Kora mint

Mint - Kora

Obverse- Zarb falus Korah

Reverse- Ilahi 41, month farwardin

Kora is an ancient town in northern India in the Khaduja tehsil of Fathehpur District in the former British United province now Uttar Pradesh. It lies in lat, 26’ 7’ N and long. 80’ 22’ E on the Rind river some 20 k.m from Jamuna river between Kanpur and Fathehpur.( Encyclopedia of Islam by Sir, H.A.R. Gibbs)

In early times, it was held by the Rajput line of Rajas of Argal, and the fortress there may have their ancestral central. It was the scene of the famous meeting between Muizu’ddin and hid father in 1286 which forms the subject of Mir Khusru’s well-known Persian epic, the Kiranu’s Saadain.  Two sarkars of the Allahabad province bearing names liable to be confounded with each other in careless Persian writing, are Kora and Kara. They were later distinguished as Kora-Jahanabad and Kara-Manikpur. The two places are 70 miles apart east to west.( Jadunath Sarkar). Kora is also referred as ‘Kurrah’ in Marathi and Persian records.

Although Kora as a mint name on coins is found commonly for later mughals on silver coins, it is an extremely rare mint for coin of Akbar. Kora was the headquarter of a Sarkar having 9 Mahals, 341,170 Bighas, 10 Biswas with a revenue of 17,397,567 dams.

During Akbar’s reign, Kora minted only copper coins. The rarity of the coins from the mint can be estimated by the fact that less than 10 coins of this mint are known and some of the experienced collectors have even not seen one in their hand! The coins from this rare mint bear ilahi 41 and month farwardin only suggesting a very short life of the mint. Most probably a mint was established during one of the war campaigns by the mughal army.