Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c9.22

c9.22

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.