Bankers Pestonji Meherji and Viccaji Meherji, founders of the Fire Temple in Secunderabad, are also remembered as possibly the only Parsi traders who won the right to mint their own coins.
The Peston Shahi Sikka is one of the most beautiful coins struck ever, both in terms of design and purity of metals.
“Minting of coins was regarded as a sign of power and prestige and was associated with royalty,” said Captian KF Pestonji, president of Old Parsi Fire Temple Trust. The Parsi community is perhaps the only socio-religious group to have minted coins.
“Minting of coins was regarded as a sign of power and prestige and was associated with royalty,” said Captian KF Pestonji, president of Old Parsi Fire Temple Trust. The Parsi community is perhaps the only socio-religious group to have minted coins.
The right to strike their own coins had, for a long time, been a highly valued privilege of the Nizams. But Pestonji broke this tradition by obtaining licence from Diwan Chandulal to strike coins in Aurangabad during the period of the Nizam IV, Nasir-ud-Daula.
The coins carried the Nizam’s initial in Persian alphabet “noon” (N) for Nasir-ud-Daula. Later, the coins had the initials of the Meherji brothers. No other family was ever permitted by the state to have its own initials or marks engraved on national coins.Pestonji Meherji, who hailed from Bombay, also introduced the popular mark, ‘resplendent sun’, on the coins he minted. The location of this mark on the coin as well as the number of rays of the sun varied from coin to coin and there was no formula behind it.
Coin minting was a crude manual method where a coin blank was hammered against a die to put an impression on the coin. Machine minting started only in the reign of Mir Mahbub Ali Khan, the sixth Nizam.
Over 1 crore Peston Shahi coins in various denominations and made from silver and copper were struck at the mint in Aurangabad between 1832 and 1842. They were legal tender until the beginning of the 20th century. Only a few original coins remain now and are highly valued. Four of them are on display in the British Museum in London.
Sunil Mungara
Comments
Post a Comment