The coinage of the old Keraḷa country, the Malabar coast, was, in 1657, the Portuguese Viaggio di Vincenzo Maria informs us, in the hands of the rulers of four states, Kannanur, Kalikat, Cochin and Travancore. It is distinguished from that of the rest of the peninsula by its large employment of silver, the most remarkable among these silver coins being the _tārēs_, said to have been struck in Kalikat, which have a _śaṅkha_ shell on the obverse and a deity on the reverse, and weigh only from one to two grains each. The same device, a _śaṅkha_ shell, appears on the silver _puttans_ of Cochin, struck both by the Dutch and the native rulers, and also on the old and modern silver _vellis_ of Travancore. Various gold fanams were current in Travancore before the nineteenth century, the oldest, known as the _rasi_, also has a _śaṅkha_ on the obverse, and is closely allied to the “Vīra rāya” fanams of Kalikat. During the eighteenth century the copper coinage of Travancore was known as the “Anantan kāsu”; on the obverse was a five-headed cobra, and on the reverse the value of the coin, one, two, four or eight “cash” written in Tamil. In the years 1764 and 1774 the Moplah chief of Kannanur, ’Alī Rāja, struck double silver and gold fanams with Persian inscriptions, recording his name and the date (Pl. VII, 13). The Muhammadan coinage of Mysore is reserved for a later chapter. [Illustration: Fig. 7. The Kalima in ornate Arabic script on early tankah of Altamsh.] VII THE MUHAMMADAN DYNASTIES OF DEHLĪ