The Bahmani “Currency Reform” of the Early Fifteenth Century in Light of the Akola Hoard

This article addresses the sudden upsurge in the production of copper coinage in peninsular India under the Bahmani sultanate, in the first decades of the fifteenth century. It begins with an analysis of the previously unpublished Akola Hoard, containing 713 Bahmani copper coins in four denominations. The nature of the coinage’s denominational structure elucidates how these abundant copper coins were used, and holds implications for the likely social identities of those who used them. The hoard also provides a sample of sufficiently large size to permit measuring the rate of weight loss through circulation, the variation in that rate from one denomination to another, and what this implies about the different velocities at which the various denominations circulated. Ultimately, it is argued that the inversion between silver and copper outputs reflects both global and local forces: globally, the pattern was shaped by changing forces of supply and demand for silver in the larger Indian Ocean sphere, while locally, it was shaped by the Bahmanis’ changing monetary response to a series of widespread famines in the opening decades of the fifteenth century.