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A DIE FOR IMITATION OF U M A Y Y A D D I N A R SFOUND IN INDIAB y Shailendra Bhandare and Stefan Heidemann

Finds of Islamic coin dies are noteworthy and Bacharach an dAwad analysed in 1973 al l material known to them 1. Lately anarticle by K. Khromov in ONS newsletter no. 157, reported a diethat seems to have been employed for str iking crude imitatio ns of'Abbasid Dirhams and which w as found in the Caucasus area. It iseven more interestin g to note a find that is distan t from the Islamicheartland.

The die being reported hereunder existed in the collection ofP. G. Bhargave, a coin collector from Nasik , India 2 . He procured its a surface find in the ancient village of Prakashe, district Dhule,Maharasht ra ' State. The village is located about 450 kmnortheastward of Bombay and is situated on the banks of the riverTapi. Remains of archaeological interest lay strewn all over thevillage and the m o u nds adjoining th e r iver deserve urgentarchaeological attention., apart from preliminary explorations,however, no attempts at an extensive excavation have been made.The ex plorations have indicated that the antiquity of PrakasheStretches back to the C halcolithic period (c. 800 BC) and thevillage survived s a prosperous tow nship unt i l c. AD 1500. Thelocation of Prakashe on the river gives it direct estuarine accessto the Arabian Sea. In fact th e port of Surat is located at themouth of the same river that flows past Prakashe. It is believedthat Prakashe lay on the ancient trade route from Bharuch toPaithan, and a pass named 'Kondai Bari* that l inks th e SouthGujarat plateau to the highlands of North Maharashtra is locatedqui te close to it. The vil lage therefore had a considerablecommercial importance.

The die may be described s follows on the basis ofphotographs: Brass, height 36 mm; diameter 2 8 mm; diameter ofthe engraved coin 19 mm. The edges of the upper side aresmoothed. This upper side w as obvious ly no t treated wi thhammer strokes and shows no signs of wear: there are traccs ofcasting st i l l visible. On one of its edges (facets). the die ha s aneat arabesque design engraved in the metal. wh i ch is veryunusual for a die in actual use. If it ever served to strike coins. itcan be seen s an obverse die. set in an anvi l . The arabesqueprobably served s an alignment tool when the die was set in theanvil . This can be inferred from th e posi t ion of the inscriptionson the die. wh i ch is correctly aligned o n h when the facet withthe arabesque is at 180 degrees.

An Umayyad Dinar served s a model for th is die. Theinscription may generally be said to have been carefully cut.I lowever. th e errors. omiss ions an d misrepresentations that havecrept in suggest that the engraver must have been unfamil iar wi th

Arabic (Kuf ic ) script. The three-lined inscription in the centre isengraved retrograde, s one would expect for a die. However, themarginal inscriptio ns have been cut in the positive s th eengraver saw it on the coin. This is evident from th e dl-Yikecharacters. The marginal legend is extremely corrupt. Between 2and 4 o'clock, either 'ashara wa-mi'a or 'ishrina wa-mi'a seemsto be the model for engraving. In an attempt to ascertain what themodel was for the immediately preceding group of corruptcharacters between 5 and 4 o'clock, the numbers ihda, arba',sah', and tis' can be probably excluded because the endings ofArabic characters suggestive of these numbers would have leftidentifiable traces even in a corrupt rendering. It therefore seemspossible that th e .date of the model would have been on e betweenAH 11 2 and AH 128, corresponding to AD 730-1 and AD 745-6.

The examination -.indicates that the die is equipmentintended to create imitations. It would' be interesting to propose atheory for its encounterance in India. Finds of gold coins ofmiddle-eastern origin are not scarce in India. Mitchiner in hislatest monograph on Indian tokens3 lists such finds fromnumismatic literature s well s their occurrence in the trade.Many of them pertain to the Umayyad dynasty, and most of themar e from South India. These coins weighed in the vicinity of 4 gan d therefore fitted very well with th e currency Standardsprevalent in South India, which survived on gold pagodas (Hons)weighing 3.8-4.2 g. As such there was no need for theirconversion into a local currency and they had no problem incirculating freely. Their appearance was entirely different from th eindigenous coins. Perhaps this added to their novelty. Indeed,many coins found today often have two holes pierced into them.This indicates that they were used for jewellery purposes. Apartfrom their aesthetic Utility, th e tradition prevented theirdisappearance into general circulatio n and the person wearingsuch jewellery often saw it s a means of saving. The popularity.ofthese coins must have contributed to the practice of them beingimitated, and it is very likely that the die described above musthave been used for such a purpose.

