2017-05-15 Mon

Faheh Shah was the king of Gharwal, a small kingdom in North India. He came to the throne after the death of his grandfather in the year 1665. The Kingdom of Gharwal was the vassal of Mughal Empire and Fateh Shah will be able to sit on the throne only with the approval of Mughal Empire Aurangzeb. Fateh came to the power in the year 1692 when he attacked Saharanpur; he also faced lots of difficulties from the Mughal commander, Sayyad Ali, but somehow he managed to establish a town named ‘Fatehpur’ in the plain. In the same year, he also expanded his Kingdom into Simur and also launched an expedition into Tibet. The date on this coin is significant because they mark the same year of issue as 1692-1693. Fateh Shah issued the coin with Mughal Style, and this was the act of great defiance. Fateh was the great lover of Art and literature, like Akbar, he also used to have ‘Navaratnas’ in his court. He was also associated with the Sikh Guru Gobind Singh and was also a great devotee of ‘Badrinath’ and Hindu Shiva ‘Jyotirlinga’. He used inscribed ‘Sri Badrinath Sahaai’ in his coin. This silver rupee which was minted in ‘Srinagar’ during the 29th year of his reign, in the year 1750 VS (Vikram Samvat) was listed for INR 10,00,000 to 15,00,000 at Classical Numismatic Gallery. On the obverse, the coin is inscribed as ‘Sikka dar Dahar had Chu Mihr Ayaan Sri Maharaja Fateh Shah Zamaan’ in three lines with regnal year 29 in the second line. And on the reverse, the coin is inscribed as ‘Zarb Srinagar with VS date 1750, Sri Shri Badrinath Sahaai’.