The Coinage of the Gupta Empire and its Imitations c9.s4.7

c9.s4.7

The horse on all the coins is uncaparisoned. In rare cases, however, a strap is shown round its neck (Pl. III. 8). On some specimens (Pl. III. 11-12) beads are pleated into its mane; this was in accordance with the directions of the sacred texts which require a hundred golden beads to be strung on the head in the mane and in the tail of the doomed horse.¹ The coins, however, nowhere show the beads strung in the tail. In addition to the beads strung in the mane, some coins show a string of beads a little above the back of the horse (Pl. III. 7, 9, 10). Probably it is merely a decorative motif, suggested no doubt by the pleating of the horse’s hair by beads enjoined in the Vedic texts.