Pratna Samiksha, New Series 5, 2014. © Centre for ArchaeologicalStudies & Training, Eastern India, Kolkata, pp. 101-16.

Coin Hoard and Small Finds of the Sultans of Bengal in the Collection of Assam State Museum, Guwahati, Assam

SUTAPA SINHA

AbstrAct: The coin collection of Assam State Museum, Guwahati, incorporates an important collection of coins of the Bengal Sultans comprising several coin hoards namely Harishinga, Haleswar and Mathanguri, and small finds like Donka Mokam, Rajaduar, Juria unearthed from different parts of Assam in the 80’s and 90’s of the last century. In 2010, the Museum has published a catalogue on medieval coins where a majority of these coins have been published but without their proper context or importance. Content analysis of some of the coins of the Harishinga and Haleswar hoards were published earlier by this author but that of Mathanguri and three other small finds are being published for the first time highlighting the important coins and their significance towards the monetary history of the Bengal Sultans.

Keywords: Unpublished Coin Hoards, Coins of Bengal Sultans, Coins of Delhi Sultans, Assam State Museum, Guwahati, Typological Classification.

numismatic

The author visited the Assam State Museum, Guwahati1 in the first weelk of September, 2006 to study and document the coins of the Bengal Sultans in connection with her prolonged re-search on the coin hoards of the Bengal Sultan-ate period.2 Fortunately she could recover a few small finds and one medium sized hoard com-plete with silver coins of the Sultans of Bengal from its reserve collection lying almost unnoticed for several years. A few silver coins of the series were displayed in the coin gallery of the muse-um. While searching through several volumes of the Accession Register of the Museum (with due permission from the authority) she found men-tion of several ‘silver persi’ coins and could link some of those with the coins found in the reserve collection. She did not find any mention of any gold coins of this series either in the Register or presence of the same in the store.3

In 2010, the museum has published a cata-logue entitled Catalogue of Medieval Coins in Assam State Museum, Guwahati where almost all these coins have been published in the Bengal Sultan-ate sub-section (Moin 2010: 31-61) under sec-tion ‘Provincial Sultanate’ of the Catalogue.4 A thorough comparative study of the photographs of coins taken at the time of documentation at ASMG with those published in CMC has been made by the author and that has enabled her to

understand the fact that majority of these coins have already been published in a classified man-ner without their proper context. Thus, even af-ter four years of publication of that catalogue, it is still important to bring to notice the exist-ence of one coin hoard and a few small finds in the collection of ASMG, analysis of which adds some interesting light towards historical facts and economic scenario of the respective period of history prevalent in Kamrup Kamta region. This will also enhance the importance of the coin col-lection of ASMG.

The earliest hoard of coins of the Governors and Sultans of Bengal from Assam was discov-ered as early as in November 1880 from Gauhati and was reported in 1881 in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in by A. F. R. Hoernle. in a full length article.5 From the point of view of monetary history, the importance of this hoard has further been analysed by the author in an earlier article on coin hoards of the Bengal Sul-tans (Sinha 1999: 154-6). This is the first reported hoard and probably the only hoard with coins of Bengal Governors6 numbering fourteen and even in its truncated state, it has helped us to clear up the obscurity regarding declaration of independ-ence by the Bengal Governor Malik Yuzbak, i.e. Ikhtiyar al-din Yuzbak-i-Tughril Khan who as-sumed the title of Sultan Mughith al-din Yuzbak

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during the reign of the Delhi Sultan Nasir al-din Mahmud Shah.

In 1891, eleven 11 years after this discov-ery another hoard of forty-four silver coins was found from Numogarh Tea Estate in Sibsagar district of Assam.7 The composition of this hoard is interesting as it contains coins covering a long period of not less than four hundred years and consisting coins starting from Delhi Sultan Ala al-din Khalji through coins of Bengal Governors and Sultans till Ala al-din Husain Shah and end-ing with the coin of Koch king Maharaja Rupa Narayana. Report of this find was published in PASB, 1894 (January-December 1893:143-6) and since it was a collector’s accumulation, it does not provide any important clue towards history unlike the first hoard found from Gauhati.8

Next year, i.e. in 1892 another hoard of 30 silver coins was unearthed by a porter (coolie) in the employment of Bengal Assam Railway some-where in the Kamrup region, presumably in the course of some excavation made for the railway. No other information is provided in the report regarding the place and manner of finding. This discovery was also reported in the pages of PASB, April 1893: 90-1.9 The coins found from these hoards were possibly deposited in the cabinet of the Asiatic Society of Bengal as that was the only central institution of Indological Research then. Out of these 30 coins, there is a single coin of Delhi Sultan Nasir al-din Mahmud (Ah 795-815/Ad 1393-1413), the occurrence of which is ab-solutely rare because in no other coin hoards of Bengal Sultans (not less than 50 in numbers) pub-lished or reported so far, coin of this later Delhi Sultan was found to be present. Mahmud was a contemporary of Azam Shah, son of Sikandar Shah. In his reign there was a complete stoppage of political interaction between Bengal and Del-hi. But as we have found in case of the earlier hoards from Assam, coins of earlier Delhi Sul-tans were always present along with Governors or Sultans reported from Kamrup and Kamta region. In this context we should also mention about the Cooch Behar hoard where a good number of coins of ‘Delhi Pathans’ occurred with Bengal Governors and sultans.

