Among primitive peoples trade was carried on by barter, that is, exchange in kind. Gradually, with the spread of civilising influences the inconvenience of promiscuous exchange made itself felt, and certain media were agreed upon and accepted by the community at large. Wealth in those early times being computed in cattle, it was only natural that the ox or cow should be employed for this purpose. In Europe, then, and also in India, the cow stood as the higher unit of barter. At the lower end of the scale, for smaller purchases, stood another unit which took various forms among different peoples—shells, beads, knives, and where those metals had been discovered, bars of copper or iron. In India the cowrie-shell, brought from the Maldive Islands, was so employed, and is still to be seen in many bazars in the shops of the smaller money-changers. The discovery of the precious metals carried the evolution of coinage a stage further: for the barter unit was substituted its value in metal, usually gold. The Greek stater and the Persian daric certainly, and possibly the Indian Suvarṇa, so frequently mentioned by Sanskrit authors, was the value of a full-grown cow in gold, calculated by weight. However this may be, in ancient India gold dust, washed out of the Indus and other rivers, served the purposes of the higher currency, and from 518 B.C. to about 350 B.C., when an Indian province or satrapy was included in the Achæmenid Empire of Persia, 360 talents in gold dust was, Herodotus tells us,[1] paid annually as tribute from the province into the treasury of the Great King.
Silver from natural sources was at that time less plentiful in India, but was attracted thither in large quantities in exchange for gold, which was cheaper there than elsewhere in the ancient world. The transition from metal weighed out to the required amount to pieces of metal of recognized weight and fineness regularized by the stamp of authority is not difficult of explanation. The great convenience of the latter would recommend them at once to the merchant, and to the ruler as the receiver of tribute and taxes. Both in Asia and Europe this transition can be illustrated from extant specimens; but, whereas in Europe and Western Asia, from the inscriptions which appeared early on the coins themselves and from outside evidence, we know the origin of the earliest coins and the names of the cities or districts which issued them, the origin of India’s earliest coinage, like so much of her early history, is still shrouded in mystery.
This much can be said, that in its earliest stages the coinage of India developed much on the same lines as it did on the shores of the Aegean. Certain small ingots of silver, whose only mark is three circular dots, represent probably the earliest form: next in order are some heavy bent bars of silver with devices stamped out with a punch on one side.[2] These two classes of coins are computed to have been in circulation as coins at least as early as 600 B.C., but they have not been found in any quantity. The time as well as the territory in which they circulated was probably therefore restricted. On the other hand, from almost every ancient site in India, from the Sundarbans in Bengal to Kābul, and as far south as Coimbatore, have been recovered thousands of what are known to numismatists as “Punch-marked coins” and to Sanskrit authors as Purāṇas (“ancient”) or Dharaṇas. These are rectangular (Pl. I, 2) and circular (Pl. I, 1) flat pieces of thin silver (much alloyed), or more rarely copper, cut from a hammered sheet of metal and clipped to the proper weight. One side (the obverse) is occupied by a large number of symbols impressed on the metal by means of separate punches. In the oldest coins the other, the reverse side, is left blank, but on the majority there appears usually one, sometimes two or three, minute punch marks; a few coins have both obverse and reverse covered with devices. These devices appear in wonderful variety—more than three hundred have been enumerated; they comprise human figures, arms, trees, birds, animals, symbols of Buddhist worship, solar and planetary signs. Much further detailed study of these coins will be needed before anything can be definitely stated about the circumstances under which they were minted. It seems probable that in India, as in Lydia, coins were first actually struck by goldsmiths or silversmiths, or perhaps by communal gilds (seṇi). Coins with devices on one side only are certainly the oldest type, as the rectangular shape, being the natural shape of the coin when cut from the metal sheet, may be assumed to be older than the circular; on the other hand, both shapes, and also coins with devices on one as well as on both sides, are found in circulation apparently at the same time. It has also been recently shown[3] that groups of three, four, and sometimes five, devices on the obverse are constant to large numbers of coins circulating within the same district. It may perhaps therefore be conjectured that the “punch-marked” piece was a natural development of the paper hundī, or note of hand; that the coins had originally been struck by private merchants and gilds and had subsequently passed under royal control; that they at first bore the seal of the merchant or gild, or combination of gilds, along with the seals of other gilds or communities who accepted them;[4] and that, when they passed under regal control, the royal seal and seals of officials were first added to, and afterwards substituted for, the private or communal marks. Be that as it may, we see here in the very earliest coinage the commencement of that fascination