34 
[No. 1, 
G. Liilie —The Pagoda or Vardha coins. 
differed in the various districts in which they circulated, and cannot he 
much relied on as affording trustworthy information, regarding either the 
chief who struck a coin, or its place of mintage. There is also reason to 
suspect, that after the fall of Vijayanagar some of its former vassals made 
coins which were exact copies of those previously issued by the superior 
power; just as after the ruin of the Mughul Empire, many Native States 
coined rupees bearing the name of some former Emperor of Delhi. This 
no doubt was done partly as an act of homage to a power that might again 
be in the ascendant, and partly out of deference to popular prejudice, which 
was apt to regard with suspicion any new form of coin. Thus Munro in 
speaking of the varieties of pagodas iif the Bellary district remarks “ in 
Raidrug the Venkatapati pagoda is commonest, while in Gurramconda the 
ryots will not look at it.”* Even Hyder, when building up his mushroom 
kingdom on the plateau of Mysore, did not dare to risk the opposition of 
popular feeling bj r introducing a new pagoda, hut actually overcame his 
pride and religious scruples so far as to copy a familiar Hindu form, with 
an obverse hearing figures of Siva and Parvati! So also, after the fall of 
Seringapatam, Krishna Raja, who was then placed on the throne of 
Mysore, selected the same old Hindu symbols for the obverse of his pagoda 
as had been adopted by Hyder. To numismatists, who have been accus¬ 
tomed to study old European coins or those of the Mahomedan sovereigns 
of India, the Madras pagodas appear particularly puzzling and uninterest¬ 
ing, as they do not always hear the name of the sovereign who struck 
them, and never give any information as to the place or date of mintage. 
Although the name Pagoda, as applied to a coin, is of comparatively mo¬ 
dern origin, the derivation of the term is very obscure. Prinsep says it is 
“ a Portuguese appellation derived from the pyramidal temple depicted on 
one side of it,”f and this would appear to be the general opinion of other 
authorities. Bartolomeo, who lived in Southern India from 1776 to 1789, 
calls the coin “ Bhagavadi,” and describes it thus: “ a gold coin with the 
figure of the goddess Bhagavadi, called by the Europeans very improperly 
Pagodi or Pagoda, is round and on one side a little convex.”J Bhagavadi 
or Bliagavati is one of the names of Durga or Parvati;§ and, as Barto¬ 
lomeo was an accomplished linguist, his etymology of the term Pagoda is 
probably correct. || The gold and silver pagodas of the East India Com¬ 
pany with the figure of a temple on the reverse (PI. 3, Fig. 24) are com- 
* Kelsall’s “ Manual of the Bellary District,” p. 287. 
t Thomas’s “Prinsep’s Indian Antiquities,” Useful Tables, p. 17. 
+ Translation of a voyage to the East Indies &c, by Fra Paolino Da San Barto¬ 
lomeo, p. 87. 
4 Ziegenhalg’s “ South Indian gods,” translated by Metzger, p. 145. 
|| The pagoda alluded to by Bartolomeo is doubtless the “ Durgi,” PI. 2, Fig. 12. 
