Manadeva I is the first Licchavi ruler for whom a firm historical date can be established — an inscription at Changu Narayan, dated to approximately 464 CE, anchors his reign and makes coins attributed to him unusually valuable to Nepalese chronology. The Licchavi tetradrachm denomination borrowed its name from the Greek monetary tradition via the Kushano-Sasanian coinage that filtered into the Himalayan foothills, though the metrology had long since drifted from any Greek standard by this point.
Mitchiner's NI#197 attribution places this among a tightly defined group within a dynasty whose coin sequence remains one of the more contested areas of South Asian numismatics.
Manadeva I is the first Licchavi ruler for whom a firm historical date can be established — an inscription at Changu Narayan, dated to approximately 464 CE, anchors his reign and makes coins attributed to him unusually valuable to Nepalese chronology. The Licchavi tetradrachm denomination borrowed its name from the Greek monetary tradition via the Kushano-Sasanian coinage that filtered into the Himalayan foothills, though the metrology had long since drifted from any Greek standard by this point.
Mitchiner's NI#197 attribution places this among a tightly defined group within a dynasty whose coin sequence remains one of the more contested areas of South Asian numismatics.