Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c6.47.1

c6.47.1

You will thus see what light is thrown and on what various aspects of the ancient history of India by the study of coins. But it is impossible, I am afraid, to perceive the full importance of numismatics unless we select coins of any particular class or period and find out what cumulative effect their critical study produces. I will show you what I mean by giving only one instance, *viz.*, the group of coins struck by the Greeks settled in and about north-west India. Of course, I have already referred to their extreme importance in respect of the political history of the Indo-Bactrian rule. I shall therefore refrain from doing so here. But the question that presents itself to us at the very outset and even before we can think of deducing their political history is: when and where did the Greeks first come in contact with the people of India? I know some of you may say: "Of course, in the time of Pāṇini," for does he not in one Sūtra teach us the formation of the word *Yavanānī* which is derived from *Yavana*, and which, as Kātyāyana tells us, signifies 'the writing of the Yavanas or Greeks?' " But this is just the misfortune of Pāṇini, for, because he mentions the word *Yavana* in his Sūtra, he is at once dragged down to the 4th century B.C., *i.e.*, to a period after the invasion of Alexander.