Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c7.67.3

c7.67.3

The *rūpa* in *viśva-rūpa* can at once be recognised to be a word technical to the old Indian science of numismatics and denoting the symbol or figure on a coin which for that reason is styled *rūpya*. The term is met with in this technical sense not only in the early Brahmanical but also in the Buddhist literature. We shall come to know more about it in the fourth lecture of this series. But suffice it to repeat here that *rūpa* signifies a symbol or figure on a coin, and this enables us at once to perceive the significance of *viśva-rūpa*. What the seer, or rather the composer of the hymn, means is that the necklace worn by the deity Rudra was composed of *Nishka* coins, and that just because these *Nishka* coins bore various *rūpas* or figures on them, the necklace was naturally *viśva-rūpa*. The earliest of coins found in India are the punch-marked coins, and we know that no less than three hundred different devices or *rūpas* have been marked on them. No wonder if the necklace of Rudra which was made of Nishka coins is described as *viśva-rūpa*, i.e., covered with manifold *rūpas* or figures.¹ This seems to be the most natural and reasonable interpretation of the phrase *viśva-rūpa* which qualifies the term *nishka* in the sense of ‘necklace.’ And this is additional evidence to show that Nishkas were coined money and not merely metallic currency.