Coins & History of Medieval India

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About the Book Coins play an important role in the development of mankind. After serving their role as currency in their respective periods, they assume a new character as a reliable and unbiased source of history.

The importance of coins as a source for ancient Indian historiography has long been realised by the historians. However, for medieval Indian historiography the numismatic evidence provided by the coins have so for not archived its due position-a fact underlined throughout the writings of Dr. Parmeshwari Lal Gupta - the world renowned doyen of Indian numismatics.

The essays presented in this Volume Cover various aspects of mediveal Indian history-from the Sultan of Delhi to the East India, Company and have been selected amongst Dr.Gupta"s large number of learned writings contributed in various prestigious journals over a span of fifty years.

The Volume will, thus, command the interest of historians, numismatists, coin collectors and the students on Indian history in general.

About the Authors Dr. PARMESHWARI LAL GUPTA was the founder-Diretcor of the Indian Institute of Research in Numismatic Studies, Nasik. Presently he has the chairman of the Board of Advisors of the Institute. His academic contributions range from archaeology, history, epigraphy, paleography, sigllography and numismatics to Political Science Sociology, Law, Popular Science, Hindi literature and linguistics.

SANJAY GARG had his earliest lessons in Numismatics from Dr. Parmeshawri Lal Gupta at the Indian Institute of Research in Numismatic Studies, Nasik.His published works include Te Coins of Dal Khalsa and Lahore Darbar (1989) which he coauthored with Dr. Gupta.. Besides, he has edited Idian Numicmatis, History, Art and Culture: Essays in Honour of D. Parmeshwari Lal Gupta 2 Viols. (1992). He is also an Associate Editor of the Numismatic Digest (since 1990).

Shri Garg is at present an Assistant Director of Archives in the National Archives of Indian New Delhi.

Preface Coins of the medieval period are, even today, found in large numbers, but they have so far attracted the attention either of the coin-collectors, or a handful of numismatists. While a coin collector takes pride in the rarity of his or her possession, the numismatists on the other hand, often publish these coins as their 'discovery' of a new mint, an unrecorded date, a new die variety, or the like. Thus, an enormous numismatic data pertaining to medieval period has accumulated over the years. But a scrutiny of these data reveals that with an exception of few exceptional works, in most of the cases, the coins have been published only after digging out same corroborative evidence from other sources, particularly the literary sources. As a result, the coin - in itself a vital source for medieval Indian historiography - have neither occupied its rightful place, nor found currency with the histori ans dealing with the medieval period of Indian history.

Introduction Coins have played a great role in the reconstruction of the history of India of the ancient period. They have thrown immense light on its various facades. Even now they continue to add new information to our knowledge. And so, this importance is realised by all those who feel interested in the history of that period. But this cannot be said about the historians interested in the history of our medieval period. To them, contemporary chronicles, narra tives and documents like firmans, ruqqats and akhabarat of their period are available in plenty to know the activities of the period and the people. So they hardly feel any necessity to peep elsewhere outside these sources. They do not care much to know if the coins bear any information that they may elicit from them for the purpose of writing history of the period of their interest. They treat the coins as niggard, tiny metallic pieces of no worth for their purpose. They need to realise that they are wrong in their apathetic attitude. They need to realise that the coins are much more important for their purpose than those in which they have reposed their great faith. This has necessitated the high lighting the utility and importance of the coins to the historians of this period.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages