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1 Dam - Jaya Prakash Malla
| Issuer | Kathmandu Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Year | 1735-1746 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Dam (1⁄128) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Uniface dam struck in hammered style on a small, irregular flan. The obverse bears four Devanagari characters arranged in two lines within a cruciform grid pattern, reading 'Shri / Ja Ya / Pra', an abbreviated rendering of the royal name and title of Jaya Prakash Malla. The characters are boldly incuse and fill the field, with the cross-shaped dividing lines forming a prominent structural element characteristic of Nepalese dam coinage of this period. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Jaya Prakash Malla ruled Kathmandu during one of the most turbulent stretches in Newar political history, a period of fractured alliances and near-constant warfare among the three rival Malla kingdoms of the valley. His reign would ultimately end in 1768 when Prithvi Narayan Shah's Gorkha forces swept through and extinguished the Malla dynasties entirely. At one-twentieth of a mohar, the dam denomination was the smallest practical silver unit in circulation — producing it at this scale required exceptional die-cutting skill, and surviving examples almost universally show some degree of weak or off-center striking simply due to the mechanical difficulty of controlling such a tiny flan.