A

NAGARI LEGEND ON SOME MEDIAEVAL SINHALESE COINS

BY

A Nlceni

examples of wlrich are lllustrated in H. W. Codrington's Ceylon Coins an,l, iu,rrency, Plate XII. Nos. 66-69', has been variously read as lraka, Uraka or paraka. None of these readings gives any sense ; Codrington

S. P.sn.qx.q,vlr.cNr legend appearing on some mediaeval Sinhalese coins,

is, therefore, of opinion that the legends had been 'corrupted by unintelligent copying'. The Nagari characters, however, .admit oi a differenl readirig which, if adopted, removes all difficulty in the

interpretation of the legend. fhe hst letter is quite clear and cannot tre anything else but Aa. What has hitherto been taken aq tlvo symbols, one represe-nfing u,i,orSaand the other ra,is, in my opinion' but one aksara' and has-to be read as a. In No. 67 of Codrington's Coins and' Currenc\t, which seems to be one of the latest of this series, the letter in queslion is distinctly visible and differs very little flom t\e modern typ-e for Ndgari a . Th-e short horizontal stroke which joins the curved

1.

See

para {i1.

also llhys Davi<ls' Ancient Coins ancl

Xt[easuves of

Ceylon, No. 13, a.nd

No.96] A NAGARI

LEGEND

oli solrE lrEDrAEvAr.

sTNHALESE

corNs

163

arm on the left with the vertical stroke on the right clearly shows that this was one letter. In Nos. 66, 68 and 69 the two limbs are not quite joined together and the middle stroke is diagonal, instebd of being lrorizontal. ln column XVI in Tafel IV of Brihler's Idische Paliiographie there is an example of a Ndgari a in which the two strokes are not joined together; and many similar instances can be shown {rom Indian Inscriptions. Thus the legend reads aka which is nothing but the value or rveight of the coin itself. In fact, Codrington' has rightly given that name to this class of coins though he reads the legend as, daraka. The word aha as the name of a coin is frequently rnet with in, Sinhalese literature and in inscriptions of the tenth century 3: No. 68 gives tlie variant reading aki ; this form of the word occurs in an inscription+ of the tenth Century from Appavala in the Anuradhapura district. The legend on some other coins of the same class has been read as Taritraki which Codrington proposes to amend to l{andaki. In No. 63 of Ceyl,on Coins and Currency, the symbol u'hich has been read as Tathra closely approximates in form to the Ndgari a given in Column 3 of Biihler's Tafel V. That on No. 64 is almost identical; but the corresponding symbol on No. 65 is different from all other specimer-rs"
Perhaps this was due to a blunder of the die cutter. The dot w-hich occurs above the first letter has been read as an anusudra; but its duplication in several specimens, prevents us from taking it as such.

The reading aha on some of the examples is so obvious ttiat only the unlikelihood of a Sinhalese word being written in the Nigari script seems to have precluded its adoption. But, elsewhere, I have drawn attention to another insta.nce of a pure Sinhalese wr:rd being written in the same
script
s.