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Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s6: Currency

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s6

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Currency

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Long before the rise of the Nandas and the Mauryas India had evolved her own monetary system based on the indigenous standards. The Vedic *nishka*, *śatamāna* and *suvarṇa* may have been ingots of gold of definite weights. But in later works such as the *Jātakas*, the grammar of Pāṇini and the *Arthaśāstra* of Kauṭilya, we have definite references to gold coins called *nishka* and *suvarṇa*, silver coins called *kārshāpaṇas* or *dharaṇas* and copper coins also called *kārshāpaṇas*, along with their multiples and sub-divisions. The Vedic *śatamāna*, as its name implies, was based on the *māna* unit, a weight known to the *Ṛigveda*. In later times the *māna* was changed for the lighter unit called *kṛishṇala* or *rati*, the seed of the *guñja*-berry. The weight of the gold *suvarṇa* in the *Arthaśāstra* as well as in Manu and Yājñavalkya is given as 80 *guñjas* or *ratis*, the copper *kārshāpaṇa* according to Manu and Yājñavalkya also weighing 80 *ratis*. The weight of the silver *dharaṇas* in the *Arthaśāstra*, however, amounts very nearly to 80 *ratis*, while in Manu and Yājñavalkya it is only 32 *ratis*¹. As Professor Rapson has well observed², the silver and copper coinages in Ancient India were often independent of each other, with different areas of circulation. In the *Arthaśāstra*, however, the silver *paṇa* with its sub-divisions is evidently recognised as the standard coin, while the copper *māshaka* with its divisions ranks as a token currency. Apparently copper was linked up with silver in such a way that the *māshaka* was one-sixteenth in value of the silver *paṇa*, its weight varying with the ratio between the two metals³.

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¹ On the antiquity of the Indian coinage and its evolution, see D. R. Bhandarkar, *Ancient Indian Numismatics*, Lecture ii : S. K. Chakravorty, *Ancient Indian Numismatics*, Chs. ii. and iv. On the origin of the 32 rati standard fo silver coins, see Bhandarkar *op. cit.*, pp. 93-4 and specially Chakravorty *op. cit.*, pp. 43 ff.

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² Catalogue of Indian Coins in the British Museum, p. clxxix.

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³ Chakravorty, *op. cit.*, 56-8.

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The punch-marked silver coins that have been found in large numbers all over India have been identified on all hands with the silver *kārshāpaṇas*, *dharaṇas* or *purāṇas* of the Smṛitis and the *Arthaśāstra*. Some classes of these coins have been traced back to pre-Mauryan times. Thus a distinctive class of such coins, which was found some years ago in a deposit at Paila in the Kheri district of the Uttar Pradesh, has been generally identified as the local currency of the independent Kosala kingdom before its absorption by Magadha. These coins bear four obverse marks instead of the usual five, among which is included the four-spoked wheel in place of the usual five-spoked one. They are of the reduced standard of 24 to 30 *ratis* in place of the theoretical 32 *ratis*¹. Of the punch-marked silver coins bearing the usual number of five obverse marks, two distinct classes assignable to as many distinct periods have been recovered from recent excavations on the site of Taxila. The Older Class is dated *circa* 317 B.C. by the presence in its midst of gold coins of Alexander and his half-brother Philip Arrhidaeus 'in mint condition,' while the date of the Later Class is fixed at *circa* 248 B.C. by the occurrence of a coin of Diodotus in the same deposit. The two classes are distinguished from each other by their fabric as well as symbols, though equally approximating to the standard of 32 *ratis*. The Older (pre-Maurya) Class consists of large thin pieces unlike the small thick coins of the Later (Maurya) Class. The obverse marks of the Older Class are conspicuously lacking in the distinctive Maurya symbols ('hill and crescent' as well as 'peacock'). It seems to be generally agreed that some coins of the Older Class go back to the 4th or even the 5th century B.C.². On the other hand, it must be admitted that the symbolism and metrology of the silver punch-marked coins are still an unsolved problem¹.

