Chola Dynasty [solved]

Rummaging through a pile of coins at the Nuneaton Flea Market this morning, I came across this unusual piece.


It is 20mm and 3.97
After a bit of searching I found a similar one on ebay with this description:-
"RAJA RAJ DYNASTY COIN, AD 985 - 1014
Diameter, 20mm
Weight, 4.38g
These south Indian bronze coins are also called “Octopus” coins by collectors. They are quite rare and a number of forged versions are also floating around to fool the amateur buyers."
Mine doesn't 'feel' all that old so I'm assuming it's a modern imitation. What do the experts think? I only paid 50 p for it so I'm not all that bothered, and I've had an educational trawl through Indian coins for a couple of hours.

Nice find. Actually there are similar coins of several rulers who followed Raja Raja Chola often incorrectly attributed to him. Matching the writing shows that this particular copper kahavanu (also called a massa) is actually of Bhuvanaiku Bahu (1273-1303) of the Chola Kingdom in Sri Lanka. I think that these are rarer than Raja Raja coins.

For example, see

http://www.abccoinsandtokens.com/Ceylon.M.0850.004.html

and

https://www.zeno.ru/showphoto.php?photo=129334

Yes, it's in very good shape for its age but I'm not aware of this particular coin being counterfeited. My vote is for genuine.

Thank you very much for all that info, Seeker. Fantastic. I've been reading all about Bhuvanaika Bahu and all his works and all his troubles. It's great to be able to recognize his name on the coin, and to recognize all the symbols where, before, it was just meaningless squiggles. Thanks again.

http://coins.lakdiva.org/medievallanka/polonnaruva.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonnaruwa_period

http://coins.lakdiva.org/medievallanka/dambadeniya.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Dambadeniya

beware of replicas!!