Ahom kings of Assam who minted both gold and silver in this particular shape. The older Ahom coins bore Ahom legends (both script and language). But later on, Sanskrit language and Bengali script took the place of Ahom with the Indianization of these Shan princes. Ahom legends were probably used for the last time on the coins of Suneñpha or Promatha Simha (V. A. Smith, I.M.C., Vol. I, page 298). But the octagonal shape was retained till the annexation of the kingdom by the British. The gold coin of Alauddin Muhammad Shah probably changed its shape when it came to Assam and was restruck by the Ahom kings. The restriking was done on the reverse only where we have the name Ragh (u)nārayana (?) below some illegible Perso-Arabic words. No prince of the Ahom dynasty bore this name. The only prince who reigned in Assam and who bore the name Raghu was Raghudevanārāyaṇa of the Koch dynasty of Hajo. He was the son of Sukladh vāja, surnamed Silarai "the Kite king", who was the younger brother of Naranārāyaṇa. Raghudeva was given a portion of the kingdom of Kuch Bihar as it stood in the days of Naranārāyaṇa in order to appease him when a son was born to the latter. Only one coin1 of this prince is known which has been described by me (Journal and Proceedings of the A.S.B., Vol. VII, page 45). This coin was issued in Saka 1510-1598 A.D. and like all coins of Koch kings is round in shape. The name too is Raghudevanārāyaṇa and not Raghunarayana. It is quite probable, however, that for a time Raghudeva imitated the Ahom form of coinage. The name may have been shortened on account of the small size of the coin. So far as is known no other Muhammadan coin has been restruck by Koch or Ahom kings. V.-GOLD COIN OF GHIYASUDDIN MAHMUD SHAH OF BENGAL. 1 Like No. IV this coin also belongs to Rai Bahadur Radhakrishna Jalan of Patna. Gold coins of the independent Sultans of Bengal are extremely rare. This coin is an exact replica of the [This is not correct. Sir Edward Gait gave one coin of this King to the A. 8. B. in 1895 and described it in Proc. A. S. B., 1895, p. 86.-K. P. J.] silver coins of Ghiyasuddin Mahmud Shah, the younger son of Alauddin Husain Shah who was the last independent Sultan of Bengal. He was defeated and besieged by Sher Khan (afterwards Sher Shah) in the fort of Gaur. Humayun came into conflict with Sher Shah by marching to Bengal to relieve Mahmud Shah. Maḥmud Shah died at Kahalgaon near Bhagalpur (Riyaz-us-salatin, English,Trans, pages 141-142). There is no date on this coin but it resembles I.M.C., Vol. I, page 179, No. 222. VI.-NEW MINTS AND TYPES OF SHER SHAH'S COINAGE. In July 1917, 448 silver coins of Sher Shah were received for examination from the Collector of Shahabad, Bihar and Orissa. The find contained some unique coins of the following mints :(1) Paṇḍuah; (2) Chanarh or Chunarh; (3) Kālpi. (1) Sher Shah's coins were minted mostly at Fathābād Sharifābād and Sātgaon in Bengal. But no coins minted from the capital of Bengal or its immediate neighbourhood appear to be known. The Shahabad find contains no less than three coins from the mint of Panduah, a town to the north of Gaur which appears as a mint on the coins of Danuja-marddanadeva who ruled over Bengal in Saka 1339-1417 A.D and was thus a contemporary of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah son of Raja Kans of Bengal. Firozābād, a mint very well known from the coins of the Independent Sultans of Bengal, from the time of Sultan Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah, has been generally taken to be Pandua, but no definite proof has ever been adduced in favour of this identification. It has succeeded very well as a working hypothesis. Coins of the Pandua mint, belong to two different types: (b) I. M. C., Vol. II., 659. No mint, var. B. Here also the mint name has been added in the same place. 947 A.H. (2) Only one silver coin of Sher Shah issued from the mint of Chunar was described by E. Thomas in his Chronicles of Pathan Kings of Delhi where the name of the mint is spelt Chunar.1 The coin was not illustrated at that time so it is difficult to determine how the name was spelt. The Shahabad find contains three coins issued in 949 A.H. from the mint of Chanarh. This form is a contraction of Charanagadh, the Hindi equivalent of the ancient Charaṇ-ādri-durgga. (3) The coin of the Kalpi mint is notable for its circle of intertwined double-lines. The coins of Sher Shah issued from the Kalpi mint generally have square areas. This is the first known coin with circular areas from that mint.2 1 Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Delhi, p. 399, No. 359. * Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Delhi, p. 402, No. 354; I.M.C., II, p. 87, Nos. 635-636. IV.