Photo: CNG Coins
1st coin: CNG Coins
2nd coin: Osmund Bopearachchi · Public domainSilver coins of a Greek king of Bactria that carry the oldest known images of Balarama and Vasudeva-Krishna.
One face shows Balarama, also called Samkarshana, holding the plough and the pestle-club. The other shows Vasudeva-Krishna holding the chakra and a conch. The inscriptions are in Greek, “of King Agathocles”, and in Brahmi, “rajane agathukleyasa”.
They prove that the worship of Vasudeva and Samkarshana was strong enough in the north-west by about 180 BCE for a foreign king to put them on his money, a few decades before Heliodorus raised his Garuda pillar.
CoinThe first coins of Bharat: small pieces of silver of a set weight, stamped one symbol at a time with separate punches.
CoinGold coins of the Kushana emperors showing Shiva with his trident and Nandi, named in the Bactrian inscription as OESHO.
CoinLead and potin coins of the Satavahana king Yajna Sri Satakarni showing a two-masted ship.
CoinCopper coins of the Yaudheya republic of the Haryana plains, dedicated to Kartikeya and struck in the name of the gana, not of a king.
CoinA gold coin showing Chandragupta I with his Licchavi queen Kumaradevi, both named, with the word “Licchavayah” on the back.
CoinA gold dinar struck to mark Samudragupta’s horse sacrifice: the consecrated horse stands before the sacrificial post.
CoinThe gold coins of the Gupta emperors, which their own inscriptions call dinaras: portraits of kings as archers, horsemen and lion-slayers, with Lakshmi on the back.
CoinSilver coins of the Shahi kings of Kabul and Udabhandapura, with Nandi on one side and a horseman on the other.
