Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c10: Lecture V. History of Coinage in Ancient India

Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c10

Language
English

Contents

Lecture V. History of Coinage in Ancient India

c10.2

In this lecture I propose to deal, briefly of course, with the history of coinage in ancient India. I am afraid, I shall have here to go over some of the ground which I have traversed in my previous lectures. The earliest period to which the use of coinage can be traced is that which saw the rise and development of the Vedic literature. As Professor Winternitz has told us, this period commences in all probability with 2500 B.C. I hope you remember his views on this point which I quoted in my second lecture when I was discussing the ‘Antiquity of Coinage.’ In my third lecture, as you will remember, I had to treat of the Kārshāpaṇa coinage, specimens of which are reported to have been picked up in the excavations of the Pāṇḍu-kuṛis or megaliths of India with which the southern part especially is studded. The date of these megaliths unfortunately has not yet been definitely established; and although it is possible that some of them were anterior to the Aryan immigration into India, it is on the whole safe to assign them to 1500 B.C., *i.e.* later than the beginning of the Vedic period. It will thus be seen that the remotest antiquity to which the use of coins can be traced is, after all, the beginning of the Vedic period.

c10.3.1

The earliest composition of the Vedic period is, as you all know, represented by the hymns of the Rig-Veda. And in my second lecture I had occasion to tell you that in the Rigvedic period itself there were two types of metallic currency, prevalent side by side. One of them was known as *hiranya-piṇḍa* or buttons of gold, and the other *nishka* which were actually gold coins. If at the beginning of the Vedic period stamped money was current side by side with unstamped money, it is clear that the metallic currency of India must have had an earlier origin, *i.e.* an origin earlier than the time of even the Rig-Veda. And if such is the case with the metallic coinage of this country, the age when any kind of currency first originated in India must be pushed back still earlier. Hence before we actually begin the history of coinage in ancient India, it seems desirable to say a few words, or rather to make a few guesses, in regard to the condition of currency that may have prevailed in this country before the advent of the Aryans. I can quite imagine at this stage some doubt crossing the mind of most of you here as to how I could even surmise the state of currency in pre-Vedic India. But what Professor Ridgeway has done in regard to the pre-historic or proto-historic currency of Greece can also be attempted on a modest scale in regard to India provided we follow his method which is typically the anthropological method.

c10.3.2

It is possible to study the various kinds of currency in use amongst the savage tribes of various stages of civilisation and compare them to the similar ones that were prevalent in India, whether in the proto-historic or even the historic period. If you, for instance, concentrate your attention on the Sūtras of Pāṇini, especially those which are comprised in the sections called *tena krītam* and *tad-arhati*, it cannot fail to make a very interesting economic history of India. You will find that not only coins of different types and metals were current in Pāṇini’s time, but that many transactions used to take place with the help of many media of exchange. Three instances will suffice here. The first is Sūtra V. 1. 27, which shows that objects could sometimes be purchased with *vasana* or “pieces of cloth of definite value,” a practice which is still followed in some parts of India, notably Rājputānā. Nay, if you turn to Sūtra V. 1. 19, you will find that the people of India in Pāṇini’s time sometimes employed even a *go-puchchha* or bovine tail as a circulating medium. A similar practice, I am told, is prevalent to this day in Nepāl, where the tail of a yak, a species of ox, which is used as *chaurie*, is exchanged for other commodities. But whether this yak-tail is actually denoted by Pāṇini's *go-puchchha* is more than doubtful, because the proper Sanskrit word for the former is *chamara* which occurs also in early works such as the Mahābhārata.

c10.3.3

And *go-puchchha*, I am afraid, has to be understood in the primary sense of a cow's tail, howsoever polluting and revolting such a custom may now appear to us. There are, again, at least three Sūtras in Pāṇini's *Aṣṭādhyāyī*, which speak of *kamsa*, *śūrpa* and *khārī* in connection with purchase of commodities. But as these are clearly measures of capacity, the only inference possible is that such commodities were bought by means of these measures and most probably with grains which were the staple food of a province. To this day the custom of purchasing things with food-stuff, such as rice grains, is not unknown in India, especially in rural regions. Now just see what these Sūtras teach us in regard to the different classes of articles that were used for currency purposes. Of course, coins were known in Pāṇini's time, and, as some of their names again are also of metal weights, we can imagine that metals by weight were also used as currency as they no doubt were in Burma till the middle of the nineteenth century. But if it is supposed that because some sort of metallic currency or another was prevalent in Pāṇini's time, there were no media of exchange in use such as we find in more or less uncivilised tribes of the modern day, I am afraid this supposition cannot be regarded as well-founded. For these media of exchange not only were prevalent in the time of Pāṇini, but have survived to this day as I have just told you.

c10.3.4

And it is not very difficult to imagine what different measures of value came into existence in ancient India with what different stages of civilisation.

c10.4

Now, the earliest stage of civilisation is taken to be the Hunting Stage. No form of currency belonging to this stage, such as skins of hunting animals, is known to us from any composition of the Vedic period, or from any other source. As the Hunting Stage passes to the Pastoral, and animals are domesticated, the animal itself, not its skin, becomes the unit of value. The most common of such animals in India is the cow which is found mentioned in the Ṛig-Veda. Thus there is a hymn in this Veda¹ where Indra, *i.e.* his image, is offered as a fetish for ten cows, and another,² where Indra is considered to be so invaluable that not a hundred, a thousand, or even a myriad of cows is thought to be a proper price. As the Pastoral develops into the Agricultural Stage, a number of agricultural products come to be used as currency, the most remarkable instance of which is corn, the staple food of a province. It is in this Agricultural Stage that commerce is found to develop itself, and a greater number of objects are found capable of being used as measures of value, such as garments, coverlets, and goat-skins which were so employed in the time of the Atharvaveda.¹ Mineral products also such as cowries come to be used first as ornaments and then as currency. You will thus see that traces of the various circulating media of these various stages of civilisation are clearly found even in the Saṃhitā portion of the Vedas and that they must have survived down to the Vedic epoch from previous stages of civilisation in India as some of them have no doubt survived to this day. But it is only when metals become substances for money that a fairly high degree of civilisation is supposed to have been reached. And clear references even to this form of money are contained in all parts of Vedic literature, not excluding the Ṛig-Veda which is the earliest.

