The genesis of this book was in a doctoral dissertation, Mughal Silver Coin Hoards of Uttar
Pradesh, 1560-1760, submitted to the Charles University, Prague in 1999. I must express
my gratitude to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the University of London for awarding
me in 1991 the T. G. Masaryk Scholarship which enabled me to visit the School of Oriental and
African Studies in London and to use its splendid library. My great thanks are due to the Librarian
at SOAS, Miss Barbara Burton, who was most helpful in making my soujourn there as productive
and comfortable as possible. I must thank to doc. dr. Miloslav Vošvrda, DrSc. from the UTIA,
Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic who was always ready to advise me on the more
intricate problems of statistical evaluation of the numismatic material. Mr Deepak Bhojwani,
the Minister at the Indian Embassy, Prague, invested a great deal of personal energy into arranging
my trip to India in 1999 during which I was able to consult the problems concerning the
interpretation of coin hoards with Indian historians and numismatists. I am particularly grateful
to Prof. Dr. Dietmar Rothermund from the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University and to
Dr. Lakshmi Subramanian from the University of Calcutta who read the whole manuscript and
encouraged me to go ahead with its publication; to Pratip Kumar Mitra, Keeper in the State
Archaeological Museum of West Bengal, Calcutta and to prof. B. N. Mukherjee from the
University of Calcutta who recommended me to visit the Indian Institute of Research in
Numismatic Studies (IIRNS) in Anjaneri. Its Director, Mr. Amiteshwar Jha and the staff of the
library were most helpful in making available to me not only all the relevant literature but also
the detailed reports of coin hoards found in Maharashtra. My greatest thanks are due to the
founder of this admirable institution, Shri K. K. Maheshwari for his personal commitment
which made possible the publication of the book in the present form. For any mistakes and
shortcomings of this work, of course, the responsibility is solely mine.