Surprisingly, no other coin hoard of the

Bengal Sultanate period has been reported af-terwards. In 1911 a catalogue of the provincial cabinet of coins of Eastern Bengal and Assam was published by H. E. Stapleton (Stapleton 1911) from Shillong and in 1919, a supplement to the former catalogue was published by Both-am and Friel from Allahabad (Botham and Friel 1919). According to that we did not find coins from any coin hoard of Sultans of Bengal which were discovered from the Assam region. Instead all of coin hoards preserved in the Shillong Cab-inet and published in these catalogues, were from different districts Eastern Bengal. In 1990, more than hundred years after the reporting of Kamrup hoard, we find a news item in a Eng-lish Daily from North-east India called Meghalaya Guardian, Shillong, stating that a coin hoard of 40silver coins was found during the construction work of a sluice gate at Harishinga, near Man-goldoi in Darrang district of Assam by the la-bourers working under one Mr Madhab Das.10 This hoard contents 37 silver coins of Koch king Naranarayana along with only three coins, one each of Nasir al-din Nusrat Shah, Ghiyath al-din Mahmud Shah and Ala al-din Firuz Shah of Husain Shahi house (Sinha 2001: 210). This area in Upper Assam used to fall under the domain of the Kamta kingdom in the medieval period and coins of Bengal Sultans were in regular circula-tion before Koch king Naranarayana began to strike coins in his own name from Ad 1555.

Information of another hoard of silver coins found from a village called Haleswar in Sonitpur district of Assam was published in The Newsfront (an English daily from Guwahati), 17 Novem-ber 1993. It was a comparatively bigger find of 168 silver coins though no detail regarding the quantity of coins of each ruler or their typology was available from this news clipping. We again find that coin of Delhi Sultan Ala al-din Khal-ji is mixed up with the coins of Bengal Sultans dating from fifteenth century. As far as the dep-osition of this find is concerned, it is mentioned that a few of coins are preserved in the Sonitpur district museum. The author incorporated the report of the truncated Haleswar find in her ar-ticle on ‘Coin Hoards of the Bengal Sultans’ in 2001 (Sinha 2001: 210-11). In the reserve collec-

SUTAPA SINHA

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tion of ASMG, she came across another six coins belonging to the Haleswar hoard which include one specimen of Ala al-din Khalji of Delhi and analysis of those six coins will be furnished in the following pages of the present discourse.

In case of the Mathanguri hoard, we did not have any prior information till it was recovered from the reserve collection of ASMG in 2006 when the author visited the museum for docu-mentation of coins of the Sultans of Bengal. In the course of her search with the help of museum personnel Hemaprabah Medhi, a bagful of silver coins came out along with 27 hexagonal Ahom silver coins. At first it appeared to have been un-earthed together but a piece of paper kept inside the plastic carry bag stated “A number of 130 Muslim coins (vide catalogue 234-360) found in river bed of Baski near Mathanguri, North Kamrup Wildlife Sanctuary. These coins were presented to the museum by Ananda Charan Gohain, Wild Life Warden, Assam, Kaziranga”. Two important points may be noted here. Firstly, Ahom silver coins were not recovered together with the coins of the Bengal Sultans. Secondly, if one goes by the number of coins mentioned, i.e. ‘130 Muslim coin’ it does not match with the cat-alogue serial number which comes to 127 coins that actually matches the number of the coins present in the plastic bag after physical count-ing. Nonetheless, the author could not locate the catalogue or any other Accession Register of the museum even with the help of museum person-nel Hemaprabha Medhi where these 127 silver coins of the Sultans of Bengal are recorded. So far as the findspot of the hoard is concerned she found the river name ‘Bencki’ near Mathanguri while searching for the river ‘Baski’ but she has retained the name Baski since it was written in the said hand-note.

Apart from these coin hoards from Haleswar and Mathanguri, she also located three oth-er small finds namely Donka Mokam, Rajadu-ar and Juria coins kept in separate small paper envelops in the reserve collection. Out of 150 coins catalogued under Bengal Sultanate section of CMC (Serial no. 56-205), 140 coins belong to these hoards and finds preserved in ASMG and two coins of those are included under Delhi Sul-

tanate section of the catalogue (Moin 2010: 23). Six coins belonging to the Rajaduar find have somehow been excluded from CMC. In the fol-lowing pages, a detail analysis of the contents of Mathanguri hoard, Haleswar hoard along with Donka Mokam, Rajaduar and Juria finds will be furnished with remarks on their historical importance. The typological classification has been made, following the types cited in the latest standard catalogue of the Sultanate coins (Goron and Goenka 2001) which has hereinafter been referred as CIS.

MAthAnguri hoArd

i. Year of the find: Not known.ii. Publication reference: Danish Moin,

Catalogue of Medieval Coins in Assam State Museum, Guwahati, Directorate of Museums, Assam, Guwahati, 2010: 31-2, 34, 36-55, 57, 59 & 61.

iii. Findspot: River bed of Bencki near village Mathanguri, district Baksa, North Kamrup.

iv. Circumstances of discovery: 130 Muslim coins were found in river bed of Baski near Mathanguri, North Kamrup Wildlife Sanctuary (now known as Manas wildlife sanctuary). These coins were presented to the museum by Ananda Charan Gohain, Wild Life Warden, Assam, Kaziranga.

v. Probable time of inhumation: After Ah 944/Ad 1537-38.

vi. Period covered: Around 220 years (assuming Ah 724 as the end of Ghiyath al-din Bahadur Shah’s reign, since one coin of his time is present in the hoard without clear date).

vii. Present deposition: Assam State Museum, Guwahati, Assam.

viii. State of preservation: Majority of the coins are stamped with several shroff marks and some are severely damaged by chisel cuts.

ix. Category of hoard: Long-term savings hoard.

x. House or dynasty represented: Husain Shahi dynasty with single occurrence of Governor and other Sultans of earlier period.

xi. Total no. of coins: 127 silver coins.xii. Breakdown and classification of the 127

coins:

