¾ Tanka - Ghiyas Shah

Ghiyas-ud-Din Khalji ruled Malwa for nearly four decades, a tenure remarkable for its political stability in a region perpetually contested between the Sultanates of Delhi, Gujarat, and the Bahmani kingdom. His reign is documented as unusually cultured — later chronicles describe a court heavily oriented toward music, poetry, and the patronage of women scholars — which makes the administrative regularity of his copper coinage all the more notable. Fractional tankas in copper served the lowest tiers of market exchange where silver was simply too valuable for everyday transactions.