c10.5

¹ IV, 24. 10.

c10.6

² VIII, I. 5.

c10.7

¹ IV. 7. 6.

c10.8

The employment of metals as money material was thus known to India about the beginning of the Vedic period, *i.e.* circa 2500 B.C. as I have told you. It is impossible however to determine the exact order of their appearance in this capacity. The various kinds of metals that were used for currency in ancient India I had occasion to mention in my last lecture, as you will remember. They are gold, silver, copper, lead, even nickel, and such mixed metals as potin and bilion. Although it is not possible, as I have just stated, to find out in what order they came to be employed for the purposes of coining, I cannot help saying that gold appears to be the earliest metal that was so used. For all references to coins in the Saṃhitā portion of the Vedic literature relate to gold currency only.

c10.9

When metals first came to be used as a money substance, they must have been weighed in scales and then given away. The people evidently must have carried small scales and weighed with them to effect purchases as they no doubt did in Burma till even the middle of the nineteenth century. What these weights were in ancient India most of you, I believe, know. Different standards were prevalent for different metals, one for the weighing of gold, another of silver, and a third of copper. What is, however, noteworthy is that these standards start all alike from Rati or Raktikā which denotes the red seed, as Kṛṣṇala the black seed, of the Guñjā creeper. Already in the Saṃhitā period, the word Kṛṣṇala is known to the Hindus, as it occurs in the Taittirīya¹ and other Saṃhitās. But there were other natural seeds also which were connected with the metric system, the most important of which is Māsha, *Phaseolus Radiatus*, a pulse seed marked with black and grey spots. But there were two kinds of Māshas. One was used in weighing gold and equalled 5 Kṛishṇalas, and the other was employed for weighing silver and was equivalent to 2 Kṛishṇalas only. It is possible to conceive that there were different kinds of Māshas varying in weight and size, due to the varied influences of soil and climate, and that one kind was employed to weigh gold and the other to weigh silver. Raktikā or Kṛishṇala, however, was the real unit, for even the gold and silver Māshas we find reduced to the Guñjā seeds. The old Hindu mind, accustomed to fine analysis, was not content with stopping at Raktikā or Rati, the metric unit though it was, but has gone further and divided it into a number of submultiples—which is more or less fanciful. Thus a Raktikā, we are told, is in weight equivalent to 1296 Trasareṇus, a Trasareṇu being the smallest mote we observe in a sunbeam passing through a lattice. And between the Raktikā and the Trasareṇu have been mentioned a number of natural seeds, namely, barley-corn, white mustard-seed, black mustard-seed and poppy-seed. These are mere theoretical state ments, and, in actual practice, the Raktikā was the universal standard. Appended to this lecture will be found two Tables, one showing the multiples, and the other, submultiples, of the Raktikā, together with their weights in English grains.

c10.10

¹ ii. 3. 2. 1 etc.

c10.11

Let me, at this stage, remind you of what I told you in my last lecture about the *Rūpa* and *Rūpya* classes of coinage, which must have come into existence soon after, if not about the time when, metal came to be employed as money material. The words *rūpa* and *rūpya* both signify coins. As *rūpa* means ‘a symbol, a figure,’ *rūpya* must denote an object bearing this symbol or figure. One can, therefore, easily understand how Rūpya can stand for coins, because coins are objects on which symbols or figures are impressed or imprinted. But why should Rūpa denote coins at all? Were there any coins which were actual figures so that they could with propriety be called Rūpa? I hope you remember the instance which I gave from Greek archæology. There were two Greek colonies, where the tunny fish was the measure of value. And when metallic currency replaced this staple commodity as medium of exchange, while one colony had for its coins metallic pieces imprinted with the figure of this fish, the other had these not imprinted but actually shaped like the tunny fish. The former certainly represented the Rūpya and the latter the Rūpa class of coinage. This example is from Greek Archæology of the proto-historic epoch, but I also gave another example from India though of the historic period. Copper plate charters of the Sena Dynasty of Bengal constantly speak of Kapardaka-Purāṇa. But what does this phrase mean? It cannot possibly mean a Purāṇa which was equal to one Kapardaka or cowrie. For a Purāṇa is a silver coin weighing about 58 grains, and no silver coin, weighing so much as 58 grains, can possibly be equivalent to one shell cowrie in value. The only possible sense here is that Kapardaka-Purāṇa is a silver coin weighing 58 grains and shaped like a cowrie. There is also another instance similar to this, known not from Indian epigraphy, but from Sanskrit literature. The word *hiraṇya* occurs in one of the aphorisms of Vātsyāyana’s *Kāmasūtra*.¹ The commentator Śaṃkarārya explains this *hiraṇya* by *kapardaka*. Nay, the Sanskrit lexicon Medinī gives two senses of *hiraṇya*, one of which is *śātakumbha* or gold, and the other, *varāṭa* or cowrie. How can a word, which primarily signified ‘gold,’ come to signify also a ‘cowrie’? This cannot be taken to be an instance of the degradation of a word, for when a word is once degraded, it cannot express its original good sense side by side with its new derogatory meaning. The word *hiraṇya*, on the other hand, denotes both the senses, ‘gold’ and ‘cowrie’ in the period when Śaṃkarārya wrote or the lexicon Medinī was composed. We have, therefore, perforce to admit that when *kapardaka* is given as another word for *hiraṇya*, the former must be taken to signify a ‘gold cowrie,’ *i.e.* a gold coin shaped like a shell cowrie. *Hiraṇya* thus, according to the Medinī, signifies *śātakumbha*, *i.e.* gold (bullion) and *kapardaka*, *i.e.* (gold) cowries. In my last lecture, I had occasion to tell you in this connection that both the Egyptians and the Chinese had metallic representations of cowries as coins, and that there were actually gold cowries in the case of the former. Here then we have got two clear examples from India of metallic money being fashioned like a mineral product, *viz.* shell cowrie, which was the medium of exchange, and this could have taken place originally only when metallic currency first sprung into existence and was replacing as far as possible all the previous measures of value. It is true that the instances I have adduced are from the mediæval history of ancient India, but as I have already said, forms of money originating in the early stages of civilisation are preserved down to the historical periods. There can, therefore, be nothing unreasonable in supposing that gold and silver cowries came originally to be employed only when metallic currency was introduced but survived down to much later times in some parts of India at least.