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¹ On the above see Durga Prasad, *Num. Supp.* xlvii. p. 77 ; Walsh. *JNSI.*, No. ii. p. 15-26 : *JRAS.* 1937, pp. 300-303. Walsh gives the average weight of the Paila hoard as 25 *ratis*, but see D. D. Kosambi, *NIA.* iv. p. 56.

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² Thus Durga Prasad, *Num. Supp.* xlv. Pl. viii and ibid, xlvii, pp. 78—9, takes some early silver punch-marked coins to go back to the kingdom of Magadha shortly after Buddha's time. According to Walsh (*JBORS.* 1937, pp. 303-4), some very old coins of the Taxila Hoard which were re-stamped for circulation may go back to 200 years or more before the date of the deposit, viz., c. 317 B.C. More recently D. D. Kosambi (*op. cit.*, pp. 60-6) premising that the early coins of Taxila were imported from the east, assigns some select types on the basis of his interpretation of the obverse marks to Saiśunāga and Nanda kings.

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¹ On different interpretations of the obverse marks, see Durga Prasad, *JASB.*, N. S. XXX(1934), pp. 17 ff. : Walsh, *Punch-marked Coins from Taxila*, pp. 18-25 : D.D. Kosambi, *op. cit.*, pp. 2 ff. Regarding metrology A. S. Hemmy (*JRAS*, 1937, pp. 1-26) concluded after an elaborate examination that the silver punch-marked coins conform to the weight-standard of 54 grains, which is exactly one-quarter of the principal weight of the revised Indus system of weights, and nominally represents Manu's standard of 32 *ratis* (58.56 grains). Criticising this view, D. D. Kosambi concludes (*op. cit.* pp. 58-9) that the system of Mohenjodaro weights was applied for the earlier Taxilan hoard, while in the Maurya period although the average remained the same, the variance increased enormously thus pointing to a far cruder system than before.

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In circulation with the Older Class of silver coins just described, though probably dating from much earlier times, was a class of coins consisting of thick slightly bent bars of silver with ‘the six-armed symbol’ on the obverse and a blank reverse. Weighing from 165.8 to 173 grains, these *śalākā* coins, as they have been called, have been sometimes identified² with the *śatamāna* of 100 *ratis*. Specimens of this coinage have been found in denominations of one-half, one-fourth, one-eighth and one-sixteenth pieces. Other classes of coins of the same early type comprising (as they have been called) single and double *kārṣāpaṇas* or only half *kārṣāpaṇas* have been found in deposits from western India and an unrecorded provenance in northern India³.

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² See Durga Prasad, *Num. Supp.* xlvii, pp. 86-7. This view is contradicted by D. D. Kosambi, *op. cit.*, p. 19. On the other hand, Mr. Charan Das Chatterji in his paper *Numismatic data in Pali literature* (*Buddhistic Studies*, p. 426 n) suggests that the bent bar coins were struck on the *karsha* of 100 *ratis* known to Yājñavalkya unlike the usual *karsha* of 80 *ratis*.

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³ See Allan *Catalogue of the Indian Coins in the British Museum* (Ancient India), pp. xvii—xix : clxi—clxii. 4-10.

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To the same period as the Older Class of silver punch-marked coins as well as the bent bar coins belongs, if we are to judge from their simultaneous occurrence in the same Taxila deposit of *c.* 317 B.C., a group of minute silver coins with a single obverse mark and a blank reverse⁴. They have been found not only on the site of Taxila, but also at Thathari in the Madhya Pradesh⁵.

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⁴ According to Walsh (*Punch-marked coins from Taxila*, pp. 3-4), these coins weighing from 2.3 to 2.86 grains were the silver *paṇas* or *māshas* of two *ratis*. This view is criticised by D. D. Kosambi who provisionally calls them one-twentieth *kārṣāpaṇa* (See Kosambi, *op. cit.*, p. 19).

