Nepal Sambat on Nepali coins

Silver 'mohars' bearing the home-grown era once circulated on either side of the Himalaya.

As a merchant in Lhasa in the 1940s, one of my father's main businesses was exporting old Nepali coins to India. Tonnes of them. These silver mohars were no longer used as money in Tibet and were traded for their bullion value. The coins were transported from Lhasa to Kalimpong by mule caravan and from there to Kolkata by motor and rail. In Kolkata, the coins were melted down and cast into bars and then shipped back to Tibet. Long lines of pack mules snaked over the Himalayan passes going back and forth between Kalimpong and Lhasa—carrying coins one way and silver bars the other way. Many Nepali merchants like my father talk about sending whole caravans laden with silver mohars to Kalimpong.