c10.12

¹ VI. 5. 6. I am indebted to Prof. H. C. Chakladar for this reference.

c10.13

Let us now see what denominations of coins were prevalent in the Vedic period. We have seen that the Rig-Veda speaks of *hiraṇya-piṇḍa* and *Nishka*. The former was not any regular coin, but was rather unstamped metallic bullion. The latter alone denotes a coin, and is also a coin denomination. Another denomination which is traceable in the *Saṃhitā* portion of the Vedic literature is *Śatamāna*. Reference to it occurs, as I have elsewhere told you, in the *Taittirīya Saṃhitā*. If *Śatamāna* was known in the *Saṃhitā* period, it stands to reason that it was known also in the *Brāhmaṇa* period. Thus that denomination is referred to not only in the *Taittirīya* but also in the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa*. What is, however, interesting in this connection to note, is that in the latter *Brāhmaṇa*, the *Śatamāna* is said to be not only of gold, but of *vṛtta* or round form. The same *Brāhmaṇa* speaks of a third class of coins called *Suvarṇa* which also is said to be of gold. Mention is made of a fourth denomination in the same work, I mean, *Pāda*, which I take to stand for one-fourth of the standard coin of that period.

c10.14

Perhaps of the lowest denomination was Kṛiṣṇala, but it is not quite certain, though very probable, that it denoted a coin.¹ It will thus be seen that as many as five denominations of coins were known in the Vedic period and were all of gold, namely, Nishka, Śatamāna, Suvarṇa, Pāda and probably Kṛiṣṇala. It is only when we come to the post-Vedic epoch that we hear of another class of coins, namely, the Kārshāpaṇa. It is referred to along with the previous denominations not only in Pāṇini’s Sūtras but also in the Jātaka literature, as I told you in my third lecture. But we find them all mentioned in the Manu-saṃhitā (circa 150 B.C.) and the Yājñavalkya Smṛiti (circa 350 A.D.) which are the only two Smṛiti works that specify various kinds of old metallic stamped money.

c10.15

¹ In this connection I may draw the attention of scholars to two thin pieces, one of gold and the other of silver, which were found in the Piprāwā Stūpa which is supposed to contain the remains of Buddha and which was probably of the 6th century B. C. The pieces are impressed with symbols and cannot therefore be looked upon as merely curious specimens of gold and silver foil. They no doubt each weigh a little over one grain. But we must note that the average weight of Kṛiṣṇalaka is 1·83 grains. May these have been intended for Kṛiṣṇalaka coins—an inference which agrees with the fact that coins have been found in all Buddhist Stūpas of importance and might have been conspicuous by their absence only in the Piprāwā Stūpa if these pieces had not been regarded as coins.

c10.16

I have again and again told you that names of coins are also names of metal weights, and the importance of these Smṛitis consists in the fact that the weight of each one of these denominations can be known in the terms of *kṛṣṇalaka* or *guñjā* berries, and can thus be compared one with the other. Information on this point is to a certain extent supplied by Kauṭilya’s *Arthaśāstra*, but it is almost nothing as compared to the detailed information given us by Manu. Of course, it is not to be expected that the condition of coinage that was prevalent in the Jātaka period or earlier was exactly the same as in the time when the Manusaṃhitā or the Yājñavalkya Smṛti was composed. Thus Manu or Yājñavalkya would make us believe that Kārṣāpaṇa was a copper coin only, whereas, as we have seen, it denoted silver and gold coinage also in the time of the Jātakas. Another point worth noting is that, according to Manu or Yājñavalkya, Śatamāna was a silver coin only, whereas, in the Brāhmaṇa period, it was also a gold coin. The typical silver coin, mentioned by Manu or Yājñavalkya, is Dharaṇa (also called Purāṇa by the former). But this Dharaṇa was equal to thirty Ratis or 90 White Mustard Seeds, whereas the Dharaṇa, mentioned by Kauṭilya, was equal to 88 of these Mustard Seeds. But the curious point here is the name Purāṇa which, as first noted by E. Thomas and Cunningham,¹ was looked upon as *purāṇa* or ‘ancient,’ and must have come down to Manu’s time from a hoary antiquity.

c10.17

¹ NChr., XIII (1873), p 211.

