Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c15.147

c15.147

Next, a hoard of coins was found at a deep stratum in Golakhpur at the site of ancient Pāṭaliputra. These are taken to be the earliest known punch-marked silver coins and to be pre-Maurya, perhaps, Nanda, coins. They bear a pre-Maurya symbol, 'the hare or dog on hill', which may be taken as the Nanda symbol. It may be noticed that many of these were punched by the Mauryas with their own symbol to make them 'legal tender,' or *kośa-praveśya*, as Kauṭilya calls them, as contrasted with the coinage current among the public for purposes of business transactions and aptly called by Kauṭilya *vyavahārikī paṇya-yātrā*, as we have already seen. We may recall that the *Kāśikā* mentions a tradition about Nandas inaugurating a royal measure (*Nandopakramāṇi mānāni*) [II. 4, 21; VI. 2, 14], while their proverbial wealth as mentioned in literature may be due to their new coinage and currency system.