History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c14.s4.t1.95

c14.s4.t1.95

30. As we have been dealing here with the Bhāraśiva coins, I may discuss a coin which has been taken as a coin of Virasena but which I take to be a Vākāṭaka coin, of Pravarasena I. It belongs to the same series as the coins we have been noticing. It is of the old orthodox Hindu type, post-Kushan in script and pre-Guptan in style. The coin is illustrated in the Catalogue of the Coins of the Indian Museum by Dr. Vincent Smith on plate No. XXII, fig. no. 15¹ It is read by him as 'V(i)rasenasa'. He reads the 'i' doubtfully, and although he takes the coin on the whole as a coin of Virasena, yet he says that this is subsequent to the coins of the earlier Virasena.² His estimate of the difference between the two in point of time and the decision to take it as belonging to another and a later king is correct, but he is incorrect in reading the name as ‘Virasena’. I read the legend on the coin as Pravarasenas[y]a, reading ‘Pra’ as the first letter in the left-hand bottom-corner, beginning the legend with it. And I also read as 76 [70, 6], below the name. On the obverse there is seated a female figure with a jar in her right hand, which denotes that it is the figure of the River Goddess Ganges [cf. § 17].¹ In the right-hand bottom corner there is the Vākāṭaka wheel which we meet at Nachnā and Jāso (see last App.).