by Kai Uramas, some five thousand years ago, the
sun was in the sign of Asad (Leo), the highest tower in the heavens, and
the lion was therefore taken as the Persian emblem, and it so remained
without the sun over it, as now shown, till about six hundred years ago.
Ghazan Khan, who then reigned as King, was so attached to his wife, the
Queen Khurshed (the Sun), that he desired to perpetuate her name by
putting it on the coins he struck; but the Ulema objected to a woman's
name on the King's coin, whereupon he decided to put her face on a
rising sun above the national emblem of the lion, as now seen in the
well-known royal arms of Persia. The story is that King Ghazan's
affection for his Queen, Khurshed, was such that he styled her Sham'bu
Ghazan (the Light of Ghazan).

This may have been the origin of the expression Khurshed Kullah, or
Sun-crowned, which I have seen stated is a term that was used to denote
the Sovereign of an empire, but from the fact of the features and style
of dressing the hair shown in the sun-picture being those of a woman, I
think the title may be regarded as applied only to queens. Catherine II.
of Russia, from the magnificence of her Court, her beauty and ambition,
and her fame in love and war, was known in Persia during her lifetime as
Khurshed Kullah, and she is still designated by that title.

I would here mention another instance of a Mohammedan monarch desiring
to publish to his people in the most sovereign manner his high regard
for a wife by putting her name on the current coin. The reign of the
Emperor Jehangir, son of Akbar the Great, the founder of the Moghul
Empire in India and the builder of Agra, was chiefly remarkable for the
influence exercised over him by his favourite wife, Nur Mahal, the Light
of the Harem, immortalized by Moore in 'Lalla Rookh.' The currency was
struck in her name, and we are also told that in her hands centred all
the intrigues that make up the work of Oriental administration. She lies
buried by the side of her husband at Lahore, the capital of the Punjab.

The subject of Ghazan Khan's succession to the throne of Persia is an
unusually interesting one. He was a Moghul chief of the line of Chengiz
Khan, and, holding Persia in tributary dependence for his sovereign
master the Khakan, was at the head of one hundred thousand tried Tartar
warriors. Persia was then Mohammedan, and the proposal was made to him
to join the new faith, and become the King-elect of an