Book Description

This book covers the history and the entire Coinage of the Gupta Dynasty from the start in 319 AD to its end in 543 AD. It also includes the Coinage of the Later Guptas and the related dynasties of Bengal. The author has illustrated every coin variety in Gold, Copper and Lead as well as a complete range of all known silver coins with dates struck by the Gupta kings. The classification is comprehensive and intuitive. The book includes an excellent section on the iconography, metal analysis, history and the evolution of the designs seen on the Gupta gold coins. This book is a quintessential guide for Collectors and Dealers in coins to better understand the relative rarity and the different varieties with a full representation of the coins from Private Collections and most of the major Museums in India and across the world. Winner of the IAPN Book Prize, second place. Joe Cribb: This new volume marks another stage in the development of a modern understanding of that coinage as one of the key components in the construction of a history of the Gupta Empire. Like the work of Allan and Altekar, this volume, this giant step, will remain an authoritative tool for documenting one of the most important periods in the history of India for decades. Osmund Bopearachchi: It is the best book ever written on Gupta coinage. This book has surpassed Ellen Raven's work which was the standard book on the subject for a long time. Robert Bracey: It certainly lives up to the implicit promise of the book, not only does it provide new data about the coins themselves but it offers clear historical implications from that data.