Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c10.4

c10.4

¹ The name 'punch-marked' is given to a large mass of early Indian coins, mostly in silver and comparatively infrequently in copper, on account of the various symbols being punched on metal blanks of different shapes, sizes and weights. It was at first suggested by numismatists that these coins were private issues, various moneyers or shroffs being held responsible for their manufacture: according to this view the symbols on their surface were nothing more than the hall-marks of the different individuals through whose hands the coins passed in the course of trade and commerce. But this view has given place to the more probable one of their having been issued by a centra authority. Uninscribed cast copper pieces bearing such symbols as elephant, tree in railing, mountain &c., are some of the commonest coins of ancient India, and belong probably to the same period in which the punch-marked coins are to be dated. For a full treatment of these varieties of the earliest indigenous coins of India, the reader is referred to J. Allan's *Catalogue of the Coins of Ancient India*, Introduction, parts ii-iv.