Audumbara

The coins

Audumbara coinage is among the more interesting of the northern series. It uses both Brahmi and Kharoṣṭhī legends, which places the people at the meeting point of the northwestern and the Gangetic scripts, and its types include a domed building that is usually read as a shrine, an elephant, and a standard combining a trident with an axe.

Several coins name individuals with the title of king, and others carry a title suggesting a religious rather than a purely secular authority. Because of this the Audumbaras are sometimes classed with the monarchies rather than the corporations, and the question is not settled by the material itself.

Placement

Pāṇini and later grammatical literature name the Audumbaras among the peoples of the north, and the find spots of their coins concentrate around Pathankot and the Kangra valley. The name is associated in the texts with the udumbara fig, and a derivation from a sacred tree is plausible without being demonstrable.

They disappear from the record as the Kushans extend their authority over the Punjab in the first century CE.