The Lion Conqueror Type of Kumaragupta I

A few years ago, I acquired a gold coin of Kumaragupta I that had appeared in a CNG auction. 2 The cataloguer, saying it was a new variety, had dubbed the coin the “Lion Conqueror” type because of the extraordinary pose of the king, who stands triumphantly over the carcass of the lion he has presumably just killed. In fact, there is at least one other coin that shows the king in this posture, a coin in the U.P. State Museum in Lucknow that has been published by P.L. Gupta. 3 Gupta had named the coin the “Lion Killed Type,” but that seems like an odd name for it. All Gupta coin types are identified by the action or position of the king or principal subject (the Archer, the Lyrist, the Horseman, the Lion-Slayer, etc.), so it seems odd to identify the coin type by the fact that the lion portrayed in it has already been killed. I therefore, prefer the title “LionConqueror,” which aptly describes the attitude of the king on the coin. Be that as it may, I had the opportunity to examine the Gupta coin on a recent visit to the Lucknow museum, and to photograph it anew. Since the photograph in Gupta’s paper is very dark, I will provide another photo here, along with a new reading of the obverse legend and some other observations about the coin, some of which are at odds with Gupta’s description. Then I will provide a photo of my own coin, which has a different legend and therefore qualifies as a new variety of the type.