Ancient Lanka - 2nd to 1st century BCE
Elephant and Stylised Fish Symbol
Pandaya coin Counter Marked with Tree

A square multi-symbol Pandaya dynasty copper coin from 1-2 century BCE, with Elephant standing to left and Stylised Fish Symbol with circular Counter Marked with three branched Tree symbol.

SPECIFICATIONS
AlloyCu
TypeStruck
Width22.5 mm
Thickness2.9 mm
Weight9.70 gms
ShapeSquare
DieAxis90°
 ele_fish+cm_cu_obverse ele_fish+cm_cu_reverse
Krishnamurthy & Wickramasinghe #4, #5
Obverse : Elephant standing facing left. To left vertical Pennant Dhajaya. To right tree of six branches in six compartment railing. To top left Battle Axe left in six compartment railing. To top middle unknown barrel shaped symbol. To top right three arched chitya with umbrella on top, counter-marked on this coin with circular emboss with tree with three branches each ending with triple fork.
Reverse : Stylised fish symbol enclosed within two line squares.

A Catalogue of The Sangam Age Pandaya and Chola Coins In the National Museum, Colombo, Sri Lanka by Ramasubbu Krishnamurthy & Senarath Wickramasinghe p26 illustrates three coins of same type with the same counter-mark. Both with images and line drawing. Host Coin (#3) with counter-mark on lower right (#4) and on upper left (#5).

Brig. Siri Munasiha speculates if King Vattagamini Abaya after he regained his throne by defeating the the invading Damila[Pandyan] kings counter marked their coins with a Bo-Tree to authenticate its continuance as a coin in Lanka. King Vattagamini Abaya built the Abayagiri Stupa in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.

The coin was scanned at 600dpi and displayed at 300dpi. ex: Raja Wickramasinghe, it is from part of Lalith Raddella's collection I purchased in 2016 December.

Text edited from
A Catalogue of The Sangam Age Pandaya and Chola Coins In the National Museum, Colombo, Sri Lanka by R. Krishnamurthy & Senarath Wickramasinghe. 2005 Department of National Museums, Colombo.