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Dynasty Name of the ruler

Period(Ah/Ad)

Mint name No. of coins

Date on the coins

Reference

Bengal Governor

Ghiyath al-din Bahadur Shah

720-24/ 1320-24

Off the flan 1 Off the flan or Cut off

As No. B108 of CIS, p. 162

Bengal Sultan

Shams al-din Ilyas Shah

743-59/ 1342-58

Firuzabad 1 Not clear As No. B152 of CIS, p. 169

Bengal Sultan

Ghiyath al-din ‘Azam Shah

792-813/ 1389-1410

Arsah Satgaon?/ Firuzabad

1 Not clear As No. B248 of CIS, p. 180

Bengal Sultan

Jalal al-din Muhammad Shah

818-36/ 1415-32

Damaged 1 Damaged As No. B347 of CIS, p. 193

Bengal Sultan

Nur al-din Sikandar Shah

885-86/ 1481

Damaged 1 Damaged As No. B581 of CIS, p. 220

Bengal Sultan

Jalal al-din Fath Shah

886-93/ 1481-86

Fathabad 1 884 As No. B587 of CIS, p. 221

Bengal Sultan

Ala al-din Husain Shah

889-925/ 1493-1519

Husainabad 5 899 As No. B694 of CIS, p. 233

Not clear 1 ‘89’ As No. B739 of CIS, p. 238

Fathabad 4 89 Do

Nil 1 Nil Do

Husainabad 3 Nil As No. B741 of CIS, p. 238

Khaẓanah 3 919 As No. B744 of CIS, p. 238

Fathabad 1 ‘89’ As No. B725 of CIS, p. 236 (third victory type)

KhaẓanahHusainabad

3 919 As No. B728 of CIS, p. 237

Dar al-darb 2 922 As No. B738 of CIS, p. 238

Do 2 913 Do

Do 1 Rubbed off

Do

Khaẓanah 2 899 As No. B707 of CIS, p. 234

Fathabad 5 899 As No. B706 of CIS, p. 234

Khaẓanah 2 922 As No. B709 of CIS, p. 234

Khaẓanah 1 –9 As No. B708 of CIS, p. 234

Arsah 1 962 (for 926)

As No. B705 of CIS, p. 234

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Obscured 1 Obscured Appears as B705 of CIS, p. 234

No mint 1 No date As No. B720 of CIS, p. 236(first victory type)

Dar al-ḍarbusai (nabad)

1 904 As No. B765 of CIS, p. 240

Husainabad 1 None As No. B770 of CIS, p. 241

Do 1 89 Do

Barbakabad 2 Cut off As No. B760 of CIS, p. 240

Dar al-darb 904 As No. B765 of CIS, p. 240

Husainabad 1 –99 As No. B770 of CIS, p. 241

Fathabad 1 899 As No. B760 of CIS, p. 241 (legend same but of different mint)

Nil 1 Nil As No. B772 of CIS, p. 241

Bengal Sultan

Nasir al-din Nusrat Shah

925-38/ 1519-31

Nuxratabad- 3 (9)62(sic 926)

As No. B840 of CIS, p. 247

Arsah

1 Not clear Obverse as B813A of CIS & Reverse as B 800 of CIS, p. 243

Tirhut Mardan 1 Nil As No. B841 of CIS, p. 248

Arsah 3 39/93 As No. B800 of CIS, p. 243

Fathabad Dar al-darb

2 89 925

As No. B811 of CIS, p. 245

Obscured Obscured Do

Dar al-darb 1 925 As No. B809 of CIS, p. 244

Dar al-darb 1 (925) As No. B830 of CIS, p. 246

Husainabad Dar al-darb

1 925 As No. B805 of CIS, p. 244

Do 1 926 Do

Khalifatabad 1 922 As No. B833 of CIS, p. 247

? 1 926 As No. B843 of CIS, p. 248

Husainabad 3 925 As No. B828 of CIS, p. 246

Dar al-darb 3 Nil As No. B806 of CIS, p. 244

Do 1 934 Do

Illegible 2 Illegible Do

Illegible 1 Illegible As No. B842 of CIS, p. 248

Coin Hoard and Small Finds of the Sultans of Bengal in the Collection of Assam State Museum

106

Do 1 Do As No. B835 of CIS, p. 247

Dar al-darb 2 Not visible Do

Do 1 931 Do

Dar al-darb 1 (9)6_ Do

Obscure 1 Obscured As No. B792 of CIS, p. 243 (Type of gold coin)

Fathabad Dar al-darb

11 89925

As No. B810 of CIS, p. 245 (Same as 811 but bold letters)

Husainabad Dar al-darb

3 925 As No. B820 of CIS, p. 246

Husainabad 2 925 As No. B814 of CIS, p. 245

Muzaffarabad

1 920 (in reverse order)

As No. B838 of CIS, p. 247

Dar al-darb

1 925 Very crude lettering,Type could not be matched with the Catalogue

Husainabad Dar al-darb

1 925 As No. B824 of CIS, p. 246

Nil 1 Nil As No. B848 of CIS, p. 248

BengalSultan

Ala al-din Firuz Shah

938-939/ 1532-1533

Husainabad 1 Obscured As No. B877 of CIS, p. 251

Nil 1 Nil As No. B886 of CIS, p. 252(Enclosure different)

Fathabad(?) 1 Nil As No. B873 of CIS, p. 251

Fathabad 1 Nil As No. B874 of CIS, p. 251

BengalSultan

Ghiyath al-din Mahmud Shah

939-45/ 1532-38

Muhammadabad 1 935 As No. B909 of CIS, p. 254

Husainabad

4 939(trace of)

