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Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c9: Lecture IV. Science of Coinage in Ancient India

Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c9

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Lecture IV. Science of Coinage in Ancient India

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Numismatics, as you are all aware, is a science which treats of coins. The study of coinage is supposed to be of comparatively recent origin, but in ancient India it seems to have been cultivated by different classes of people with different objects in view. Thus in the Mahāvagga of the Southern Buddhist Canon we are told a story about a boy named Upāli.¹ There was in Rājagṛiha a group of seventeen boys, friends of each other and all under twenty years of age. The most pre-eminent of them was Upāli. Now, Upāli's father and mother thought: "How will Upāli after our death live a life of ease and without pain? If he learns *Lekha*, his fingers will become sore. If he learns *Gaṇanā*, his breast will become diseased. If, again, he learns *Rūpa*, his eyes will suffer. Now here are the Śākyaputra Śramaṇas who live a commodious life; they have good meals and lie down on beds protected from the wind. If Upāli," thought his father and mother, "could be ordained with the Śākyaputra Śramaṇas, he would after our death live a life of ease and without pain.” It is not necessary to tell you the whole story. Suffice it to say that Upāli and his companions got themselves ordained one day, and in the night at dawn set up such a fearful howl for rice-milk and hard and soft food that Buddha is aroused from his sleep who promptly ascertains the cause of that noise and forbids in future to confer ordination on any person under twenty years of age. But what do we learn from the story?

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We have here seventeen boys on this side of twenty and not far removed from it, and the parents of one of them, *viz.* Upāli, seriously thinking of introducing him to an avocation which will enable him to live a life of ease and comfort. Evidently, therefore, *Lekha*, *Gaṇanā* and *Rūpa* must be so interpreted as to denote each a profession. It is no use, therefore, taking them to be merely the “three R’s” as Bühler¹ and Rhys Davids have done. *Lekha* thus cannot here signify learning to write A, B, C, but rather ‘the art of writing,’ which constitutes the profession of a Lekhaka. This ‘art of writing’ included not only the niceties of diction and style but also the different forms of correspondence, as will be seen from Chapter X of the *Adhyaksha-prachāra* of Kauṭilya’s *Arthaśāstra*, which in its concluding verse tells us that there were not one but many treatises on the subject. The word gaṇanā for similar reasons cannot mean ‘arithmetic’ but rather ‘accounts’ corresponding to gāṇanikya of Kauṭilya. Even in later times this word had this meaning, and we thus find the term Gaṇanā-pati used by Kalhaṇa in his Rāja-taraṅgiṇī¹ and understood correctly by Sir Aurel Stein to denote ‘Head of Account Office.’ Study of Gaṇanā would thus make a candidate qualified to hold a post in the Akshapaṭala Department.

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The third word Rūpa is taken by Rhys Davids to mean ‘money-changing’ and by Bühler ‘commercial and agricultural arithmetic.’ Even this meaning is not quite correct, though these scholars are here not far wide of the mark, because they were careful enough to avail themselves of Buddhaghosha’s commentary which says that he who learns the Rūpa-sutta must “turn over and over many Kārshāpaṇas and look at them.” But anybody who has read Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra knows that the word rūpa has been employed in this work to denote “coins.” Thus in Chapter XII of the Adhyaksha-prachāra Kauṭilya speaks of rūpya-rūpa and tāmra-rūpa, which cannot but signify ‘silver and copper coins’ respectively. He also specifies an officer called Rūpadarśaka, whose duty was to examine the coins in actual circulation or received as revenue into the royal treasury. No doubt can, therefore, be entertained as to the term *rūpa* meaning ‘a coin.’ so that when the parents of Upāli once thought of training him in *Rūpa* for his profession, especially as he was not far removed from twenty, we can only understand that the boy was intended to study the science of coinage only, to fit him to be either a Rūpadarśaka or Sauvarṇika.

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¹ SBE., XIII, 201 and ff.

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¹ IS., III, 13.

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¹ V. 26.

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To what class Upāli belonged is not clear. But certain it is that he was neither a Brāhmaṇ nor a Kshatriya. We shall, therefore, now take an instance in which a Kshatriya is said to have studied *Rūpa*. Some of you will perhaps have guessed that I intend here referring to Khāravela, the ruler of Kaliṅga. In a cave called Hāthigumphā in the Udayagiri hill, three miles from Bhubaneswar, in the Puri District of Orissa, we have got a long inscription of this king, describing the different events of the different years of his reign. In line 2 of this epigraph we are told that for the first fifteen years of his age he was a *kumāra* and played children’s games. From his sixteenth to his twenty-fourth year he was a Yuvarāja or heir-apparent, and during this period he is represented to have mastered *Lekha*, *Rūpa*, *Gaṇanā* and *Vyavahāra*.¹ The first three of these terms are exactly identical with those employed in the story narrated of Upāli, and must therefore bear each the same signification. It is true that neither *Lekha*, nor *Rūpa*, nor *Gaṇanā* can be a source of living to a prince. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that they must form a most essential factor of his education. A prince must learn *Lekha*, *i.e.* not merely writing A, B, C, but rather the artful style of writing and the different forms of royal writ. Similarly, in order that he may effect minimum of expenditure and maximum of receipts, he must be an adept in the science of *Gaṇanā*. The science of *Rūpa* also he cannot afford to ignore, for on his knowledge of it depend the tiding over of a financial crisis and the various methods of augmenting his revenue.

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¹ JBORS., 1917, pp. 453 and 481.

