One of the most important results of Aḥmad Shāh’s repeated invasions of the Panjāb was the formation of the Sikh League, known as the Ḵẖ̱ālsā. After the seventh invasion, in 1764, the League assumed the right of coinage; and from that date till 1777, with a gap of two years, 1766-67, for Aḥmad Shāh’s last invasion, “Gobindshāhī” rupees were struck at Lāhor, so-called from the name of the Gūrū Gobind being included in the Persian couplet, which formed the inscription. Amritsar, _Ambratsar_ on the coins, became a mint in 1777. Its earliest rupees, known as “Nānakshāhī,” bore a different couplet (Pl. XII, 10). A few coins were also struck at Anandgarh. All Sikh coins are dated in the Samvat era.[71] The coins of Rañjīt Siṅgh (1799-1839) are of two distinct kinds, those with Persian (often very faulty) and those with Gurmukhī[72] inscriptions. Rupees of the Persian couplet type appear regularly from the mints of Lāhor and Amritsar throughout his reign, from Multān after 1818, from Kashmīr after 1819; and a few rupees are known from Peshāwar, Jhaṅg and Pind Dādan Khān. The king’s name was never inscribed on the coinage; but the characteristic Sikh “leaf” mark makes its appearance upon his earliest rupee, dated S. 1857 (= A.D. 1800). During the Samvat years 1861-63, first a peacock’s tail and then a thumb-mirror appears on the Amritsar rupees; these are said to bear reference to Rañjīt’s favourite dancing girl, Mora. A curious rupee of Lāhor of S. 1885 displays the figures of Gūrū Nānak and his Muhammadan follower, Mardānā. Rañjīt Siṅgh also coined muhars similar in style to the rupees. [71] The Samvat, which corresponds with the Vikrama era, begins in 58 B.C. [72] Gurmukhī is a Panjāb provincial form of the Nāgarī script (cf. Fig. 10). About the year S. 1885, apparently, the Gurmukhī coins were introduced. A few gold and silver coins are known, but most are copper, some weighing as much as 600 grains. The inscriptions are generally religious in character; the commonest is _Akāl Sahāī, Gūrū Nānakjī_, “O, Eternal one help us! Guru Nānakjī!”[73] The reverse gives the date and mint, generally Ambratsar. The script is usually very crude, and the “leaf” mark is almost invariably present. Some coins, like those of Kashmīr, have bilingual legends in Persian and Gurmukhī. Rupees of the Persian couplet type continued to be struck after Rañjīt’s death, in S. 1896, till S. 1905 (= A.D. 1848). The chiefs of the Sikh states, Patiāla, Jhind, Nābha and Kaital, and the Dogra Rājas of Kashmīr, after A.D. 1846, also coined rupees of this type. On some of these last was inscribed, on account of its supposed talismanic power, the Christian monogram I.H.S. [73] The two parts of this legend are quite separate in sense.