As No. B904 of CIS, p. 254

Nuxratabad 1 933 As No. B910 of CIS, p. 255

Nil 1 Nil As No. B936 of CIS, p. 257 (without mint name)

Fathabad 3 Nil As No. B931 of CIS, p. 256

Nil 1 934 As No. B910 of CIS, p. 255

Da (r al-darb) 1 xx3 As No. B914 of CIS, p. 255

Fathabad 3 933 As No. B901 of CIS, p. 254

Arkan 1 944 As No. B895 of CIS, p. 253

Cut off 1 Cut off As No. B897 of CIS, p. 253

SUTAPA SINHA

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xiii. Hoard analysis: Unlike most of the other coin hoards found from different parts of Assam, the Mathanguri do not have any coin of the Del-hi Sultans. It opens with a coin of a Ghiyath al-din Bahadur Shah, the last governor of Bengal under the ruling of Muhammad bin Tughlaq of Delhi. It was followed by single specimen each of Shams al-din Ilyas Shah, Ghiyath al-din Azam Shah, Jalal al-din Muhammadd Shah, Nur al-din Sikandar Shah and Jalal al-din Fath Shah totalling six in number. Remaining 121 coins belong to four Sultans of Husain Shahi dynasty and this hoard was inhumed during or after the time of the last sultan of the house Ghiyath al-din Mahmud Shah because the latest dated coin in the hoard is of Ah 944/Ad 1537-38 with Arkan as mint name on it.

So far as the composition of the hoard is concerned, it is a very important discovery be-cause it has yielded an extremely rare coin of Sultan Nur al-din Sikandar Shah who ruled for a very brief period just before Jalal al-din Fath Shah came to the throne of Bengal. Only a few coins are known to exist till date of this ephem-eral ruler. One coin of this ruler was documented by the author in the collection of Munzkabinet of Bode-museum in Berlin and subsequently published by her (Sinha 2009: 361). There are three further unpublished coins preserved in the coin cabinet of Bangladesh National Museum, Dhaka.11 The mint name usually found on coins of Nur al-din Sikandar Shah is Dar al-darb (the treasury) with a date 885. In case of the present coin mint name and date are obscured (Fig. 1).

The accumulation period covered by this hoard is calculated from the beginning of Bahadur Shah’s reign i.e. Ah 720/Ad 1320 up to the latest dated coin of Ghiyath al-din Mahmud Shah which is Ah 944. Thus it covers a period of more than two hundred and twenty years which is somewhat unusual even for a long term savings hoard. Therefore, the sole coin each of Bahadur Shah of early fourteenth century and Ilyas Shah of mid fourteenth century may be treated as intruder in this hoard, not as commonly accrue one.

Coins of Husain Shahi sultans are dominant

in this hoard and the majority is of a common type. Mint names found on the coins of Husain Shah are Fathabad, Husainabad, Khaẓanah, Khaẓanah Husainabad, Dar al-darb, Dar al-darb Husainabad, Barbakabad and Arsah with dates ranging from 899 to 926. The accepted rul-ing period of Husain Shah is Ah 899 to 925. Thus the coin with Arsah as mint name with a date 926 is controversial. In fact, the actual date is written like ‘962’ partly in a reverse way. There are nu-merous instances of inscribing blunder dates on the coins of Husain Shahi rulers and this is one of the examples. There is a single specimen of Husain Shah which is of first victory type. This is quite a rare type of coin though without mint name and date (As No. B720 of CIS, p. 236) and has the Kalima on the reverse and the victory legend on the obverse mentioning only two place names Kamru and Kamta (Fig. 2). Coins of this type found so far with dates do not go beyond Ah 900 which is the second regnal year of Hu-

Fig. 1. Rare coin of Nur al-din Sikandar Shah, Mathanguri Hoard.

Fig. 2. First victory type coin of Ala al-din Husain Shah, Mathanguri Hoard.

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108

sain Shah. On the basis of these coins some au-thor postulated that the conquest of Kamru and Kamta took place either at the beginning of his reign or even before that when Husain Shah was serving as the general of Habshi sultan Shams al-din Muzaffar Shah. Conquest of Kamta by Muzaffar Shah is attested by his coin of Kamta Mardan type. Thus finding such coin in a hoard found from Kamta region is significant.

On the coins of Nusart Shah, even more mint names are available with different dates like Nusaratabad, Arsah, Tirhut Mardan, Dar al-darb, Husainabad, Khilafatabad, Muzaffarabad, Dar al-darb Husainabad. Tirhut Mardan (plunder of Tirhut) coins of Nusrat Shah do not have any date so we cannot be sure about the conquest of Tirhut in North Bihar by Nusrat Shah but inter-estingly enough coins with this12 ‘Tirhut Mardan’ phrase continued to occur on the coins of two successor of Nusrat Shah, i.e. of Firuz Shah and Mahmud Shah written with typical monogram. In this hoard we find this type only on the coins of Nusrat Shah (Fig. 3). Four coins of Firuz Shah in this hoard are from Husainabad and Fathabad mints while coins of Mahmud Shah are from Husainabad, Fathabad, Nuxratabad, Muhammadabad, Arkan and Dar al-darb mint. On one coin of Mahmud Shah we find the word ‘Arkan’ with a date of 944 which is partly visible (Fig. 4). Arkan has been listed as one of the mint names by Goron and Goenka in their catalogue (Goron and Goenka 2001) but the actual mean-ing of the term ‘Arkan’ is pillars and in this case it signifies the royal presence. Both ‘badar shahi’ and

regular inscription type coins of Mahmud Shah are available in this hoard collection.

