A while ago, I bought this lot of Indian coins: I don’t have a specific interest in Indian coins, but I thought it was a good price for good looking coins, so I bought them on impulse. This evening I got time to ID them (this was not easy, which is good), and this is what I learned from that: India, Mughal Empire, 1658-1707 AD Aurangzeb Alamgir AR rupie, Multan mint. Obverse: Name of the Emperor Lettering: Aurangzeb Alamgir Reverse: Bandar-i-Mubarak and Mint Name Lettering: Zarb Surat Size: 23mm Weight: 11.3g Composition: Silver Conservation: EF Reference: KM# 300.85 Aurangzeb Alamgir was the sixth Mughal emperor. He imprisoned his father Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal, and killed his 3 brothers to capture the throne in 1658. During his 49-year rule, Aurangzeb turned the multi-religious empire into a theological state, oppressed his Hindu subjects, and spent several decades trying to stamp out the many rebellions that broke out. The last of the Great Mughals. India, Mughal Empire. Farrukhsiyar (1713-19) AR rupee, Surat. Reignal Year 5 Obverse: Inscription (with Name of the Badshah) Date AH (11)28 Reverse: Regional Date: RY - 5 Mint Mark and Mint Name: Surat Size: 25mm Weight: 11.5g Compostion: Silver Conservation: Good VF Reference: KM# 377.59 «Farrukh-Siyar (ruled 1713–19) owed his victory and accession to the Sayyid brothers, ʿAbd Allāh Khan and Ḥusayn ʿAlī Khan Bāraha. The Sayyids thus earned the offices of vizier and chief bakhshī and acquired contmrol over the affairs of state. They promoted the policies initiated earlier by Ẓulfiqār Khan. In addition to the jizyah, other similar taxes were abolished. The brothers finally suppressed the Sikh revolt and tried to conciliate the Rajputs, the Marathas, and the Jats. However, this policy was hampered by divisiveness between the vizier and the emperor, as the groups tended to ally themselves with one or the other. The Jats had once again started plundering the royal highway between Agra and Delhi; however, while Farrukh-Siyar deputed Raja Jai Singh to lead a punitive campaign against them, the vizier negotiated a settlement over the raja’s head. As a result, throughout northern India zamindars either revolted violently or simply refused to pay assessed revenues. On the other hand, Farrukh-Siyar compounded difficulties in the Deccan by sending letters to some Maratha chiefs urging them to oppose the forces of the Deccan governor, who happened to be the deputy and an associate of Sayyid Ḥusayn ʿAlī Khan. Finally, in 1719, the Sayyid brothers brought Ajit Singh of Jodhpur and a Maratha force to Delhi to depose the emperor. The murder of Farrukh-Siyar created a wave of revulsion against the Sayyids among the various factions of nobility, who also were jealous of their growing power. Many of these, in particular the old nobles of Aurangzeb’s time, resented the vizier’s encouragement of revenue farming (selling the right to collect taxes), which in their view was mere shopkeeping and violated the age-old Mughal notion of statecraft. In Farrukh-Siyar’s place the brothers raised to the throne three young princes in quick succession within eight months in 1719. Two of these, Rafīʿ al-Darajāt and Rafīʿ al-Dawlah (Shah Jahān II), died of consumption. The third, who assumed the title Muḥammad Shah, exhibited sufficient vigour to set about freeing himself from the brothers’ control.» - Britannica - At last: The lot favorite: India, 1828-38 AD. Sikh Empire Ranjit Singh Rupee, Amritsar mint Obverse: Fixed/Frozen Date: VS 1884 Leaf and Mint Name (Amritsar) Lettering: ١۸۸۴ Reverse: Last two digits of Actual Date (in VS Era) (18)85 Lettering: ۸۵ Size: 24mm Weight: 11.1g Composition: Silver Reference: KM# 21.1 Ranjit Singh, Maharaja (1780–1839), native Indian ruler, was born on the 2nd of November 1780, the son of Sirdar Mahan Singh, whom he succeeded in 1792 as head of the Sukarchakia branch of the Sikh confederacy. By birth he was only one of many Sikh barons and owed his rapid rise entirely to force of character and will. At the age of seventeen he seized the reins of government. He is said to have poisoned his mother, though it is more probable that he merely imprisoned her to keep her out of his way. At the age of twenty he obtained from Zaman Shah, the king of Afghanistan, a grant of Lahore, which he seized by force of arms in 1799. Subsequently he attacked and annexed Amritsar in 1802, thus becoming master of the two Sikh capitals. When Jaswant Rao Holkar took refuge in the Punjab in 1805, Ranjit Singh made a treaty with the British, excluding Holkar from his territory. Shortly afterwards acute difficulties arose between him and the British as to the Cis-Sutlej portion of the Punjab. It was Ranjit Singh's ambition to weld the whole of the Punjab into a single Sikh empire, while the British claimed the territory south of the Sutlej by right of conquest from the Mahrattas. The difference proceeded almost to the point of war; but at the last moment Ranjit Singh gave way, and for the future faithfully observed his engagements with the British, whose rising power he was wise enough to gauge. In 1808 Charles Metcalfe was sent to settle this question with Ranjit Singh, and a treaty was concluded at Amritsar on the 15th of April 1809. At this period a band of Sikh fanatics called “akalis,” attacked Sir Charles Metcalfe's escort, and the steadiness with which the disciplined sepoys repulsed them, so impressed the maharaja that he decided to change the strength of his army from cavalry to infantry. He organized a powerful force, which was trained by French and Italian officers such as Generals Ventura, Allard and Avitabile, and thus forged the formidable fighting instrument of the Khalsa army, which afterwards gave the British their hardest battles in India in the two Sikh wars. In 1810 he captured Multan after many assaults and a long siege, and in 1820 had consolidated the whole of the Punjab between the Sutlej and the Indus under his dominion. In 1823 the city and province of Peshawar became tributary to him. In 1833 when Shah Shuja, flying from Afghanistan, sought refuge at his court, he took from him the Koh-i-nor diamond, which subsequently came into the possession of the British crown. Though he disapproved of Lord Auckland's policy of substituting Shah Shuja for Dost Mahomed, he loyally supported the British in their advance on Afghanistan. Known as “The Lion of the Punjab,” Ranjit Singh died of paralysis on the 27th of June 1839. - 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ranjit Singh - All in all, I consider this a cheap and valuable lesson in Indian history and numismatic identification. Have you learned something new from a coin lot that surprisingly came your way? Were you inspired to keep collecting the area? I am.
Wow, @svessien, great write-up. You certainly progressed farther than I would have been able to. I look forward to your discussion on the others in the lot -- and specifically the three small diameter coins in the right of the photo.