-Statues of Two Saisunaka Emperors (483-409 B. C.) By K. P. Jayaswal. a Discovery of the Statues. Since the foundation of this Journal many unsolved problems of the pre-Mauryan period have been partially or wholly solved in its pages, and I am glad to get a fresh opportunity to attempt once again to add to the known history of that period. Over century back, citizens of Patna found two or three statues, according to Buchanan, in a field to the south of Patna City. One of them, which was still imbedded in the original site, Buchanan had taken out and removed, about 1812. The other he rescued from the bed of the Ganges to which it had been dedicated by the citizens. He did not see the third figure. Subsequently the two figures recovered by Buchanan seem to have come in the possession of one Dr. Tytler, whose brother, in 1820, presented them to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. There they lay neglected for forty years hidden amongst the foliage until J. D. M. Beglar brought them to the notice of the late Sir Alexander Cunningham, the then Director-General of the Archeological Survey of India. About the year 1879 they were removed to the Indian Museum, Calcutta, where they are at present installed on raised pedestals in the Bharhut gallery. The third statue was found by Cunningham near the old well called the "Agama Kuan" to the south of Patna City. There, mounted with a new head it was being worshipped in his day as Mala-Mai by the villagers. It is possible that the statue is still somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Agama Kuan. Mr. V. H. Jackson, Principal of Patna College, who is cditing Buchanan's Journal, kindly drew my attention to this source. The whole extract from his journal given to me by Mr. Jackson is printed further on, General Cunningham was primarily attracted to the statues owing to their highly glossy polish (called up to this time "Mauryan"). He, however, realized their artistic significance to a great extent, for in describing them in Vol. XV. of his Archæological Survey Reports (pp. 2-3) he summed up with this remark: "the easy attitude and the calm and dignified repose of the figures are still conspicuous, and claim for them a high place amongst the best specimens of early Indian art." The Inscrip tions and their Palæography. Though discovered in 1812 or 1819, the statues have been really discovered now, in 1919. It was in the month of January last that accidently I examined the inscriptions on the statues and found them to establish the identity of the statues. They represent two emperors of the Saiśunāka dynasty, one of whom, Udayin (483-467 B.C.), was the founder of Pataliputra, and the other, the great conqueror Nandi-Vardhana (419-409 B.C.1) Since the time of Cunningham no of Cunningham no one re-examined the inscriptions on the statues. And probably they would not have been examined by me but for the following incident. In January last a label prepared for the newly-discovered female ("Mauryan ") statue, now at the Patna Museum, attracted my notice : it bore the title Yakshini (i.e. the female of Yaksha, a demi-god). Now the conventional representation of Yaksha and Yakshini in Indian art is marked with snub nose and raised cheek bones. The new Patna Didarganj statue, on the other hand, is the figure of a handsome Indo-Aryan woman, distinguished from the classical (European) by rounded ehin and heavy bosom 2 I objected to the nomenclature intended J.B.O.R.S., I., 67, 115. See the plates to Dr. Spooner's article published in this issue of the Journal. ' The photographs do not bring out the easy pose of the right leg; the fgure stands on the left. Hindu royal courts were decorated with life like female statues (Jātaka, VI, 432). These females are called matṛikās (Ibid.), a term denoting, according to the Artha-Sastra (p. 123), a class of court artistes. Court artistes attended upon the king with emblems of royalty on certain ceremonial occasions (Ibid.). They were richly be-jewelled. These Jataka and Artha-Šāstra data suggest the identification of the Dīdārganj statue as a decorative figure representing a gaṇikā, originally placed in a royal court. A |