E. Thomas —The Initial Coinage of Bengal .— Bt. II. [No. 4, 
354 
Coins of Ghiya's-tjd-dTn Twaz. 
No. 4. Silver. Size, 7%. Weight, 161 grs. (full weight.) 
PL x., fig. 4. a.h. 616. (7 specimens.) 
Obveese. 
LioJf 
y\ j 
(±): {je 
Reverse. 
y\ aPi y 
dlj| 
AlJ( 
Margin— ^ 
djl^iLy j j. o«i 
Coin No. 4 teaches us that in the same year 616 a.h., in the early 
part of which Husam-ud-din Twaz had confessed allegiance to Altamsh, he 
seemingly grew weary of such pretences, and openly declared himself Sultan 
in his own right, assuming the regal title of Ghiyas-ud-din , and the quasi- 
liierarchical function implied in the designation of Ndicir Amir Al Muminin, 
“ Defender of the Commander of the Faithful.” Whether this overt assertion 
of independence was suggested by his own growing power, or was due to the 
imagined weakness of the suzerain, is not clear ; but there can be no question 
as to his success in the extension and consolidation of his dominions, or to 
his vigorous administration of a country, fertile in the extreme, and endowed 
with such singular commercial advantages of sea and river intercourse. 
At this particular juncture, Altamsh does not seem to have been pressed 
by any important home disturbances, but there were dark clouds on the 
N. W. frontier. The all-powerful ’Ala-ud-din Muhammad Khdrazmi, whose 
outpost extended over so large a portion of Asia, had been coining money 
in the inconvenient proximity of Ghazni throughout the years 613, 614-616, 
a.h. f and no one could foretell when he might follow the ordinary precedent 
and advance into Hindustan. As fate determined, however, it was left to 
his son Jaldl-ud-din to swim the Indus, at the risk of his life, as a fugitive 
before the hosts of Chingiz Khan, in 618 a.h. 
The mention of Chingiz Khan suggests to me the desirability of 
repeating a correction, I have already recorded elsewhere, of a singular 
delusion, shared alike by native copyists and English commentators, 
regarding one of the supposed incidents of the sufficiently diversified career 
of this scourge of the world, to the effect that his unkempt savages had 
penetrated down to the impossible limit of the lower Ganges. The whole 
series of mistakes, Asiatic or European, may now be traced back to a simple 
clerical error in the transcription from a chance leading copy of the 
ordinarily rare work of Minhaj i Siraj—where the name of Chingiz Khan 
has been substituted for the more obvious designation of the 
ancient town of Jajnagar . 
# J.R.A.S. ix., 381 ; xvii., 202 ; Chronicles of Patlian Kings, p. 86. 
