more significantly shown by a reference to the additional number of Mint-cities, the singular variety of new types produced, and above all, by the sustained series and corroborating repetitions of annual dates. It is under the latter aspect alone that I have now to comment on the history of a reign already sufficiently told in other pages. Sikandar Sháh placidly succeeded his father towards the end of 759 A.H., and the coins of the period sufficiently support the date of such a transfer of power, in the final year 758 recorded on the issues of the father, though proof of the accession of the son is less marked, as the seeming anomaly obtained-under the conjoint efforts of father and son to achieve release from thraldom to a distant suzerain—of a concession to the son of much independent power, and, coincidently, the right to coin money in his own name, whether in his own camps or in his father's royal cities. Though some of the earlier designed coins give evidence of due humility in titular phraseology, the same simplicity is adhered to, in continuous mintages, long after the removal of any possible impediments or restrictions to the adoption of comparatively exalted titles; though in the more independent governmental mintages of 758 A.H. (No. 21) the hell is affect

ed even during the life-time of the father, and, after his own accession, higher assumptions, and a more definite approach towards personal hierarchical honors, are discovered in the metropolitan issues of 766780 (No. 22), while special service against the infidels seems to be

The conqueror of ، القاهر الاعدا الله implied in the novel intitulation of

the enemies of God," on the Fírúzábád money of 769 A.H. (No. 23). But the most interesting details furnished by Sikandar's coins are those which illustrate the geographical distribution of the chief seats of government. Unlike the Northern Moslems, who, in the difficulty of moving the Eastern hosts-conventionally deemed essential to an Imperial progress-over the imperfect highways of Hindustán, confined themselves ordinarily to one fixed metropolis, the kings of Bengal enjoyed facilities of river communication almost unprecedented: their various capitals, situated within easy distance of one another, were at all times accessible by water, a differently constructed State barge secured at any season free approach to the seaboard cities of the Great Ganges or the towns on the narrow channels of the western streams. These frequent regal visitations are incidentally

recorded on the coinage of the day, by the insertion of the prefix of to the name of the selected residence, which term colloquially marked the presence of royalty within the limits of the favoured fiscal division.

Sikandar's mint cities were five in number-No. 2, Firúzábád ; 3, Satgaon; and 4, Shahr Nau, in Western Bengal; with 5, Sonárgaon ; and 6, Muazamábád, in the Eastern division of the province.

2. The first-named mint, in addition to the preferential Hazrat,* is styled variously Baldat and a "fortified city," a specification which probably refers to the separate though closely proximate citadel of Akdalah, so celebrated in the military annals of the time (coin No. 26).

3. Satgaon is distinguished by the prefix of 's (Atrium) a term which, in India, came to be conventionally used for a tract or geographical division of country,† a sense which would well accord with its application to Satgaon, as the third circle of government of Bengal proper. In the subsequent reign of Aazam the mint specification is more directly brought into association with the town itself in the seemingly more definite localization involved in the word §

4. Shahr Nau, I suppose to have been the intitulation of the new city founded near the site of the old Lakhnauti :|| it is variously denominated as the simple 'Arsat or

(populous, richly

“Præsentia, Majestas; urbs, in qua est regis sedes.”

in Persian, means "surface of the earth." Sir Henry Elliot remarks, "The words used before Akbar's time to represent tracts of country

اقطاع

and,ولایت, دیار عرصه خطه larger than a Pergunnah were

"Circár."

-Glossary of Indian Terms, sub voc ‡Zíá-i-Barni, in introducing his narrative of Tughlak Shah's expedition to Bengal (A. H. 721), speaks of that province as consisting of the three divisions "Lakhnauti, Sunárgaon, and Satgaon" (p. 450, printed edit.).

The Ayín-i-Akbari, in the xvi. cent. A. D. thus refers to Satgaon, "There are two emporiums a mile distant from each other; one called Satgaon, and the other Hoogly with its dependencies; both of which are in the possession of the Europeans."-Gladwin, ii. p. 15. See also Rennell, p. 57. Stewart's Bengal, pp. 186, 240, 243, 330.

§ From “amputavit:" hence & pars oppidorum.”

oppidum, vel potior, præcipua

The decipherment of the name of this mint (as Col. Yule reminds me) determines for mediæval geography the contested site of Nicolò Conti's Cernove. The Venetian traveller in the East in the early part of the fifteenth

cultivated).

This progressively less appropriate name may be supposed to have merged into the official Jannatábád, which follows in

Mint sequence.

5. Sanárgaon, as a rule, retains its ancient discriminative designation of Ja, a title which it eventually had to cede to its rival Muazamábád.

