Meet Giridhar Sripathi, the keeper of rare ancient coins

Hyderabad: For most of the day, Giridhar Sripathi is a data scientist at Oracle Corporation in the city. In between, he can be seen studying for a part-time PhD from National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur in Artificial Intelligence. And in his free time, Sripathi is a numismatist whose collection, according to him, has over 2,800 […]

Hyderabad: For most of the day, Giridhar Sripathi is a data scientist at Oracle Corporation in the city. In between, he can be seen studying for a part-time PhD from National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur in Artificial Intelligence. And in his free time, Sripathi is a numismatist whose collection, according to him, has over 2,800 ancient coins, spanning various rulers, dynasties and kingdoms.

“When I was a teenager, my grandmother gave me my first Victoria silver coin which belonged to East India Company and since then I developed the hobby of collecting coins,” he says.

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From that gifted coin, the collection grew, as Sripathi added early medieval period coins (500 – 1300 AD), late medieval period coins (1300 – 1700 AD), Mughal era coins (1526–1761) Mysore Kingdom coins, Indian Princely States coins and so on, all in gold, silver and copper.

“We know very few Mughal rulers like Babur, Humayun, Shah Jahan and Akbar. But there are nearly 26 rulers in the dynasty. Previously, whenever the ruler changed, the coins would change accordingly with the ruler’s picture printed on it. Out of 26 rulers, I managed to collect those of 24. The price of the remaining two coins goes into lakhs and is out of my budget,” he says.

Sripathi, who is also a member of the Rashtriya Mudra Parishad and the Indian Coins and Currency Group, says, “These groups exchange coins. I also save my salary to buy these coins from exhibitions and auctions across the country.”

He reaches out to the historians and other coin collectors, who help him differentiate between fake and real coins. At present, he is focusing on collecting Janapadas and Mahajanapadas, known as Vedic period coins on the Indian subcontinent which are too rare and expensive.

“It’s very difficult to get the collection of Janapadas and Mahajanapadas, as they date back to the 6th century BC. They are handmade too. Unlike other coins, they have the elements of nature like water, sun, trees, fire, etc. and they are not round in shape like other coins,” he points out.

The Miyapur resident is willing to display and explain about the coins to school children. Those interested can contact him over Ph. No. 95507 12233.

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