c10.18.1

Whether these denominations of coins were all prevalent after 350 A.D., the date assigned to the Yājñavalkya Smṛiti, is doubtful. By the word “denomination” I do not simply mean the ‘name,’ but also the ‘weight.’ The mere name of a class of coins may survive down to a very late period, but the original denomination cannot be said to have been preserved, unless the ‘weight’ originally associated with the ‘name’ is also preserved. Let us, therefore, see how long after the middle of the fourth century A.D., the coins prevalent in the Vedic and Jātaka times persisted—how many in reality and how many in name only. Let us first take the Nishka coins. The word Nishka, some of you probably know, is met with in the Amarakosha which, I think, has to be ascribed to the fifth century A.D. But, in this lexicon, we are told that Nishka was another name for Dīnāra. Dīnāra, I have already informed you, was a coin struck by the Kushana kings in imitation of the Roman gold Denarius. Thus, the weight of a Dīnāra as of a Denarius was 124 grains, whereas that of a Nishka, according to Manu, was 560 grains. The Nishka of the Amarakosha could not, therefore, have been the same as the Nishka of the Manusamhitā. It will thus be seen that, in the fifth century A.D., we have merely the name Nishka preserved but not the original denomination. If this is the case with the fifth century, it must necessarily be true of the thirteenth and subsequent centuries.

c10.18.2

Thus we have got a South-Indian inscription of Śaka 1231,¹ where Gaṇḍamāḍa has been called a Nishka. This Gaṇḍamāḍa has in another inscription² been explained as a māḍai or coin of Gaṇḍagopāla which clearly shows that it cannot be identical with the Nishka of Manu. We thus perceive that the Nishka denomination mentioned in the Vedic and the Jātaka literature and detailed in the Manusaṃhitā had really gone out of vogue long before the fifth century A.D., though the mere name Nishka had been preserved up till the 14th century, to denote other coins. Not much different was the case with Śatāmāna which is another gold denomination of the periods just referred to. For, we do not find any trace of this coin in literature or in inscriptions after the beginning of the Christian era. No doubt, that word occurs in the Amarakosha, but there is no evidence that this lexicon is here dealing with a class of coins actually prevalent at the time of its composition. In the case of Nishka, we have seen that the Amarakosha makes it synonymous with Dīnāra which was then in actual use. But there is no such evidence to show that by Śatamāna the Amarakosha is referring to some coin of its period. The mere occurrence of the word Śatamāna in this lexicon is, therefore, of no consequence, for lexicons have to take cognizance of all words whether there are any objects corresponding to them or not. Such was not, however, the case with Suvarṇa which is the third denomination of gold coins.

c10.18.3

For Suvarṇa we find actually referred to in one Nāsik cave inscription and at least one Gupta record.¹ In the case of the Gupta epigraph, it is, no doubt, possible to contend that, by Suvarṇa is probably intended the Dīnāra, which also we find mentioned in it. Just as the Amarakosha gives Nishka as another word for Dīnāra, it may be argued that the Gupta inscriptions may have used Suvarṇa also synonymously with Dīnāra. But it is worthy of note that we have two types of Gupta gold coins, one of which conforms to the weight of the Roman Denarius standard and the other to that of Manu's Suvarṇa.² We must, therefore, suppose that Dīnāra and Suvarṇa, which both occur in Gupta records, do not denote one identical but two different classes of coins. What the state of things was posterior to the Gupta period we do not know. Suvarṇas are no doubt mentioned in epigraphs of later periods such, *e.g.*, as the Cambay copper-plate charter of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king Govinda IV,¹ dated 930 A.D. But we do not know whether they were of the weight attributed to that denomination by Manu. For, soon after the Gupta period, Suvarṇa certainly came to be identified with Dīnāra, as is clear from both Bṛihaspati and Kātyāyana Smṛitis.² I do not, however, maintain that the Suvarṇas of the Cambay copper-plate charter must denote Dīnāras, for it is very doubtful whether these gold Dīnāras were current so far south and so late as the tenth century.

c10.18.4

It is quite possible that just as Suvarṇa denoted a Dīnāra in the post-Gupta period in North India, it may have denoted some other gold coin in Gujarāt and the Dekkan.

c10.19

¹ EI., V, 32 and 35, ll. 4 and 28.

c10.20

² ibid., VII. 131.

c10.21

¹ EI., VIII..82; GI., 265.

c10.22

² CCGD., cxxxi and ff.

c10.23

¹ EI., VII, p. 40, ll. 47 and 49.

c10.24

² BS., No. 45, p. 231.

c10.25

We have now to consider the case of Kārshāpaṇa, and find out how long this kind of money lasted in ancient India. Let me here recapitulate a little of what I told you in Lecture III. Kārshāpaṇa, I hope you remember, was a class of coins, usually of silver and copper and weighing one Karsha. And as Kārshāpaṇas have been mentioned and described both in the Manu and Yājñavalkya Smṛitis, we may take it that this type of coinage continued till at least the fourth century A.D. Quite in keeping with this inference is the fact that references to it are traceable in the West India cave inscriptions of the Sātavāhana period. Again, at Besnagar or ancient Vidiśā, I found punch-marked coins on all early sites containing strata reaching down to the fourth century A. D. But then, what about Kārshāpaṇa thereafter? Here the Bṛihaspati and Kātyāyana Smṛitis come to our aid.¹ Both these Smṛitis give Aṇḍikā as another name for Kārshāpaṇa, and a doubt is apt to arise in our mind as to whether this Kārshāpaṇa, which has such strange another name as Aṇḍikā, can really be the Kārshāpaṇa of Manu and Yājñavalkya. But be it noted that Bṛihaspati describes a Kārshāpaṇa as a stamped piece of copper which is one Karsha in weight. I am afraid it is not possible here to doubt that, by Kārshāpaṇa, Bṛihaspati understands precisely what Manu does. Again, look to the sub-divisions of the Kārshāpaṇa as detailed by Kātyāyana. A Kārshāpaṇa, says he, is equal to 20 Māshas, and a Māsha, which is also called Paṇa, is equal to 4 Kākaṇīs. In the first place, the terms Māsha and Kākaṇī employed by Kātyāyana to denote the sub-multiples of Kārshāpaṇa are precisely the terms used in the Jātakas and for the same purpose. Secondly, the table also is practically the same. That 4 Kākaṇīs make 1

c10.26

¹ Ibid., p. 231.

