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Rupee - Ahmed Shah Bahadur Katak mint
| Issuer | Maratha Empire |
|---|---|
| Year | 1755-1772 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Obverse description | Struck in the name of the Mughal emperor Ahmad Shah Bahadur, the obverse bears a multi-line Persian legend in Nastaliq script arranged within horizontal registers divided by raised linear borders. The inscription contains the royal titles and formulaic invocation characteristic of Mughal imperial coinage. The field is flat with slightly irregular flan edges typical of hammered silver rupees of this period. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Ahmed Shah Bahadur, the Mughal emperor whose name appears on this coin, was by the mid-1750s a figurehead entirely controlled by competing factions — first the Marathas, then the Rohillas and Afghans. The Marathas struck rupees in his name at Katak (Cuttack) following their consolidation of Orissa, using the fiction of Mughal imperial authority to legitimize revenue extraction from a region they had held since the 1750s. Retaining the emperor's name on the die was a political calculation, not a courtesy — it kept local administrators and merchants within a familiar monetary framework while Maratha sardars collected the seigniorage.