Hinduja Foundation spends Rs 1 crore on curating ancient coins

The Hinduja Group charity, Hinduja Foundation Antiquity Collection, has spent Rs 1 crore on cataloguing and researching on around 35,000 'ancient coins of India', a rare collection of ancient coins donated to it by a late British army man.
These collections comprise over 35,000 coins, artifacts and antiquities acquired over 65 years, with the major part of the collection being a large number of coins of ancient India and go back 2,600 years, the foundation said.
"We have spent Rs 1 crore on cataloguing and researching on these ancient coins and we are ready to spend more as we are doing this for a cause," Hinduja Group chairman Ashok P Hinduja said here, while unveiling the collections to the public at the WTC.

The collection also includes paintings, bronzes and stone sculptures, terracotta's, woodcarvings, erotica, textile, beads, photo archives and rare books. The antiquities of the collection are of historical interest, dating back 2600 years and illustrate the art, crafts, literature, science, religion and customs of the bygone ages of India.
"There is no business involved in this as we are doing it out of passion and hence we have not made any budget for the programme," he said, adding going forward they plan to collaborate with different museums in different cities to display this rarest of rare coin collection.
These coins were sourced by the late British army officer Lance Dane, who donated them to the Hinduja Foundation. The coins were put on a private viewing here last evening called the 'Lance Dane Bequest'. Dane lived in India much after the British had left the country.

Most of the coins are silver, copper, lead, potin (a mixture of cobalt, tin and arsenic) and gold fanams. Some of the coin series are probably the most comprehensive representations of entire dynasties like Satavahana dynasty (150 BC to 250 AD).
The collection has punch marked Mudras, the earliest known coins of the country, and are amongst the best known. It also highlights another dynasty Western Kshatrapas (1st to 5th AD) that is known through its coinage only and is amongst the earliest dated coins of India.