₹100 — One Hundred Rupees
The artwork
Front: No portrait at all: the Lion Capital of Ashoka from Sarnath stands in its own arched panel at the right, the state emblem doing the work a head of state would elsewhere. "Reserve Bank of India" runs across the top, with "Guaranteed by the Central Government" beneath, and the Hindi equivalents below that. The English promise to pay flanks a large white 100 on a green guilloche field. Red serials, top right and bottom left.
Back: A dam holds the centre: a long embankment running off into the distance, spillway gates, powerhouse sheds and cranes at the water's edge — the sort of multipurpose river project that stood for the planned economy of the Nehru years, and generally identified as Hirakud on the Mahanadi. At the left, a tall panel gives "one hundred rupees" in the official languages; below it the Reserve Bank seal with its palm and tiger.
In circulation
The Lion Capital design carried the hundred-rupee note from the early republic through to the mid-1990s, this particular signing belonging to the late 1970s or early 1980s. It was displaced by the Mahatma Gandhi series introduced in 1996, which put the 1946 portrait where the Sarnath capital had been.
Details
- IssuerReserve Bank of India — "Guaranteed by the Central Government"
- CurrencyRupee (₹)
- DenominationOne Hundred Rupees
- Collectedon the India journeys, 1992–2018
- SeriesLion Capital (Ashoka Pillar) issue, undated
- SignatureI. G. Patel, Governor
- SecurityRepeated "Reserve Bank" lettering worked into the underprint beside the central panel