India’s
living mythology is unique among world cultures, and it is reflected in all
aspects of its civilization. While a misnomer, its ‘33 crore Gods and Goddesses’
are to be found in all spheres of life in India, and numismatics is no
exception. This blog post aims to show some of the important coins with deities
in ancient Indian numismatic history.
Check the below blog posts for various deities of Hindus gods and goddess:
Parvathi
Vishnu
The
kings always showed their devotion to the gods & based on their beliefs they
engraved deities on their coins.
Shiva Linga with Nandi
The Hindu Kings:
1. The
Tanjavur Maratha royal family was more attached to shiva & parvathi, so we
mostly find shiva-parvathi engraved on the coins. The legends on some other
coins of this dynasty read shiva and mahadev, further alluding to their
devotion to shiva-parvathi.
2. As
mentioned in my previous posts, Madurai Nayaks showed their devotion by
depicting Madura Meenakshi, similarly Tanjavur Nayaks depicted Rajagoplaswamy on
their coins.
The Muslim kings:
Islam
opposes idol worship, so the Muslim kings showed their devotion towards Allah
in various ways.
1. The coins of Mughals like Akbar, shah jahan have Kalima on them. 'Kalima' is the basic faith of Muslims
which reads as "La ilaha Illallah
Muhammadur Rasul Allah" which translates as "There is no god but
Allah and Muhammad his prophet".
Silver
coin of Akbar with inscriptions of the Islamic declaration of faith, the
declaration reads: "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger
of Allah."
2. We
can see the number '92' in Persian which is inscribed on most of the coins of
Hyderabad Nizams is the sum total of the numerical value assigned to each
alphabet (as per the Abjad system ) of the word 'Muhammad’. So '92' is a
reference to the Prophet Mohammad (M H M D = 40 +8 + 40 + 4 = 92)
The number 92 in Arabic - ٩٢
Source: Internet & Numismatic experts
