SHAILENDRA BHANDARE

Curator of South Asian and Far-Eastern Coins and Paper Money

Dr Shailendra Bhandare

Assistant Keeper, South Asian and Far-eastern Numismatics and Paper Money Collections, Fellow of St Cross College, and member of Faculty of Oriental Studies

Email: shailendra.bhandare@ashmus.ox.ac.uk   
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Biography

Shailendra (Shailen) Bhandare started his career as a numismatist with a visiting fellowship at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. He was then appointed as a post-doctoral fellow of the Society for South Asian Studies, and worked as a curator in the British Museum on the coins of Later Mughals and the Indian Princely States.

He was appointed as curator of coins in the Ashmolean Museum in 2002. 

Shailen was born and brought up in Mumbai, India where he received his first degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences. He holds a Masters degree in History and a Doctorate in Ancient Indian Culture awarded by the University of Mumbai.

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Indian Numismatics and Monetary History is Shailen's area of research. His contributions span a wide chronological range, from c.500BC- the present, although the areas he is more interested in are Ancient India (c.500BC-AD500) and pre-Modern India (c.AD1500-1900). He contextualises coins into wider historical themes involving economic, social, political and religious histories.

Currently, Shailen is working on the complex subject of unofficial copper coinages in pre-Modern India. Produced at the cusp of industrial and pre-industrial monetary production, circulating widely across the Indian subcontinent, and consumed chiefly for mall value monetary transactions, these copper coins constitute one of the main fulcrums of our understanding of the role of monetary exchange media in complicated historical processes like colonisation. 

Shailen's most recent research contributions include varied topics such as a study of plants and foliate motifs on Indian coins, a reappraisal of indigenous coinage in Gandhara, the coins of Satavahana and other dynasties in the river basin regions of Andhra Pradesh, numismatic reflections of Shahjahan’s campaign in Central Asia and prize-medals of the Parsi community of Mumbai.

One of his long-term research goals is to write a three-volume history of the rupee. In the next year or two, Shailen is exploring possibilities of starting a project on exploring the coinage of the Huns as a source for cultural and religious history of the Indo-Iranian borderlands.

As part of his job as a museum curator Shailen is also actively interested in presenting coins as an engaging visual source for understanding the past. 

 Regularly contributes to journals such as the Numismatic Digest and the Journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society.

Historical Studies; Coins; Oriental Coins; Numismatics; Later Mughals; Monetary History

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