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1 Drachm - Gurjuras of Jodhpur

Issuer Gurjuras Confederacy
Year 550-650
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Value 1 Drachm
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Obverse script Brahmi/Pahlavi
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Reverse description Central fire altar motif derived from Sasanian iconographic tradition, rendered in a highly schematic and debased form, flanked by two attendant figures. The altar is depicted as a stepped column surmounted by a crown-like finial, with the flanking attendants reduced to stylized pillars. Surrounding the central device is a dotted inner border within which traces of debased Brahmi or Pahlavi-influenced legend appear. The overall composition reflects the gradual transformation of Sasanian fire altar imagery as adopted and stylized by the Gurjura confederacy during the 6th–7th centuries CE.
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The Gurjara confederacy emerged as a dominant force in northwestern India following the collapse of Gupta imperial authority, occupying the regions of Rajasthan and Gujarat during a period of sustained political fragmentation. Their coinage derives directly from late Sasanian prototypes — a borrowing that reflects the intense commercial and diplomatic contact across the Thar Desert frontier rather than any political subordination. The drachm module itself was essentially a foreign import, adopted wholesale because the Sasanian silver standard was already trusted by the merchants these chiefs needed to tax and trade with.

Mitchiner's NI#216 classification places this within the Jodhpur regional grouping, though attribution of individual pieces to specific Gurjara chiefs remains difficult given the absence of datable inscriptions on most specimens.

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