For several centuries Ramatankas were the most popular form of religious token used by the Hindus in India. During their heyday, which was the inneteenth century, Ramatankas were used from the Ganges valley in the north to Trivandrum in the south, and from Calcutta in the east to Bombay in the west. In earlier times the use of Ramatankas had been more restricted, mainly because the use of pictorial Hindu religious tokens was not acceptable in the Moslem kingdoms which then ruled over northern India. That was a time when the use of Ramatankas was restricted to their original homeland in the Hindu kingdoms of the Central and Southern Deccan – to the south of the Moslems. The homeland of Ramatankas lay in the modern State of Karnataka.