Language on Coins
and Currency of Lanka

Most of the indigenous coins of ancient Lanka had only symbols. The rare lion and swastika lead coin has Brahmi text along the periphery around the railed swastika. This symbol which is seen cut at the commencement of stone inscriptions by Lankan kings, is recognized as the Royal standard of the early Anuradhapura era.
Sri lak viha appears on the 8th century gold kahavanu coin. The coins of RajaRaja Chola replaced lak viha with RajaRaja. After Lanka was liberated in 1070 we find coins in the names of VijayaBahu, ParakramaBahu, Nisankamalla, Sahasamalla, Lilavati, Dharmasokadeva, Buvanekabahu. Most of the coins of latter monarchs are minted in copper. Known then as Massa of which large numbers are found in hoards. All these medieval coins had text in DevaNagari.
The 15uh century Setu massa are the first Lankan coins with Thamil text. They were issued by the Arya Chakravartis in Jaffna between 1462 and 1597. These copper coins has the Standing Monarch characteristic of most medieval Lankan coins. In this coin the word Setu appears below the Nandi bull couchant facing left.
A Portuguese coin had S:LOVRENCO, as the port in Colombo port was named after São Lourenço. The 1631 Silver Tanga coin shown has initials S L on either side of the grill with fire beneath, on which this Christian martyr was burned by emperor Valerian in the 3rd century.
Sinhala text first appeared on a rare Tin-lead aka coin with the date 1747. The coin was to be pierced with a hole for the purpose of stringing. According to Codrington they were minted to relieve a shortage of duits for arecunut trade with the Kandyans. This may explain the Sinhala Text. This coin is extremely Rare and I have seen one only in the British Museum collection.
Dutch coins had the VOC (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie) monogram of the Dutch East India Company. These crude thick Copper Dump coins were minted locally between 1783 and 1795 in Colombo, Trincomalee, Galle and Jaffna. Colombo (C) had STUIVER and Trincomalee (T) had ST. The Galle (G) had value in Sinhala text and the Jaffna (I) had Thamil text.
Lanka's first currency note was issued in 1785, which was in Rix Dallars and called Kredit Brieven and payed 3% Interest. It had text in Dutch, Sinhala and Thamil. This Dutch liability was taken over by British in 1796.
Early British coins had a standing Elephant facing left with CEYLON GOVERNMENT. The locally minted copper dump coins from 1801 to 1816 had value as a fraction of a Rix Dollar (48 Stivers), and the Silver Dump coins minted from 1803 to 1809 had value in Stivers. The very iconic Silver Rix Dollar coin of 1821 has George IV. All these coins had text only in English.

When that was used on regular coins from 1963 to 1971 the name of the country only in Sinhala was Lanka, although commemorative coins used Sri Lanka. Only from 1969-5-10 was the name of the Bank added in English and Tamil. In 1972 the coins got Sri Lanka in Sinhala, but the name of the bank in English on the Currency notes remained as Central Bank of Ceylon till 1985.
Coins and Currency of Lanka reflect the long history of language used in the Island over period longer than two Millenniums.
More details of these and other coins can be found in the Authors website http://coins.lakdiva.org.lk.

If this page is printed at 100 dpi the coins will display at 200% of actual size and currency at 75%.