The coinages of Southern India form a class by themselves. In the later centuries B.C. and early A.D. the Andras ruled a great kingdom in central South India; their coinage is mainly of lead and has types of the usual indigenous character. The later mediae val dynasties of South India struck coinages mainly of gold, the type of which is usually the badge of the dynasty; the Cheras (Pl. VII.-8) of Malabar for example had an elephant and the Chalu kyas of the Deccan a boar (Pl. VII.-ro), the Pandyas a fish and the cup-shaped pieces of the Kadambas bear a lotus. The Chola dynasty introduced under northern influence the type of a king standing on obverse and on the reverse the king seated, which spread through South India and was taken to Ceylon by the Chola conquest and adopted by the local rajas there (P1. I). The great Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar (Mysore) has left a large series of small gold and copper coins with the types of various deities which had considerable influence on the modern coinages of Southern India including those of the various foreign companies.
The earliest Arab invaders had reached India in the 8th cen tury and founded a dynasty in Sind which has left numerous very small silver coins of the Omayyad type. Not till the i 1 th cen tury was India seriously affected by Muslim invasions when Mahmud of Ghazna (Pl. 1) conquered the Punjab. His pire was short-lived. In 1193 the Ghorid Mohammed bin Sam de feated the allied Hindu forces and became lord of India. His de scendants ruled Northern India from Delhi till the Mogul con quest. Their coinage is varied and extensive, mainly gold and silver tankas (or rupees) of 178 grains. They are large thick pieces with the profession of faith on one side and the name of the king, mint and date on the other. A feature of this coinage is the unsuccessful attempt made by Mohammed III. b. Tughlak (A.D. 1324-1357) to replace gold and silver coinage by brass tokens. Gold was hardly issued at all in the 15th and i6th centuries and for a time the coinage was mainly billon. Sher Shah (1539-45) (Pl. VII.-i2), one of the ablest of the line, issued a large silver currency of a type, kalima and names of the four caliphs, which was imitated by the Mogul successor of the Suris. During the latter half of the period of the sultans of Delhi, various dynasties made themselves independent ; such were the rulers of Bengal, Gujarat, Jaunpur, Malwa, etc., whose coins all follow the standards of the central power. Those of Bengal are mainly silver rupees with rare gold; the currency of Jaunpur, gold and billon; Malwa and Kashmir gold and silver coins were square.
The coinage of Baber and Humayth, the first two of the Mogul conquerors of India, are not extensive and are of Central Asian types. With the next two, the Great Moguls Akbar (Pl.
and Jahangir, we have a series unrivalled for variety and within their limitations beauty :—the gold coins of Jahangir are noble ex amples of Muslim calligraphy, an art evidently cultivated as much as painting at his court (Pl. The mints of the Mogul coins reflect dynastic fortune—even Shah Japan's brief occupation of Balkh is at once recorded on a gold mohur. The close association in the Muslim mind between sovereignty and the right of the coinage is exemplified in the existence of the coins of many pre tenders to the imperial throne, some of whom we know from history. to have had the briefest spell of power. The general type throughout is the same. In the i6th century the type that goes back to Sher Shah prevails, the Kalima with the names of the first four caliphs and the emperor's titles on the other side; Aurangzib replaced the confession of faith by the mint and date and this remained the usual type till the end of the dynasty. The emperor's name is usually enshrined in a Persian couplet to the effect that the metal of the coins acquires added lustre from bearing the emperor's name. Nearly fifty such verses are found on Jahangir's coins. The latter's reign is also remarkable for the series of coins bearing the sign of the zodiac and the set of por trait mohurs, one of which represents him holding a wine-cup. He also allowed his wife Nfir Jahan to strike coins in her own name, and she is also said to have inspired the issue of the zodiacal series. From the beginning of the 18th century the coins become stereotyped and the epigraphy loses its beauty; numerous native states began to arise and throw off the Mogul yoke, but right down to the middle of the 19th century they con tinued to coin on Mogul lines. The English and French East India Companies for years copied the native types from the coin ages and did not strike on European lines till the 19th century. The right of native states to mint their own coinage has been gradually curtailed by the British government and there are now very few independent coinages. The most important native state mint at present is Hyderabad, which a few years ago instituted a mint with European machinery. Before leaving India we may just mention the extensive coinage in gold and silver with Sanskrit legends of Nepal, which is still being issued, the long series of octagonal gold and silver of Assam struck down to the British conquest, and the brief coinage of Burma in the 19th century.