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It will thus be seen that *Rūpa* had been recognised to be a science of coinage in ancient India. That it was looked upon as a science is clear, I think, from the fact that Buddhaghosha, while commenting on the passage from the *Mahāvagga* adverted to above, speaks of it as *Rūpa-sutta* which can only mean a set of rules concerning coins, in other words, the science of coinage. It was studied as we have seen by an ordinary individual for pursuing a profession to enable him to turn either a Rūpadarśaka, Lakshaṇādhyaksha or Sauvarṇika. It was also a subject of serious study to a prince to make him fit for administration. *Rūpa* must, therefore, have been a science of coins which dealt with this subject, not only from the minter’s and assayer’s but also from the economist’s and administrator’s point of view.

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Unfortunately for India, this *Rūpa-sūtra* or science of coinage has been lost to us. The very word *rūpa* in the sense of ‘coins’ is scarcely met with in Sanskrit and Prakrit literature from the beginning of the Christian era onwards. The term *rūpa* we now find replaced by *mudrā*, but we do not hear of any *mudrā-sūtra* or *mudrā-śāstra*, bearing this signification. This is an exceedingly grievous and irreparable loss to the historian, and the only course left to us now is to recover as much knowledge of this science as we can from a critical study of the actual coins of ancient India that have been so far picked up and also from stray references to the art of coinage preserved to us in the works of literature. It is not impossible to reconstruct, in part at least, a science and history of numismatics from the sources just alluded to. To this task I will therefore set myself in this and the next lecture.

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I have already informed you that *rūpa* in the sense of ‘coins’ occurs in Kauṭilya’s *Arthaśāstra*. I have referred to the words *rūpya-rūpa* and *tāmra-rūpa* which he employs and which can mean ‘silver and copper coins’ only. I have also referred to an officer called Rūpadarśaka by him whose duty was to examine coins whether in circulation or brought to the royal treasury. To the period when Kauṭilya lived has been assigned Kātyāyana the grammarian, who composed vārtikas on Pāṇini’s sūtras. In his gloss on Pāṇini’s sūtra I. 4.52, Kātyāyana gives a vārtika which Patañjali illustrates by: paśyati Rūpatarkaḥ Kārṣāpaṇaṃ darśayati Rūpatarkaṃ Kārṣāpaṇam. What exact bearing this example has upon the sūtra and the vārtika need not trouble us here. It is sufficient for our purpose if we understand the meaning of the words as they stand. They mean: “a Rūpatarka examines a Kārṣāpaṇa, and (he) causes a Rūpatarka to examine a Kārṣāpaṇa.” Here the inspection of a coin called Kārṣāpaṇa is associated with a Rūpatarka, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Rūpatarka of Patañjali is identical with the Rūpadarśaka of Kauṭilya. It will thus be seen that rūpa in the sense of a ‘coin’ was known not only in the time of Kauṭilya but also Patañjali. If the term rūpa signifying a ‘coin’ was current from the time of Kauṭilya to that of Patañjali, there is nothing strange in our finding the word used in the early Pāli scriptures of the Buddhists. One instance will suffice here. About a century after the death of Buddha, the venerable Yaśa, while touring, once came to Vesāli and was staying with the Vajjian Bhikshus. One Uposatha day he was shocked to find the Bhikshus filling a copper-pot with water and placing it in the midst of the Saṃgha and saying to their lay-disciples: ‘Give sirs, to the Saṃgha One, One-half, or One-fourth, Kārshāpaṇa, or a Māshaka-rūpa.’¹ Here the word rūpa obviously signifies ‘a coin,’ and the Māshaka-rūpa denotes a token coin of Kārshāpaṇa known as Māshaka, as I have shown in the last lecture. This import of the term rūpa survived to a very late period, though it was by no means much in vogue after the beginning of the Christian era.² Thus the word rūpa or rather rūpaka occurs in the Rāja-taraṅgiṇī,³ where in the sixth book a Brāhmaṇ is represented as telling to King Yaśaskara a pitiful tale of the loss of his money. This money, we are told, consisted of one hundred suvarṇa-rūpakas, which Sir Aurel Stein has rightly translated by ‘gold coins,’ and the same hoard is thrice referred to again as rūpakas. Rāja-taraṅgiṇī is not the only work of the late period which contains the word rūpaka with the meaning of ‘a coin.’ It has been traced, e.g., also in the Kathāsarit-sāgara,⁴ where in one place the Dīnāras have been referred to as svarṇa-rūpakas, or gold coins.

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¹ VP., II. 294; SBE., XX. 387.

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² See also Kāśikā on Pāṇini, V. 1. 48-9, where Rūpaka is used in the sense of a ‘coin.’

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³ VI. 45, 52, 60 and 66.

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⁴ 78. 11 and 13.

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It will thus be seen that one of the senses of the word *rūpa* or *rūpaka* is ‘coin’ and that the Rūpa-sūtra, mentioned by Buddhaghosha, can very well signify “the science or art of coinage.” But it is worthy of note that side by side with *rūpa* we have another term, *viz.* *rūpya* which also is employed in the sense of ‘a coin.’ This word must have been current even prior to Pāṇini as he teaches its formation in the well-known Sūtra *rūpād=āhata-praśamsayor=yap*.¹ The Sūtra says that the affix *ya* comes in the sense of *matup*, after the word *rūpa*, when *āhata* (stamping) or *praśamsā* (praise) is denoted. Thus *rūpyo (gauḥ)* means *praśastam rūpam=asy=āsti*, *i.e.* one with a praiseworthy form; in other words, it means a good-looking bull. This is an instance of the word *rūpya* when *praśamsā* or praise is intended. But then what is the instance of this word where *āhata* or stamping is denoted? Unfortunately for us this Sūtra is not commented upon by Kātyāyana or Patañjali, and the Kāśikākāra is the first grammarian whose gloss is available to us. Nevertheless even this gloss is of great importance. And in regard to the use of the term *rūpya* where the sense of *āhata*, *i.e.* of ‘hammering or stamping’ is intended, we are given the following instances: *āhatam rūpam asya rūpyo Dīnāraḥ rūpyaḥ Kedāraḥ rūpyam Kārshāpaṇam*. The word *rūpya* thus denotes something on which a *rūpa* or figure is stamped. And what objects are these on which figures are stamped?

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The Kāśikākāra tells us that they are Dīnāra, Kedāra and Kārshāpaṇa. Very few of you perhaps know what Kedāra means. But most of you certainly know that Dīnāra and Kārshāpaṇa are names of coins. The term *rūpya* thus denotes coins, and coins only, when the sense of *āhata* is understood. If any doubt remains on this point, it will I hope be removed by a consideration of what the Amarakosha says regarding this word. This lexicon refers to *rūpya* in two places. In one, *rūpya* is called ‘stamped gold or silver,’¹ and one commentary on it styled *Ṭīkāsarvasva* gives a detailed explanation by saying that *rūpya* denotes “Dīnāras etc. struck with a hammer so as to cause the *rūpa* or figure of a man to rise on it both on the obverse and the reverse.”² The Amarakosha³ also speaks of Rūpyādhyaksha who is explained to be no other than Naishkika. Kshīrasvāmin, who is looked upon as the most erudite commentator on this lexicon, says that *rūpya* in *Rūpyādhyaksha* denotes Dīnāra and other coins, and Naishkika a *ṭankapati* or mint-master. In other words, Rūpyādhyaksha is already a mint-master according to Amara. If Rūpyādhyaksha can signify a mint-master, no doubt can be possibly entertained as to the term rūpya denoting ‘a coin.’ The only question that may be legitimately asked here is whether this word was known to Pāli literature as it has been mentioned by Pāṇini on the one hand and Amara on the other.

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Unless the word can be shown to be occurring in the Pāli literature also, it may be contended and with some force, no doubt, that it could not have been current among the people in general. I will, therefore, cite one instance from this literature. There are two verses in the Pātimokkha which relate to monetary transactions. I will translate them here as follows: “(v. 18) If again a mendicant should receive jātarūpa or gold and rajata or silver, or get some one to receive it for him, or allow it to be put in deposit for him, it is a fault requiring restitution. (v. 19) If again a mendicant should engage in any transactions of coined money, it is a fault requiring restitution.” The expression with which we are chiefly concerned here is rūpiya-saṃvohāra, i.e. rūpya-saṃvyavahāra, which I have rendered by “transactions of rūpya or coined money.” This translation alone can be correct, for the monetary transactions referred to in the first of these verses are distinguished from those in the second, and if the former refer only to gold and silver bullion in the first verse, the word *rūpya* in the second verse cannot possibly mean ‘silver bullion’ again, but must denote ‘coined money’ whether of gold, silver or any other metal.

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¹ V. 2.120.

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¹ Amara, II. 9.92.

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² (TSS. No. LI), p. 231.

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³ II. 8.7.

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We thus see that *rūpa* and *rūpya* both mean coined money, and that both the words were prevalent at the same time. If *rūpya* signified any metal piece on which a *rūpa* was stamped, the question naturally arises: how is it that both these words of which one is a derivative of the other were being used in one and the same period? Has this strange phenomenon any foundation in fact? In other words, were there any pieces of coined money which were so shaped that they were the *rūpas*, *i.e.* figures or representations of any real objects, and was there again another kind of coined money in circulation which consisted of metallic pieces, not shaped like, but impressed with, these *rūpas*? If for any unknown reasons evidence of this nature is not forthcoming from India, is it supplied by the pre-historic or historic archæology of countries outside India? This is the question that now confronts us. In fact, this was the question that confronted me when I was engaged upon the study of numismatics for these lectures. As Mr. Panchanan Mitra is the Lecturer of this University on pre-historic archæology, naturally I turned to him for discussion of this subject as I did in the question of the origin of the Brāhmī alphabet on which I lectured to you last year; and he was able to draw my attention to the researches of Prof. Ridgeway who has familiarised the antiquarian world by bringing the anthropological method to bear upon the interpretation of ancient history, especially, of Greece.

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Prof. Ridgeway’s main contention is that while mythological and religious subjects do occur on Greek coins, it can be shown that certain coins, even in historical times, were regarded as the representations of the objects of barter of more primitive times.¹ I will cite one typical instance. It is well known that the tunny fish continually passes in vast shoals through the sea of Marmora from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. This fish must therefore have formed the staple commodity of the communities that lived in those regions, and we know that the article which forms such a staple commodity forms money in the age of barter. Now, the city of Olbia, which lay on the north shore of the Black Sea was a Milesian colony, and was the Greek emporium in that region. There are bronze coins of this city which are shaped like fishes and inscribed with θυ which is taken to be the abbreviation of θύννος, *i.e.* tunny, the fish. When we recall the Chinese bronze cowries, the Burmese silver shells, the silver fish hooks of the Indian Ocean, etc., we are constrained to believe that in these coins of Olbia, shaped like fish, we have a distinct proof of the influence on the Greek mind of the same principle which has impelled other peoples to imitate in metal the older object of barter which a metal currency is replacing. Take now the case of the city of Cyzicus, situated on the coast of Asia Minor.

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Cyzicus, too, like Olbania, was a Greek autonomous city and depended for its wealth on its fisheries and trade. It too had its coins, but of electrum and not of bronze like those of Olbania. The coins of Cyzicus, again, were connected with the tunny fish. They, however, bore a representation of this fish on them and were not shaped like it as was the case with the coins of Olbania. The inhabitants of Olbania, though they were originally a Greek colony, were largely intermixed with the surrounding barbarians, and may, therefore, have felt some difficulty in replacing their barter unit by a round piece of metal bearing merely the imprint of a fish, while the pure-blooded Greek of Cyzicus had no hesitation in mentally bridging the gulf between a real fish and a piece of metal merely stamped with a fish, and did not require the intermediate step of first shaping his metal unit into the form of a tunny. Here then we have two Greek cities of one and the same period, viz. Olbania whose bronze coins were shaped like a tunny fish, and Cyzicus, whose electrum coins merely bore the imprint of the fish, the tunny fish being in both cases their medium of barter which their metallic currency afterwards superseded. The coins of Olbania were thus the *rūpas*, *i.e.* coins which were the figures or images of the fish, whereas those of Cyzicus were the *rūpyas*, *i.e.* coins on which the *rūpa*, *i.e.* figure or representation, of a fish was impressed.

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A similar thing must have happened in the pre-historic or proto-historic period of India : that is to say, while the system of barter was being replaced by metallic currency, in some parts of India the metal unit must have been shaped like the article of barter, and in some parts the former merely contained the imprint of the latter. There could thus be some coins which were *rūpas*, and some, *rūpyas*. Unless some such explanation is adduced, it is impossible to understand how both the words *rūpa* and *rūpya* in the sense of ‘coined money’ were current side by side.

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¹ Ridgeway’s *Origin of Currency and Weight Standards*, 315-7.

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The instance which I have adduced to bring home to you the exact difference between *rūpa* and *rūpya* classes of coinage is from the Greek numismatics of the proto-historic period. But you will perhaps be curious to know whether there is any evidence to show that there was any kind of *rūpa* coins ever prevalent in India even though no specimens are available now. I may therefore draw your attention to a type of coinage called Kapardaka-Purāṇa, which is not unfrequently mentioned in the copper-plate grants of the Sena dynasty. Thus the Naihāṭi grant of Ballāla Sena records the grant of a village, Vallahiṭṭhā, whose annual income is stated to be 500 Kapardaka-Purāṇas.¹ Or take the Tarpaṇḍighī plates of Lakshmaṇa Sena which registers the grant of a piece of land which is specified to have annually yielded a sum of 150 Kapardaka-Purāṇas.² In other Sena grants also this coin has been mentioned.³ But what can a Kapardaka-Purāṇa be? Can it denote a Purāṇa which is equal to one Kapardaka or cowrie in value? This is impossible, because a Purāṇa must contain 32 Ratis of silver, which can never be equal to one cowrie in value. The only other sense possible is that Kapardaka-Purāṇa is a Purāṇa which is shaped like a Kapardaka or cowrie. If the Chinese had metallic cowries⁴ and the Egyptians gold representations of them,⁵ there is nothing strange at all in Bengal having Kapardaka-Purāṇas or silver cowries as metallic currency at least during the Sena period. Kapardaka-Purāṇa of the Sena inscription must thus represent a Rūpa class of coinage.

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¹ EI., XIV. 161. 46.

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² Ibid, XII. 9. 37-8.

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³ R. D. Banerji's Prāchīna Mudrā, 14-5.

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⁴ J. W. Jackson's Shells as Evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture, 178 and 205; JRAS., 1888, p. 428 and ff.

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⁵ G. E. Smith's The Evolution of the Dragon, 222.

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Let us now see of what different substances the coins were made in ancient India. In this connection, allow me to draw your attention to a passage from the commentary on the Vinaya-Piṭaka which I had occasion to refer to partly in my last lecture. Of course, it is scarcely necessary to repeat that the commentary was composed by the celebrated Buddhaghosha in the 5th century A. D. The passage is concerned with Kārshāpaṇa and its sub-division, the Māshaka. We are told that the Kārshāpaṇa may be composed of gold or silver or may be the ordinary one, *i.e.* made of copper. The Māshaka, we are further informed, may be of three different varieties.¹ One variety is that composed of copper, iron or some other metal Another variety is that made of *sāra* wood, the outside of the bamboo, or palmyra leaf, each of which has been turned into the Māshaka coin by a *rūpa* or figure being cut into it. The third variety consists of lac or gum on which a *rūpa* or figure has been caused to rise up and which has thus become a Māshaka. And Buddhaghosha winds up by saying that there are other kinds of money which are current in the different parts of the country but which have not been referred to by him. They are of bone or skin or the fruits or seeds of trees, and may be with or without a *rūpa* raised on it. This, in short, is the substance of the passage, and serves a rich pabulum to the numismatist. The very first conclusion that a careful consideration of this passage will suggest to you is the wide range of the meaning assigned to the term 'coin,' and it is with this conclusion really that we are concerned here. What do you generally understand by a coin? I will take here the definition which has been given by V. A. Smith, and which is the one generally accepted. Coins, according to him, denote "metallic pieces of definite weight authenticated as currency by marks recognised as a guarantee of value."¹ Thus in all classes coins to be coins must be metallic pieces. But at least two classes of Māshaka specified by Buddhaghosha were certainly not of metal. The Māshakas, which were made of wood, bamboo or palmleaf or which consisted of lac or gum, cannot possibly be described as metallic pieces. Māshakas, however, were a class of coins. And as the two kinds of money just referred to have been designated as Māshakas, they must be regarded as coins. And, as a matter of fact, we know that they bore *rūpas* on them, which certainly were "marks recognised as a guarantee of value." No doubt can possibly be entertained as to these two classes of money being looked upon as coins by the people though they were not made of metal. Evidently they understood the term ‘coin’ in a much wider sense than we do now.

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¹ NO.—AIW., 42 n. ; INO.—ACMC., 8,

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¹ IGI., II. 135.

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We shall now first take the metals of which coins were composed. The passage from Buddhaghosha’s commentary, we have just seen, speaks of four such metals, *viz.* gold, silver, copper and iron. Coins of gold, silver and copper belonging to the pre-Muhammadan period have been found in numbers. No ancient coin of iron, however, has yet been found; at any rate, none is yet known to me. And even in the modern period I have not been able to trace more than one reference to it. Mention of an iron coin has been made by W. Elliot in connection with the old coinage of the Travancore State.¹ It must not be supposed that these are the only metals of which coins were made in ancient India. Lead, nickel and mixed metals like potin and billon were also brought into requisition. Thus the *Nidāna-kathā* prefixed to the *Jātakas* speaks of the *sīsa-Kāhāpana* or lead Kārshāpaṇas. And, as a matter of fact, lead coins are found issued shortly before and after the beginning of the Christian era and both in north and south India. The use of lead for the first time occurs in the coinages of Strato, Azes and Rañjubula who ruled over north India and before or about the commencement of the Christian era. Lead coinage was issued also by the Andhrabhṛtya dynasty, and is found exclusively in the Andhradeśa, the home of the race, in the Anantpur and Cuddapah Districts and in the region of the Coromandel Coast. Lead currency is found exclusively also in the Chitaldrug and the Kārwār District but issued by the Mahārathis and the Kadambas.¹ And it is associated with potin coinage in the Kolhāpur province struck by Viḷivāya-kura and his successors. Lead coinage seems to have been temporarily introduced apparently by the Mahākshatrapa Rudrasena III in Mālwā and during the period when silver coins are not found.

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¹ INO.—CSI., 137.

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¹ CICBM.—AKTB., Intro., cxlv and ff. and clxxxii and ff.

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As regards the use of nickel for coinage, Cunningham was the first to trace it in the money of the Indo-Grecian kings.² While once he was carefully examining the coins of Euthydemus, Agathokles and Pantaleon which had been described as silver, a suspicion crossed his mind, and he sent some specimens of them to Dr. Walter Flight for analysis. The coins were found to contain a considerable amount of nickel and in proportions differing but little from those of the nickel pieces of Belgium. Dr. Flight’s analysis produced a sensation, because “nickel was first shown to be a metal by Cronstedt in 1751.” Whether nickel was used for coinage in India before the time of these Indo-Grecian princes is not certain. But Cunningham draws our attention to the statement of Quintus Curtius that “near the junction of the Five Punjab Rivers, Alexander received from the Oxydracæ and Malli, a present of 100 talents of ‘white iron’ (*ferri candidi*).” This ‘white iron’ can be either tin or nickel. But tin was a soft metal and therefore unsuitable for coinage. Besides, it was well-known to the Greeks who could not have therefore described it as ‘white iron.’ Nickel, on the other hand, thinks Cunningham, is hard and magnetic as well as white, and as it was not known to the Greeks, they could justly call it ‘white iron.’ Thus in his opinion nickel was employed for the purposes of currency by the Indian tribes Kshaudrakas and Mālavas in the time of Alexander and consequently certainly prior to that of the Indo-Grecian dynasties.

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² NChr. XIII (1873), 188 and ff.

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The other mixed metals that were used for minting coins in ancient India are potin and billon. The term ‘potin’ has been invented by the numismatists¹ to denote an alloy which is composed of yellow and red copper, lead, tin and some dross. And according to the varying proportions of its first two ingredients they look sometimes like bronze and sometimes like lead. Again, billon is to silver what potin is to bronze. I have already made reference to the fact that potin coinage was struck along with lead coinage by Viḷivāyakura and his successors in the district round about Kolhāpur. Potin coinage was issued also by the Andhrabhṛtya kings, but exclusively in the Chāndā District of the Central Provinces. The Kshatrapa dynasty founded by Chashṭana had also its potin coinage, but curiously enough it was struck by the Mahākshatrapas of the family, was confined to Mālwā, and was discontinued soon after A.D. 236.

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¹ Babelon, *Traité des monnaies greeques et romaines*, I. 371.

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We have already seen on the authority of Buddhaghosha that there were some coins, *viz.* the Māshakas, which were made of wood, bamboo, palm-leaf, and even lac, and impressed with a *rūpa*. He further tells us that there were also pieces of bone and leather or fruits and seeds of trees which passed for money and which were with or without a *rūpa*. As all these substances are of a perishable nature, it is not surprising that these varieties of money have not been preserved. Prof. Rhys Davids has, however, drawn our attention to a lacquer medal which was in the possession of Col. Pearse, and says that it may represent the lacquer Māshaka coin referred to by Buddhaghosha.¹ Which of these substances, and up to what periods, were employed for the purposes of money is a subject which has not yet been properly investigated. It is nevertheless a subject on which investigation not only is possible but also will be of an interesting nature. I may here give one instance. Among the multifarious objects out of which, as Buddhaghosha informs us, money was made, is *chamma*, *i.e.* leather. As leather is a perishable substance, no specimens of leather-money which were in circulation for any length of time can be expected to be found anywhere now, and, as a matter of fact, none has yet been found. Again, *primâ facie*, leather is a substance which seems so unfit for the purposes of coinage that having not yet discovered any single leather-coin,² one begins to suspect whether Buddhaghosha, after all, was not drawing upon his imagination. But we have good evidence to show that there was some kind of leather-money actually prevalent in Mahārāṣṭra in the thirteenth century A.D., *i.e.* full eight hundred years even after Buddhaghosha. Some of you may have heard of the earliest poet-saint of Mahārāṣṭra called Jñānadeva. He composed his Marāṭhī commentary on the Bhagavadgītā in Śaka 1212 = 1290 A.D., when the Yādava king Rāmacandra was ruling over the Dekkan. In his commentary on Chapter IX of the Divine Lay there are two Ovī verses which are worth considering and which I translate here as literally as possible. "If but the letters of the royal order are on a scrap of leather, through that very leather are all commodities obtainable (v. 453). Even gold and silver have no value without those letters. The royal order is the principal thing. If a single leather piece of that kind is obtained, all things become purchasable (v. 454)." I have thus placed a literal translation before you. And I have done so purposely, because I myself do not know what exact conclusion to draw from it. Of course, we have here a clear reference to leather-money, but whether it is leather-coins or currency notes I confess I am unable to determine.

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¹ INO.—ACMC., 8.

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² In this connection I may refer to a story occurring in *Khulasat-ut-Tawārikh* to which Mr. Zafar Hasan drew my attention. A certain water-carrier saved the life of Humayun who therefore seated the former on his throne for half a day, and during this short period the water-carrier is reported to have issued coins out of his leather bag. But none of these coins has yet been found.

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We shall now turn to another subject connected with ancient Indian numismatics, viz., the shape and the technic manufacture of coins. I hope you remember the passage from the Visuddhimagga to which I drew your attention in my last lecture. Buddhaghosha therein describes the Kārshāpaṇas lying on the wooden board of a Hairanyika or goldsmith, and incidentally speaks of their various shapes. They are *chitra-vichitra* or ‘of irregular form,’ *dīrgha* or elongated, *chaturasra* or rectangular, and *parimaṇḍala* or circular. And, as a matter of fact, we do find coins of all these forms, especially among the Kārshāpaṇas. Thus there are some punch-marked coins which are unsymmetrical in form, that is to say, which have practically no regular shape. These most probably are referred to by the term *chitra-vichitra*. Coins of this class alone can be called ‘rude and ugly’ or ‘singularly crude and ugly’ as no doubt some archæologists have designated the ‘punch-marked’ coins in general. The elongated or the rectangular form of the coins calls for no comments, because numerous specimens of these have been known. The *parimaṇḍala* or round form of the coins, however, requires to be considered here, because the Indian coins are believed to be typically oblong, and not round. This view is held by almost all numismatists, including even Cunningham.¹ But it is a mistake to suppose that there were no coins circular in form among the Kārshāpaṇas, which are now accepted to be the most ancient and indigenous money of India. If you look to Nos. 7, 11 and 12 on Plate XIX in Smith’s *Catalogue*, you will at once see that they are round Kārshāpaṇas and also that they scarcely deserve to be called ‘rude and ugly.’ Even on the sculpture of Bharhut which represents the famous story of the purchase of the garden of Prince Jeta by the merchant Anāthapiṇḍika covering the ground surface of the garden with coins, all the pieces represented are not square as assumed by Cunningham.¹ There are some in this sculpture which are distinctly round, and the wonder of it is how this escaped his notice. It is hinted by some numismatists that the Hindus for the first time adopted the round form for their coins from the Indo-Bactrian Greeks. But this is a mere surmise, for which no evidence has been adduced, or rather which is opposed to all evidence. For in the first place what about the coins bearing on them the legends Vaṭasvaka and Kādasa? Cunningham attributes them to a date “anterior to the Greek conquest of Alexander.” Bühler, however, holds that it is perhaps safer to say “anterior to the Greek conquest of Demetrius.”² Anyhow these coins are admitted to be of a time prior to the rise of the Indo-Bactrian power. But are they not round in shape? Nay, the Indians knew of round coins long long anterior to the Greek conquest of Demetrius or Alexander. In my second lecture, I hope you remember, I had occasion to refer to a passage from the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa, which speaks of the practice of a king fastening two Śatamāna coins to a back wheel of his chariot in a particular portion of the Rājasūya ceremony. And it is worthy of note that these Śatamānas are expressly stated to be vṛtta or round in form. It is not thus possible to assert that the circular form of the coins was first suggested to the Hindus when the Indo-Bactrian Greeks came in contact with them.

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¹ NChr., XIII, 207 and 213; CAL., 52-3.

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¹ CAI., 53.

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² IS., III. 48.

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Now, a few words about the manufacture of coins or rather the mode of evolution in the technique of the Indian indigenous coinage. The Indians seem to have begun with "a hammered sheet, which was then cut into strips, and subdivided into lengths of approximately the desired weight, which was adjusted by clipping the corners when necessary."¹ Nobody can examine any lot of punch-marked coins without perceiving that this was the mode of manufacture. There was, however, one small difference in regard to punching. In a few cases punches were applied to the surface of the hammered sheet before it was cut into strips. This is clear from the fact that sometimes some of the symbols punched are not to be seen in full on these coins. In a good many cases, however, the strips seem to have been cut out first and then punched. On all the coins belonging to this initial stage we find symbols impressed on them irregularly and by separate punches. The first stage of progress is marked where a group of these symbols forms a distinct type, and is impressed not each by a separate punch but is struck by a single die, which, however, covers not the whole, but about two-thirds, of the piece. But the reverse face here remains blank.¹ “The next advance may be traced in the adaptation of the anvil to the first crude idea of a reverse, in a sunk-die or catch of small dimensions cut into the anvil itself.”² The third stage is thus represented by coins where the obverse die covers the whole face but the reverse die is smaller than the blank.³ The last stage is of course indicated by the full double-die system where the whole face is covered by a die whether on the obverse or the reverse. “The final adoption of the ‘double-die’ system,” says V. A. Smith, “was undoubtedly due to Greek and Roman example.”⁴ What Smith’s remark comes to is that the Indians were, of course, capable of introducing improvement into and thus developing the technic manufacture of coins before the advent of the Greeks, but their last step, although it was the natural culmination of their gradual advance in the indigenous numismatic art, they could effect only when the Macedonians came to teach them!!!