6. Muazamabad. There is no definite authority for the determination of the site of this city, which, however, seems to have been founded by Sikandar about 758-759 A. H., when his own coins record that he himself assumed the title of, without trenching upon the superlative usually reserved for the reigning monarch. I conclude that there was a gradual migration from the ancient Sonárgaon to the new city, which grew in importance from the governmental centre implied in the (No. 19) of 760 A. H., to the ole sal, "the great city of Muazamábád" (No. 18) of about 780 A. H., till, on the disappearance of the name of Sonárgaon

بلدة المعظم معظماباد

century is recorded to have said that "he entered the mouth of the river Ganges, and, sailing up it, at the end of fifteen days he came to a large and wealthy city called Cernove....... On both banks of the stream there are most charming villas and plantations and gardens. Having departed hence, he sailed up the river Ganges for the space of three months, leaving behind him four very famous cities, and landed at an extremely powerful city called Maarazia. .... having spent thirteen days on an expedition to some mountains to the eastward, in search of carbuncles'. he, returned to the city of Cernove, and thence proceeded to Buffetania.”—The travels of Nicoló Conti, Hakluyt Society, London, pp. 10, 11.

See also Purchas, vol. v. p. 508; and Murray's Travels in Asia, ii. 11.

66

There are also many interesting details regarding the geography of Bengal, and a very full and lucid summary of the history of the period, to be found in "Da Asia de Joáo de Barros" (Lisbon, 1777, vol. iv. [viii.], p. 465 et seq.). At the period of the treaty of Alfonso de Mello with, "El Rey Mamud de Bengala" (the king whom Shir Sháh eventually overcame) the name of Shahr Nau had merged into the old provincial designation of Gaur, which is described as а principal Cidade deste Reino he chamada Gouro, situada nas correntes do Gange, e dizem ter de comprido tres leguas, das nossas, e duzentos mil vizinhos," (p. 458). Satigam makes a prominent figure on the map, and Sornagam is located on a large island within the Delta, the main stream dividing it from Daca, which is placed on the opposite or left bank of the estuary.

More modern accounts of the old city may be found in Purchas, i. 579; Churchill, viii. 54; also Rennell, Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan, London, 1788, p. 55; Stewart, p. 44, and in a special work entitled "The Ruins of Gour," illustrated with maps, plans, and engravings of the numerous Muhammadan edifices extant in 1817, by H. Creighton, 4to., London, Black, Parbury and Allen. See also Elliot's Glossary of Indian Terms, sub voce, Gour Brahmin.

"

* The adjective (derived from, Coluit) will admit of other meanings, and if understood as applying to a town, might signify " well built," locally Pakka.

from the marginal records of the general currency, the new metropolis appropriates to itself the immemorial of Eastern Bengal (No. 32 A.)

With a view to keep these brief geographical notices under one heading, I advert for the moment to No. 7, Ghiaspur, of which locality I have been able to discover no trace; and likewise anticipate the due order of the examination of Aāzem Shah's mint cities in referring to the sole remaining name of Jannatábád, an epithet which is erroneously stated to have been given by Humáyún to the re-edified Lakhnauti,* but which is here seen to have been in use a century and a half before the Moghuls made their way into Bengal.

The single item remaining to be mentioned in regard to Aazam's mints is the substitution of the word in lieu of salt as the prefix to Fírúzábád (No. 35), in parallel progress towards centralization with the Mint phraseology adopted in the case of Satgaon.

Sikandar Sháh bin Ilias Shah.

No. 17.

Fírúzábád, A. H. 750, 751, 752, 753, 754, 758, 759, 760. Type No. 1. Ordinary simple obverse, with reverse circular are a and margin.

ضرب هذ الفضة السكة في البلده فيروز آباد سنه ثلاث وخمسين وسبعماية

جنة البلاد دوزخ بور نعمة Persians called Bengal

* Ayín-i-Akbari, ii. p. 11; Stewart's Bengal, 124. Bengal itself was called "The Paradise of Regions." Ibn Batutah, iv. p. 210, says the ce qui signifie," en arabe, un enfer rempli de biens." Marsden, Num. Orient. p. 578, gives a coin of 'Alá-ud-dín Husain Sháh, of A. H. 917, purporting to have been struck at " Jannatabad." tal "regio;" also "oppidum." The plurals are said to vary, in correspond.

ވ. ހ

بلدان and بلاد enco with the independent meanings, as

No. 18.

Sonárgaon, A. H. 756, 757, 759, 760, 763.

Type No. 2. The usual lettered obverse with circular area and

Muazamabad, A. H. 760, 761, 763, 764. Plate II. fig. 12. Variety A.

Margin,

ضرب هذه السكة اقليم معظم اباد سنه احدي وستين وسبعماية

Fírúzábád, A.H. 765, 766, 770, 771, 772, 773, 776, 779, 780.

Type No. 4. Coarse coins, badly formed letters. Obverse, simple

lettered surface. Reverse, circular area.