Collection Highlights: Heberden Coin Room

Chandragupta II slaying a lion / Goddess of prosperity on a lion. The Gupta kings showed themselves on their gold coins in various roles. Here Chandragupta II is dramatically recorded as slaying a lion. Hunting was a royal privilege and its depiction connotes bravery and power as well as the ideals of kingship. The inscriptions are in chaste Sanskrit language in keeping with the ‘classical' paradigms of the Gupta period.