“Before I leave the subject, I may be permitted to make some observations in reference to an original suggestion of my own, that the Srí Hamírah, on the reverse of the immediately succeeding Moslem coins, was designed to convey the title of the spiritual representative of the Arabian Prophet on earth, embodied for the time being in the Khalíf of Baghdád. Sir H. M. Elliot, placing himself under the guidance of Capt. Cunningham, has contested this inference. I am not only prepared to concede the fact that Muhammad bin Sám uses this term in connection with his own name on the lower Kanauj coins, but I can supply further independent evidence, that my opponents could not then cite against me, in the association of this title with the name of the early Sultáns of Dehli in the Pálam Inscription (1333 Vikramáditya); but, on the other hand, I can claim a still more definite support in an item of testimony contributed by the consecutive suite of the selfsame fabric of coins, where the <hebrew> (hamírah) is replaced by the word <hebrew> (khalífa). As far as I have yet been able to ascertain, this transition first takes place on the money of 'Aláu-d dín Mas'úd (639-644 A.H.); and here, again, I can afford, in all frankness, to cite further data that may eventually bear against myself, in recording that this reverse of Srí Khalífa is combined in other cases with a broken obverse legend of … <hebrew> … which, being interpreted to stand for the Amíru-l Múminín of the Arabic system, may either be accepted as the Sanskrit counterpart legend of Altamsh's anonymous coins in the Persian character,”* or be converted into a possible argument against my theory, if supposed to represent the independent spiritual supremacy claimed by subsequent Sultáns of Dehli; which last assignment, however, will scarcely carry weight in the present state of our knowledge. As regards the difficulty raised respecting the conventional acceptance of the Srí Samanta Deva of the coins as an historical, rather than an individually titular, impress, I have always been fully prepared to recognize the linguistic value of the word Samanta, and yet claim to retain the Srí Samanta Deva—which comes down to us, in numismatic sequence, in the place of honour on so many mint issues—as an independent name or title, to which some special prestige attached, rather than to look upon it as an ordinary prefix to the designation of each potentate on whose money it appears. And such a decision, in parallel apposition to the succession of the titles of Srí Hamíra and Khalífa, just noticed, would seem to be strikingly confirmed by the replacement of this same legend of Srí Samanta Deva on the local coins of Cháhad Deva, by the style and title of the Moslem suzerain, to whom that rája had eventually to concede allegiance.
The two classes of coins to which I allude may, for the moment, be exemplified, the one in the type given in ‘Ariana Antiqua,’ xix. 16; the other in pl. xxvi. fig. 31, Vol. i. (Prinsep).
The former, when corrected up and amplified from more perfect specimens, will be found to bear the legends: OBV. <hebrew>. REV. <hebrew>—while the latter will be seen to display an obverse epigraph of <hebrew>, with a reverse similar to the last.
I understand this obverse legend to convey, in imperfect orthography, the name of Shamsu-d dín Altamsh—whose other coins, of but little varied type, have a similarly outlined name, with the Moslem Srí Hamírah on the reverse.