NUMISMATICS is a neglected subject of study and research in India. Connected and coherent studies on Indian numismatics are not many Even the few published works mostly deal with North India, and South India is neglected if not altogether ignored. This is particularly true with regard to the coins of the dynasties which ruled Karnataka. The only essay on the coins of Karnataka was written by Hayavadana Rao in his monumental work, Mysore Gazetteer, Volume II, part (i). This is a highly general account of the subject. Since then a large number of coins of various dynasties have come to light. M. H. Krishna, a specialist in Deccan numismatics, did not publish his researches in full. He incorporated parts of his work in the Annual Reports of the Mysore Archaeological Department. Thus there has been a gap in our knowledge of the coins of Karnataka.
Realising the importance of the subject and the gaps that exist therein, I began a study of this subject. I collected information on the coins of Karnataka from the museums I visited during the last three years. I also made use of the researches of individual scholars, mostly published in the pages of the JOURNAL OF THE NUMISMATIC SOCIETY OF INDIA. I express my grateful thanks to the authorities of the various museums in the country, who allowed me to study their coin collections and supplied information at my request.
The present work contains twenty chapters. Each chapter is devoted to the study of the coinage of a major dynasty which ruled Karnataka. The period covered is from the early times to the modern period. As far as possible, coins have been illustrated by line-drawings.
In the preparation of this work. I have received help from a number of persons. I am grateful to Professor A. K. Narain, Professor of History and South Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, U.S.A. and a numismatist of great reputation, for his thought-provoking foreword and encouragement. Professor H. G.
THE STUDY OF INDIAN COINS has not attracted the attention of scholars to the same extent as Indian epigraphy, art and sculpture, ancient Indian history and architecture. In spite of the Treasure Trove Act of 1878 generally coins of precious metals are melted by ignorant and unscrupulous people for the value of precious metal in them. This tendency, very common in our villages, has done great harm to Indian numismatics in particular and ancient Indian history in general. Even when the coins come to the notice of the authorities, the administrative and procedural delays do not allow the coins to come to the notice of scholars interested in numismatics. Thus thousands of coins are lying unidentified and uncared for in many parts of the country. In spite of these dis-advantages great scholars like Rapson, Smith, Elliott, Tufnell, Altekar, Allan, Vidyaprakash, Brown, Krishna, Gupta and others have enriched the numismatic history of India by their contributions.
Though Mysore was one of the earliest among the States to establish a department of archaeology on a sound basis, numismatics does not seem to have received enough attention. Epigraphy was the main concern of the Department of Archaeology in Mysore State till we come to the period of M. H. Krishna, who initiated a systematic study of the coins of Karnataka. One of the early books on the coins of Karnataka was A Brief Sketch of Gold, Silver and Copper Coinage of Mysore written by Hawkes in 1855.
The credit for compiling a valuable history of coins in South India, however, goes to Sir Walter Elliott, a great numismatist. His work, Coins of Southern India, formed a part of the famous series Numismata Orientalia and was published in 1884.4 Elliott treated the whole of South India and Deccan as a unit and commented upon the coins of each dynasty of the Deccan and illustrated them with beautiful photographs. This study comprised the coins of many dynasties of Karnataka. Though the coins included in this work are not numerous the book formed a basis for future work on the subject.
In 1883 G. Bidie published a pamphlet on coins in which he included, among others, the coins of the Chalukyas, Vijayanagara kings and Mysore Wadeyars.
Edgar Thurston published a catalogue of coins belonging to Mysore State, which were in the showcases of the Madras Government Museum. This publication of 1888, though useful in many ways, is confined only to the coin collections in the Museum-Next year, i.e. 1889, under the instructions of the Government of the Maharaja of Mysore, R. H. C. Tufnell compiled and published a catalogue of Mysore coins in the collection of the Government Museum, Bangalore. As a catalogue of a museum collection, this work also has certain limitations, and gives only a partial picture. The discovery of Roman coins in Bangalore heralded a new era in the interpretation of the early history of Karnataka. B. L. Rice, promptly, made a study of these coins and brought out their significance. This work of Rice, published in 1891, showed the interest of Rice in numismatics also.
The British scholars, however, evinced a more lively interest in the study of the coins of Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali. In 1909 R. P. Jackson published his monograph Coin Collecting in Mysore. Jackson travelled from village to village in Mysore area and collected a large number of gold, silver and copper coins. He published them in this monograph. His work includes mostly the coins of Tipu and Mysore Wadeyar dynasty. His other work, Coin Collecting in Deccan (1909), contains some information on Bahamani coins. His third work, Some Copper Coins Issued by the English East India Company and Other European Powers in Southern India (1909), also contains some useful information.
Henderson's Coins of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan (1921) is an important work on the subject. He has made a thorough study of the varied aspects of Tipu's coins. Probably it is the most exhaustive and systematic study of Tipu's coins.
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