hAleswAr hoArd

i. Year of the find: 1993.ii. Reference: The Newsfront, Guwahati, 17

November 1993 (English daily); Danish Moin, Catalogue of Medieval Coins in Assam State Museum, Guwahati, Directorate of Museums, Assam, Guwahati, 2010: 23, 34-5, 61.

iii. Findspot: Village Haleswar, district Sonitpur, Assam.

iv. Circumstances of discovery: During construction of a road, the hoard was found by the labourers as has been reported in the daily.

v. Probable time of inhumation: During or after the reign period of Rukn al-din Barbak Shah. i.e. around Ah 879/Ad 1474.

vi. Period covered: Approximately 178 years (assuming Ah 695 as beginning of Ala al-din Muhammad Shah’s reign and Ah 879 as end of Rukn al-din Barbak Shah’s reign).

vii. Present deposition: Some of the coins of the hoard are preserved in the Sonitpur district Museum, Assam and six coins are deposited in the Assam State Museum, Guwahati.

viii. State of preservation: The reporter of the English daily stated that coins of the hoard were in good condition though some of them bore chisel marks due to digging. Coins examined by the author are stamped with several shroff marks and a few of them are severely damaged by chisel cuts, a common feature of coins of this series.

ix. Category of find: Long-term savings hoard

Fig. 3. Tirhut Mardan coin of Nasir al-din Nusrat Shah, Mathanguri Hoard.

Fig. 4. Coin of Ghiyath al-din Mahmud Shah with Arkan as mint name, Mathanguri Hoard.

SUTAPA SINHA

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of heterogeneous group (the first hand reports said that there were one hundred sixty eight silver coins in the hoard).

x. House represented:Delhi sultan and Bengal sultans.

xi. Total no. of coins: 168 silver coins of which only six are preserved in ASMG.

xii. Breakdown and classification of these six coins:

Dynasty Name of the ruler Period(Ah/Ad)

Mint name No. of coins

Date on the coins

Reference

Delhi Sultan

Ala al-din Muhammad Shah

695-715/ 1296-1316

Delhi

1 Cut off (partly visible)

As No. D 226 of CIS, p. 38

Bengal Sultan

Jalal al-din Muhammad Shah

818-819/ 1415-1416

Arsah Chatgaon

1 818 (?) As No. B 305 of CIS, p. 188

HinduKing

Danujamarddana Deva Sakabda

Saka 1339-40/1416-18

Chatigram (?)

1 1339 bs As No. B 316 of CIS, p. 189

Bengal Sultan

Jalal al-din Muhammad Shah

821-36/ 1418-32-3

Cut off 1 Cut off As No. B 335 of CIS, p.192

Dakhil Banjaliya

Nil 1 As No. B 390 of CIS, p. 198

Not clear 1 Not clear As No. B 309 of CIS, p. 188

xiii. Hoard analysis: Earlier, this Haleswar hoard was analysed by this author in her arti-cle (Sinha 2001: 210-11) on the basis of a report published in an English daily The Newsfront, Gu-wahati, 17 November 1993. When she found six silver coins in the coin cabinet of ASMG with a tag of Haleswar hoard, her earlier work became substantiated by examination of these coins and vice-versa. For example, the museum did not have any information regarding circumstances of discovery of this Haleswar hoard while she had this information from the news item men-tioned above that it was found by a labourer during construction of a road. On the contra-ry, these six coins of Haleswar find (Sl. Nos. 13, 67, 68, 69, 71 and 205 of CMC) were donated to the Museum by six different persons namely Shri Ghanakanta Das, Shri Putul Nath, Shri Ja-mini Kumar Nath, Shri Lakheswar Nath, Shri Adiram Nath and Shri Keshoram Nath on same date, 30th April, 1993. Date of donation of coins

points out the fact that this hoard was most prob-ably unearthed sometime in the first quarter of 1993, much before the date of publication of the news on 17 November 1993.

Most importantly, six coins of this hoard in the collection of ASMG represent coins of only two kings of Bengal like Jalal al-din Muhammad Shah and Danujamarddana Deva while the news-

paper report mentioned coins of two more kings namely Shihab al-din Bayzid Shah and Rukn al-din Barbak Shah, former predates Muham-mad Shah and the latter postdates him although amount of coins were never mentioned in that report, neither we know what happened to all those coins recovered from village of Haleswar except the fact that some of these coins were procured by Sonitpur district Museum by its the then Director Dr S. Ahmed. Thus the content of the Haleswar hoard could be reconstructed as follows based on the information available so far:

Delhi Sultana. ‘Ala al-din Muhammad Shah Ah 695-715/Ad

1295-1315

Bengal Sultanb. Shihab al-din Bayazid Shah Ah 815-17/Ad

1412-14c. Danujamarddana Deva Ad 1416-17/1339-40

Saka

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110

d. Jalal al-din Muhammad Shah Ah 818-19 & 821-36/Ad 1415-16 & 1418-32

e. Rukn al din Barbak Shah Ah 864-79/Ad 1459-74

Since no detail about the coin types was given in the news report, it was not possible to provide any typological classification in her earlier anal-ysis (Sinha 2001: 210-11). Here she could classi-fy these coins and one coin out of four of Jalal al-din Muhammad Shah deserves special men-tion (Sl. No. 205 of CMC, p. 61). At the time of documentation she attributed this coin to Nasir al-din Mahmud Shah but later on after repeated comparison and careful examination she identi-fied this coin to Jalal al-din Muhammad Shah as it was somewhat similar to B390 of CIS, p. 198 (Fig. 5). Since the coin is in much worn-out condition it is quite difficult to identify this coin and therefore the author of CMC classified it under ‘unattributed group’. Coin conforming type B390 of CIS bears a rare mint name ‘Dakhil

