Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s6.9

c12.s6.9

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.