Essays & Research

Banda Singh Bahadur

The disciple who struck the first coins ever issued in the name of the Khalsa — displacing the Mughal emperor from the coin of the Punjab for the first time. Two types survive his six-year sovereignty at Lohgarh. The Year 2 rupee is unique. His execution in 1716 ended the first Sikh sovereignty; his coins seeded every rupee that followed.

The Sikh Misls

The eleven Misls of the Dal Khalsa confederacy and the most unusual collective coinage in Indian history — rupees struck at Lahore in no king's name, only the couplets of Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh. The declaration at Vaisakhi 1765 and the coins that embodied it: simultaneously the most republican and the most theocratic currency ever struck in the Punjab.

The Sikh Empire

Ranjit Singh's empire at its height: fourteen mints from the Khyber to the Sutlej, from Kashmir to Sindh — all striking coins in the Gurus' names, never the Maharaja's own. Five Maharajas, fifty years, and the coinage that recorded every year of it in silver and gold.

The Cis-Sutlej States

Patiala, Nabha, Jind and Kaithal — the Phulkian chiefs south of the Sutlej, striking coins in the name of Ahmad Shah Durrani from 1764, then under British protection from 1809, then carrying the Gobindshahi couplet from VS 1893. Their rupees outlasted the Empire by a century, the last struck in 1948.

The Fall of the Sikh Empire

How the most powerful state in South Asia outside British India dissolved within a decade of its founder's death — Dogra treachery, Army Panchayats, two Anglo-Sikh Wars, and the stolen bodies of Maharani Jindan and Maharaja Dalip Singh. Seetal, Khushwant Singh, and the post-colonial reading compared.

The First Anglo-Sikh War

The war the Khalsa nearly won. At Ferozeshah, the British came closer to catastrophic defeat than at any engagement since Waterloo. Mudki, Ferozeshah, Aliwal and Sabhraon — Lal Singh's betrayal before the crossing, Tej Singh's sabotage of the bridge at Sabhraon, and the martyrdom of Sham Singh of Atari. Drawing on Dalhousie's private letters and Henty's contemporary narrative.

The Second Anglo-Sikh War

The war that closed the Sikh mints forever. Dalhousie's manufactured pretext, Chilianwala's catastrophe — the worst single-day British defeat in Asia — and Gujrat's three-hour bombardment of 94 guns. The annexation of 29 March 1849, Dalhousie's private letters, and the last coins of the fourteen imperial mints.

Women of the Lahore Darbar

The queens, consorts and power-brokers who shaped the Sikh Empire — from Sada Kaur, who made Ranjit Singh's rise to power possible, to Rani Jindan, who governed as regent, resisted the British, was exiled from her own son, and died in London. The women the standard histories put in the margins were, in several cases, the story itself.

Foreign Officers at the Lahore Court

The European and foreign commanders who modernised the Khalsa army — Allard, Ventura, Avitabile, Court, Van Cortlandt, Gardner. How soldiers of Napoleon built the force the British came closest to losing to, and why Général Court's coin collection vanished for a century before resurfacing at an English provincial book sale in 1994.

Gifts & Diplomacy

The exchange of gifts between the Lahore Darbar and the East India Company — from the silver bungalow at Ropar in 1831 and the grand review at Ferozepur in 1838, to the extraction of the Koh-i-Noor in 1849. Each object exchanged was a political statement; each gift carried a calculation.

Coin, Commerce & Control

How the weight differentials of the Sikh Empire's mint network — from Amritsar's Nanakshahi to Peshawar's trade rupee — constitute a recoverable map of the late Silk Road corridor and the political economy of Sikh rule. The sarrafs of Gor Khatri, the Peshawar series weight sequence, and the exchange mechanisms of the Afghan frontier.

The Morashahi Rupee

Between VS 1861 and VS 1868, the calligraphers of the Amritsar mint hid a peacock within the Persian legend on selected rupees — commemorating Ranjit Singh's relationship with the courtesan Moran inside the very text that acknowledged the Guru's sovereignty. Four types identified, including a previously undocumented VS 1868 specimen.

Sikh Tokens

The copper and brass tokens issued across the Sikh Empire and the Cis-Sutlej states — bazaar currency, commercial tokens, and the small-denomination pieces that circulated where the silver rupee did not reach. Includes the new attribution of the Bikramjit token published in JONS 261 (Autumn 2025).

The Khanda That Wasn’t

An examination of the claim that a Khanda-like symbol on certain Mughal coins represents Sikh influence. The symbol is shown to be a standard decorative motif appearing across multiple reigns and mints — predating the modern Khanda emblem by over two centuries. A case study in numismatic myth-making.

Sikh Stamps

Feudatory stamp issues of Faridkot, Patiala, Nabha and Jind; British India's commemoratives; Republic of India issues honouring the Gurus and Sikh figures; and worldwide issues from Canada, Pakistan, Malaysia, Uganda and beyond. The Sikh world rendered in postage.

Sikh Numismatic Scholarship

The succession of scholars who documented, classified and interpreted the coins of the Khalsa — from Cunningham and Rodgers in the colonial era through Herrli's die studies and the definitive Sidhu–Spink catalogue of 2022. A guide to the literature of Sikh coinage, with an account of the online archive of SikhCoins.in (founded 2003 as numis.in; registered 2009) and the published research of Jeevandeep M Singh.