Banjaliya’ which is very rare to find. The mint name was first read as Dakhil Khulna with little bit of doubt and moreover Khulna was not an important place at that point of time in medieval Bengal. Dakhil Banjaliya, meaning ‘the gateway to Bengal or Bengala’, seems like a more plausible reading and may be a mint name in the Chit-tagong area (Goron and Goenka 2001: 144). The coins are also very similar in style and calligra-phy with those struck at the mint of Arsah Chat-gaon issued by Muhammad Shah. Another coin of Muhammad Shah present in the hoard and a single coin of Danujamarddana Deva are also of Chittagong mint (Figs. 6 and 7) pointing to the fact of long distance transaction of medieval Bengal with Assam.

donKA MoKAM Find i. Year of the find: Not known.ii. Reference: Danish Moin, Catalogue of Medi-

eval Coins in Assam State Museum, Guwahati, Direc-torate of Museums, Assam, Guwahati, 2010: 29, 33, 35, 38, 45 & 53.

iii. Findspot: Donka Mokam, district Karbi Anglong.

iv. Circumstances of discovery: No informa-tion regarding discovery of the find was available from the Museum authority.

v. Probable time of inhumation: After Ah 938/Ad 1530-31 (excluding the imitation coin which could extend up to the period of Sher Shah).

vi. Period covered: Around 150 years (assum-ing Ah 792 as earliest date of Azam Shah and Ah 938 as latest date of Nusrat Shah. If we take the

Fig. 5. Coin of Jalal al-din Muhammad Shah similar to Dakhil Banjalia type, Haleswar Hoard.

Fig. 7. Coin of Danujamarddana Deva with mint Chatigrama, Haleswar Hoard.

Fig. 6. Coin of Jalal al-din Muhammad Shah from mint Arsah Chatgaon, Haleswar Hoard.

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imitation of Sher Shah’s coin into consideration, another 10 years could be added).

vii. Present deposition: Assam State Museum, Guwahati, Assam.

viii. State of preservation: Fairly good state of preservation having occasional shroff marks and chisel cuts.

ix. Category of find: Small find (emergency) homogeneous group.

x. House represented:Ilyas Shahi, Ganesh Shahi and Husain Shahi

xi. Total no. of coins: six silver coins.xii. Breakdown and classification of these six

coins:

Dynasty Name of the ruler

Period(Ah/Ad)

Mint name No. of coins

Date on the coins

Reference

Bengal Sultan

Ghiyath al-din ‘Azam Shah

792-813/ 1389-1410

Muazzaamabad (?) 1 Nil As No. B 228 of CIS, p. 178

Bengal Sultan

Jalal al-din Muhammad Shah

818-36/ 1415-32

Chatgaon (?) 1 Nil As No. B 308 of CIS, p. 188

Bengal Sultan

Ala al-din Husain Shah

889-925/ 1493-1519

Khaẓanah 899B 707 of CIS, p. 234

1 899 As No. B 707 of CIS, p. 234

Bengal Sultan

Nil

1 Nil New type

Bengal Sultan

Nasir al-din Nusrat Shah

925-38/ 1519-31

Husainabad 1 926 As No. B 820 of CIS, p. 246

Imitation of Sher Shah

1 951(?) Not attributed

xiii. Hoard analysis: Six coins of this small find have been incorporated in the CMC (Sl. Nos. 52, 64, 70, 84, 122 and 169) five under the Bengal Sultanate section and the imitation of Sher Shah’s coin under the Delhi Sultanate section. However, this small find covers a long span of time around 150 years which is not usual for such small savings. Therefore, we are not in a position to explain reason behind this unusual feature only explanation could be that these six coins are only a small fraction of a large hoard like Haleswar hoard. Among two coins of Hu-sain Shah, one (Sl. No. 122 of CMC, p. 45) ap-pears to be as a unique type not even mentioned in CIS, so far as its legend arrangement and cal-ligraphy of the legend is concerned without any

mint name and date (Fig. 8). Mint names present on the other coins are Muazzamabad, Chatgaon from eastern part of Bengal and Khaẓanah and Husainabad from western part of Bengal indi-cates money minted in faraway places used to come over Kamrup Kamta region most likely for trade purpose.

The last coin which has been attributed as im-itation of Sher Shah’s coin is most likely a con-temporary forgery and occurrence of such spec-imen is always intriguing if we find them from a hoard or a small find (Fig. 9). Sher Shah’s coins possibly were in regular circulation in this region along with coins of Bengal Sultans as we have

found one coin of his reign from another small find of six coins called Rajaduar find, preserved in the same collection.

Fig. 8. Coin of Ala al-din Husain Shah. New type, Donka Mokam Find.

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112

JuriA Find i. Year of the find: Not known.ii. Reference: Danish Moin, Catalogue of

Medieval Coins in Assam State Museum, Guwahati, Directorate of Museums, Assam, Guwahati, 2010: 23 and 33.

iii. Findspot: Juria in Nawgaon district.iv. Circumstances of discovery: No detail

information regarding discovery of the find could be obtained neither from Accession Register nor from the custodian of the Museum.

v. Probable time of inhumation: After Ah 813/Ad 1410.

vi. Period covered: Around 120 years.vii. Present deposition: Assam State Museum,

Guwahati, Assam.viii. State of preservation: Coins are in fair

state of preservation.ix. Category of find: Heterogeneous (Delhi

and Bengal), small emergency saving.x. House represented:Khalji of Delhi and

Ilyas Shahi of Bengal.xi. Total no. of coins: three silver coins.xii. Breakdown and classification of these

three coins:

Dynasty Name of the ruler Period(Ah/Ad)

