Souvenir from India

[Figleaf]

This piece is 12.4 grams, 30.7 millimeters. There's a hindu deity between fire altars holding a lotus (?) on the obverse, so why is there Arabic on te reverse? And why the denomination? Can you identify the deity?

And since I'm asking questions, would you remove the verdigris?

Peter

[muntenman]

This is a genuine temple coin of South India with the Hanuman(Ape-Commander). Because it is a fact that the Southern Part of India has been stuffed with lots of temples dedicated to 1 specific character of the Hindu-Pantheon, and that under King AKBAR of the Moghul-empire people were granted religious freedom, Arabic text can appear only at Southern Coins or, in this case, tokens.

Tokens were mainly sold to tourists for different admittance fee's.

[Figleaf]

Temple token, sure, but I have since posting found out that the Arabic is Urdu (DU PAI), pointing to the West of India. While I don't trust the date, the piece is certainly not modern. It's copper or bronze with the correct sort of size and weight of a genuine coin of the Raj. The attributes do no seem like Hanuman to me. My guess would be Shiva, but I didn't want to guide thoughts and was hoping for a confirmation.

Peter

[muntenman]

Hanuman is allways walking with such al large honkbalclub  and the figure to me seems to be having an monkey face...

[Figleaf]

Comment from our expert: this is a fantasy temple token, presumably 1980's or 1990's. Likely from a small factory in Ratlam. They occur often, they show the complete Indian pantheon and very often a denomination related to the British East India Company. The date 1818 is often used on these pieces, but it is purely fantasy.

Oops. I'll quickly move this medal.

Peter