40 
G. Bitlie —The Pagoda or Varaha coins. 
[No. 1, 
Gajapati Dynasty or Elephant Lords* * * § 
The device of the elephantf originally belonged to the Kongus or 
Cheras, whose dominion first included the Malabar, Coimbatore and Salem 
districts, and latterly a large portion of what is the modern Mysore terri¬ 
tory. At one time their capital was at Skandapura in N. lat. 1 L° 40' 
and East long. 77°, but in the 3rd century it was moved to Talkad on the 
Cauvery. The Cheras are supposed to have been the people called by 
Ptolemy Caret, and their country the Carura regia Cerebothri.\ About 
the 9th century of our era their capital Talkad having been captured by 
the Cholas, the Kongus fled to Orissa, and established there the Ganga 
vamsa line of kings. They were also called Gajapati, and it is believed 
struck the Gajapati Pagodas. Wilson in his “ Description of Select Coins”§ 
says “ they are not unfrequent, and are the work of the Gajapati princes 
of Orissa, who reigned from the 11th to the 16th century.” In Southern 
India genuine copies of the Gajapati pagodas are scarce and dear, but at 
Bangalore fictitious ones are made, according to demand, with such in¬ 
genuity that it is by no means easy to distinguish the real from the false. 
PL I, Fig. 7. 
Ob. Elephant to the right caparisoned with jewelled trappings. 
Mev. A scroll of foliage or peacock’s tail, as in fig. 2. 
There are two specimens of this in the Museum, one of which was got 
from the Collector of Danvar and the other purchased. 
Probable date of coinage, 13th century. 
Weight. One weighs 60 75 grains and the other 6021 grains. These 
weights are also much above the average of the pagoda. 
Lingayat Pagoda. I have adopted this designation for this pagoda with 
some hesitation, as the symbols on it are, as regards their significance, very 
obscure. Marsden in his “Numismata Orientalia” Part II, pi. 43, fig. 1077, 
gives a representation of it, and at page 740 states, that it is a coin of a 
Hindu prince of Bijapur who resigned some time prior to Yusuf Adil Shah, 
who founded the Adil Shahi dynasty there in 1439. One of the specimens 
of this coin, now in the Museum, was sent from Canara to the Madras 
Exhibition of 1855, under the name of “ Lingaity Pagoda,” and this identi¬ 
fication has been adopted as a popular and probable one. The Lingayat 
sect of Hindus was founded about 1160, at Kalayana, by Basava, prime 
minister to Bijjala, a Kalachurya prince. || The distinctive mark of the 
* Rice’s “Mysore Inscriptions”, p. 47 and “Asiatic Annual Register for 1804,” 
Section “ Characters.” 
+ Thomas’s “ Pathan Kings of Delhi,” p. 170, note. 
1 Rice’s “ Mysore Gazetteer,” Vol. I, pp. 197, 198. 
§ “Asiatic Researches,” Vol. XVII, p. 593. 
[| Rice’s “ Mysore Gazetteer,” Vol, I, pp. 210, 382. 
