Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c9.61.3

c9.61.3

But if Kauṭilya is credited or rather discredited, as in some Buddhist works, with having converted (by recoining) each Kārṣāpaṇa into eight for the purpose of raising resources and thus having amassed 80 crores of Kārṣāpaṇas,¹ the motive could have been purely political and the step surreptitiously taken to avoid any confidence of the people being shaken in the supposed purity and value of the currency in circulation. How Kauṭilya recoined one Kārshāpaṇa into eight we do not know, but it would be interesting to find out what were some of the methods practised in ancient days. This is not impossible to find out, because we have only to separate true coins from those which are of a suspicious character, and subject the latter to a rigorous examination. Such a thing has not yet been systematically attempted; nor is it my object to do so here, because there are not yet enough materials for it. My object here is to draw your attention to certain old Kārshāpaṇas which have been admitted to be adulterated in order that some young numismatist here may in the near future devote his special attention to this subject. One of the commonest methods of debasing coinage is undoubtedly by increasing the admixture of alloy. But in what quantity this alloy was mixed in different periods and in different parts of the country it is not possible to know unless coins of various types are actually subjected to a chemical analysis.