I saw this error coin misattributed on eBay as Pandyas, but it's a double-struck Chola (their neighbor) stater (985-1014 AD), for reference the standard coin is on the left, while the error shows a doubling of the king's legs and the 8+ pellets instead of 4.
Interesting find...I've not seen anything like this before on a Raja Raja.. Thanks for posting.....How does the other side look? Here's one of mine.. Rajaraja AD 985-1014 Seated king, SRI RAJA RAJA in Brahmi in two vertical lines in the left field / King standing, small altar in the left field, various dots and decorations in fields.
Here are a couple of mine. I haven't seen a double-struck Rajaraja piece either, that's a great find! Two of my pieces have some odd looking legs but I think that is an odd die rather than double struck. I see on Zeno that they use the denomination "AE Kahavanu" rather than AE Stater, does anyone know much about that? I've seen Kahavanu used for Chola coinage but always in gold.
That seems plausible, I have a coin of your description, however, the king's belly is too fat compared to the one in the post tho
The Cholas were a Tamil empire, Kahavanu is a Sinhalese name given to the imperial Chola coins and the latter ones inspired from the Chola coins, however, the native Tamil name for these coins are called 'kasu', copper coins are called 'seppu-kasu' seppu meaning copper, silver ones as 'velli-kasu', and the gold kahavanus are called 'thanga or Pon - kasu'. One possible explanation for the lack of Chola gold in native Chola territory in India could be due to when the Cholas were defeated by Pandyas in 1279, all their gold would have been melted into Pandyan coins, and since there is no such evidence for Pandya gold coinages due to the fact that Pandyas had to pay off Muslim invaders in large sums which basically bankrupted them so much as to shifting their capital Madurai to a small village further South meant almost all of the gold coinage in the Tamil region were either melted/paid off during the span of 100 years. However, the Chola gold in Sri Lanka continued to be in use and thus are in high frequency for sale as the 'Sri Lankan Kahavanu'. Also, the word stater is only a modern term numismatists gave to these copper coins, the Cholas most definitely didn't call them staters nor Kahavanus, but Kasu. You can see how a native Tamil state calls its coins as kasu https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces61547.html
The Cholas did issue gold coins in native India and some of those coins are not that scarce or rare. There are some gold coins that are next to impossible to find, but they do exist. Furthermore, where are you getting the information that the Pandyans had to pay off Muslim invaders? Below is some Chola coins that are different than the ones above: Imperial Chola: Raja Raja Chola (985-1014) 2 Fanams (Ganesh-1.8) Obv: King standing looking right Rev: Devagari legend “Uya Konda” Imperial Chola: Kulottunga Chola I (1070-1120) Kasu (MCSI-345) Obv: King half seated, with raised arm on right; Tamil legend beneath raised arm - Ku (கு) Rev: Standing man, with lamp on left and group of pellets on right Imperial Chola: Raja Raja I (ca. 1007) AE Kasu (Biddulph-21) Obv: King half seated, with raised arm on right; Devanagari legend beneath raised arm; श्री राजा राजा (Sri Raja Raja) Rev: Standing man, with lamp on left and fish on right, representing the the Pandya conquest
That is what I thought. You are referring to the Pandyan Civil War and generalizing it. That was very unique instance and resulted in the fall of the Pandyan kingdom to the Delhi Sultanate that eventually led to the breakaway Madurai Sultanate. Eventually, the Vijayanagar Kingdom launched an invasion and overthrew the Sultanate and thus became a vessel for that kingdom...
