"Reflects high scholarship and experience, and is the new standard on the series for the foreseeable future.  The inevitable additions (as new coins come up) are being presented in issues of the ONS Newsletter of which Stan Goron is the editor.  Stan also is our own website editor, and was the main impetus in getting the Coin Cabinet kick started via the Sultanate section."

About the book

The Coinage of the Indian Sultanates is a very important primary source for helping us to understand the political and economic history of what is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh during the period from the beginning of the thirteenth century AD until the seventeenth century when the last of the sultanates, that of Bijapur, was absorbed into the Mughal Empire. The right of sikka, i.e., the right to strike coins was one of the two juridically recognized expressions of the right of the ruler to sovereignty, and it was a right that was jealously regarded.

It is a happy feature of Islamic coinage that the coins bear information not only about the rulers' names and titles but very often also the place and date of minting. In this way we can follow the progress of their rule as their territories expanded or contracted. We can learn of rulers who are otherwise not known to history, their usually ephemeral reigns not recorded in any literary sources that have come down to us. We can also examine the metals used for the currency, its fineness or debasement, and seek to draw conclusions from that.

The present book, however, does not go that far. It is not intended as an economic history of the sultanate period but as an extensive, illustrated catalogue of coin types. More types are included here than in any previously published book on sultanate coins. Many are published for the first time. They come from both public and private collections in India and elsewhere. Brief histories are included for each sultanate as well as comments on the coinage and the coin legends. An extensive bibliography is also provided.

This book will serve as an essential reference for students and collectors of Indian sultanate coins and for anyone else interested in this period of South Asian history.


About the authors

Stan Goron was born in London in 1944. After gaining a degree in modern languages at Cambridge, he made a career in the British Post Office, where for the last ten years of service he was in charge of the National Postal Museum. A Keen former collector of Indian coins, he was an early member of the world-famous Oriental Numismatic Society and has been its newsletter editor since 1985.

J.P. Goenka an industrialist, is relatively new entrant in the field of Indian numismatics. He began collecting coins with emphasis on those of the Indian Sultanates in 1977. His other interest includes coins of Ancient India, Mughals and the Marathas. In a short span through his dedication and grasp of the subject he has built an impressive collection of coins. As his collection has grown steadily over the years-and continues to grow-his enthusiasm and knowledge in the field have also developed. Today he is considered one of the most prominent collectors of Indian coins in the world and is a name to be reckoned with in the field of Indian numismatics. In this book, he shares his experience and knowl edge with Stan Goron, while possessing a large proportion of the coins catalogued.