which the square coin seems to have exercised upon Indian moneyers of all periods; for it continually reappears, in the coins of the Muhammadan kingdoms of Mālwā and Kashmīr for example, in some beautiful gold and silver issues of the Mughals, Akbar and Jahāngīr, and even in the nineteenth century in copper pieces struck by the Bahāwalpūr State in the Panjāb. Most writers agree, as indeed their shape, form, and weight suggest, that the “punch-marked” coins are indigenous in origin, and owe nothing to any foreign influence. In what part of India they originated we do not know: present evidence and the little knowledge we possess of the state of India in those times indicate some territory in the north. As to the period during which they were in active circulation we are not left so completely at the mercy of conjecture. Finds and excavations tell us something: contemporary writers, Indian and foreign, drop us hints. Sir John Marshall records, during the recent excavations round Taxila, the find of 160 “punch-marked” coins of debased silver, with a coin in fine condition of Diodotos of Bactria (circ. 245 B.C.).[5] Then there is the interesting statement of the usually trustworthy Latin writer, Quintus Curtius, that Omphis (Āmbhi) presented “Signati argenti LXXX talenta”—“80 talents of stamped silver”—to Alexander at Taxila. These and similar pieces of evidence show us that “punch-marked” coins were well established in Northern India during the fourth and third centuries B.C., when the great Maurya Empire was at the height of its power. The large quantities continually being unearthed suggest a long period of circulation, so that in their earliest forms “punch-marked” coins may go back to the sixth century, and may have remained current in some districts of the north as late as the second century B.C. At some period, perhaps during the campaigns of the great Chandragupta and the settlement of the Empire under his grandson Aśoka, these coins became the established currency of the whole Indian peninsula, and in the southern districts, at least, they must have remained in circulation for three, perhaps four, centuries longer than in the north, for in Coimbatore district “punch-marked” coins have been found along with a denarius of the Roman Emperor Augustus; and some of the earliest individualistic coinages of the south, which apparently emerge at a much later period, the so-called “padma-ṭaṅkas,” for instance, seem to be the immediate successors of these “punch-marked” coins.
Now the distinction between north and south which has just been drawn in tracing the history of this primitive coinage is very important; for this same distinction enables us to divide the remaining ancient and mediæval Indian coins down to the fourteenth century into two classes, northern and southern. The reason for this is that Northern India, during that period, was subjected to a series of foreign invasions; the indigenous coinages of the north were therefore continually being modified by foreign influences, which, with a few exceptions to be noted, left the coinages of the south untouched, to develop by slow stages on strictly Indian lines. The coins of the south will be described in a separate chapter.
To return to Northern India: at the time of Alexander’s invasion the whole of North-Western India and the Panjāb was split up into a number of small states, some, like the important state of Taxila, ruled by a king, others governed by “aristocratic oligarchies.” Almost all the coins about to be dealt with are either of copper or brass, and the earliest of them were struck, doubtless, by the ruling authorities in these states. Even after their subjection to the great Maurya Emperors some of these states may have retained their coining rights, for it is a salient fact in the history of coins that coinage in the base metals in India and elsewhere has not, until quite recent times, been recognized, like coinage in gold and silver, as the exclusive privilege of the ruler. A striking example is afforded in the copper token money issued by private tradesmen in England during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. On the break up of the Maurya Empire, at the close of the third century, a number of small independent kingdoms sprang into existence, and these proceeded to issue coins, some bearing evident traces of foreign influence, but on the whole following Indian models closely enough to be included here.
No attempt can be made to deal with this class of coins exhaustively: a few typical examples only can be selected for description and illustration. The reader who wishes to pursue the subject further is referred for guidance to the Bibliography at the end of this book; and, since at present little attempt has been made to classify or examine these coins in any detail, fewer fields of research are likely to yield a richer reward to the patient student.
The earliest of these copper coins, some of which may be as early as the fifth century B.C., were cast. The casting of coins by pouring molten metal into a cavity formed by joining two moulds together must have been a very ancient practice in India. Sometimes the moulds of several coins were joined together for the casting process, and the joins thus left are not infrequently found still adhering to the coins (Pl. I, 3).[6] These coins are for the most part anonymous. Even after striking from dies had superseded this clumsy method in the North-West, we find cast coins being issued at the close of the third century by the kingdoms of Kauśāmbī, Ayodhyā and Mathurā, some of which bear the names of local kings in the Brāhmī[7] script.
