Panchala Kingdom, Bhumimitra, Copper double karshapana, c. 1st century BCE

Panchala Kingdom, Bhumimitra, Copper double karshapana, c. 1st century BCE

Panchala Kingdom, Bhumimitra, Copper double karshapana, c. 1st century BCE

Weight: 15.52 gm., Diam: 25 mm.

Deity (Bhumi?) on a pedestal /

Three Panchala symbols, Brahmi legend below: 

Bhumimitrasa New kingdoms were emerging on the ruins of the Mauryan empire in northern India also. One such kingdom was Panchala. This had been one of the 16 great mahajanapadas in the time of the Buddha. Draupadi, one of the central characters of the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, was reportedly a Panchala princess. This janapada had been absorbed by Magadha as it pursued its program of expansion. But now this kingdom was reconstituted under the Mitra kings, who issued a most interesting and long-lived series of coins. Coin 9 is an early Panchala coin of this period, an issue of King Bhumimitra. The Panchala coins all carry the name of the issuing king in Brahmi letters; these are some of the earliest indigenous Indian coins to carry legends. The illustrated coin carries an image of a deity on the obverse and an incuse punch on the reverse which has the legend Bhumimitrasa with the three symbols of the Panchala kingdom above. The Panchala series lasted over two centuries, from the mid-2nd century BCE to well into the 1st century CE.