Lot 11

Ancient, Malla Janapada, Ghaghara-Gandak River Valley (c. 6th-5th Century BC), Silver PMC, 4.98 gms, 14.55x19.26 mm, Obverse: Main punch of two plus symbols symmetrically overlapping, Other punches of orb with a bold dot inside, flower and wheel with spokes, Reverse: Uniface, Rajgor # Type 1111, pg. 168, very fine, extremely rare.

The Mallas were among the 16 prominent Janapadas of India as per AnguttaraNikaya. Two branches of these people were settled in Pava and Kusinara respectively. These were contemporary to Buddha and claimed/received a portion of Buddha’s ashes after his funeral and upon which, a stupa was erected by them.  The area of the Mallas was in present day Deoria/Kushinagar/Gorakhpur districts of U.P.  Extensive remains pertaining to the Mallas have been un-earthed in Kasia (Kushinagar) near Gorakhpur. 

These exceedingly rare PMCs have been found in Narhan hoard (near Gola Bazar) and in another hoard from Gorakhpur. This series is one of the rarest and historically most important (due to their contemporeinity/ association with Buddha) series in the entire punch mark series. 

It may be pertinent to mention that 2 gm approx. coins (# Rajgor Series 72, Pg 170), which are often encountered in trade in name of “Malla”, actually belong to the Pauravas of Kaushambi (Mitchiner – 2004, Hardaker – 2019) and not to the Mallas.  The coins attributed to Malla are all near 5.0 – 5.5 gm wt standard (# Rajgor Series 70) or their half at around 2.6 – 2.8 gm. wt standard (# Rajgor Series 71).  Present coin is a full unit of 4.98 gm. of Rajgor’s Series 70 (Pg. 168) and belongs to the Mallas.