Read Book Online : http://www.archive.org/stream/politicalhistory00raycuoft#page/n3/mode/2up

Download pdf Book : http://ia600309.us.archive.org/30/items/politicalhistory00raycuoft/politicalhistory00raycuoft.pdf

Image details : Gold coin of Kumaragupta I North India, about AD 415-50 A horse sacrificed by Kumaragupta, king of the Gupta dynasty, which ruled large areas of northern India from the fourth to the sixth century AD. The Gupta dynasty gold coin was named the dinara after the Roman denarius aureus - a reflection of Indian trading contacts with the West and the export of Roman coinage as bullion to India. However, the designs of Gupta coinage were completely Indianized, and they were closely connected with the ancient Indian concept of a chakravartin (a universal monarch or ideal ruler). This unique design shows a tethered horse. It symbolises the ashvamedha ritual of legitimizing the conquests of a honourable and pious king, in this case Kumaragupta I (around AD 415-50). After a great victory, a horse was left to roam for a year and all the lands he passed through in that time belonged rightfully to the king. At the end of the year the horse was sacrificed in celebration of the great king's victory. The reverse of this coin shows a goddess (probably Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of good fortune), with the royal attributes of a standard and a flywhisk. Source : The British Museum

Huge copies of these adorn the walls of Rashtrapati Bhavan!

I have not seen H. C. Raychaudhuri but his younger brother G. C. Raychaudhuri was the registrar of Calcutta University when we were students. He was a very soft spoken person and a fine gentleman. Raychaudhuri was also a great scholar but he was an admirer of G. M. Trevelyan and was rather uncritical. I think his book is an excellent collation of information available from the existing texts but literally bristles with contradictions. For him Jones' 'great discovery' was an article of faith. Scholars such as H.C. Raychaudhuri and R. Thapar are responsible for the low-class Indian history that has fuelled the Ram-Janmabhumi fiasco. Raychaudhuri had no idea that Rama of history belonged to the North-West. R. C. Majumadar was also gullible but as his opinion on Rama shows, he had a better overview.

a horse sacrificed......

Raychaudhri's geography of the Janapadas during 5th-6th century B.C. was accepted by writers such as A.D.H. Bivar but this may hold true only in a period as late as the Gupta age.

I wish coins were like this nowadays.