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Copper coins bearing the figure of Siva holding trident with battle-axe in his right hand and leopard skin hanging from his left arm with early Brahmi legend around on the obverse and a deer facing an arched symbol with a railed tree at the back and some subsidiary symbols in the field on the reverse have a long history of their first discovery while digging a canal at Behat near Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh in 1834. It was in 1891 that Alexander Cunningham deciphered the legend as Bhagavato Chatreswara Mahatana and because of the resemblance of their reverse device to the silver coins which he identified as those of the Kuninda people, Cunningham listed them as the Kuninda coins. John Allan, J.N. Banerjea, K.K. Dasgupta, M.C. Joshi and Ajay Mitra Shastri have attempted to modify the legend which has now been generally accepted to be Bhagavata(/o) Ch(i)tresvara Mahatmana(h).Chitresvara is the name under which Siva is still worshipped in Uttarakhand.\n\nCunningham’s attribution of these coins to the Kunindas has remained a dogma and many scholars and collectors continue to follow it. I have studied hundreds of specimens of a big unpublished hoard from Garhwal and various institutional and private collections, fixed their provenience and classified them into three classes and five types bringing to light more than a hundred of their varieties attributing them to the Yaudheyas.
Devendra Handa is an eminent art historian and numismatist. He is the recipient of Sir Mortimer Wheeler Prize; Maulana Azad, Archaeological Centenary Commemoration, Pt. Bhagwanlal Indraji and Nelson Wright medals; N.M. Lowick grant (twice in 1992 and 2005) of the Royal Numismatic Society, London; Fellowship of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla (2000-2003), Senior Fellowship (Numismatics) of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India (2003-05) and Senior Academic Fellowship of the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi (2009-11). He presided over the 88th Annual Conference of the Numismatic Society of India at Nagpur in 2004; Seminar on Coinage of the North-West India at Chandigarh in 2005; Annual Session of the Centre for History, Archaeology, Epigraphy and Numismatics of the University of Mumbai in 2018 and Annual Session of the Indian Art History Congress at Patiala in 2019. The Numismatic Society of India, the Indian Coin Society and the Gwalior Chapter of INTACH; Numismatic Research Institute, Nagpur and the International Collectors? Society of Rare Items, Pune have bestowed upon him Lifetime Achievement Awards. Haryana Institute of Fine Arts honoured him with Karmayogi Samman in 2011-12 and the Buddhist Society of Haryana felicitated him for his contribution to Buddhist studies in the state in that year. He has attended numerous national and international conferences and delivered lectures in various universities, museums and research institutes. He has contributed articles, research papers, notes, etc. to various national and international journals; to the multi-volume Encyclopedia of Hinduism of the Indian Heritage Research Foundation, Parmarth Niketan, Rishikesh; various felicitation and commemoration volumes and some chapters to the eleven-volume series ?A History of Ancient India? being published by the Vivekananda International Foundation and Aryan Books International. Presently he is
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