Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c8.26

c8.26

Now, what is the upshot of this whole discussion? We learn in the first place that the issue of Kārshāpaṇa was not restricted to any particular metal and that there were Kārshāpaṇas not only of copper but also of silver and gold. In favour of this conclusion is the concurrent testimony of both Brahmanical and Buddhist literature. Secondly, Kārshāpaṇa appears to have been so called, because in weight it conformed to one Karsha. We have got the authority of both Manu and Amarasimha in support of this position. Thirdly, one Sanskrit work entitled *Shaṭ-triṃśat* leads to the inference that the silver money called Purāṇa was also known as Kārshāpaṇa. Let us take these three points one by one and try to know about each something more. The first of these points, of course, is why there should be Kārshāpaṇa of three different metals. If Kārshāpaṇa was looked upon in those early days as the standard money, why should it have been struck in gold, silver and also copper? What could be the explanation of this strange fact? In this connection I cannot do better than quote the words of Prof. Rapson who is one of the best authorities on the pre-Muhammadan numismatics of India. In his book on Andhra and Kshatrapa coins he says: “We may gather both directly from the statement of the law-books, and more generally from the study of the coins, that in Ancient India silver and copper coinages were often independent of each other and circulated in different districts. A copper currency was not necessarily regarded as merely auxiliary to the silver currency; but a copper standard prevailed in some districts just as a silver standard prevailed in others.”¹ I will verify this statement here. When Wema-Kadphises, the second Kushana ruler, introduced gold coinage in the first century A.C., it continued to be the standard money in North India for a long time and practically supplanted the silver currency of the preceding dynasties. In Mālwā, Kāthiāwār, Gujarāt and Rājputānā, on the other hand, where the Kshatrapas exercised supremacy, the silver currency held the field. Both these gold and silver currencies were so firmly established as the standard money in these respective regions that when the Guptas succeeded these foreign dynasties in the sovereignty of India, they had to strike gold coins in the Kushana dominions in imitation of the Kushana gold coinage and silver coins in the Kshatrapa provinces after the model of the Kshatrapa silver coinage. This shows that the standard coin of one country was gold and of the other silver for a long time. On the other hand, Besnagar, the ancient Vidiśā, capital of eastern Mālwā, tells us a different tale. Here I excavated two consecutive cold seasons at a good many sites and of different periods, but from the pre-Mauryan down to the Gupta times no gold or silver coins were picked up except one solitary silver coin of Gautamīputra Yajña Śrī-Sātakarṇi, all the coins obtained being copper Kārshāpaṇas and constituting the currency of the town. This is a clear instance in my opinion of copper coinage forming the standard money. There can, therefore, be no difficulty in taking Kārshāpaṇa in any town or district to mean the standard coin whether of gold, silver or copper.