The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

346 NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE.
of the Vrihaspatitchakra or Jovian cycle, and the Tibetan
translation of the Sanscrit Vidjaya. 18 This cycle was
introduced into Tibet from India in A.D. 1025. 19 So
taking 1025-6 as the first year for the sake of the current
year of the events, we find that a twenty-seventh year
happened during the last century, the only one possible,
in 1711-2 and 1771-2. The first is out of the question,
as we know from the Missionaries at Lhasa 20 that
no special coinage existed at the time, and that the
specimens communicated to Du Halde have proved to be
Nepalese. Besides this fact, we know that Tibet was too
narrowly entangled under Nepalese yoke during these
years to have issued any coinage when the Nepalese
currency was altogether satisfactory. Later on, this last
reason, as we have seen, disappeared by the avidity of the
Rajas, and the death of the bold and energetic Prithwi
Narayana Sah in Saka year 1693 (=A.D. 1771)
was the
occasion of the new issue of money in Tibet. The very
year therefore after this they issued (in all probability
not without some sort of an approval on the part of his
successor Pratapa Sinha Sah) the coin we now describe,
and of which no other issue is known in later years,
perhaps because there was a new Gurkha ruler, the said
Raja's reign lasting only three years, as he died in
Saka year 1697 (=A.D. 1775).
"
Agah Idan "=" Celestial beatitude," is one of the great
monasteries near Lhasa at 50 li E. on the mountain
18 See Ph. Ed. Foucaux, Grammaire ..... Tibetaine, p. 152 (Paris,
1858, 8vo.). Csoma Korosi, A Grammar of the Tibetan Language, 149.
p.
19 See Prinsep, ed. Thomas, Essays on Indian Antiquities, vol. ii. U.T.
p. 161. E. Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, pp. 47, 276.
20 Father Desideri, in 1716, from Lassa, writes: "il n'y a point de
monnaie particuliere." Cf. trad. Du Halde, Lettres Edifiantes, loc. cit.
Cf. Stewart, Account of the Kingdom of Tibet (Philosophical Transactions,
1111, p. 486).