Gupta Dinar, Samudragupta

The visual language of Hinduism was established in the Gupta period around AD 400. The coin from Samudragupta’s reign shows a horse before a sacrificial post on one side and the queen with a flywhisk on the other. The horse is symbolic of the Ashwamedha yajña, an elaborate, and very public, Vedic rite of kingship that was revived by the Gupta kings to assert themselves as a Brahmanical monarchy.

The Gupta dynasty began shortly after the year AD 300, and it rapidly expanded from its base in northern India, until it covered a substantial part of the subcontinent. The dominant religious iconography on Gupta coins is broadly Hindu, but specifically Vaishnav. Often we see Garuda, Vishnu’s bird mount, or his consort Lakshmi on the coins.