Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c10.2

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.