Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s6.17

c12.s6.17

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.