Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c7.9

c7.9

Such, in short, are the theories held by most of the European numismatists in regard to the origin and antiquity of the Indian coinage. The view that the knowledge of the stamped or die-struck coins the Hindus obtained from the Bactrian Greeks, which was originally started by James Prinsep, is no longer countenanced by numismatists of any repute. As early as 1853 when, Sir, then Mr., E. C. Bayley was Deputy Commissioner of the Kangra District in the Punjab, were discovered a number of silver coins “comprising specimens of Antimachus II, Philoxenes, Lysias, Antialkidas, and Menander, together with a few punch-marked pieces, the last being much worn, whilst all the Greek coins were comparatively fresh.”² Evidence of a more convincing nature has been furnished by a find of coins made in Sir John Marshall’s excavations at Taxila during the cold season of the year 1912-13. In the Bir Mound, the earliest of the three cities till then excavated by him there, he lighted upon a small hoard in the shape of one hundred and seventy-five punch-marked coins along with a gold coin of Diodotus struck in the name of Antiochus II of Syria.¹ It will thus be seen that the hoard belongs to a period when Diodotus was still a Satrap of Antiochus and before he declared the independence of Bactria. As the punch-marked coins of this deposit are thus of a time when Bactria was still subordinate to the Seleukidan power, it is not possible to assert now that the Hindus learnt the art of coinage from their Bactrian Greek neighbours. Even numismatic considerations pointed to the same inevitable conclusion, as was contended long ago by Alexander Cunningham. "If the Hindus had derived their knowledge of coinage from the Greeks, the types, shape, and standard of all their money would have been Greek."² The Bactrian Greek coins are round in form, conform to the Attic standard, and contain invariably a bust on the obverse and a Hellenic deity on the reverse. The earliest Hindu coins, on the other hand, are mostly square in form, correspond to any but the Attic standard, and, in point of type, have never shown any bust or any Hellenic divinity on any one of their sides. Besides, they are utterly without inscriptions which are invariably found on Bactrian Greek coins. In these circumstances, to say that the Hindus are indebted to the Bactrian Greeks for the art of stamping money is a mere gratuitous supposition unwarranted by any facts or rather opposed to all facts. It is no wonder, therefore, if the modern followers of Prinsep and Wilson have given up this assailable position, and are now taking their stand on the ground that the art of coin-making was adopted by the imitative Hindus, somewhat earlier, *i.e.*, between 500 and 700 B.C., but doubtless from some foreigners, possibly the Babylonians. You may perhaps ask whether Cunningham and Thomas, who, representing the other view, have any successors at present just as Prinsep and Wilson have Kennedy and Smith, and I may therefore inform you that amongst the modern numismatists Prof. Rapson is the only one who holds that the most ancient coinage of India was developed independently of any foreign influence.¹ In regard to their date, however, he says that its earliest specimens are probably as early as the beginning of the 4th century B.C. only.²