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⁵ See Allan. *op. cit.*, pp. lxix and Pl. xlvi.

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We have an interesting glimpse of the condition of the currency in north-western India at the time of Alexander's invasion in the casual observation of a classical writer. We are told by Quintus Curtius that among the presents offered by the king of Taxila to Alexander were included thirty talents of *signatum argentum* ('coined silver'). We may identify these coins either with the Older Class of punch-marked coins or with the class of bent bar coins above described. The reference to silver coins in this connection, as R. B. Whitehead¹ justly observes, probably signifies that silver was employed as the standard metal at that time. Of the currency conditions of the Mauryan empire in Aśoka's last years, we have probably a valuable record in the shape of the Taxila hoard of punch-marked coins of the Later Class of *circa* 248 B.C. as above mentioned. These coins contain a considerable alloy of copper (75.³ p.c.) as compared with silver (40.3 p.c.) and in many cases are more than 54 grains in weight.

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¹ *The Pre-Mohammedan Coinage of North-Western India*, p. 42.

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Turning to the subsidiary copper coinage of these times, we may mention that the class of square or rectangular cast coins bearing the characteristic symbols of 'the hill and crescent', the hollow cross and the like has been held to have been issued by the Mauryas². To the same period has probably to be assigned a class of punch-marked copper coins with Maurya obverse marks, of which a hoard was found at Bhagalpur in 1925³. With the Mauryas again we may probably connect numerous specimens of the remarkable copper coinage of Taxila which extends over several centuries and is mostly uninscribed and die-struck⁴. In a fragmentary stone-plaque inscription of *circa* third century B.C., which was discovered some years ago at Mahasthan in the Bogra district of Bengal¹, reference is made to ‘a coin of the value of four cowries’ called *gaṇḍaka*².

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² On a hoard of such coins, excavated at Bulandibagh (near Patna) from the Mauryan level of 15 to 18 feet below ground-level and on two such pieces dug out from below the Aśokan level near the Aśokan monolith at Sārnāth, see Durga Prasad, *Num. Suppl.*, xlvii, pp. 62-6. Previously, Allan (*op. cit.*, p. lxxvii) had cautiously suggested the 3rd-2nd century B. C. as the date of the cast copper coins.

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³ See Allan, *op. cit.*, lxxix.

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⁴ According to Allan (*op. cit.*, cxxxix) the copper coinage of Taxila began late in the 3rd century B.C. when Taxila was under Maurya governors and ended with the Greek conquest before the middle of the 2nd century B.C. On independent grounds Vincent Smith (*Cat. of coins in the Ind. Mus.*, p. 147) had previously held that the single die-struck pieces of Taxila began not later than 350 B. C., while the double-die coins were prior to the coins of Agathocles and Pantaleon, *c.* 190-180 B. C.

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¹ See *Ep. Ind.* xxi, pp. 83-91.

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² It may be added that on a number of inscribed coins which had been read differently by previous scholars, K. P. Jayaswal (*JBORS.* xx. pp. 279-308) claimed to have read the names of the Maurya kings Bṛhaspatimitra, Śātadharman, Daśaratha, Samprati, Devadharman and Śāliśūra.

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The downfall of the Maurya empire was not followed by the withdrawal of the imperial currency from circulation. From the finds of Indo-Greek coins in the same deposits at various sites, we may safely conclude that the punch-marked silver coins were in circulation down at least to the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C.³. That their circulation was continued even down to the Kushān times is proved by a Mathurā stone-pillar inscription of the twentieth year of Huvishka mentioning an endowment of 11,000 *purāṇas*⁴.

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³ For references cf. the Bajaur hoard of 1942 described by H. L. Haughton in *JNSI*, iv. part i, and the hoard at Bairat described by Daya Ram Sahni in *Archaeological Remains and Excavations at Bairat* (not dated.)

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⁴ *Ep. Ind.* xxi. pp. 60 ff.

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CHAPTER IX

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RELIGION

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