Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c10.51

Language: English

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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.

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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.

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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.