fighting men. 
On his return from this great victory Ahmad Shah not only destroyed 
the temples around the tank at Amritsar, but he killed cows in them and 
washed the Muhammadan shrines, which had been defiled by swine’s blood, 
with the blood of slaughtered Sikhs. 
The Sikhs were not, however, destroyed. The truth is that during all 
this anarchy and invasion and counter rebellion, there had been many im¬ 
portant families in the Panjab rising quietly into power and importance. 
These families had summoned their retainers round them. The leaders and 
* Footnote, p. 506. 
