Catalog
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| Issuer | Maratha Empire (Indian states) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1778 |
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| Currency | Rupee (1674-1818) |
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| Obverse description | Hammered silver flan bearing a two-line Persian couplet legend in Naskh script, arranged within a plain linear border. The upper register reads the first hemistich of the royal inscription praising God and the emperor, while the lower register carries the regnal epithet 'Farrukhsiyar'. Scattered pellet ornaments punctuate the field, characteristic of Maratha-struck Mughal-style rupees. The coin exhibits the irregular, slightly convex flan typical of hand-struck issues of this period. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Hammered reverse displaying a two-line Persian inscription in Naskh script within a plain linear border. The upper line records the regnal year formula ('sanah julus maimanat manus'), while the lower line bears the mint name 'Zarb Bhudargad' (struck at Bhudargad). Pellet ornaments are scattered across the field, consistent with Maratha coinage struck in the name of the Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar. The irregular flan edges and flat fields are hallmarks of the hand-hammered technique employed at this mint. |
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| Additional information |
Bhudargad was a Maratha hill fort in the Kolhapur region, and coins struck there — nominally in the name of the long-dead Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar — reflect a fiscal fiction that persisted deep into the eighteenth century. Farrukhsiyar had been blinded and strangled in 1719, yet his name continued authorizing coinage across dozens of mints for decades afterward. The Marathas, like other successor powers, found it politically convenient to maintain the pretense of Mughal monetary legitimacy while exercising real sovereign control over the metal.
By 1778, the Bhudargad mint was operating under the Kolhapur branch of the Chhatrapati line, a house frequently at odds with the Peshwas in Pune.