c10.27

Māsha can be known also from the Jātakas. But Kātyāyana makes a Kārshāpaṇa equivalent to 20 Māshas, whereas Manu makes it equivalent to 16 Māshas. You may thus imagine a discrepancy here. But in Lecture III I told you that one Jātaka led us practically to infer that a Kārshāpaṇa equalled not 16 but 20 Māshas,¹ and that, what was still more important, a Pāda, according to the commentary on the Vinaya-Piṭaka, was equal to 5 Māshas, that is to say, a Kārshāpaṇa equalled 20 Māshas, at Rājagriha in the time of Bimbisāra. The tradition of the Kārshāpaṇa and its token money prevalent in the early Buddhist period was thus preserved so late as the 6th or 7th century A.D. as we find from Kātyāyana. No reasonable doubt can therefore be entertained as to Kārshāpaṇa having continued to circulate up to the 7th century. But then two points here deserve to be noticed. The first is that the Kārshāpaṇa described by Bṛihaspati and Kātyāyana denotes a copper coin only. This is exactly in consonance with what Manu says. In ancient times, however, Kārshāpaṇa denoted not only copper but also silver money. Is there any evidence, you may now ask, to show whether silver Kārshāpaṇa also was known in the mediæval period? I may, therefore, draw your attention to the statement of Nārada that silver Kārshāpaṇa was current in South India.¹ And we no doubt find that the references to Kārshāpaṇa in the West India cave inscriptions are all to silver Kārshāpaṇa. Secondly, if the Kārshāpaṇa was certainly prevalent till the 7th century A.D., it could not have been represented at all periods by the punch-marked coins alone. There must have been some other types of coins which also were looked upon as Kārshāpaṇas. For no punch-marked coins later than the 4th century A.D., have been found so that between the 4th and the 7th century at any rate there must have been some type or types other than the punch-marked which were known as Kārshāpaṇa. Our history of the Kārshāpaṇa coinage is not yet over, for we have yet to consider the question whether Kārshāpaṇa was in any form known after the seventh century. An inscription originally found at Bijāpur² in the Goḍwāṛ Division of the Jodhpur State and dated 997 A.D., while recording the benefactions to a Jaina temple, speaks of a grant of one Karsha for every ghaḍā at every local oil-mill. As in the specification of similar grants in this connection the words Rūpaka and Vimśopaka occur which denote coined money, it is difficult to avoid the inference that here Karsha stands for a copper Kārshāpaṇa. Similarly, the Gayā stone inscription of the Pāla king, Govindapāla,¹ dated V.E. 1232 (-1175 A.D.), makes mention of Kārshāpaṇī. It is not quite clear from this inscription whether this was a silver or copper Kārshāpaṇa, though there is greater likelihood in favour of the latter supposition. Of course, as, in the Bijāpur inscription, Kārshāpaṇa is denoted by the term karsha which is primarily the name of a weight, it must be taken as identical with the Kārshāpaṇa of Manu. But from the Gayā inscription itself, it is not possible to definitely assert that Kārshāpaṇī denoted the original Kārshāpaṇa denomination. It deserves, however, to be noted that such a word as Kāhan which is evidently the modern form of the Sanskrit Kārshāpaṇa has been preserved to this day in Bengal,² and that this Kāhan is valued at 16 Paṇas which, as I have already told you, is the same thing as Māshas. Every probability is, therefore, in favour of regarding the Kārshāpaṇī of the Gayā inscription as standing for the Kārshāpaṇa of the old metric system.

c10.28

¹ Supra, pp. 111-2.

c10.29

¹ BS., No. 45, p. 232.

c10.30

² EI., X, 24 and 26-7.

c10.31

¹ Pālas of Bengal, p. 109.

c10.32

² CAI., 43.

c10.33

Now just one or two points before closing this history of the Kārshāpaṇa coinage. I have already stated on the authority of Kātyāyana that Māsha also known as Paṇa was not one-sixteenth but one-twentieth part of Kārshāpaṇa. Now, epigraphists need not be told that there is such a coin as Viṃśopaka mentioned in inscriptions of the mediæval period and found in such provinces as Rājputānā, Central India and the Dekkan.¹ Numismatists have no doubt been telling us that it is one-twentieth part of some coin. But all this is vague information. Had we not rather say that it denoted the Paṇa or Māsha coin which forms one-twentieth part of Kārshāpaṇa?

c10.34

¹ EI., I. 174, 176; II. 124, 240; III. 267; X. 19; XI. 41, 56.

c10.35

Let me, again, draw your attention to what Bṛihaspati has said about Suvarṇa and Kārshāpaṇa. As I have told you, he identifies Suvarṇa with Dīnāra which, we know, weighs 124 grains, and takes Kārshāpaṇa to be a copper coin weighing one Karsha or 146·4 grains. Let us now see what metric connection he establishes between Kārshāpaṇa and Suvarṇa. According to him, 4 Kārshāpaṇas or Aṇḍakas make 1 Dhānaka, and 12 Dhānakas 1 Suvarṇa or Dīnāra. The same table is given by Kātyāyana also. The ratio of gold to copper in the early mediæval period, that is, when Bṛihaspati and Kātyāyana wrote, may be expressed thus: 146·4 × 4 × 12 : 124 = 56·7 : 1. And the rate of exchange between the copper Kārshāpaṇa and the gold Dīnāra was 48 : 1. The present ratio between copper and gold is something like 1000 : 1. This, no doubt, shows that copper in early times had comparatively much greater value than it possesses at present, almost at twenty times as much as now. Perhaps this calculation may not at once convince you. But let me tell you that, in the provinces where Dīnāra was current, no silver coinage was in existence, I mean, in the dominions of the Kushanas and their successors, the Guptas. From the economic point of view, such a thing would not have been possible, if copper had not been of such high value at that period as to dispense with the necessity of any silver coinage.

