Gupta Gold Coins with a Garuda Banner.

• Author: Narain, A.K.
• Position: 2 vols.

Numismatics is essentially a science of observation and classification. The more you observe and the more you classify, the more you learn. Whether it is a hoard or a treasure, a small or large private or public collection, a series issued by an individual king or a dynasty or by a state or a guild, meticulous observation and intensive classification of the relevant coins are bound to yield valuable results and advance our knowledge of history, society, and culture. Ellen M. Raven's two-volume work is an excellent example of this exercise. It is a valuable contribution to not only Indian numismatics but also to Indian art and iconography. As the blurb on the book states:

The study focuses on those gold coins that show the Gupta king with a banner carrying a miniature image of the mythic eagle Garuda, the supreme symbol of his power. They belong to five coin-types from a range of twenty-one different obverse designs - which together comprise about sixty percent of the dinaras struck from the reign of Samudragupta up to and including that of Skandagupta.

In volume I the author first deals with the application and meaning of the Garuda-banner in these designs. Subsequently she analyses the evolution in the iconography and style of some 150 different Garuda images on these coins, with special reference to earlier and contemporary Garuda imagery in ancient Indian sculpture and numismatic design.

Integrating an art-historical analysis of the obverse and reverse designs with a detailed study of the weight, size and gold content of these coins, the author reconstructs their mint background, an aspect hitherto ignored in Gupta numismatics. The concept of "mint-idiom," the peculiarities that characterize the coinage from a particular mint at a given moment, is developed to facilitate this research. Mint-idiom is the key to understanding design diversity and tracing the development and chronology of the coin designs.

In volume 2 the author discusses the pros and cons of the various existing classifications of Gupta gold coins with a Garuda-banner. Using old and new criteria she presents an elaborate classification together with meticulous descriptions, drawings and photographs of each (sub)variety. In a separate chapter on technical and material properties she includes new calculations of the weight, size, and gold content of these coins, thus providing the most detailed picture available for study so far of the diversity of such properties, and of...