Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c10.3

c10.3

The coins current in India before her contact with the Greeks were of the variety usually described as punch-marked and cast¹. Their manufacturing technique widely differed from that of the Greek coins, and it has been almost unanimously accepted that it was invented by the early Indian moneyers, without the aid of any outside influence². Though numismatists differ about the earliest date of the circulation of these indigenous coins, there is no doubt now that many of them passed current during the Nanda-Maurya period, being introduced in India at a much earlier time. Other types of coins which also passed as currency in the extreme north of India during this period were those issued by the Achaemenid Persian rulers of this region. The Persian emperors from Darius I onwards usually struck two types of coins, viz., the darics and the sigloi, the former being of gold and the latter of silver. The name 'daric' is evidently derived from that of Darius Hystaspes whose Indian conquests included the whole of the Indus valley while 'siglos' is based on 'shekel', a kind of weight standard adopted by the Persians from the ancient Babylonians. On the obverse of the former, the Persian emperor armed with a bow and a spear is shown in a running posture, while the reverse contains an irregular oblong incuse. The Persian silver coins bear almost identical devices, but several of them have peculiar countermarks both on the obverse and the reverse, which according to some scholars emphasise their definite Indian association¹. The darics are about 130 grains (8.42 grammes) in weight, while the maximum weight of the sigloi, twenty of which were equal in value to a daric, was 86.45 grains (5.6 grammes). It was previously held that both these varieties of silver and gold Persian coins were actually minted in India, and passed current there side by side. But a more acceptable suggestion has been made not very long ago that the relative cheapness of gold in this country would make it uneconomical for the Persians to mint any gold coins here for circulation; in fact, it would tend to draw outside the country any darics which might have been brought there in course of trade and commerce². This view has been supported by the non-discovery of the darics here in any quantity, and the comparative frequency of sigloi in the Indian soil.