The earliest die-struck coins, with a device on one side of the coin only, have been assigned to the end of the fourth century B.C. Some of these, with a lion device, were certainly struck at Taxila, where they are chiefly found. Others present various Buddhist symbols, such as the bodhi-tree, svastika, or the plan of a monastery, and may therefore belong to the time of Aśoka, when Buddhism first reached the North-West, or Gandhāra, as the territory was then called. The method of striking these early coins was peculiar, in that the die was impressed on the metal when hot, so that a deep square incuse, which contains the device, appears on the coin. A similar incuse appears on the later double-die coins of Pañchāla (Pl. I, 4), Kauśāmbī, and on some of Mathurā. This method of striking may have been introduced from Persia, and was perhaps a derivative from the art of seal-engraving.
In the final stage of die-striking, devices were impressed on both sides of the coin, and the best of these “double-die” coins show not only greater symmetry of shape, either round or square, but an advance in the art of die-cutting. Some of the earliest of this type have been classed as gild tokens. The finest were struck in Gandhāra: among these one of the commonest, bearing a lion on the obverse, and an elephant on the reverse (Pl. I, 5), is of special importance, since an approximate date can be assigned to it, for it was imitated by the Greek princes, Pantaleon (Pl. II, 2) and Agathokles, who reigned on the North-West frontier about the middle of the second century B.C. In the execution and design of some die-struck coins from the North-West there are undoubted traces of foreign influences: but such devices as the humped bull, the elephant and the religious symbols are purely Indian. There is, on the other hand, little foreign influence traceable in the die-struck coins, all closely connected in point of style, which issued during the first and second centuries B.C. from Pañchāla, Ayodhyā, Kauśāmbī and Mathurā. A number of these bear Brāhmī inscriptions, and the names of ten kings, which some would identify with the old Śuṅga dynasty, have been recovered from the copper and brass coins of Pañchāla, found in abundance at Rāmnagar in Rohilkhand, the site of the ancient city Ahichhatra. Similarly twelve names of kings appear on the Mathurā coins, but we have little knowledge of these kingdoms beyond what the coins supply. Certain devices are peculiar to each series: thus most of the Ayodhyā coins have a humped bull on the obverse, the coins of Kauśāmbī a tree within a railing.
In the coins of Eraṇ[8] we have an illustration, as Rapson says, “of the development of the punch-marked system into the die system.” These coins are rectangular copper pieces (Pl. I, 6), and the device on each consists of a collection of symbols like those which appear on the “punch-marked” coins, but struck from a single die. They are specially interesting in that they represent the highest point of perfection reached by purely Indian money. Some of these, in common with a class of round coins found at Ujjain (Avanti), display a special symbol, the “cross and balls,” known from its almost universal occurrence on the coins of ancient Mālwā as the Mālwā or Ujjain symbol.
Key to Plate I
Note.—Where it has been impossible to ascertain the weight of the particular coin illustrated, the average weight of coins of its class has been given; all such weights are qualified by the word “about.”
Plate I
Plate II
Key to Plate II
Though its territory lay partially in Southern India, it will be convenient to include here the coinage of the great Andhra dynasty, since several of its issues are closely connected with the currency of the north. The Andhras probably became independent about the year 230 B.C., and their rule lasted for four and a half centuries. Their coins of various types have been found in Mālwā, on the banks of the Krishna and Godavari rivers, the original home of the race, as far south as Madras, in north Konkan, and elsewhere in the Deccan and the Central Provinces. The earliest to which a date can be assigned are those bearing the name of a king Śrī Sāta, about 150 B.C. Most Andhra coins are either of billon[10] or lead, with Brāhmī legends on both obverse and reverse, and characteristic devices are the elephant, chaitya (Buddhist chapel), and bow (Pl. I, 7). Sometimes the “Ujjain symbol” appears on the reverse. One issue, in lead, of Vasishṭhīputra Śrī Pulumāvi (about A.D. 130) is interesting, in that it has on the obverse a ship with two masts, and was evidently intended for circulation on the Coromandel coast. Coins have been assigned to seven Andhra kings, the latest of which, Śrī Yajña Sātakarṇī (about A.D. 184), struck not only the usual lead and billon coins, but restruck and imitated the silver hemidrachms of the satrap Nahapāna (Pl. III, 1). The Andhra lead coinage was copied by one or two feudatory chiefs in Mysore and North Kanara.