The Coinage of the Gupta Empire and its Imitations c8.17

c8.17

Pāṭaliputra, Gayā and Allahabad, which were certainly included in the kingdom of Chandragupta I, were important centres of trade and pilgrimage and must have had scores of gold coins of the later Kuṣāṇa rulers circulating in their bazars; one coin of this type was actually found in the Kumrāhār excavations near Pāṭaliputra in 1913 A. D. Unfortunately it was stolen from the Patna Museum. Its register number is 2092.¹ These coins could have supplied the prototype for the Gupta coinage in the reign of Chandragupta I. We need not, therefore, suppose that the Gupta coinage could not have started till late in the reign of Samudragupta, when the boundaries of the empire for the first time touched those of the later Kuṣāṇa kingdoms of the Punjab.