Mint name No. of coins Date on the coins

Reference

Delhi Sultan

Ala al-din Muhammad Shah Khalji

695-715/ 1296-1316

Hazrat Dehli 1 Cut off As No. D225 of CIS, p. 381

Bengal Sultan

Sikandar bin Ilyas Shah

758-92/ 1357-89

Muazzamabad (?) 1 Not clear As No. B199 of CIS, p. 175

Bengal Sultan

Ghiyath al-din ‘Azam Shah

792-813/ 1389-1410

Cut off

1 Cut off As No. B242 of CIS, p. 180

xiii. Hoard analysis: These three coins of the Juria find are published in respective section of the Catalogue with Sl. nos. 12, 63 and 65 corre-spond to Classified Museum Nos. 570, 567 and 566. When this author studied these coins in the Assam State Museum in September 2006, she recorded accession numbers for the same coins as 3412, 4980 and 4981 respectively for Mu-hammad Shah Khalji, Sikandar Shah and Azam Shah. Surprisingly there is no mention of the ac-cession numbers in the catalogue.

So far as the amalgamation of the coins in a tiny find of three coins is concerned, it is unu-sual to find a long gap of more than fifty years between two different groups of coin and in this case it is between a single specimen of Delhi Sul-tan and a couple of coins of Bengal Sultans. This feature is somewhat exceptional in the case of such a small find. We have a reference of another small find, named Haleswar from the same state, where among six coins, one coin of Ala al-din Muhammad Shah of Delhi appeared with five coins of sultans of Bengal who ruled hundred years after Muhammad Shah. Such occurrence may led us to think that coins of the Delhi Sul-tans of early fourteenth century were in steady circulation in Kamrup-Kamta region throughout fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, at least till the time of Nasir al-din Mahmud Shah, in the mid-dle of the fifteenth century.

rAJAduAr Find

i. Year of the find: 1988.ii. Publication reference: Not published in

CMC.iii. Findspot: Rajaduar, North Guwahati.iv. Circumstances of discovery: It was found

Fig. 9. Imitation (contemporary forgery) coin of Sher Shah, Donka Mokam Find.

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113

So far as the content of this small find is con-cerned, it is quite intriguing to find coins of three different kingdoms of medieval India amalga-mated together and were inhumed in and discov-ered from a region which did not fall within any of the three territories. The Kamrup region was repeatedly attacked and conquered by the Sul-tans of Bengal but never remained a subordinate for a long time at a stretch. We have several other instances of finding coins of Bengal sultans from this area of the country because Kamrup and Kamta did not have their own regular currency and as a result coins of neighbouring region were in circulation for trade and other commercial ac-tivities during the thirteenth to sixteenth centu-ries untill it was replaced by the coins of Koch king Naranarayana. Therefore, this small find covering a period of nearly two hundred years of deposit with coins of three different kingdoms clearly indicates that in the absence of its own currency system, money from far away kingdom like Deccan and Delhi could also be included in

while digging earth for cultivation in 1988 (as has been communicated by Mr Upen Borah, Head Assistant of Assam Museum, Guwahati).

v. Probable time of inhumation: After Ah 952/Ad 1545.

vi. Period covered: Around two hundred years (find opens with a coin of Ilyas Shah and ends with that of a Sher Shah).

vii. Present deposition: Assam State Museum, Guwahati, Assam.

viii. State of preservation: All four coins of the Bengal sultans are stamped with several shroff marks and chisel cuts. A tiny piece of paper is pasted on the coins of Azam Shah and Taj al-din Firuz Shah due to some reasons.

ix. Category of find: Heterogeneous small saving (emergency) find.

x. House represented:Ilyas Shahi of Bengal, Bahamani of Deccan and Suri of Delhi.

xi. Total no. of coins: 6 (six) silver coins.xii. Breakdown and classification of these six

coins:

Dynasty Name of the ruler Period(Ah/Ad)

Mint name No. of coins

Date on the coins

Reference

Bengal Sultan

Shams al-din Ilyas Shah

743-59/ 1342-58

Firuzabad (?) 1 Not clear As No. B151 of CIS, p. 168

Bengal Sultan

Sikandar bin Ilyas Shah

758-92/ 1357-89

Firuzabad (?) 1 Not visible As No. B181 of CIS, p. 172

Bengal Sultan

Ghiyath al-din ‘Azam Shah

792-813/ 1389-1410

Not clear

1 Not clear As No. B242 of CIS, p. 180

Bengal Sultan

Shihab al-din Bayazid Shah

815-17/ 1412-14

Damaged 1 Damaged As No. B280 of CIS, p. 184

Bahama-ni Sultan

Taj al-din Firuz Shah

800-25/ 1397-1422

Ahsanabad (?) 1 Not clear As No. BH63 of CIS, p. 297

Suri Sultan Sher Shah Suri 945-52/ 1538-45

Gwalior

1 949 As No. D781 of CIS, p. 96

xiii. Hoard analysis: None of the coins of this small find from Rajaduar has been included in the CMC and hence this small find of six coins may be considered as being published for the first time. It is surprising to note that how these coins escaped the notice of the author of CMC because all of them are on display at the Coin gallery of the State Museum of Assam. Hence photographs of each coin of the hoard may be illustrated here (Figs. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15).

circulation of a region for a long period. There-fore, at the time of a hasty accretion of money due to emergency situations, these coins of other kingdoms may have been inhumed with regular currency present in the market.

Thus, intensive study of coin hoards of any particular series of coinage may further authenticate an existing publication by bringing forward hitherto unknown facts which remained

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114

Fig. 10. Coin of Shams al-din Ilyas Shah, Rajaduar Find.

Fig. 12. Coin of Ghiyath al-din Azam Shah, Rajaduar Find.

