Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c6.48.3

c6.48.3

It cannot be doubted that the practice of countermarking foreign coinage in circulation was observed in or near India also, for we do know that the silver Persian sigloi which were current in the Punjab bear distinctly Indian countermarks.¹ When, therefore, no countermarks are traceable on the *owls* of Athens picked up from the frontier region of India, it is not reasonable to say that they were brought there with the expansion of commerce. The natural inference must be that they were native to some outlying district of India which was peopled by the Yavanas or Greeks. And as the original *owls* of Athens have been assigned to *circa* 594-560 B.C.,² a Greek colony, it is possible to infer, may have been established near India about 550 B.C.³ There can, after all, be nothing strange in Pāṇini flourishing in the 6th century B.C. and in his referring also to Yavanānī, the writing of the Greeks. In fact, if it is not admitted that the Greeks had a settlement near India before Alexander, how is it possible, I ask, to unravel the enigma about the coins of Sophytes? Sophytes, you know, ruled over a province somewhere in the Western Punjab when Alexander invaded India, and as he acknowledged speedy submission to the Macedonian emperor, he was re-instated in his kingdom. Now, we have found some coins, which bear his head on the obverse and a cock and his name in Greek character on the reverse. When could he have struck these coins? This is the most puzzling question to answer.