Chapter I: Coinage of the Deccan and Mysore

The first great dynasty to dominate Southern India was that of the Chālukyas (a foreign tribe probably of Hūṇa-Gurjara origin), founded by Pulakeśin I in the middle of the sixth century, whose capital was at Bādāmī in the Bījāpūr district. His grandson, Pulakeśin II (A.D. 608-642), became paramount in the Deccan, but the kingdom was overthrown by the Rāshṭrakūṭas in 753. In 973, however, a Chālukya prince, Tailapa, retrieved the fortunes of his family and founded the Western Chālukya kingdom with its capital at Kalyāṇi, and this lasted till 1190, after which the Chālukyas of the west, overthrown by the Hoysaḷas, became petty chiefs. Meanwhile, in the middle of the seventh century another dynasty, known as the Eastern Chālukyas, had been established by Vishṇuvardhana, brother of the great Pulakeśin II, in Kaliṅga with its capital at Veṅgī, which lasted till the eleventh century, when it was overthrown by the Choḷas.

The earliest coin assignable to a Chālukya prince is a base silver piece of Vishṇuvardhana (615-633), with a lion device and the king’s title in Telugu, _Vishamasiddhi_, “Successful in scaling the inaccessible places,” on the obverse, and a trident flanked by two lamps on the reverse. Certain pagodas, fanams and copper coins, perhaps of an earlier date, from the appearance on them of the boar, the cognizance of the Chālukyas, have been conjectured to belong to that dynasty. To the Eastern Chālukya princes, Śaktivarman (1000-1012) and Rājarāja (1012-1062), belong large flat gold pieces, also depicting the boar symbol, but with blank reverses (Pl. VII, 4).

The curious cup-shaped “padma-ṭaṅkas” (lotus ṭaṅkas) were possibly first struck by the Kadambas (Pl. VII, 2), inhabiting Mysore and Kanara. Similar coins, but with a lion or a temple in place of the lotus and legends in old Kanarese, were struck by the Western Chālukya kings, Jayasiṁha, Jagadekamalla and Trailokyamalla, of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In 1913, 16,586 of these cup-shaped coins were unearthed at Kodur in the Nellore district, and this find shows that the type was subsequently adopted by the Telugu-Choḷa chiefs of the Nellore district in the thirteenth century.

The Hoysaḷa chiefs, who rose to paramount power under Ballāḷa II on the ruins of the Western Chālukya kingdom, had for their cognizance a maned lion. Some heavy gold coins with old Kanarese legends, which bear that emblem, have, therefore, with probability been assigned to them. On one of these appears the interesting inscription, _Śrī Taḷakāḍa gonda_, “He who took the glorious Taḷkāḍ,” the capital of the old Koṅgu-Chera kingdom.

There are numerous South Indian coins belonging to the twelfth century which afford no certain clue to their strikers. Among these the following have been tentatively assigned to petty dynasties who succeeded to the territories of the Chālukyas: to the Kākatīya or Gaṇapati dynasty of Waraṅgal (1110-1323), pagodas, fanams and copper coins with a couchant bull on the obverse and incomplete Nāgarī legends on the reverse; to Someśvara, one of the Kalachuri chiefs of Kalyāṇa (1162-1175), pagodas and fanams with the king’s titles in old Kanarese on the reverse, and on the obverse a figure advancing to the right; to the Yādavas of Devagiri (1187-1311), a pagoda and a silver coin, bearing a kneeling figure of Garuḍa on the obverse.

There remain to be noticed the coins of three dynasties. The original home of the Gajapatis, “Elephant-Lords,” was Koṅgudesa—Western Mysore with the modern districts of Coimbatore and Salem. About the ninth century these Chera kings fled before the invading Choḷas to Orissa, and there were coined the famous “Elephant pagodas” (Pl. VII, 5) and fanams, which Harsha-deva of Kashmīr (A.D. 1089) copied. The scroll device on the reverse also appears on some of the anonymous boar pagodas attributed to the Chālukyas. To Anantavarman Choḍagaṅga, a member of that branch of the Gaṅga dynasty of Mysore who settled in Kaliṅga (Orissa), and ruled there from the sixth to the eleventh century, are assigned fanams with a recumbent bull, conch and crescent on the obverse, and Telugu regnal dates on the reverse. The gold coins of two of the later Kādamba chiefs of Goa, Vishṇu Chittadeva (circ. 1147) and Jayakeśin III (circ. 1187), are also known; these bear the special Kādamba symbol, the lion passant on the obverse, and a Nāgarī legend on the reverse. One interesting inscription of the latter runs as follows: “The brave Jayakeśideva, the destroyer of the Mālavas who obtained boons from the holy Saptakoṭīsa (_i.e._ Śiva).”