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النشر الإلكتروني

SULTANS OF DEHLI.

3. Ghiyās-ud-din Balban; a new mint. Pl. I. 3. 4.

Towards the close of 1902 a rupee of Ghiyas-ud-din Balban was brought to me, similar in type to the coin illustrated by Thomas (Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Dehli, Pl. II. 42), but differing in its marginal legend. Unfortunately the latter is not perfect. A portion of it is, however, sufficiently preserved to enable the place of mintage to be deciphered with clearness. The legend on the reverse runs

تسع وسبعين وستماية

ضربت هذا بخطه سلطانه پور ....

[Struck in the district of Sultanpur.........in the year 679 A. H.]

On the obverse, too little of the margin is left to be of any further help. The coin weighs 165 grs.

Twelve months later I came across a confirmation of the above reading on a small copper coin of the same king of the type given by Thomas on p. 135 of his Chronicles No. 115, Plate II, Fig. 45. This little coin on the reverse has instead of the words

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To which Sulṭānpur this coin should be assigned I am unable to say. It cannot be the Sultanpur (Warangal) of the coins of Muhammad bin Tughlak, as Warangal was not named till late in the reign of Ghiyāsud-din Tughlak. There was a Sulṭānpur within a short distance of old Dehli, but it is unlikely that there should have been two mints in such close proximity.

It is more probable that the "Khița Sulṭānpur" of Balban was in or near the province of Bengal which was the scene of the principal expedition of that monarch's reign. H. N. WRIGHT, C.S.

MUGHAL EMPERORS OF HINDUSTĀN.

4. Jahāngir..-A new zodiacal mohar. Pl. I. 5.

Obverse.—Ram (Aries) to right looking backward over shoulder

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The legend forms the following couplet :—

Bād rawān tā ki buwad mihr o Mãh

Sikka-i-urdu-i-Jahāngīr Shāh

[May the coin of the camp of Jahangir Shāh remain current as long as the sun and moon exist.]

This interesting coin which was found by me in Dehli in October 1902, stands by itself in almost every particular. The most recent publication on the zodiacal coins of Jahangir is Monsieur Drouin's article in the "Revue Numismatique" in 1902 (p. 259), in which are described the zodiacal coins in the French "Cabinet des Medailles." The British Museum Catalogue contains an account of the 43 gold specimens in that Museum and Mr. J. S. Gibbs had a valuable paper entitled "Notes on the zodiacal Rupees and Mohars of Jahangir" in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1878. These are the most important publications of recent date bearing on the subject, and in none of them is any reference made to a coin resembling the one now described.

Hitherto the only names of mints noticed on the zodiacal coins of Jahangir have been

On gold coins: Agra, Lahore,1 Ajmir,2 Aḥmadābād,3 Fatḥpūr Sikri.

On silver coins: Aḥmadābād, Agra (from gold die), Kashmir, Fathpur Sikri,5

The present coin must have been struck in the camp (Urdū) of Jahāngir, and is so far the only coin known to have been so struck by that king. Coins struck by Akbar in his "Urdu" or "Urdu-i-Zafarqarin are met with. The sign of the Ram shews that my coin was struck in the first month (Farwardin), possibly on the Nauroz, of Jahāngīr's 22nd year, corresponding to the seventh month (Rajab) of 1036 A. H. or March 1627 A. D. Where Jahangir actually was at that time I have not been able to ascertain with any exactitude. In the sixth month of his 21st year he left Kabul for Hindustan (Elliot and Dowson, Vol. VI, p. 429). He went to Lahore (idem p. 431), and in his 22nd year appears to have gone to Kashmir (idem p. 435). He died 8 months later (28 Safar 1037 A.H.) on his way back to Lahore. Probably he was on his way from Lahore to Kashmir when the present coin was issued.

Further, no other zodiacal coin is known of so late date. The latest specimen in the British Museum is dated 1033. M. Drouin,

1 M. Drouin describes and figures a Sagittarius struck at Lahore in the name of Nurjahān.

2 Gibbs A.S.B. Prog. 1883.

8 B.M.C. No. 357 and Drouin (p. 9 of paper).

♦ See Gibbs, J.A.S. Bom: 1878; the coins belonged to Col. Guthrie.

5 White King and Vost, Num. Chron: 1896, Vol XVI, p. 155.

though on p. 11 of his article he remarks that the period of zodiacal coins extends from 1019 to 1036, states on p. 15 of the same paper "les années de frappe vont donc de 1019 à 1035 pour le monnayage d'argent alors qu'elles oscillent entre 1025 et 1034 pour les mohrs." A rupee (Taurus) struck at Agra in 1035, which is in the Cabinet des Médailles, bears the latest date given by him. Mr. Gibbs remarked: "The latest date among my own gold is Cancer 1034-20, and among the silver 1027-13 * Marsden gives 1034-19 as the latest gold with the exception of the rare Sagittarius at Paris which has Nurjahan Begam's name on the reverse and which is 1035-20."

*

The engraving both of the obverse and reverse dies is particularly fine, and I believe that no other zodiacal mohar is known with the figure of the Ram to the right. The reverse legend adds a new couplet to those hitherto recorded on the coins of Jahangir. The coin weighs 168 grs.

5. On the date of the Salimi Coins. Pl. I. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

It is well-known that a series of coins issued from the Aḥmadābād mint in the name of Sultan Salim Shah, son of Akbar Shah. Now this Salim on mounting the imperial throne assumed the name of Jahangirl and accordingly it is not strange that the Salimi silver rupees and copper tänkis have generally been assigned to some period prior to his accession. The British Museum Catalogue, for instance, attributes them to Jahangir as Governor of Gujarat. Unfortunately for this hypothesis, however, the prince Salim never was Governor of Gujarat. Below is the list of all the viceroys appointed by the Emperor Akbar from the date of his subjugation of the province in A.D. 1573 until the accession of Jahangir in A.D. 1605.

