1/2 Mohar - Chakravartendra Malla

Chakravartendra Malla reigned over Kathmandu for only a handful of years in the mid-seventeenth century, a period when the three rival Newar kingdoms of the valley — Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur — were locked in near-constant political and commercial competition. That rivalry drove each court to produce distinctive coinage partly as an assertion of independent authority, which is why issues from short-reigning rulers like Chakravartendra survive in numbers far smaller than their longer-ruling neighbors. The mohar and its fractions were the backbone of valley commerce and tribute collection throughout this period.