c10.36

That copper was of much higher value in ancient India than at present is evident in another way also. In Lecture III, I informed you that, in some places, such as Vidiśā, there was nothing but copper currency only. How is this possible except on the supposition that copper possessed much greater value than now? For what was then the standard money at Vidiśā? It was the copper Kārshāpaṇa, as I told you. Kārshāpaṇa, we know, contained sixteen Māshas or Paṇas, and each Paṇa, according to the Līlāvatī, was valued at 80 cowries. Again, a Kārshāpaṇa, we know, was equal to 80 Ratis or Guñjās in weight. Here then we have got a standard copper coin, namely, Kārshāpaṇa, which is 80 Guñjās in weight, and is, in value, equal to 80 × 16 = 1280 cowries. Take now the modern pice which weighs 48 Guñjās. Its value in cowries however differs in different provinces.

c10.37

But let us take the highest value it had in modern times, viz. 64 cowries in Mahārāṣṭra. A Kārshāpaṇa thus becomes equivalent to 20 modern pice, that is, five annas, although its weight is not even double that of a pice! Perhaps you may now say: granted that copper had much higher value than at present as no doubt this calculation shows, but how can any town or province have the highest denomination of coins which equals only five annas? And I may, therefore, tell you that in Cutch to this day the highest denomination known as Kori is about 4 annas only in worth!

c10.38

A short while ago, I drew your attention to certain information contained in the later Smṛitis, which enables us to fix the ratio between gold and copper. You may now be curious to know whether we have any data to determine the ratio between gold and silver at any period in ancient India. While giving the history of the Suvarṇa coinage posterior to the time of Manu, I had occasion to tell you that there was one Nāsik cave inscription,¹ which contained a reference to this denomination. We are there informed of a certain grant of 70,000 Kārshāpaṇas, which, we are expressly told, were equal to 2000 Suvarṇas, at the rate of 35 (silver) Kārshāpaṇas to 1 Suvarṇa. All these items of information have been given in so many words, leaving no scope at all for any surmise. Of course, the Kārshāpaṇas here referred to are the silver coins of that name. The weight of a silver Kārshāpaṇa or Purāṇa, we know, is 58·5 and that of Suvarṇa is 146·4 grains. And as the exchange rate between Kārshāpaṇa and Suvarṇa was 35 : 1, we get the following calculation : 58·5 × 35 : 146·4 = 14 : 1 approximately. The ratio of gold to silver was thus 14:1 in the second century A.D.¹ which comes very nearly to that of the modern times.

c10.39

¹ EI., VIII. 82.

c10.40

¹ This practically agrees with the ratio (15 : 1) mentioned by the Marāṭhī poet, Jñāneśvar, as being current in Mahārāṣṭra in his time, i.e. in the thirteenth century A.D.

c10.41

So much about the denominations of coins, their weights, and their persistence to the late mediæval period. But what did the coins of the Jātaka, if not of the Vedic period, look like? In other words, how were their obverse and reverse? This is the question that you are sure to ask me now, and I shall therefore attempt to give a reply which appears most likely to me. Of course, we shall first have to turn our attention to the Kārshāpaṇas. I have already told you what sort of devices are to be found on these coins. I have also told you that in the earlier class, these devices occur in a haphazard unconnected manner, but that, in their later development, they appear in definite and constant groups, though each symbol is stamped with a separate punch. A further development on this class is marked by coins where these constant and regular groups are impressed on them with a single die and not with different punches. I have only to refer you to the coins of the Gaṇas, such as Mālava and Yaudheya, of the Janapadas, such as Śibi and Rājanya, of such royal dynasties as the Śātavāhanas, and of such countries as those of Mathurā and Pañchāla. All the coins, native to these provinces and peoples and ranging in date roughly from the third century B.C. to 3rd century A.D., are characterized with a collection of symbols forming one distinct type and struck from a single die. As all the symbols occurring on these coins are such as are commonly found on the Kārshāpaṇas, no reasonable doubt can be entertained as to their constituting indigenous money. Of course, not a few of them are of round shape, but this need not be looked upon as betokening foreign—Greek—influence. For even some Kārshāpaṇas have been found to be of circular form, and, as you will remember, Śatamānas have been called vṛitta or round in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa. It is not, therefore, permissible to have any reasonable doubt in regard to the indigenous character of these coins. Obviously this class of money has been evolved from the Kārshāpaṇa. When exactly this development took place is not known. It is true that the Kārshāpaṇas are traceable to the prehistoric period. But because they have come down from this hoary antiquity, it does not necessarily prove that its latest development represented by the coins just adverted to must also have taken place at that early period. Those coins, I have just informed you, belong to a period ranging from between 300 B.C. and 300 A.D. And we shall not be far from right if we assign this latest evolution of the indigenous money to the 5th or 6th century B.C. The circulation of these coins side by side with the Kārshāpaṇas need not distract us. For, at the beginning of this lecture, I have iterated and re-iterated that forms of currency originating at different stages of civilisation were prevalent side by side in a comparatively modern epoch. We thus get a pretty fair idea of the appearance that must have been presented by indigenous coins in the Jātaka period.