1. Mirza 'Aziz Koka

2. Mirzā 'Abd al Raḥim Khān

3. Shihab al din Aḥmad Khān

:

A.D. 1573-1575.

1575-1577.

1577-1583.

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1 Jahangir, the eldest son of the Emperor Akbar the Great, was named "Mirza Salim on account of his coming into the world, as supposed, by the prayers "of Shaikh Salim Cishtī, a venerable Shaikh and dervish who resided in the village "of Sikri, now called Fatehpur Sīkrī, in the province of Agra." Beale: Oriental Biographical Dictionary (1894), page 191. My friend, Mr. J. J. Ghose, M.A., of Ahmadabad, has kindly supplied me the following extract from the Tuzak-i-Jahāngiri: After my birth I was named Sultan Salim. But I never heard the blessed "lips of my father address me either seriously or in jest as Muḥammad Salim or “Sulṭān Salīm. He always called me Shekho Bābā When I became King it

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came into my mind that I should change my name (Salīm) because of its resem"blance to the names of the Qaisars of Turkey. The Heavenly Inspirer put into my heart that, as the work of Kings is to conquer the world, I should call myself Jahangir."

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Not only is Salim's name absent from this list, but, inasmuch as in all the thirty-two years the viceroyalty was never vacant, no loophole even remains for the conjecture that Salim may at some time have held the Office of Governor.

It is true that towards the end of Akbar's reign Salim rose in rebellion, but the disaffection was shortlived1 and apparently was confined to the Allahābād District. No trace of it seems to have reached the distant Aḥmadābād.

If then Salim's coins were not struck by him either as Viceroy or as rebel, we are evidently shut up to the conclusion that they were issued by his orders as Emperor. And if this be the case, we may safely affirm that they must have been struck in the very earliest part of his reign-before his newly adopted name Jahangir had quite come into vogue. On this point the evidence of the coins themselves is instructive. They bear no Hijri year, but, as generally read, they have alongside of the name of the month of issue either the year 2 or the year 5. Not a single Salimi coin is known of the year 1 or 3 or 4, and none of any year later than 5. How to account for the strange lacuna was long a puzzle. The first clue to a solution was given by Mr. Nelson Wright who noticed that the coins supposed to read the year 5 do, as a matter of fact, read 50. The Persian figure 5 is here written as a small circle, and accordingly the following digit, zero, is represented merely by a dot. On several badly struck specimens the 5 appears clear enough, but in the process of coining the 0, which came nearer the edge of the die, has simply missed the flan altogether. On other specimens again the dot has been quite worn away. My own collection, however, contains five of these Salimi rupees with the 50 written distinctly as O. With this clue in our hand the tangle all unravels. And in this

way:

Clearly the 50 represents the 50th (or last) solar year of Akbar's reign, his Ilāhi 50, and the 2 the next succeeding solar year. In the earlier months of the Ilahi 50 Akbar was still on the throne, and the coins of these months bore his name. In the first week of the 8th

1 Referring to Salim's rebellion Manouchi writes: "He repaired the disobedience of a few months by a sincere application ever after to all the offices of a dutiful son." Catrou's Manouchi (English Translation, 1709), page 134.

month of that year-on the 6th day of Abān-Salim mounted the throne. Forthwith in that same month of Aban coins were struck at the Aḥmadābād mint in the name of Salim, but bearing still as their date the year 50. Each succeeding month of that year Salim's coins issued from Aḥmadābād, these coins showing the name of the month of issue and the year 50. When the new solar year began the same type of coin was struck, but with the date Farwardin 2, and during the first four months of this year 2 that issue continued with the mere change consequent upon the change of month. In the fifth month Salim (or, as he was now called, Jahāngir) introduced his new type of coin-the well known "heavy rupees "-with their entirely new legend. Besides substituting his imperial name Jahāngir for his birth-name Salim, he also so far at least as the Aḥmadābād coins are concerned, dropped the year 2 from these coins, and now for the first time admitted the year 1. As yet only one New Year's Day (of the solar year) had occurred in his reign, and he now elected to count from that day his Ilahi year 1.2

Thereafter most of his coins bore both the date of the Hijri (lunar) year and also the number of the regnal (solar) year-thus 1015-1, 10152, 1016-2, 1016-3, 1017-3, &c &c.

In order to indicate the precise period to which the coins struck for Salim at Aḥmadābād should, in my opinion, be assigned, I have drawn up the following Table of Synchronisms of the Arabic and Persian months for the three years beginning 10th March, O.S., 1605. In the Waqi'āt-iJahāngīrī it is definitely stated that the third solar year of Jahāngir's reign opened on a "Thursday, the 2nd of Zu'l hijja, corresponding with the 1st of Farwardin." Dowson-Elliot: VI. 316. With this as starting-point the construction of a Table of monthly synchronisms for the three preceding years presents no difficulty. It is only necessary to bear in mind

(a) that in the Hijri year months of 30 and 29 days alternate, one day being added to the last (short) month of any intercalary year;

(b) and that in the Persian year each month is of 30 days, but that 5 days—the gathās-are always added to the end of the last month.

1 The Ilahi rupees of Akbar and Salim's rupees invariably weigh each just a few grains under 180, but Jahāngir's heavy rupees rose at a bound to 215, and three years later to 222 grains.

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2 "Jahangir counts the years of his reign by the solar reckoning, and the first year of his reign as commencing on the New Year's Day next after his accession, "with the entrance of the Sun into Aries, which corresponded with the 11th Zu'l “qaʼda, 1014 A.H. (10th March, 1606 A.D.)." Dowson-Elliot, History of India, VI. 290, note 2.

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