The Coinage of the Gupta Empire and its Imitations c9.s1.11

c9.s1.11

The king on the obverse is seen offering oblations at the altar. This was of course a motif borrowed from the coins of the late Kushāṇa type (see Pl. I. 3-5). It is however interesting to notice how the motif was gradually further and further Indianised. On some coins of Samudragupta (Pl. I. 14, 15; II. 1) the object in the king's hand is clearly seen to be a round puroḍāśa (sacrificial offering resembling a ball). The conventional altar, however, looks in some cases like a flower pot with a plant; it may have been a tulasīvṛndāvana with that sacred plant (see Pl. II. 5, 8, 9). Tulasī is sacred to the followers of Vishnu and the Guptas were undoubtedly Vaiṣṇavas. Whether there was a deliberate intention to vary the motif, we do not know. In some cases the object looks like Śiva-liṅga with Archā (Pl. VIII. 8), but this resemblance is probably purely accidental.