Ancient Ruhuna, Lanka
2nd Century BCE. - 2nd Century CE
Lady and Svastika - Clockwise

SPECIFICATIONS Alloy Cu-Pb? Type Cast ? Height 32.0 mm Width 16.6 mm Thickness 2.5 mm Weight 6.38 gms Shape Oblong DieAxis 0°
OBRW#37

Obverse : Within raised rim, Standing lady with clear details of face eyes, nose, mouth, with ear-rings, clad in a broad girdle. Three bracelets on the forearms; on the legs below the knee three anklets. She stand on a large lotus and with her hands which are pendent, grasps two stalks of the same plant, springing from either side of the flower beneath her feet and ending about level of the shoulders in a small blossom, upon each of which stands a small elephant holding a water pot in his upturned trunk. the two trunks forming an arch over her head.
Reverse : A Railed svastika revolving to right (Clockwise). Svastika mounted on a staff on horizontal line base with four vertical lines rising from it, beneath are two horizontal lines. Curved w with horizonta; line avove on left, asana with line above on toght side of the staff.

The coloured Artwork of Lady standing on a lotus is a realistic representation of the stylised drawing on coin, is by Wildlife Artist Sanjaya Weeratunge. Note that the original artist who did the die cut for this ancient coin would have been constrained by needing to draw on a tiny canvas and would have needed to exaggerate the size of the jewelry etc.

Twenty Lakshmi and svastika lead coins (H.30 to H.49) with sizes 13 to 47 mm and weights from 0.5 to 16 grams that were found in Akurugoda are cataloged under Local Coins in 1999 by Osmund Bopearachchi and Rajah Wickramasinhe in the book Ruhuna. An Ancient Civilization Re-visited .
This coin is Plate Specimen H.37 and was marked by RW as XX Rare.

This is one variety of many coins of this type.

The coin was scanned at 600 dpi and displayed at 400 dpi. ex: Raja Wickramasinghe, it is from part of Lalith Raddella's collection I purchased in 2016 December.

Text edited from
* Ceylon Coins and Currency By H. W. Codrington. Colombo 1924
  Page 26-31 Chapter III - Appendix - Plaques - Pl 20 to Pl 25.
* Ruhuna. An Ancient Civilisation Re-visited by Bopearachchi and Wickramasinhe. 1999
  Page 91-93 Local coins - Lakshmi and Svastika - Pl H.30 to H.49.