1 Cash - Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma ascended the Travancore throne in 1829 at roughly sixteen years of age, with his mother Gowri Lakshmi Bayi serving as regent through the early years of his reign. This cash issue falls within that regency period, before he assumed direct rule. Travancore remained under British paramountcy through the Resident at Trivandrum, yet retained the right to strike its own copper coinage — a privilege jealously maintained by the kingdom throughout the nineteenth century.

Swathi Thirunal is better remembered today as a classical Carnatic composer than as an administrator, leaving behind several hundred compositions.