It would not be inappropriate at this juncture to put downsome thoughts about the import of Islamic coins into pre-IslamicIndia. A s stated above th e coins did not require a conversion and,s such, must have provided an affordable exchange medium f o r .the Trans-Arabian se a trade. T he Arabs established themselves inSind in the mid dle of the 8th Century unde r Muham mad ibnQsim. Subsequently, governors representing the Umayyad andlater 'Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdd ruled Sind till the l I th CenturyAD. The establishment of an Arab sway in Sind must have had aconsiderable impact on the trade between the Arabian Sea andentrepots situated in Gujarat an d Konkan on the Western Coast ofIndia. It is interesting to note that the date of the coin that acted sa model fo r this die is not far removed from th e establishment ofArab rule in Sind. It can be therefore envisaged that a steady flowof Middle-eastern gold ha d begun to flow towards 'the WesternIndian coast in these years. The intended purpose of the die alsoindicates th e level of populari ty these arcane coins reached soonafter their arrival in India. This is partly because there was a gapi n indigenous go ld co ins in the 8th-9th centuries and the demandfor foreign gold must have been high. In the wake of this fact it ispossible to believe that the die could also have been intended toproduce imitative dinars fo r currency use., Judging by the logicinvolved, however! it is more probable for it to be the equipmentof a j e w e l l e r .

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T h e A r a b co ins r e a c h i n g I n d i a g r a d u a l l y t e n d e d to m o v es o u t h w a r d s . becausc t h a t was t h o reg ion vvhere t h cy f i t ted i n t o t h ec u r r e n c y System an d provcd to be a p r o f i t a b l e e x c h a n g e m e d i u r n .The loca t ion o f the f ind-spot of the d ie , s descr ibed ear l ie r , i s onth e t rade rou te le ading f rom B h a r u c h on the west coast to theh i g h l a n d s o f M a h a r a s h t r a a n d t h e n c e to the u rban eent re s s i tua tedf u r t h e r sou th in the Deecan.

I t is i n t e re s t i ng to no te in t h i s respec t t h a t th e t r a d e r s from th eI s lamic e m p i r e ac tua l ly es tab l i shed t rad ing co lonie s o r outposts o nthe Western Coast. Furthe r , evidence poin ts ou t to the i rinvolvement in the f euda l h ie ra rchy und e r the Rasht raku tas in theDeecan. A s t rade rs , they were regarded in high esteem by theI n d i a n M o n a r c h s . A fe w coppe r p la te inscr ip t ions confe r r ing c i v i la n d j u d i c i a l i n d e m n i t i e s u p o n M u s l i m c o l o n ie s a r e k n o w n . T h eearliest of these is the C h i n c h i n i C o p p e r p l a t e o f R a s h t r a k u t aI n d r a I I I . d a t ed shake 848 (926 A D )4 . The exac t loca t ion of thecolony m ent ioned in the inscr ip t ion has been a source o f somedebate . Nev ertheless there is gene ral agreemen t th at i t was locatedon the western coast .

The name of the f euda l lo rd in th i s co lony has beenment ioned s ' M a d h u m a t i ' , a ra the r St range Sankr i t i sa t ion of theA r a b i c n a m e ' M u h a m m a d ' . O t h e r n a m e s f m d i n g m e n t i o n in thesegrants in c lud e 'Sahar iyarhar ' . S t a n d i n g fo r the Pers ian name'Shahryr ' and 'Sugat ipa ' . whose l ingu is t ic equ iva len t ei ther inA r a b i c or Pe rs ian can not be asce r ta ined . The or ig in o f a l l the sei n d i v i d u a l s f rom th e I s l a m i c e m p i r e is es tab l i shed b y t h e i rSanskr i t addressa l s "Tjik ' . w h i c h i s be de r ived f rom th ePersian word t:I fo r an Arab. A l t h o u g h th e copper platespos tda te the recons t ruc ted da te on the d ie unde r d i scuss ion by acoup le o f centu r ie s . the e s tab l i shmen t o f Arab-Pe rs ian co lonie son the Western I n d i a n coast is of c o n s i d e r a b l e i m p o r t a n c e tou n d e r s t a n d th e t h e m e o f m e d i a e v a l t rans-Arabian Sea t rade in i t sent i r e t y . H e n c e th e i nc lus i on o f t h i s r e f e r e n c e .1 . B a cha ra ch . J . L . a n d A w a d . H . E . : "The problem of O b v er s e an d

Reverse in I s l a m i c N umi s ma t i c s " . Xumismatic Chronicle 7 thseries 13 (1973), pp . 183-191. provides a l is t of k n o wn m e d ia e v a lI s l a m i c coins d ies .

2 . T he p res e n t whe re a b o u t s o f t he d i e ca n n o t b e a sce r t a ine d w i thsa t is f ac t ion . I t wa s p ho to g ra p he d w h i l e in the possession of M rB ha rga v e . T he a u tho rs a re gra te fu l t o Mr B h a r g a v e f o r a l l o win gthe to d o cu m e n t the d i e .

3. M i c h a e l M i t c h i n e r : Indian Tokens: populr Religious & SecularAr t from the ancient period to l/ie present da y (Sanders tead1998), Chapter "Foreign go l d co in s f rom S o u the rn In d i a : Ro m a nB y za n t in e a nd ea rly Is lamic" . pp . 35-38.

4. E p i g r a p h i a I n d i a , vol . 32. 1957-58, p p . 45-55.

NEWSLETTER

No. 162Winter 2000

ORIENTAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY