Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c9.58

c9.58

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.