Riwaj-i-Sikka Allah-u-Akbar’, Legend on rev: ‘Buwad ba Qila Bandhu Barabar’. Translation: May the current coin of Akbar the divine, be equal to the (name of) the fort of Bandhu’. An alternate translation does not have Akbar invoke divine status unto himself but rather the traditional meaning of Allah-u-Akbar, wherein he invokes the favour of God. The fortress of Bandhu in modern day Bandhavgarh (Madhya Pradesh) is thought to be 2,000 years old. The area today is home to a popular tiger reserve. This issue must have been struck when the fortress was occupied by Akbar’s army. It is the only Mughal issue with this mint name. Note From Jan Lingen: Akbar’s army had captured it after a siege of over eight months in the 42nd Ilahi year. Whitehead has listed this place in his “The Mint-towns of the Mughal Emerors of India” in 1912. The basis on which his information relied were two silver coins that he had seen but never published. It is said that the coins were subsequently lost. Subsequently catalogues of the Mughal coins in Lahore, Lucknow, Calcutta, and Nagpur Museums were published but none of them records any coins of this place. According to P.L. Gupta, who compiled an (not published) up-to-date catalogue of the Mughal coins in British Museum, no such a rupee is represented either. K.K. Maheshwari in Numismatic Digest, vol.VIII (1984) p.81-82, was the first to publish a coin of this mint. The couplet recorded on this coin reads as follows: “Riwaj Sikka Allah Akbar / Bud ba-qila-e-Bhāndo barabar” (May the words Allahu Akbar [stamped on] the current coin be equal to the [name of] Qila [fortress] Bāndho). The coin is not dated, but it may well be presumed that the coin was issued at the time of the siege of the fortress in the 42nd Ilahi year.