The history of India : as told by its own historians. Volume II/Note B. — Extract from Thomas' Prinsep
| The full text of this book has been converted into Wiki format by Laxman Burdak. |
Sir H. M. Elliot Edited by John Dowson, 1867
Volume II: To the Year A.D. 1260
Appendix Note B.— Extract from Thomas PrinsepNote B.
[428]:
Extract of Mr. Thomas' Edition of Prinsep's Essays, (1858. Vol. I. p. 331), referred to in page 9 supra.
" Before I leave the subject, I may be permitted to make some observations in reference to an original suggestion of my own, that tbe Sri Hamirab, on the reverse of the immediately succeeding Moslem coins, was designed to convey the title of the spiritual representative of the Arabian Prophet on earth, embodied for the time being in the Khalif of Baghdad. Sir H. M. Elliot, placing himself under the guidance of Capt. Cunningham, has contested this inference. I am not only prepared to concede the fact that Muhammad bin Sam uses this term in connection with his own name on the lower Kanauj coins, but I can supply further independent evidence, that my opponents could not then cite against me, in the association of this title with the name of the early Sultans of Dehli in the Palam Inscription (1333 Vikramaditya) ; but, on the other hand, I can claim a still more definite support in an item of testimony contributed by the consecutive suite of the selfsame fabric of coins, where the हमीर (Jamirah) is replaced by the word खलीफ (khalifa). As far as I have yet been able to ascertain, this transition first takes place on the money of 'Alau-d din Mas'ud (639-644 A.H.) ; and here, again, I can afford, in all frankness, to cite further data that may eventually bear against myself, in recording that this reverse of Sr'i Khalifa is combined in other cases with a broken obverse legend of . . .अमीरलिम. . . which, being interpreted to stand for the Amiru-l Muminm of the Arabic system, may either be accepted as the Sanskrit counterpart legend of Altamsh's anonymous coins in the Persian character," 1 or be converted into a possible argument against my theory, if supposed to represent the independent spiritual supremacy claimed by subsequent Sultans of Dehli ; which last assignment, however, will scarcely carry weight in the present state of our knowledge. As regards the difficulty raised respecting the conventional acceptance of the Sri Samanta Deva of the coins as an historical, rather than an individually titular, impress, I have always been fully prepared to recognize the linguistic value of the
1 Pathan Sultans of Dihli, by Ed. Thomas. London, Wertheimer, 1847 ; p. 17-
[p. 429]:
word Samanta, and yet claim to retain the Sri Samanta Deva — which comes down to us, in numismatic sequence, in the place of honour on so many mint issues — as an independent name or title, to which some special prestige attached, rather than to look upon it as an ordinary prefix to the designation of each potentate on whose money it appears. And such a decision, in parallel apposition to the succession of the titles of Sri Hamira and Khalifa, just noticed, would seem to be strikingly confirmed by the replacement of this same legend of Sri Samanta Deva on the local coins of Chahad Deva, by the style and title of the Moslem suzerain, to whom that raja had eventually to concede allegiance.
The two classes of coins to which I allude may, for the moment, be exemplified, the one in the type given in ' Ariana Antiqua,' xix. 16 ; the other in pi. xxvi. fig. 31, Vol. i. (Prinsep).
The former, when corrected up and amplified from more perfect specimens, will be found to bear the legends : Obv. आसावरी श्री समन्त देव श्री चाहड़ देव — while the latter will be seen to display an obverse epigraph of आसावरी श्री समासोरल देवे with a reverse similar to the last.
I understand this obverse legend to convey, in imperfect orthography, the name of Shamsu-d din Altamsh — whose other coins, of but little varied type, have a similarly outlined name, with the Moslem Sri Hamirah on the reverse.