The Coinage of the Gupta Empire and its Imitations c9.s4.1

c9.s4.1

(To celebrate his memorable victories in Northern and Southern India, Samudragupta performed an Aśvamedha sacrifice, probably late in his reign. He took particular pride in the revival of this ritual and it is no wonder that he should have issued gold coins to commemorate this event in a fairly extensive quantity.¹ The coins of this type are fairly numerous. The British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, the Indian Museum and the Lucknow Museum possess seven, three, two and five pieces of this type repectively; *B. M. C.*, *G.D.* refers to six more. The Bayana hoard contained twenty Aśvamedha coins.