c10.42

Of course, the Kārshāpaṇa type too must have its history of evolution, and it does not seem very difficult to surmise the steps in which it came to evolve itself. Kārshāpaṇa, you know, is a coin of various shapes, such as rectangular, circular, elongated and even irregular, and is impressed with devices of various kinds. Nobody, therefore, can doubt Kārshāpaṇa as denoting a distinct coinage. The earliest stage of coinage in India is represented by *hiraṇya-piṇḍas* or unstamped buttons of metal passing for currency. These *hiraṇya-piṇḍas* must have conformed to a definite size and weight. But where was the guarantee of the purity of their metal or of their definite value? A time must, therefore, have come when it was thought necessary to relieve men of the trouble of testing their quality, and, therefore, the natural step of setting a stamp on every coin to guarantee fineness of metal is easy to conceive. Coins pertaining to this stage of monetary development are represented, I think, by solid silver ingots with three circular dots on one side and also silver bent bars with one or two symbols on one face only such as we find described by V. A. Smith in his *Catalogue*. This stamp evidently must have acted as a kind of hallmark. The further development of this coinage to a full-fledged Kārshāpaṇa it is easy to surmise. The devices must have soon come to be multiplied indefinitely and not one face but both the faces of the coin must gradually have come to be stamped with these, the reverse symbol in most cases representing the badge of the controlling authority. Steps must also have been taken for the establishment of a regular shape to prevent any tampering with coin after its manufacture. And this is the reason probably why we see Kārshāpaṇas of so many shapes which appear to me to be so many experiments in form. It is possible further to conceive that the devices were first punched on the obverse in a haphazard fashion, but were afterwards impressed in regular and constant groups, as I have told you so many times, to indicate the provenance of the coin. The further development of the Kārshāpaṇa into a regular and distinct coin type struck from a die I have already dilated upon, and so scarcely requires any repetition here.

c10.43

You will thus see in what successive stages the coinage of Ancient India most probably evolved itself and what actual type was prevalent in the fifth or sixth century B.C. This last, as I have told you, is the one perceptible in the indigenous money of the Gaṇas, Janapadas, royal dynasties, and such provinces as Mathurā and Pañchāla. This date does not seem to be too early. For you have only to take into consideration some of the earliest coins of this type. Take, for instance, the coin, which bears the legend Vaṭasvaka and which, according to Cunningham, is anterior to the Greek conquest of Alexander, but which, Bühler thinks it safe to say, is anterior to the Greek conquest of Demetrius.¹ What do we find on the obverse of this coin, which alone is stamped? We find not only the legend in Brāhmī character, but a hill symbol with a standing figure to right, beneath which is a sign called Nandipada. There is also a pile of balls or dots beneath the hill. It is scarcely necessary for me to remark that all these symbols are found on Kārshāpaṇa coins. But the point to note here is that all these devices form one type and have been struck with a single die. And if this Vaṭasvaka coin belongs to the third century B.C., at the latest, there is nothing irrational in pushing the origin of such a type back to the fifth or sixth century.

c10.44

¹ No. III, p. 48.

c10.45

The type of coins which has been described is, as I have informed you, evolved from the Kārshāpaṇa. But you will naturally want to know whether there was any other type prevalent in this early period. It is, therefore, necessary to invite your attention to some more coins. I hope you have not forgotten the coins of the autonomous cities of the Punjab to which I have referred in my first lecture. On the obverse occurs the word *negamā*, and on the reverse, such names as Dojaka Tālimata and Atakatakā.¹ I had then occasion to tell you that the word *negamā* here must be taken to signify ‘the city people’ and that the letters occurring on the reverse must be understood to be the names of the cities. What is noteworthy here is that on neither of the faces of these coins occurs anything but the legend. They are conspicuous by the absence of any kind of symbols, such as we are accustomed to note on the Kārshāpaṇa. It thus appears that in that early period, some coins were struck with mere names unaccompanied by any devices. If further evidence is required, it is supplied by a coin found at Eraṇ in the Central Provinces. On this coin only one legend occurs and on one face only, the legend consisting of the letters Raño Dhammapālasa in very ancient Brāhmī characters.¹ And as these characters run from right to left, Bühler thinks that they could not have been later than the fifth century B. C.² This coin is thus earlier than those of the autonomous cities of the Punjab, and, as we have just seen, is devoid of all devices, and has been found in one of the Eastern Provinces of India. It will not, therefore, be unreasonable if we infer that another type of coinage which was prevalent at this early period and which was in no way influenced by the Kārshāpaṇa consisted of mere legends stamped on one or both sides.

c10.46

¹ CL., 1918, pp. 75-6.

c10.47

¹ AI., 151.

c10.48

² IS., No. III, pp. 44-7.

c10.49

So far in regard to the denominations of coins indigenous to India, that is say, those handed down from the Vedic and the pre-Buddhistic period. Let me now say a few words on the new designations of monetary value that sprang up after the Greek domination of North-west India. It is not my object here to give a history of the coinages of these foreign dynasties, or those of even Indian dynasties influenced by theirs. So much has already been written upon the coins of the Indo-Bactrian Greek, Indo-Scythian, and Indo-Parthian dynasties, and their Indian successors, the Guptas and others, that there is hardly anything new for me to tell. I will therefore, confine myself here, briefly of course, to the new denominations that arose, that is to say, the denominations unknown to Manu and Yājñavalkya. It is curious that, in spite of the fact that the Indo-Bactrian Greeks had their own coinage struck according to the Attic Standard, names technical to Hellenic metrology were unknown to India up till the second century A.D., when, as I have told you already, their power must have become extinct. It is when the Kushanas rise to power that we find not one but two new denominations springing up. The first is Kuśana,¹ which occurs in a Nāsik cave inscription, recording a grant of Uṣavadāta, son-in-law of the Kshatrapa Nahapāna, who ruled over South Rājputānā, Gujarāt and North Dekkan, about the close of the first and the beginning of the second century A.D. Uṣavadāta, we are told, deposited a sum of 1000 Kārshāpaṇas, at the monthly rate 3/4 per cent., and yielding, therefore, an annual interest of 90 Kārshāpaṇas. This amount of 90 Kārshāpaṇas, the inscription says, was the Kuśaṇa-mūla, i.e. the value of Kuśaṇas. Looking, however, to the similar phraseology used in other cave inscriptions of this period, I have shown elsewhere that Kuśaṇa of this, must correspond to Paḍika (= Pratika) of other, cave epigraphs, and must denote a specific coin. And I have further ventured to express the view that Kuśaṇa in particular denotes the silver coinage of Nahapāna, and was so called, because he issued it for his Kuśaṇa or Kushana overlord who must have been Kadphises I. I have just told you that Uṣavadāta deposited a sum of 1000 Kārshāpaṇas in a guild which annually yielded 90 Kārshāpaṇas by way of interest. This inscription was engraved in Uṣavadāta’s cave which accommodated 20 monks and where each of them was to be given a Kuśaṇa for every one of the four months of the rainy season. Evidently, therefore, 80 Kuśaṇas were required every year, and had to be obtained with the 90 Kārshāpaṇas, the annual interest just referred to. We thus see that 80 Kuśaṇas were equivalent to 90 Kārshāpaṇas, or, in other words, the rate of exchange between these two classes of coins was 8 : 9.