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¹ CCIM., 134.

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¹ IC., II. § 46.

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² NO.—AIW., 54.

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³ NChr., XIII. 207.

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⁴ IGI., II. 137.

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“Another mechanical means—specially favoured by the aptitude of the home workmen in that direction—consisted in the casting of coins. We can only follow the general progress of this art by the merits of the devices employed, which gradually improve in treatment and finish.”¹

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¹ NO.—AIW., 55.

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We now come to the consideration of the administrative aspect of the science of ancient Indian coinage. And the first question that arises here for our consideration is: who exercised the prerogative of coinage. Of course, so far as the historic times go, this prerogative pertained to the Sovereign, whether it was Sovereign One or Sovereign Number. That most of the old coins were issued by rulers foreign or indigenous to India is too well-known to require any demonstration. And I had more than one occasion to tell you that coins were issued not only by individual rulers but also by Gaṇas or Oligarchies, Naigamas or Autonomous Cities, and Janapadas or Provincial Democracies. Coinage thus was the special privilege of the state in ancient India. I am aware that instances of what may be called ‘Temple coinage’ are by no means unknown, and I may draw your attention in this connection to a paper contributed by Mr. Robert Sewell to the *Indian Antiquary*, 1903. In this paper he describes coins which were struck at the principal temples in southern India. It is true that they were not connected with any regular state issues, but there is every reason to suppose that they were nevertheless struck by, or, at any rate, with the sanction of, the state. And, in fact, this is admitted by Mr. Sewell himself.

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For in regard to certain temple coins struck in the Pudukottah State we are distinctly told by him that four such are given by the Rajah of Pudukottah to each recipient of his rice-dole, distributed in honour of the festival of Dusserah. It, therefore, stands uncontroverted that the prerogative of coinage belongs to the state. This does not, however, mean that the state did not sometimes permit private individuals or firms to coin money, whether of the higher or lower denominations. Of course, in modern times we have instances of both these kinds. Thus about Central India at the beginning of the nineteenth century Sir John Malcolm tells us that the work of coining was vested in no particular body or individuals, and that any banker or merchant sufficiently conversant in the business, had merely to apply to Government, presenting a trifling acknowledgment and engaging to produce coin of the regulated standard, and pay the proper fees on its being assayed and permitted to pass current. This must refer to coins of higher value.¹ Similarly, as V. A. Smith informs us, “to this day the people of Bihar and Gorakhpur prefer the unauthorised ‘dumpy pice’ made at private mints in Nepal to the lawful copper coinage of the British Government.”² This, of course, must refer to the token coinage issued by private agencies to supply the gaps which State issues leave unfilled and thus facilitate small transactions.

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It will thus be seen that coins are known in modern times to have been occasionally struck by private agencies which are of both higher and lower denominations. And so the question arises whether private coinage of this description was at all known to ancient India. I confess no conclusive evidence has yet been adduced in support of this position. I am aware that some coins found in the Punjab with the word *negamā* on the obverse have been looked upon by Bühler and others as token money issued by local mercantile guilds. But I have elsewhere shown that the word *negamā*, though it can mean ‘traders’ or ‘merchants,’ can never denote ‘a guild’ but must stand for the *naigamāḥ* of the Smṛitis in the sense of ‘townsmen’ collectively, *i.e.* a city-state. I am also not unaware that punch-marked coinage is regarded by V. A. Smith as “a private coinage issued by guilds and silversmiths with the permission of the ruling powers.”¹ Smith is here echoing the opinion of Prof. Rapson but with some difference. He holds that the obverse punches were impressed by different moneyers through whose hands the pieces passed. According to Prof. Rapson, if I have understood him correctly, all the obverse punches may in some cases be ascribed to individual merchants.² Smith’s view involves the assumption that the obverse punches were invariably impressed in a haphazard fashion. This view has been shown utterly untenable by Dr. Spooner, as I told you in my last lecture.

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When the obverse devices are in most cases found to occur in constant and regular groups, no sane scholar can subscribe to the view that they were affixed haphazard by shroffs and moneyers. But the question that presents itself to us here is whether these different groups of symbols were the characteristic marks of different merchants as contended by Prof. Rapson or of different localities as maintained by Dr. Spooner. Of course, such of these groups as contain the river or the hill symbol, *e.g.*, can scarcely be thought to be the distinguishing devices of individual merchants, but must be taken to be the peculiar marks of localities, as I showed in my last lecture. There can therefore be no doubt as to some of these groups being the special marks of special towns and villages to which the coins bearing those groups must be assigned. Nevertheless, some of the groups may have belonged to individual merchants as is held by Prof. Rapson. This is not at all unlikely, though it cannot be definitely proved.

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¹ Malcolm’s Central India, II. 80-1.

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² IGI., II. 138.

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¹ CCIM., 133.

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² JRAS., 1895, p. 874.

