South Indian Inscriptions

COINS

On the reverse as Rājā Parama Mahēśvara Mānasa Nripa-Deva Dhyāna-śri-kasa (?), and interpreted it as ‘Mānasa king, the great devotee of Mahesvara, who derives his glory from contemplating God’. He conjecturally placed this Manasa king about the end of the fourth century A.C.

The coins were next considered by Sir Alexander Cunningham in his Archælogial Survey of India Reports, VoI. IX (1879), pp. 29 ff. He read the legend on them as Paramamāheśvara-Mahāditya-pād-ānudhyāta-śri-Krishna Rājā. He admitted that some of the coins in his cabinet had possibly the word Mahākshatra in place of Mahāditya, in which case, he said, the translation would be ‘the reverencer of the great king.’ Cunningham agreed with Bhau Daji’s view that the coins belonged to about the end of the fourth century A.C., but he identified the king who struck them with the Rāshtrakuta king Krishna whom he placed in the period 375-400 A.C.

In 1885 Dr. Fleet published his account of two silver coins of Krishnaraja from Cunningham’s collection in the Indian Antiquary, Vol XIV, p. 68. He for the first time read the legend correctly as Paramamahesvara-mata-pitri-pād-ānudhyāta-śri-Krishnarāja, which means ‘the glorious Krishnarāja, who is a devout worshipper of (the god) Mahēśvara (and) who meditates on the feet of (his) parents.’ In the second edition of his Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts (1896), Fleet suggested that in all probability the Dēvlānā coins were coins of Krishnarāja, the Kalachuri king, who was the father of Sankaragana.

Prof. Rapson also discussed these coins in his Indian coins (1897), p. 27, Pl. IV, No. 17. He doubtfully read the legend on them as Parama-Māhēśvara-mahādevayōh pād-ānudyāta-śrī-Krishnārajā. As regards the date 375-400 A.C. proposed by Cunningham for this Krishnarāja, Rapson pointed out that it was certainly incorrect, as it was too early for the style of the coins which were imitated from the latest Gupta coins current in the western provinces. For the same reason he could not also assign them to Krishnarāja Rāshtrakūta, c. 756 A.C. Rapson was, however, unable to put forward any conjecture about the identification of this Krishnarāja.

During his excavations at Besnagar in 1913-14, Dr. D.R. Bhandarkar found seven coins of Krishnarāja. He supported Fleet’s view that this Krishnarāja belonged to the Kalachuri dynasty. As stated before, this Krishnarāja flourished from circa 550 A.C. to 575 A.C.

PI. A, No. 3. AR. Size in diameter—.45”. Wt—29 grs. Obverse—Head of the King with mustaches to the right, without any date. Reverse—Inside a circle of dots along the edge, the legend Parama-mahasvara-mata-patri-pad- anudhyata-śrā-Krishnaraja representing Paramamāhēśvara-mata-pitri-pād-ānudyāta-sri-Krishnarāja. In the centre, the figure, of a couchant humped bull to right,

These coins of Krishnarāja resemble the silver coins of the western Kshatrapas, the Guptas and the Traikūtakas, which were struck to the Graeco-Bactrian weight-standard of the hemidrachma. Their fabric is also similar. But while the Kshatrapa and Traikūtaka coins have the symbols of a Chaitya (or a hill), the sun and the moon, these coins of Krishnarāja have, like some western issues of Skandagupta, the figure of a couchant bull (Śiva's Nandi) facing right, in the center of the reverse side. The coins of Skandagupta were evidently in circulation in the Anūpa country, the home province of the Kalachuris before the rise of Krishnarāja.

In the legend on his coins Krishnarāja, like Skandagupta, refers to his religious faith. He calls himself Paramamāhēśvara, ‘a devout worshipper of Mahēśvara’. He dropped all reference to the patronymic and the royal title which invariably appear on the coins of the Kshatrapas and the Traikūtakas. He substituted instead an expression denoting his devotion to his parents, the like of which is noticed nowhere else in Indian numismatics.