The Coinage of the Gupta Empire and its Imitations c9.s4.13

c9.s4.13

Penons of cloth flying from the top of the *yūpa* are also obviously due to the artistic impulse of the mint-masters. The Vedic texts do not require them, but we find the *Rāmāyaṇa* describing how each of the twenty-one *yūpas* erected at the time of the Aśvamedha of king Daśaratha were decorated with a piece of cloth.²