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Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c9.s2: (b) Symbols on Punch-Marked Coins

Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c9.s2

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(b) Symbols on Punch-Marked Coins

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The Punch-marked coins of silver of which not less than 50,000 have been found all over India from Taxila to Mysore, show over 500 symbols. It appears that when for actual building and statuary the practice was to use timber only, for actual coins beads and ornaments they were freely using gold, silver and semi-precious stones. The silver coins are mostly flat pices of silver cut from strips and reduced to a standard weight by clipping the edges and corners, and finely stamped with a number of symbols or signs on the obverse and reverse sides.

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The dating of these coins is fairly known (c. 800-200 B. C.). The Pāli literature refers to them as having been current in the time of King Bimbisāra when Rājagṛiha was the capital in the sixth century B. C. The earliest coins go back to the real Janapada period, when besides Magadha similar coins were issued by the Kosala Janapada and the Śūrasena Janapada. In that first stage the standard weight of a coin was 20 māshas of silver (called Vimśatika) and 30 māshas (called Trimśatka). Some of these early coins are cup-shaped, stamped with bold rayed symbols on one side only, dating from c. 8th-7th cent. B. C. According to Pāṇini and the Pāli texts these coins were called Kārshāpaṇa, but we do not find this term in the Brāhmaṇa literature and it may be assumed that this coinage was introduced at the close of the Brāhmaṇa period in about 800 B. C.

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Pāṇini mentions in many Sūtras several classes of Kārshāpaṇa coins and this is the only coinage known to the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya. This coinage had become well established in a series of 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, both in silver and copper.

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The second stage in its development was reached in the Nanda period (fifth cent. B. C.) when the weight standard of 32 rattis was fixed and a system of five bold obverse symbols with several smaller signs on the reverse was introduced. The intention was to indicate the dynasty, king, locality and the issuing authority. The symbols of this Intermediate period are extremely well done in bold outline and clearly stamped on a somewhat broad flat surface.

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The third stage was reached during the Mauryan period when the coins became stumpy pieces cut from thicker sheets of silver or cast as nodules and beaten with hammer into round flattened shape. The symbols are jumbled and overlapping.

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A study of these symbols over 500 in number, brings to our view a strange world, believing in the representation or depiction of the beliefs of the people in the form of various symbols or signs. The foremost place is taken by the solar symbol, Sūrya, which is found almost without exception on all the Puncha-marked coins of ancient India. Sūrya is represented as a rayed figure with a circle in the centre having a point or pellet within it. The rays are both thick and thin, straight and curved. The next place is given to a six-armed symbol (Shaḍara, Hindi छरारा) which consists of six spokes crossing at centre, the six arms being tipped by ovals, globes, tridents, taurines, arrow-heads, triangles, balls, heart-shaped signs, dumbles, etc.

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The next group belongs to the four great animals (Mahā-Ajāneya Paśu) which were held sacred much anterior to Buddhism and of which the earliest traces are found in the Indus Valley and the Ṛigveda. They include the bull, elephant, lion, and horse rarely. Another symbol is that of a crescent-topped mount which is associated with the Mauryan dynasty. Amongst other interesting signs are the wheel, tree in railing with and without birds, tank with fish, hare, peacock, frog, tortoise bow and arrow, combinations of taurines, squares with a Svastika inside, intersecting triangles, caduceus, Chakradhvaja (Chakra-topped standard in railing), elongated dice-pieces (*Śalākā*), triskeles (*Triphaṇa*), flowers, beetles, Pañjaka (hand-impression in a square), and a group of three human figuring of whom two are male and one female. An interesting symbol is the triangle-headed standard of which there are several variants, but it appears to have been an ancient symbol having a link with the Indradhvaja or Vaijayantī standard sacred to Indra. If we look before and after the symbols on Punch-marked coins are tell-tale, furnishing links with the preceding ages when the Vedic people left behind a trail of animal and geometrical figurines as part of their religious symbolism to which we have drawn attention earlier (ante pp. 45-47). On the other hand the corpus of Punch-marked symbols is transmittel to succeeding generations and the cue is taken up by the tribal coins and sealings (c. 2nd century B.C.—2nd century A.D.). No doubt is left that the people and the authorities who were issuing the seals and the coins were saturated with a belief in the sacred meaning of these numerous symbols. The broad area from Taxila to Ujjain and from Nagari near Chittor to Bihar comes before our eyes as concentrating on the continuity of these symbols. In the Tribal period besides the earlier signs some new ones were added, e. g. *Svastika* and a pair of *Nāgas* (*Nāga-mudrā*) as well as four balls round the four arms of a *Svastika*, sometimes having shorter *Svastika* signs within them. The story of the signs and symbols as gathered from coins, sealings, pottery and beads manufactured during this long period of about 800 years is a commentary on the visual representation and meaning of Indian art.

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