Fig. 14. Coin of Bahamani Sultan Taj al-din Firuz Shah of Ahsanabad mint, Rajaduar Find.

Fig. 11. Coin of Sikandar bin Ilyas Shah, Rajaduar Find.

Fig. 13. Coin of Shihab al-din Bayazid Shah, Rajaduar Find.

Fig. 15. Coin of Sher Shah Suri of Gwalior mint dated Ah 949, Rajaduar Find.

otherwise unnoticed. In the present case, unveiling of the nature and history of collection of a group of silver coins of medieval period of Bengal preserved in the coin cabinet of the ASMG has been carried out through analysis of the coin hoards discussed above and outcome of that analysis including observations, directly throws light on the pattern of circulation of

money in Kamrup-Kamta region during those days. It would be highly appreciated if any museum personnel or other interested individual would come forward with latest information on discovery of any other coin hoard containing coins of the Sultans of Bengal unearthed from the state of Assam or any other states of North-east India. For example, the author had information

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regarding Karimganj hoard of silver coins of the series under review but in spite of her honest attempt she failed to locate present location/locations of the coins recovered from this hoard. On the other hand she found three silver coins of Husain Shahi sultans along with thirty seven silver coins of Koch king Naranarayana preserved in ASMG (vide Accession nos. 4683-4709 and 4713-4722) which were purchased from one Sri Madhab Chandra Das. In the Accession Register of the museum it was further noted that these 40 silver coins were found from Mangoldoi district. The author had analysed and published about a hoard found in the village Harishinga in

Mangoldoi district on the basis of a news item (Sinha 2001: 210) published in 1990 in an English daily from North-east India called Meghalaya Guardian, Shillong dated August 5, p. 4 (discussed infra p. 2) and the content of that hoard perfectly matches with these forty coins in the coin cabinet of ASMG found from same district in the same year. Interestingly these coins were sold to the museum by Madhab Chandra Das, the same person (Madhab Das as mentioned in the news item) who was the supervisor of the labourers who found those coins. Now it can be stated with certainty that all coins of Harishinga hoard are preserved in the coin collection of ASMG.

AcKnowledgeMents: The author is grateful to Dr Gautam Sengupta, the then Member Secretary of CASTEI, Kolkata for giving necessary support to undertake her trip to Assam and Tripura in 2006. She is very thankful to Sri Sankar Kumar Bose, Kolkata for providing her with information about coin hoards found from Assam. She is extremely indebted to Dr Sarharuddin Ahmed, Director in-Charge, Directorate of Museums, Assam, Guwahati and his staff members namely Smt. Banti Devi, Ms He-maprabha Medhi, Mr Jiten Shyam, Gautam Sharma and others who extended all possible help to make her documentation work at ASMG successful. The author expresses her sincere thanks to Mr B. Chakraborty for editing all those photographs illustrated in the article.

notes

1. Henceforth to be referred as ASMG.2. This was her last academic visit during her

tenure as a Fellow of the Centre for Archaeological Studies & Training, Eastern India and her trip was facilitated and sponsored by the Institute.

3. A brief communication on the collection of Assam State Museum, Guwahati has been published by the author in the Newsletter 2006, No. 11, p. 3 of Centre for Archaeological Studies & Training, Eastern India, Kolkata.

4. Henceforth the catalogue to be referred as CMC.5. A. F. Rudolf Hoernle, ‘A New Find of Early

Muhammadan Coins of Bengal’, in JASB, Vol. 50, pt. I, 1881, pp. 53-71, pls. I-IV.

6. Out of 38 silver coins and 40 small lumps of gold, only 14 silver coins and a single gold lump could be recovered by the then Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup.

7. Report on 44 old silver coins forwarded by the Extra Asst. Commissioner, Sibsagar, with his No.

3754 dated 5 December 1891. The coins are stated to have been found in the possession of a man on the Numogarh Tea Estate, but no information is given as to the circumstances under which they were found by him, or came into his possession.

8. ???[footnote missing]9. In the monthly meeting of the Asiatic Society

of Bengal dated 5 April 1893, the Philological Secretary of the Asiatic Society read out a report on a 30 Treasure Trove Coins (silver) forwarded by the officiating Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup vide No. 2789 dated the 9 September 1892 where it is mentioned that those coins were found on 24 January 1892 (in his Memo No. 4718, dated Gauhati, the 16 March 1892).

10. This news item was published on 5 August 1990, p. 4.

11. Personal communication by Dr Rezaul Karim, formerly of National Museum of Bangladesh, Dhaka.

Coin Hoard and Small Finds of the Sultans of Bengal in the Collection of Assam State Museum

116

Botham, A. W. and R. Friel (1919). Supplement to the Catalogue of the Provincial Catalogue of the Coins, Assam. Allahabad.

Goron, Stan and J. P. Goenka (2001). The Coins of the Indian Sultanates Covering the Area of Present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. New Delhi: Munshiram and Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd.

Moin, Danish (2010). Catalogue of Medieval Coins in Assam State Museum, Guwahati. Guwahati, Assam: Directorate of Museums, Assam.

Sinha, Sutapa (2009). “A Note on an Important

Coin Collection of the Bengal Sultans in the Bode-Museum, Berlin”, Gerd J. R. Mevissen and Arundhuti Banerji (eds.), Prajnadhara: Essays on Asian Art, History, Epigraphy and Culture II: 359-66.

Sinha, Sutapa (???). “Coin Hoards of the Bengal Sultans: Anatomy of the Hoards”, Gautam Sengupta (ed.), Pratna Samiksha (Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Govt. of West Bengal) 6-8: 136-242.

Stapleton, H. E. (1911). Catalogue of the Provincial Cabinet of Coins, Eastern Bengal and Assam. Shillong.

reFerences

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