c10.50

¹ IA., 1918, p. 76 and ff.

c10.51.1

The next designation of monetary value that we have to consider is Diṇāra. I have again and again told you that it was the name of the gold coins introduced by the Kushana kings and continued by the Gupta sovereigns and that Dīnāra was so called after the Roman Denarius. There were, however, two kinds of Denarius, *viz.* gold and silver, and it was the former, that is, *Denarius aureus* of about 122 grains, that was adopted, by the Kushana rulers, for their gold coins. It was for this reason that only the gold coins of the Kushanas and the Guptas are designated Dīnāras, no silver Dīnāras being yet known. Now, the question here arises: why did the Kushanas adopt the Roman standard of weight for their coins? Does it not indicate that there was brisk trade going on between Rome and India? Of course, this trade had begun long prior to the reign of Augustus, for do we not know that silver denarii of the Consular period have been found in Stūpas on the north-west frontiers of India?¹ It is worthy of note that Roman coins have been found in India in abundance and that they are generally found in two regions, namely, (1) in the north-west, and (2) in and near the Coimbatore District and at Madura in the Madras Presidency. Those picked up in South India pertain to the period commencing with Augustus and ending with the death of Nero, that is, from 27 B.C. to 68 A.D. Hoards of Roman coins belonging to this period are reported to have been discovered in this region.

c10.51.2

It is not difficult to find out the cause of it. Pliny, writing about A.D. 70, laments the wasteful extravagance of the richer classes and their reckless expenditure on spices, pepper, perfumes, ivory, fine muslins, cotton and precious stones, such as the beryl. Most of these exports to Rome, I need scarcely point out, are products of South India. And, in particular, I may draw your attention to the Beryl stone which was most highly prized in Rome. This beryl is found in India in one place only, namely, Padyur in the Coimbatore District. And, curiously enough, it is in the neighbourhood of its mines that the largest number of Roman coins of this period have been found. With the reign of Vespasian, things seem to have changed. For what with his exemplary life and what with enactments he succeeded in largely suppressing the wanton extravagance and profligacy of the age. And the tides probably turned against India. For it was in the period beginning with the death of Nero (A.D. 68) and ending with Caracalla (A.D. 217), that we see not only the issue of gold coinage by the Kushanas, but, above all, their adoption of the Roman standard of weight. Cunningham, V. A. Smith and Professor Rapson concur in the belief that the Kushana kings recoined the Roman *aurei*. This means that they got hold of all Roman gold coins, melted them down in a mass, and issued their own coins of precisely the same weight. This supposition, however, does not commend itself to me.

c10.51.3

For, in the first instance, I cannot understand why all the Roman coins, the gold and not the copper, were so treated. Secondly, if the Kushana coins are nothing but the Roman coins melted and restruck, the latter must have come to India in proportionately huge quantities. As a matter of fact, however, the Roman copper coins are conspicuous by their paucity. Thirdly, if the Kushana rulers melted the Roman gold coins, why did they strike new coins of their own of exactly the same weight as the Roman? I am inclined to believe that the Kushana kings adopted the Roman standard of weight to facilitate trade, as the Roman coin was accepted almost all over the world at this time. But the fact that very few Roman gold coins of this period have been found in North India shows that the trade was against India, that is to say, the exports from the Roman Empire preponderated over those from India. Evidently, therefore, the Kushana gold coins must on the contrary have been imported into the Roman Empire. It is scarcely necessary to remind you that coins of Kanishka have been dug up in such remotest parts of Europe as Scandinavia.

c10.52

¹ The greater portion of the information given here is based upon Sewells' article *Roman Coins found in India* (JRAS., 1904, p. 591 and ff.).

c10.53

and Wales,¹ and I have no doubt that more Kushana coins will be found in Europe and West Asia when we excavate sites of this period.

c10.54

¹ JRAS., 1912, p. 672.

c10.55

How long the Dīnāra denomination lasted in India we do not know. Certainly it continued to circulate till the early mediæval period, that is, the seventh century A.D., when the Bṛihaspati and Kātyāyana Smṛitis were compiled. For we have already seen that these law books make specific mention of Dīnāra as a synonym of Suvarṇa. Of about the same age is an inscription at Bodh Gayā, which speaks of the plastering and whitewashing of the temple at the cost of 250 Dīnāras. For the reasons adduced by T. Bloch, the well-known gold coins of Gupta mintage are meant here by the Dīnāras.² In the late mediæval period, however, the word was used in the sense of coined money or cash. It thus ceased to be the designation of any particular monetary value. The Rājataraṅgiṇī, e.g., which has to be ascribed to the 11th century A.D., speaks of ‘dinnāras’ of gold, silver and copper.³ Dīnāras are also mentioned not only in round hundreds and thousands but also lakhs and crores, so as to make it manifestly impossible for Dīnāra to be any gold or even silver coin.

First 62 of 93 passages. Read on

Linked texts (20)