Banda Singh Bahadur's coin
The first coin struck by a Sikh ruler. After taking Sirhind, Banda Singh issued silver coins in the names of Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh, and a seal for his orders.
When Banda Singh Bahadur took Sirhind in May 1710 and set up his capital at Lohgarh, he issued silver coins: the first coins ever struck by a Sikh ruler. Instead of the name of a king, they carried the names of the Gurus.
The Persian legend reads, in translation: 'Struck in the two worlds by the grace of the True Lord, the sword of Nanak is the granter of all boons, and victory is of Guru Gobind Singh, king of kings.' The reverse names the mint as a city of peace and the era of his own rule. He also used a seal on his orders with the words Deg Tegh Fateh, kettle, sword and victory.
Only a handful of these coins survive. The idea they expressed, that sovereignty belonged to the Guru and the Khalsa and not to any man, was taken up by the misls and by Ranjit Singh, who never struck coins in his own name.
More coins & seals
When the misls took Lahore in 1765 they struck silver rupees bearing the Khalsa couplet Deg Tegh Fateh, and Ranjit Singh's kingdom kept issuing them for eighty years.
Rare coins and temple tokens of the Sikh period show Guru Nanak seated under a tree with Bhai Mardana holding his rabab, the only Sikh coins with a human image.
The silver of the Indo-Greek king who ruled from Sagala, now Sialkot, with his portrait on one side and Athena on the other.
Gold coins of the Kushan emperor that carry one of the earliest images of the Buddha, named BODDO in Greek letters.
Silver coins struck at Lahore, renamed Mahmudpur, with the Muslim profession of faith translated into Sanskrit.
Small silver coins with a seated bull on one side and a horseman with a lance on the other, and the king's name, such as Samanta deva, in Sharada letters.
Lahore was one of the great mints of the Mughal empire. Akbar, who held court in the city from 1585 to 1598, struck gold and silver there, and the mint name, Dar-ul-Saltanat Lahore, 'seat of the sultanate', ran on the coins for two and a half centuries.
The Hari Singhi rupeeFrom 1820The rupee struck in Kashmir by Hari Singh Nalwa as governor of the valley, which stayed in use in Jammu and Kashmir long after the Sikh kingdom had gone.
Polished stone cubes, made to a single standard across the Indus cities, the oldest money-like measures of the Punjab.
Bent bars of silver stamped with symbols, the first coins of the Punjab, dug up in hoards at Taxila.
Coins of Azes and other Scythian (Saka) kings, who ruled Taxila after the Greeks.
Coins of the Parthian king of Taxila who, Christian legend says, met the apostle Thomas.
Coins of Toramana and Mihirakula, the Alchon Hun kings who ruled the Punjab from Sialkot.
The silver tanka of the Delhi SultansFrom the 1220sThe heavy silver coin introduced by Iltutmish, the ancestor of the rupee.
The coin of Sher Shah Suri, who drove the Mughals out of the Punjab, and gave the world the word rupee.
The Audumbaras of the hills around Pathankot struck coins showing a temple and the sage Vishvamitra. With the Kunindas and Yaudheyas they were among the small states and republics of the Punjab before the Kushans.
Silver coins of a people of the upper Beas and Sutlej, showing a deer and a goddess, and inscribed in two scripts at once, Brahmi and Kharosthi.
The Yaudheyas, a warrior republic of the eastern Punjab and Haryana, struck coins in the name of their assembly with the war god Karttikeya. Clay moulds for them were found at Rohtak and at Sunet near Ludhiana.