Kasu - Shah of Bombay

The "Shah of Bombay" kasu is a curiosity born of colonial administrative overlap. The Thanjavur Nayak rulers — by the early nineteenth century effectively client kings under British supervision — continued issuing copper fractions well after meaningful political autonomy had evaporated. The designation "Shah of Bombay" on a coin from a Tamil court reflects the tangled honorific language that emerged when Maratha, Nayak, and East India Company jurisdictions collided in the Cauvery delta region.

Thanjavur was formally annexed by the British in 1855, but coin production in the old idiom had already become erratic in the final decades of the kingdom's nominal existence.