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The next point that must engage our attention is: who were the officials connected with coinage. The only source of our information on this point is Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra. Unfortunately it does not supply us with much information. Nevertheless, what little we can glean from it is valuable. The first official that may be mentioned is Lakṣaṇādhyaksha, or Rūpyādhyaksha as he is called in the Amarakosha. He is obviously Superintendent of Mint. Kauṭilya speaks of him but once. “The Superintendent of Mint,” says he, “shall manufacture silver coins (rūpya-rūpa), such as Paṇa, Half Paṇa, Quarter Paṇa and One-eighth Paṇa consisting of four parts of copper and one-sixteenth part (māsha) of any one of the metals tīkṣṇa, trapu, sīsa and añjana, (and shall manufacture) copper coins (tāmra-rūpa) such as Māshaka, Half Māshaka, Kākaṇī and Half Kākaṇī, consisting of four parts of alloy.” In my last lecture I showed you what light this passage throws on Kārshāpaṇa and its token money. What we are concerned with here is the proportion in which the metal of the coin is mixed with its alloy. In the case of copper coins the alloy forms one-fourth, and in the case of silver, five-sixteenth, part of the whole piece. Many years ago, Sir Alexander Cunningham had assays made of no less than 113 silver Kārshāpaṇas, and he found that the amount of silver in them varied from 75·2 to 86·2 per cent. This is perhaps the reason why Smith remarks about these coins that “the metal is usually impure silver, containing about 20 per cent of alloy.” But certainly they contain far more silver than was the case in the time of Kauṭilya who allows as much as 31·25 per cent of alloy.

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It is a pity that Kauṭilya gives us no information about the subordinates who served under Lakshaṇādhyaksha or about the process in which coins were manufactured in his time. The second officer he mentions in connection with coins is Rūpadarśaka. “Rūpadarśaka,” says he, “shall establish the circulation of coined money (paṇa-yātrā), whether relating to commercial transactions or admissible into the treasury. (The premia levied on coins) shall be (from the manufacturer) 8 per cent known as rūpika, (from the seller and purchaser) 5 per cent as vyājī, (from the appraiser) one-eighth Paṇa per cent as Pārīkṣika, and a fine of 25 Paṇas from (persons) other than the manufacturer, the seller and the purchaser, or the appraiser.” Now, what does this passage tell us? It appears that there was regular trade carried on in coined money in Kauṭilya’s time. In the first place, it seems that there was a system of free coinage, that is to say, any private individual could bring any quantity of bullion to the mint for being coined on his own account. For this he had to pay the premium of 8 per cent called Rūpika. Secondly, there was a regular sale and purchase of coins going on, for which both the parties had to pay 5 per cent on their profit to the state. Thirdly, there appears to have been a class of men called Parīkṣitṛi, or Pārakhs in modern parlance, who remained in business locality and to whom the people brought, for appraising, coins coming from all quarters in the course of commerce. These appraisers must certainly have derived some profit, though perhaps not a huge one as compared with the first two classes of dealers, and had therefore to pay only one-eighth per cent called Pārīkṣhika. It is possible to conceive that in these monetary transactions there was occasionally transgression of law, and such offenders were punished with a fine of twenty-five Paṇas. All these transactions, it will be seen, relate to the commercial sphere, i.e. to vyavahārika-paṇa-yātrā, as Kauṭilya calls it. Rūpadarśaka had to regulate this traffic in coins, and also collect whatever was due to the state on that account. But the Rūpadarśaka was not connected with coin transactions going on in the commercial circles only. He had also to supervise Kośa-praveśya-paṇa-yātrā, that is to say, the coined money to be entered into the royal treasury. In another place, Kauṭilya tells us that the officer called Sannidhātṛi shall receive into the treasury only such hiraṇya or gold coins as have been declared to be pure by Rūpadarśaka and destroy those that are not genuine. What this exactly means we do not know. But certainly money must pour into royal treasury in a variety of ways, such as taxes, tribute and so forth. There is therefore every chance of counterfeit coins being also smuggled along with good money. And it seems that it was the duty of the Rūpadarśaka to see that none but genuine coins were deposited in the treasury.

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It is not to be expected that such a big officer as Rūpadarśaka could personally examine all coins and detect those that were counterfeit. He must have had a number of officials under him, and this must have been the duty of one of them. The name of this subordinate official has nowhere been mentioned by Kauṭilya, but, from the passage of Buddhaghosa's *Visuddhi-magga* to which I have more than once drawn your attention, it appears that he could be no other than Hiraṇyika or Sauvarṇika as he has been termed in Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra. One of his duties, as I have mentioned to you in my last lecture, was to find out at what village, town, hill or river and by what mint-master any particular coin was struck. Another function of his was to detect what coin was genuine, what counterfeit, and what partly genuine and partly counterfeit. And we are told that he performed these duties by observing the coins, by handling them, by sounding, smelling and even licking them. It is not quite clear why the Hiraṇyikas had to use their senses of smell and taste. At any rate none of the shroffs of the modern day who are their successors are known to make use of these senses. Is it possible that they had to use them to distinguish between wood, bamboo, palm-leaf, seed and similar coins which must have been in existence as I have shown to you already on the authority of Buddhaghoṣa?

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We have just seen that it was the duty of the Rūpadarśaka and his Assistants such as Hiraṇyika to distinguish between genuine and counterfeit coins. For the facilitation of monetary transactions it was essential that coins of fixed weight or value should be in circulation. No wonder if we find Kauṭilya laying down that the manufacturer of counterfeit coins shall be banished, as also those who deal in such coins or try to lower their quality by mixing them with alloys. Those who have read Yājñavalkya need not be told how this law-giver prescribes the highest fine for those who falsify a nāṇaka or coin or knowingly use such a one. This is just as it should be. But although it was necessary for a state to take such drastic steps for the prevention of the manufacture of counterfeit coins or of the tampering with the currency, sometimes the Government was itself compelled to take just that sort of action which it wanted to suppress in others. Of course, I am not here referring to the cases in which in consequence of economic circumstances there is an increase in the price of a particular metal out of which coins are made and in which the state is therefore forced to reduce the usual fixed weight of any denomination of its coins. I hope you remember what I said in my last lecture about a species of copper coinage prevalent in Aurangzeb’s time.

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