Clueless

Recorded history lists around 232 erstwhile Bhutanese administrators (Druk Desis, Penlops, Dzongpens and Je Khenpos), most of whom would have struck coins starting from 1790 to 1907. Two among them – Paro Penlop Tshering Penjor and Gongzim Sonam Tobgay Dorji may have continued to issue coins beyond 1907 because they were the only two persons authorized to issue their own coins, post 1907. All others would have halted coin production, upon establishment of the hereditary Wangchuck Dynasty.

A careful study of the designs of Bhutan’s early coins suggests that none of the above issuing authorities paid heed to what they were doing. What they were doing was striking their coins with Bengali scripts/alphabets on them. The following were the Bengali alphabets that continued to feature on our coins:

These are the most numerous Bengali alphabets found on Bhutan's early coins

This coin is actually the reverse of Wangdue Dzongpen's (also called Wangzob) coin struck between 1835 - 1910

One reason could be that they were unaware that they were Bengali alphabets/scripts. I believe that they assumed them to be some cute designs or motifs. So they continued to strike their coins, without realizing that they were actually striking coins with half the names of some the Maharajas of Cooch Behar. This would have happened because one of the designs they borrowed from belonged to the following coin of Maharaja Devendranarayan (1764-1766)  of Cooch Behar.

Maharaja Devendranarayan's coin which inspired most of Bhutan's early coins' designs

Thus some of our coins ended up with the following design – among the most numerous:

The obverse of one of Bhutan's Maartams

They merely inserted a Bhutanese “Sa” in the design, in front of the Bengali word “ndra”. What they did not know is that “ndra” is later half of the names of some of the Cooch Behar Maharajas of the time:

Mahi ndra Narayan

Upe  ndra Narayan

Deve  ndra Narayan

Dhairje  ndra Narayan

The following is a comparison of one of our Maartrums with that of the original Narayani coin from which was derived our coins’ designs:

The obverse of Bhutanese Maartrum on the left, as opposed to that of Maharajan Devendranarayan's 1/2 Rupee coin.

Except for the Bengali “Sa” at the bottom center on the Narayani coin, everything is a perfect match!

NOTE: During the late 1760's Bhutan had so much influence over Cooch Behar that Maharaja Dharendranarayan was actually installed on the Cooch throne by Bhutan.

PS: Addendum at 12:07PM : 15:03:2020
I realize that I failed to explain our connection with Cooch Behar. Bhutan’s most active trading partner those days was Tibet and Cooch Behar. Thus although we used coins from Tibet, British Indian, Chinese, French Indian coins from Arcot and Assamese coins, the most abundant was the Narayani coins from Cooch Behar. We not only extensively used their coins, but during later years we even stole their dies and carried away metal workers from Cooch Behar and took them to places like Thimphu, Wangdue, Dagana and Trongsa – where they were put to work to hammer coins.

Two villages – one each in Wangdue and Enduchoeling in Trongsa, have descendants from these captives, now integrated into mainstream Bhutanese society.